So, I've played the backer beta for about 10 hours so far,  I had absolutely no idea until this interview: 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886976/pillars-of-eternity-josh-sawyer-talks-mods-pc-first-focus-big-head-mode-and-more.html

 

that all AOE's have a bonus area that does not cause friendly fire.

 

I really hope the game proper makes this clear at some point to the player or I think many people are going to miss this. I knew that Int increased AOE radius, but not that the radius was Foe Only. That makes it *much* more appealing. 

 

Don't know how you missed it. It's been explained multiple times from multiple sources everywhere - including in this forum. It's also explained in the spell descriptions, and I believe in the in-game glossary description for Intellect. Foe only AoE is also depicted by the yellow color when you aim the spell.

 

Edited February 20, 201510 yr by Sensuki

Well for slow-folk like me I'd suggest at least a loading screen message or somesuch . As far as I could tell, the spell descriptions do have some notes about AoE but it generally seems to refer to whether or not the spell on the whole is foe-only or does have a friendly fire risk. You are right in that I didn't look and the Int glossary description, only the character creator blurb (which honestly, should at least mention it). 

Edited February 21, 201510 yr by Havelok

I'd like to think that it would be spelled out in the manual.

Well for slow-folk like me I'd suggest at least a loading screen message or somesuch . As far as I could tell, the spell descriptions do have some notes about AoE but it generally seems to refer to whether or not the spell on the whole is foe-only or does have a friendly fire risk. You are right in that I didn't look and the Int glossary description, only the character creator blurb (which honestly, should at least mention it). 

 

There's a feature in-game called "Beginner Tooltips" or something, have you tried turning that option on? I'm not sure if it works yet but I think that should explain the mechanics in pop-ups in game for you.

 

I agree that the character creation small description box doesn't do a very good job of fitting in long descriptions. We asked for larger description pages (there's enough room to increase the height, but they ignored that suggestion/haven't implemented it).

Edited February 21, 201510 yr by Sensuki

"Beginner tooltips" has no effect atm, as far I can tell. I assume that the complete game will be much more noob friendly than the backer beta.

So, I've played the backer beta for about 10 hours so far,  I had absolutely no idea until this interview: 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886976/pillars-of-eternity-josh-sawyer-talks-mods-pc-first-focus-big-head-mode-and-more.html

 

that all AOE's have a bonus area that does not cause friendly fire.

 

I really hope the game proper makes this clear at some point to the player or I think many people are going to miss this. I knew that Int increased AOE radius, but not that the radius was Foe Only. That makes it *much* more appealing. 

I believe this is the area described by the outer green ring when you target an AoE spell.

The spells areas effects will be changed with something more appropriate and visual pleasing instead than it's now, just some lines?

I think I saw a loading screen tip about it in BB. So you may just not encounter it yet.

Well is it same even for higher difficulty? It would be sad if there would be no FF on Hard with spells like fireball

There's friendly fire on every difficulty.