Patch notes for 1.03

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Yes there was. The long save/load was caused by player-laid traps persisting, including the frost traps laid by Kana's frost trap song when your party moved around. That's been fixed.

 

You sure that's the cause? 'Cuz I barely use traps and my save/load times are ginormous and growing.

 

Kana has that one chant which makes characters lay frost traps as they move. That was the main cause. There were other objects that were supposed to be non-persistent which ended up in the saves and bloated them, which have also been cleared out, but that's the main one.

 

Coolness. Regardless of what I do or do not do, my save times are huge and I hope it is fixed. I hit quicksave, like, every five minutes.

[Matt516]

 

 

 

It surprises me to see people completely disregard that, without constant rests, your wizards in BG 1 weren't doing much spell slinging either. In fact, it was worse than POE wizards (sling and dart auto attacks). If you don't like POE wizards, don't use them.

 

 

I didn't even know you weren't supposed to rest after every few battles in BG1/2 until i visited this forum.  I mean, it seemed logical.  Why would my Wizard/Sorc auto-attack? He's not a ranger.

 

 

Can you show me where this was considered cheating/exploiting? Or is it just your opinion?

 

 

It's not cheating, it's just silly. The idea that a group of adventurers would camp for 8 hours every 2 hours or so is silly. I don't blame anyone for doing that - the way that game handled casters and didn't penalize rest-spamming, it was indeed the "right" way to play (as in optimal). 

 

And I hate that. As I said - it doesn't make any sense that a group of adventurers would rest constantly, and I hate that the game was designed in such a way as to encourage that. So along comes PoE, and simultaneously gives wizards a little more to do outside of spellslinging while discouraging rest-spamming by making you trot all the way back to an inn if you want to do so. It's great.

 

I've been playing on Hard, and I just cleared the Eothas temple with 5 people (pre-Caed-Nua companions, no adventurer) at level 3. It certainly wasn't easy, but I was able to do the whole dungeon without having to leave (even though the inn was right outside). Made it just fine with the 2 wood I brought and the 1 I found in the dungeon. As I said - your perceived need to rest is directly dependent on how you do in battles. If you play a bit more tactically and conserve spells, you can do without rest-spamming. The game is quite well balanced on Hard.

[Ubereizen]

Thank you for this patch!

[Matt516]

 

Also I don't like the arbalest Nerf. The weapon is super slow to make up for its stronger hits.

So are all the firearms. I'm sure they just brought down to be in line with the other slow but hard-hitting weapons.

 

 

Yeah - the Arbalest is superior to the Arquebus in almost every way. That makes no sense. I'm glad it's being nerfed a bit.

[Sabin Stargem]

I am hoping that the patch releases on GOG at a pace equal to Steam.  There are insect swarms that have been eating my characters alive.

[Luckmann]

Two things immediately stand out to me:

• No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players.

   

• Devs have mentioned that they wanted to do away with the ridiculous "Combat Only"-mechanic, but despite it already serving no reasonable function in a lot of cases (Zealous Charge comes to mind; whereas Zealous Focus, widely recognized as superior, isn't restricted at all), now even more "Combat Only" restrictions are patched in, instead of the other way around. What gives?

   

• Slicken spell is now a single hit AoE.
• Chill Fog is now a friend or foe spell.

That was the only reason to even think about having a Wizard in the party.

 

I'm not even going to try playing one until a all encounter-spell or permanent-rest mods are made now.

 

I can thematically understand the change to Chill Fog, but Slicken being a single-hit AoE is just utter nonsense. Wizards were already acknowledged to be wildly inferior to Druids and Priests, and now I really don't see any reason to take one, let alone take poor Aloth, aside from story/roleplay reasons; a gimped wizard with a gimped set of Attributes, with gimpy spells.

 

Slicken definitely should be a Hazard AoE. I have no idea what they were thinking.

 

And if Chill Fog is changed to AoE from Foe AoE (...they really should rename "AoE" into something like "All AoE" or "Friendly-Fire AoE" to fit the format...) it should be considerably buffed in some other way, such as being much larger, or do more damage.

 

 

No fix for the intelligence stat decreasing damage over time in spells instead of increasing it?

 

That never was a bug, just an unclear description. IIRC the description has been fixed, not sure about that though. Check the notes.

 

 

While it makes sense, it is really unintuitive, though. Especially since you don't seem to be able to stack DoT:s of the same kind (I think; it might be a tooltip issue with the duration/dmg not showing the stacking, but I doubt it), adding length to your DoT without adding damage is a straight-up double-nerf. First because it takes longer to do the same damage as before, and second because you can't re-apply the same debuff before the last one has run it's course.

 

AFAIK.

 

But yes, the DoT info could really be a lot clearer.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Luckmann

[vattghern]

Huh, I assumed all spells were friendly-fire inside the red circle and foe- only in the yellow.

 

How will the patch be obtained for the GOG version? I'm unfamiliar with their patching process. I hope I won't have to re-download the whole game? I don't use the GOG downloader cause I'm /tinfoil like that.

[Parsong]

Yeah I see bringing a second cipher or druid > wizard now.   Firebug and Storm mmmm. 

Edited April 3, 2015 by Parsong

[Nerdwing]

Two things immediately stand out to me:

• No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players.

   

You mean certain attributes being ignorable/dumps, others being mandatory?  

 

I'd like to try Perception as Accuracy again, since I wasnt a beta tester.  But apparently that made it a must-have stat as well.  And Im told that since it once governed bonus accuracy, Sagani for instance has alot more than usual and her stats werent changed after that nerf pre-release.

[Mungri]

Huh, I assumed all spells were friendly-fire inside the red circle and foe- only in the yellow.

 

How will the patch be obtained for the GOG version? I'm unfamiliar with their patching process. I hope I won't have to re-download the whole game? I don't use the GOG downloader cause I'm /tinfoil like that.

Yellow and red circles???

 

Pffft, turn on expert mode.

[gkathellar]

 

• No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players.

 

"That'd be too complicated post-release!"

 

 

• Devs have mentioned that they wanted to do away with the ridiculous "Combat Only"-mechanic, but despite it already serving no reasonable function in a lot of cases (Zealous Charge comes to mind; whereas Zealous Focus, widely recognized as superior, isn't restricted at all), now even more "Combat Only" restrictions are patched in, instead of the other way around. What gives?

 

Well, duration-based prebuffing is genuinely noxious. It's just that they've chosen to deal with that in the worst possible way, rather than recognizing that the DA model of "invest resources : maintain buffs" actually works really well.

 

Wizards were already acknowledged to be wildly inferior to Druids and Priests, and now I really don't see any reason to take one, let alone take poor Aloth, aside from story/roleplay reasons; a gimped wizard with a gimped set of Attributes, with gimpy spells.

 

Whaaaaa

 

Come on, everybody knows that Aloth's not a wizard once you ChangeClass him into a druid

 

And if Chill Fog is changed to AoE from Foe AoE (...they really should rename "AoE" into something like "All AoE" or "Friendly-Fire AoE" to fit the format...) it should be considerably buffed in some other way, such as being much larger, or do more damage

 

I actually don't understand this gripe. It's easy enough to target AoE spells so that they don't hit your tanks ... hell, I assumed Chill Fog would, and used it as such. Worked fine. I guess it might be harder if you're using one tank instead of two? /shrug

 

While it makes sense, it is really unintuitive, though. Especially since you don't seem to be able to stack DoT:s of the same kind (I think; it might be a tooltip issue with the duration/dmg not showing the stacking, but I doubt it), adding length to your DoT without adding damage is a straight-up double-nerf. First because it takes longer to do the same damage as before, and second because you can't re-apply the same debuff before the last one has run it's course.

 

Int really shouldn't decrease damage for DoT, if only because low attributes should only ever reward you via opportunity benefits. As it is, if I want to do something like run a Ranger with Wounding Shot, that ability is actually more powerful if I dump my Intelligence score. That's wrong and stupid.

[vattghern]

 

Huh, I assumed all spells were friendly-fire inside the red circle and foe- only in the yellow.

 

How will the patch be obtained for the GOG version? I'm unfamiliar with their patching process. I hope I won't have to re-download the whole game? I don't use the GOG downloader cause I'm /tinfoil like that.

Yellow and red circles???

 

Pffft, turn on expert mode.

 

Started on expert, then gradually turned on the helpers I need for a less frustrating experience.

[Luckmann]

 

 

It surprises me to see people completely disregard that, without constant rests, your wizards in BG 1 weren't doing much spell slinging either. In fact, it was worse than POE wizards (sling and dart auto attacks). If you don't like POE wizards, don't use them.

 

I didn't even know you weren't supposed to rest after every few battles in BG1/2 until i visited this forum.  I mean, it seemed logical.  Why would my Wizard/Sorc auto-attack? He's not a ranger.

 

 

Can you show me where this was considered cheating/exploiting? Or is it just your opinion?

 

 

It's not cheating, it's just silly. The idea that a group of adventurers would camp for 8 hours every 2 hours or so is silly. I don't blame anyone for doing that - the way that game handled casters and didn't penalize rest-spamming, it was indeed the "right" way to play (as in optimal). 

 

And I hate that. As I said - it doesn't make any sense that a group of adventurers would rest constantly, and I hate that the game was designed in such a way as to encourage that. So along comes PoE, and simultaneously gives wizards a little more to do outside of spellslinging while discouraging rest-spamming by making you trot all the way back to an inn if you want to do so. It's great.

 

I've been playing on Hard, and I just cleared the Eothas temple with 5 people (pre-Caed-Nua companions, no adventurer) at level 3. It certainly wasn't easy, but I was able to do the whole dungeon without having to leave (even though the inn was right outside). Made it just fine with the 2 wood I brought and the 1 I found in the dungeon. As I said - your perceived need to rest is directly dependent on how you do in battles. If you play a bit more tactically and conserve spells, you can do without rest-spamming. The game is quite well balanced on Hard.

 

It is entirely possible to go through the entire Temple of Eothas on release, with only resting once, at level 3, assuming you have 5 party members (you, 3 CNPC:s, and 1 inn-muppet). I really don't see what people are complaining about, I fully agree with what you say and I think it's amazing that I'm actually feeling the attrition in PoE, something I thought was always functionally absent in the IE games, even if you didn't "rest-spam".

 

This is another one of those cases where I must say I don't agree with everything PoE did in the way it did it, but the rest system is pretty much spot-on. I still haven't figured out how the inn bonuses are supposed to work (sometimes I have them disappear on random characters, and at most times they persist through resting with camp supplies, it's... odd, and might be a bug).

 

I would not mind more survival-based things (need to eat, need to drink, more wilderness areas, main areas further apart so you really feel the trek, etc; I don't think it's reasonable to walk Gilded Vale to Defiance Bay without even setting up camp to rest once - in the IE games I always handwaved it as you taking breaks and setting up camp as you travelled, but here, you have a measurement of how many times you've rested, and it's never consumed except on expressly camping.

 

But PoE is pretty damn good.

 

 

Two things immediately stand out to me:

• No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players.

   

You mean certain attributes being ignorable/dumps, others being mandatory?  

 

I'd like to try Perception as Accuracy again, since I wasnt a beta tester.  But apparently that made it a must-have stat as well.  And Im told that since it once governed bonus accuracy, Sagani for instance has alot more than usual and her stats werent changed after that nerf pre-release.

 

Perception used to give +2 Accuracy, in a time when Accuracy was actually bugged (or rather, damage stacking and the combat resolution math was bugged, so Accuracy was extremely valuable).

 

When they changed it in BBv435, they not only fixed the bugs/math, but they also removed Accuracy from the Attributes system entirely based on testing that was by then no longer relevant; BBv435 also had such extreme issues with the Attributes that it couldn't reliably be tested by beta testers at all (Dexterity worked in reverse and Interrupt as a mechanic was broken, so you could easily stunlock anything with a single character with high enough +Interrupt).

 

Then came BBv480 and then release followed, practically immediately, and the Attribute bonuses from BBv435 was kept.

 

I have a suggested Attribute spread that I keep harping on, which involves giving +1 Accuracy to Perception. Even if you completely max it out, that's only +10 Accuracy (with 20 Perception). I don't think that's unreasonable at all, and would actually make Perception worthwile for non-tanks. On the flipside, I'm no longer convinced my own suggestion is the end-all be-all (I never really were) and I'm going to re-evaluate my suggestions in a few days.

 

But either way, the current system is just whack. Like you say, Sagani has high Perception, despite her benefitting very little from it. The same goes for Aloth, to whom Perception is complete and utter dead weight. Yes, you shouldn't expect CNPC:s to have min/maxed attributes, but in a system like this, I would expect the Attributes to be balanced - which is the core of the issue. The issue isn't really that Aloth has bad Attributes, it's that the Attributes he has are bad for him. And they shouldn't be.

 

Aloth (or Sagani) shouldn't have their Attributes changed. They make sense, thematically. What needs work are the Attributes themselves.

[Magrusaod]

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

[Sleazebag]

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

Actually the game has at least one issue with long saving/loading times, and this patch fixes it, so nope, it's probably not their computer.

[Magrusaod]

 

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

Actually the game has at least one issue with long saving/loading times, and this patch fixes it, so nope, it's probably not their computer.

 

Ah ha! I didn't realize that. My experience has been damn near bug free. I ran into one harmless bug involving equipment that doesn't affect game play at all, and it crashed on me 2 times. Both times, I had a ton of stuff running and was alt-tabbing between 5 different programs while streaming video on a secondary monitor. So not surprised by that in the least. 

[Kurgen]

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

 

54 seconds here on a C2Q 2.6 / 8GB PC. Not exactly current spec, granted, but no slouch either. Lemme guess, you're using an SSD, right?

[Katarack21]

 

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

 

54 seconds here on a C2Q 2.6 / 8GB PC. Not exactly current spec, granted, but no slouch either. Lemme guess, you're using an SSD, right?

 

I'm using an SSD and I still have long save/load times.

[Magrusaod]

 

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

 

54 seconds here on a C2Q 2.6 / 8GB PC. Not exactly current spec, granted, but no slouch either. Lemme guess, you're using an SSD, right?

 

No, my drives are actually damn slow with my current set up. I just formatted my drives and reinstalled Win7 last week. I have a new hybrid 2 TB seagate as my C Drive straight up. It loads slower now that before, must slower. But I had an older 2tb seagate as my drive partitioned. The partition for my system was tiny, and it used to boot up relatively fast compared to now trying to pull data from a system with 3 Hard drives and 4.5 TB of space between them. 

 

However, my processor and RAM, despite being 4 years old, blow yours out of the water. Quad Core 3.6 mzh with 16 gb RAM. 

[Kurgen]

 

 

 

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

Umm, it takes me 20 seconds tops to go from clicking the icon on my desktop to moving my characters around. About 2 seconds to save using the 4 button on my mouse for "Save", part of that is selecting which slot I want to save it in requiring me to click several buttons and make a decision during this process. Which means perhaps it's your computer and not the game itself. 

 

 

54 seconds here on a C2Q 2.6 / 8GB PC. Not exactly current spec, granted, but no slouch either. Lemme guess, you're using an SSD, right?

 

No, my drives are actually damn slow with my current set up. I just formatted my drives and reinstalled Win7 last week. I have a new hybrid 2 TB seagate as my C Drive straight up. It loads slower now that before, must slower. But I had an older 2tb seagate as my drive partitioned. The partition for my system was tiny, and it used to boot up relatively fast compared to now trying to pull data from a system with 3 Hard drives and 4.5 TB of space between them. 

 

However, my processor and RAM, despite being 4 years old, blow yours out of the water. Quad Core 3.6 mzh with 16 gb RAM. 

 

 

Blows mine out the water? This isn't a manhood measuring contest, at least not in my mind. Did you even read what I wrote? C2Q - Core2Quad quad core, same as yours. Yes, slower clock speed, but that's less relevant when load speeds are largely determined by drive speeds, and I hate to burst your bubble of superiority, but a huge portion of your 16GB of RAM will go completely unused.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Kurgen

[YoD]

Nothing about long save/load. A pity, can't play like that.

 

That is linked to the chanter traps and various other stuff being permanently stored in the save files thus making them grow out of control.

The notes do say they have something to clean up the saves, so the save/load time should improve.

[Katarack21]

I'm running a Core 2 Duo at 2.13 GHz. I hate both of you. >.<

[Jojobobo]

Is the "combat not ending properly" thing referring to per encounter actions that count as "already accessed" and so can't be used anymore? It was very clear TBH.

 

I hope they get the patch out soon, most of Europe has Easter holidays right now so for people lacking solid plans like me this is a great time to be playing the game uninhibited.

[wotdlois]

 

I'm not butthurt, but chill fog lingers for so long that it was nice tanking mobs inside it.

 

That's just lazy though. Slicken has been waaay too good for months but I always used Chill Fog like it was foe/friendly so the nerf won't affect my style even on my freeze mage. It's fairly easy to micro and funnel mobs into the CF radius. 

 

agreed - to be honest when i first started playing i had no idea about the foe and aoe designations so just assumed every spell affected party members so cast them accordingly.  This nerf will also not affect my style of play.  I would usually cast chill fog as a prelude to a battle, as the mobs were heading toward my party.  Let them run through it - take the defbuff and continue on with the fight.  The same goes for entagle or slick - although entagle and web were always friendly fire back in bg 1 and 2 so just assumed they would be in POE as well.

Edited April 3, 2015 by wotdlois

[PIP-Clownboy]

Two things immediately stand out to me:

• No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players.

   

• Devs have mentioned that they wanted to do away with the ridiculous "Combat Only"-mechanic, but despite it already serving no reasonable function in a lot of cases (Zealous Charge comes to mind; whereas Zealous Focus, widely recognized as superior, isn't restricted at all), now even more "Combat Only" restrictions are patched in, instead of the other way around. What gives?

   

• Slicken spell is now a single hit AoE.
• Chill Fog is now a friend or foe spell.

That was the only reason to even think about having a Wizard in the party.

 

I'm not even going to try playing one until a all encounter-spell or permanent-rest mods are made now.

 

I can thematically understand the change to Chill Fog, but Slicken being a single-hit AoE is just utter nonsense. Wizards were already acknowledged to be wildly inferior to Druids and Priests, and now I really don't see any reason to take one, let alone take poor Aloth, aside from story/roleplay reasons; a gimped wizard with a gimped set of Attributes, with gimpy spells.

 

Slicken definitely should be a Hazard AoE. I have no idea what they were thinking.

 

And if Chill Fog is changed to AoE from Foe AoE (...they really should rename "AoE" into something like "All AoE" or "Friendly-Fire AoE" to fit the format...) it should be considerably buffed in some other way, such as being much larger, or do more damage.

 

No, Chill Fog does not need a buff now that it has been 'fixed'. You're underestimating how incredibly good AOE blind is. Eothas forgive that you might have to actually micro instead of spam chill fog + attack move.