SSH83

I think Avowed would really benefit from staying faithful to the source material. I would really like to see stuff like these to make the game more unique and interesting: Replace necromancy with Fungi-mancy. - Instead of reanimating the dead with necromancy, reanimate them with vines and neural toxin. - bonus point if gameplay designer get in on the action. For example, if I headshot a fungal thrall, they still take critical damage but explode into toxic cloud. - Keywords: infested, bio-toxin, assimilated Strengthen the contrast to the undeath/disease with stronger wild-growth/overgrowth life theme - preferably a step beyond "copy things from Earth and make it bigger" - when you do this well, you can start thinking ecologically and each cool idea will inspire the next cool idea. - Keywords: majestic, overflowing, never-before-seen More Druidic Magic - we should have a lot more special weather (magic)... - if there's any location that can truly make druids look good, it should be the living lands. Make "Summon Animals" Great Again. - Keywords: force of nature, wild weather Treacherous Terrains where anything can grow - where's the obligatory throwing enemies off a cliff? - imagine casting a spell to burn down a thick wall of vine to discover a beautiful valley hidden behind it. - you guys should research jungle and south asia like India and SEA. The dock would never look pristine like that... even for a week after it's constructed. - Keywords: environmental gameplay, discovery, nature taking over

I didn't play Tyranny. Why does it matter? Pillars of Eternity and White March had plenty of interesting weapons that are fun to use. The real question is. How many of those interesting soulbound weapon did players miss out on because of the focus system? The point is to reduce that conflict of "do i try this weapon or do i stick to my +15 bonus?"

* Soulbound weapon. * Not Skyrim. * Tactical challenge. Not "wack a rock for 10hr." I wish people actually read the post before commenting. It'd actually lead to more fruitful discussions. Sigh... It seems people's brain turn off after they see "usage-based" then goes off hating it. Then people saying it'll take 30 hour when I already said in the post that nobody wants skyrim's 3-hr-grind of crap. Soulbound weapon. I thought RPG forum had people who can read, but... oh well. I guess I have to use the keywords system and not bother forming complete sentences since that require too much attention span.

tldr: * Soulbound weapon. Not stuck with 1 weapon. Can keep training weapons even at max level * Not Skyrim. Not 30-tier journey for each weapon. Just same 3~5 tier of profeciency like in D&D, maybe level capped so you can't get to tier 5 at level 3. * Tactical challenge like Soulbound weapon. Not "wack a rock for 10hr." Pillars's take on weapon focus by grouping things into categories was a step forward. It reduced the damage. Level-based Proficiency system ENTRAPS the player and deters future opportunity of fun with cool weapons they didn't anticipate getting. Weapon proficiency should be USAGE-based or at least something like Soulbound weapon in White March. Most importantly, not locked to character leveling system. So yes, if your character never used a katana in 20 levels, he will start out with no proficiency with this super cool samurai sword. But he can embark on a personal quest to train with that weapon. Maybe change the party buffer's spell selection to compensate and change engagement tactic. That is emergent gameplay. In a level-locked proficiency system, he'd either pop the magic retcon respec potion (meta-gaming) or trash that weapon (disappointment). Of course, i'm not saying go crazy like Skyrim. No body wants to gimp themselves for the next 3hour of gameplay instead of respec. But if it's something reasonably quick so it's a mini-challenge and not a drag, then that's cool. Soulbound weapons were good. I'd prefer that over level-locked proficiency-pick any day.

The original Pillars of Eternity told a fantastic, self-contained story with no obvious hanging threads to build an expansion upon. So, we thought the expansion was going to be just random side story like Tales of the Sword Coast or most of Bioware's 2nd-class DLCs. Thankfully, we were wrong. The White March makes us care with great character development and a story that will leave a big mark in the world. Basically it's more of a top-tier DLC like Lair of the Shadowbroker, not just a forgettable tangent like Jaws of Hakkon. On the side of combat design, we thought the increased level cap was just going to make the game way too easy since difficulty already took a nose dive at the peak of the current level cap. That is until we saw what they did with the high-level version of the new area. They didn't just buff the stats of creatures in high-level version, they designed it with fitting obstacles that tests the veteran's tactical adaptability and mastery even more than ever. Those new spells/abilities really came in fittingly handy while marching on the white hills. They didn't just add power creep for the sake of adding new stuff, everything was all planned. Speaking of new obstacles... if you are looking for a new challenge, get ready to flex those tactical muscles. Through some clever scripting magic, Obsidian added many new types challenges like shifting environments, area-denial tactics from clever enemies, and a in-combat puzzles. You thought you scored another easy victory by using choke point? Think again when the new enemy summoner drops a flaming beast on your back line or drop a gas cloud on your side of the choke point. Even if you were burnt out from PoE's combat, the challenges in the new areas completely revitalizes the game and get you theory-crafting and optimizing all over again. The art and sound are again top notch and beautiful. Some terrain look like re-colored version of old areas, but they look great regardless. Even better is when a lot of those terrain now has gameplay value. The hot springs in the snow might look like passive decoration like those volcano in the original game, but no, they actually do something! I'll let you find out for yourself when you play it. Overall, Obsidian brought back another old school thing, the expansion model, but they also improved on the concept thoughtfully well. This expansion is not a skippable optional content, it's the start of a mini-sequel that you mustn't miss.

Well storywise, my NPC (Hiro in Dyrford Crossing) and Item had the intention of being tied together. My NPC was to give you something and you go off to gather 4 components and bring them back to him to make a sword. However, the developers said no to my initial submission. I then let Obsidian write the background to my NPC so as far as I'm concerned, the NPC is part of the story as they wrote it. My first item was a sword but it was too OP. So I changed it to a cloak (Hiro's Mantle) and let Obsidian come up with what the cloak would be. your cloak is still pretty OP when stacked with 2 other retaliate items + monk's retaliate ability. cast wizard's expose vulnerability and attackers would take 40 damage or so every time they hit the monk. lmao

well they buffed fast weapons. also if these nerfs cause you trouble, use the opportunity to explore the other options and combo.

My Grieving Mother now has a new reason to be sad.

I hope they allow us to quit a faction rather than being locked for life. Its fine that these pricks are prejudices but if I slaughter the leaders of the Dozens, it should be clear where my allegiance doesn't lie. Lol

Cheers this works great, also If you don't want to redo all the areas I think you only need to delete the area that you can't access: Int_02 - Top Floor with the clerics Int_01 - Main floor where Raedric is. Int_03 - Dungeon Ext - Outside I deleted just the .fog and .lvl files of the exact map that was crashing (Main Floor). Then when i go back in there the map is reset, but only that map, so my quest progress didn't get affected. I can exit and go back to that area without crashing after that and I've progressed to Act 2 without further crash issues. Bump this if it works for you until dev add it to their workaround thread?

Cheers this works great, also If you don't want to redo all the areas I think you only need to delete the area that you can't access: Int_02 - Top Floor with the clerics Int_01 - Main floor where Raedric is. Int_03 - Dungeon Ext - Outside nice!

So I downed druids and crew, got their exceptional weapons. I put a bunch of them in the stash and equipped the exceptional axes. I quicksaved, did some damage test (perma-killed BB wizard. oops). Then I quick load... Then all the exceptional axes disappeared. lol The items in the stash are still there, and the fine weapons are all still there. Just the exceptional axes disappeared. i would try to reproduce, but... i don't have another save game. haha. GL

Overall i like this so far. I want to play more. Bugs need to be fixed, but here are some things I feel can/should be addressed quickly for maximum benefit to the game. Character Creation: 1) Don't zoom in on the low-poly character model. Show concept art and portraits for each class and race or something. Then when customizing the model detail, show the model in the size and angle that players will actually see in the game. 2) The 50 attribute points just make race choice feel less relevant. Instead, start each stat at 11, then allow player to decrease to get points back as they want. So there's no actual change in customization of stats, it's just a perception change. Learning Curve for this Beta: It's a wall. Like... 10' steel wall... with booby traps. Maybe you could start the backers in a small wilderness area with option to engage some simple fights, where they can at least see stamina, combat turn cycle, and controls in action.... before going to the town where normal level 5 content happens. Basic System: 1) AoE radius for some spell is too big with Int bonus: There should be a radius cap based on the max range of the spell. So the caster isn't forced to get hit by his own spell if the spell radius is 15m, but the max range is only 10m. LOL Tell player how far they can cast each spell. See league of legend for one example. Or if you don't want the range circle, then just make the targetting cursor turn red when it's too far away (signifying character will have to move to get in range) Maybe... just maybe... let player control how big or small their AoE will be? You already did the hard part of making spell effects scale dynamically (pending bug fixes), so... it's just a small step to allow players to control the size. That would be epic 2) I like Might, Con, and Int. But the other 3 stats should have more interesting bonus: Dex should give movement speed or recharge speed. Accuracy = RNG = lame tactics. Missing with powers is lame. Most powers should just always hit. Don't force player to dump stats points just to minimize stupid RNG. Perception should give innate DT penetration %. Stupid free interrupt for auto-attack has no tactical value. it's a boring/lame mechanic. Resolve should give innate CC defense (so a counter to enemy's Int bonus). Concentration buff is redundant since when you're a caster, you DON'T want to get hit anyways even if you have concentration... 3) Bad default keybinding for Double Speed and Slow-mode. S and D key? Seriously? The normal speed takes a little getting used to but after a few hours, I can dig it. Though you guys really need to fix that stupid issue where characters randomly stop doing what I told them to do and just stand there doing nothing until i make them move and re-assign command (is it interrupt that led to confused AI? dumb RNG interrupt mechanic is dumb. auto-attack-based RNG mechanics is why i quit many games). 4) More stats information will be nice. For wizard, spell description should tell me numbers to help me decide, so i don't helplessly end up picking wrong spells when creating character or leveling. Also it'd be nice if i can see what dual-wielding did to my damage when i dual-wield. lol Story and Quest Design (*** POTENTIAL SPOILER. duh? ***): 1) The vessel thing is interesting. But even though i have the weapon and filled vessel... urn did not fricking work (even though it's glowing). FIX THIS QUICK! This is like the main content of backer beta right? 2) I'm pretty sure I know where the girl is... and i didn't feel like running errand for gossip girl. So I attacked the guys at the tower and managed to beat them. But... NO KEY? WTF???? LAMMEEEEE. Killing the obviously shady bad guy should be allowed as a valid solution to the quest. Don't force me to role-play a 18 INT, 18 Resolve character who for some reason can't figure it out and have to do all those random stuff to stumble upon the truth... zzz... Environment Art: It's gorgeous. Just fricking amazing. 10/10. Problem is that it's easy for characters to "blend in" to the background. I never liked the approach of de-saturating background to make foreground standout. It's lazy and ugly. There are other ways... like giving characters more active idle/combat animation. Human eyes are very good at identifying objects via motion. Spell VFX: Needs more clarity!! It doesn't have to be super fancy. sometimes function > form. Some of the status effects in BG2 were fugly (sometimes weird, like paralyzed characters change color) but they got the job done. I clearly knew who was paralyzed.

Yes the real problem is the D key being bound to DOUBLE SPEED mode and it doesn't notify the player that they are in double speed. lol Hit D again to return to normal speed. S is half speed.

I like concept personally. Choosing between offense, defense, and utility is good. But the other 3 stats are kinda lame. Dexterity: Maybe movement speed and recharge speed would be better for dexterity. Accuracy = RNG, no real strategic value. Perception: Free interrupt by just attacking is really lame. Maybe something like DT penetration would be more interesting, so you spot the weakness of the enemy's defense. Will: Concentration... lol. if i'm a caster, i'm going to avoid getting hit in the first place. Instead, maybe reduce duration of CC cast on the character (basically a counter to Int) Also the bonus feels too big imo. Especially the AoE radius. It's almost impossible to use some of those spells with friendly fire and max Int. lol Maybe if we can adjust the size of the AoE at will, that would be great.