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The following options cannot be disabled, even when the boxes are unchecked or playing on expert mode. -Area of Effect Highlighting -Show Companion Relationship Info The AoE circle for spells is always shown. Relationship info is still shown on the character sheet and after selecting conversation options that affect relationships. E.g. when saying something funny, the "lighthearted" indicator will be shown next to Edér and Xoti's reactions to the conversation.

Hi there! So I started up Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition on PS4, I created an elf character, selected Expert Mode, and was playing as her for a bit when I noticed some unpleasant differences compared to my other character, and checked out the options to see exactly what was different. Upon realizing that Expert Mode disables the ability to see what reputation changes happen depending on dialogue choice, I wanted to disable it! The problem, is that I can find aaaaabsolutely no way to do so. I cannot press the 'Expert Mode' button, pressing any button while over the 'Expert Mode' button does zilch, restarting the game does not help, trying to tick the different "helper" features does nothing, changing the difficulty does nothing, etc. Can anybody PLEASE help? I was under the impression you could DISable it, but could not ENable it! Am I just being stupid?

"Disables a number of "helper" features in the game" couldn't possibly be any more vague. Considering you can't switch it on and off at will, I'd like to know what it does before committing to it. I'm assuming it's not tutorial pop-ups, since those have their own setting. Is it meant to be an obscure surprise, or was it detailed in one of the updates? I have to admit I haven't followed those as closely as I maybe should have.

The recent discussions about Combat Challenge =/= Obfuscation and the inclusion of a stat popup and Bestiary logs raises an important question to me regarding a particular feature of the Infinity Engine games (and Dungeons and Dragons) that I rather enjoyed. In all of the D&D campaigns that I played, the target values of skill checks and Armor class were never revealed by any Dungeon Master, you had to do the math yourself. You might be able to figure out what the AC of a monster was if you knew the value from the book and the DM was using it or you could approximate it by the armor they were wearing, or you rolled a miss on a 17 and then someone else hit the same monster on an 18 in a later round. In Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment - Armor classes were never shown in the combat log, only the attack roll was displayed: For example Sensuki attacks Josh Sawyer: 15 + 6 = 21: Miss However in later titles (the trend started with Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 I believe) the target DCs for skill checks and AC values for enemies were shown upon rolls in a manner similar to this (using a D&D example here). Sensuki attacks Josh Sawyer: 15 + 6 = 21 (vs AC 24): Miss Eternity will be supporting transparency by default as Josh wants players to engage in the mechanics, and it makes it easier for people unfamiliar to RPGs of this kind. That's fine with me because we will also be able to disable the popups that fill in the enemy defense scores. However I am a bit worried that the combat log will still show target values. I have asked multiple times but have not got an answer yet - perhaps the question wasn't noticed or they haven't decided yet, so I thought I'd post a poll. Please keep in mind this is for EXPERT MODE only. Personally I do not want to see target values in the combat log, I would rather work them out myself, yes it means I have to do some 'unnecessary' arithmetic which some people may find bothersome, but these people are hopefully not Expert mode players. I am not too phased about whether values are shown in the Bestiary as I probably won't use it, but I wouldn't be against having stats disabled in the Bestiary as well on Expert Mode. I don't want to know anything, let me figure it out please. Personally I felt Baldur's Gate 1 gave the best feel, it didn't give you any feedback about the states of enemy health either. I'm not too phased about that I'm more concerned with not being able to see their defense scores and skill check targets than anything else. Hopefully there's some more Expert Mode players out there that feel the same.

We love giving players options: character build options, personality options, story options -- all the options you might want to play around with. We recognize that many players also want to play the game their way and have an experience that matches their particular RPG tastes. RPG fans share a lot of common ground, but on matters of visible mechanical feedback, complexity, and the overall level of punitive face-punching a game provides, there's a big spectrum of opinions. In a lot of cases, it's not too hard for us to provide options to turn an individual feature on or off, so we want to make that possible when resources permit us to do so. Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned. Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode. If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy! Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved. The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features. Along with these modes, we also want to introduce the Godlike races. These folks have been described previously as being similar to the humanoid "planetouched" in D&D: aasimar, tieflings, and genasi. That is a good high-level description of them, but they are viewed differently by various factions, faiths, and cultures in the world of Project Eternity. Godlike were "blessed" before birth by one or more of the meddling deities of this world. Though their appearances vary, they are unmistakeably otherworldly when anyone gets a clear look at them. Sometimes, the reaction they get is overwhelmingly positive. Many times, the reaction is overwhelmingly not. For better or worse, the physical "gifts" that mark them as Godlike always come with supernatural blessings (and curses) of their own. The first question you may have after reading this may be, "Hey, what about the other races that have already been funded?" Those races are in the process of being fully designed and concepted -- and they can't be summarized quite as simply as "sort of like planetouched". We'll have more for you on those guys in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for your support, your patience, and your questions. Update from Josh Sawyer In addition to today's update, we've got a few backer badges for you, including one for the fantastic Obsidian Order of Eternity! @Obsidian

From the IGN wiki for P:E If I could have polled more questions, I'd have asked if there are those with a personally imposed handicap for difficulty. And whether you'd use the ability to change difficulty settings during the game.

We learned in Update #9 that the team is working on an "Expert" mode, which will be similar in some ways to Fallout: New Vegas hardcore mode. What kind of features do you hope to see in Expert Mode? EDIT: Also, do you feel any of these features should apply to your followers as well, or just the player character?

The 2.3mil stretch goal is my favorite so far, because I'm an Infinity Engine junkie and mastered all of the hardest BG/IWD challenges (mods included) on the highest difficulty. I *really* enjoy RTWP combat of yore and am very okay with fiddling around the same combat situation dozens of times until I get it right. Now... I will probably cry many tears because I won't be able to resist ticking all of the +difficulty checkmarks right off the bat. I'm the "challenge for the sake of challenge" person those options likely are intended for, BUT... How about attaching a 5% experience bonus to each of the game modes? It's not a straight up "You're missing out if you're not doing this" kind of thing, but it's an added incentive to face challenges one might otherwise not and surely preferable to the notion of giving people better equipment for playing a certain way. This is highly egotistical, since, as I said, I'll check Expert/Path of the Damned/Iron Man anyway, but 15% more EXP would make it SO much more rewarding.