Phew. De-bugged party still beat Raedric handily, though Eder had to quaff a few potions now he was no longer the man of steel.
And I managed to exit Raedric's hold after looting the place without everything crashing! Hooray!
Now on to Caed Nua, where it seems the Chanter party member is. Am I remembering right that there's some Chanter specific bug I need to try and avoid now?
Edit: No that's Ciphers I think. Chant on. Just got to remember not to save in Caed Nua now lest I create a super Chanter.
Phew. De-bugged party still beat Raedric handily, though Eder had to quaff a few potions now he was no longer the man of steel.
And I managed to exit Raedric's hold after looting the place without everything crashing! Hooray!
Now on to Caed Nua, where it seems the Chanter party member is. Am I remembering right that there's some Chanter specific bug I need to try and avoid now?
Yeah, you don't want to use the chants that lay down frost/shock (and I guess fire?) mines or whatever they're called, as the game records the position of all of them and it makes the save files bloat.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
It makes plenty of sense! It's just a play on slang and currency.
IN OTHER NEWS, I'm think of re-rolling. I don't much like my Chanter's stat spread (I just miss out on a bunch of conversation options), and I think I'd prefer a rogue or cipher to throw out damage.
I could also not waste cash on enchants and just start upgrading the keep earlier.
It makes plenty of sense! It's just a play on slang and currency.
IN OTHER NEWS, I'm think of re-rolling. I don't much like my Chanter's stat spread (I just miss out on a bunch of conversation options), and I think I'd prefer a rogue or cipher to throw out damage.
I could also not waste cash on enchants and just start upgrading the keep earlier.
Eh, once you get rolling into the Endless Paths and do a few other dungeons, money just gets silly. I'm consistently carrying 20-30k around now, because any time I kill a large group of enemies, almost all of them are wearing several thousand gold worth of gear. I've been enchanting, crafting, and upgrading the keep regularly, and now feel like I finally start splurging on those expensive items in the various shops that are so much better than the rest of my gear.
If you just do sidequests and sell everything you will have money for enchenting+keep+items.
Ingredients is what gates enchanting for me mostly.
Yeah. I'm in act 2, every one is level 7, and I'm still struggling to get anyone's items enchanted with "exceptional", but maybe that's meant to be a little bit later?
ToEE should have been amazing (and is with fan-made patches) - publisher woes caused the failure of that one.
I have it on GoG. I think after I finish pillars, I'll come back to it with those fan patches. I loved the combat system, but you could tell the game was just bleeding to death from all the cuts.
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
RE: the companion quests and their seeming lack of resolution (no specific story spoilers)
It felt to me like one of the major themes of the game was the idea of coming to terms with the past. For the main character this is taken to a literal extreme where you are trying to make sense of your past lives. For your companions though, what they find is that at best you can reach some sort of peace with your past, but true understanding is hard to come by, and some regrets are just left for you to live with and soldier on. I don't think anyone gets a full on happy ending, and that's probably OK. In the epilogues some of the companions are able to move forward and some aren't. This strikes me as very realistic. The player character cannot fix anyone's past, and cannot personally make his companions OK with their own pasts - that's something that is up to them, and not all of them can do it.
I love the writing in this game. I just got to Dyrford Village, and everyone I meet has me going "Hmmm..."
not to mention
The Grieving Mother. She's in my party now for that awesome backstory alone. My hypothesis is that she was a divine figure under Eothas. A mid-wife figure of sorts who helped weaving souls for the newly born. Since the Godhammer, Eothas' soul has been shattered and the divines under him got thrown out into the mortal world. It's just a thought. Please don't correct me if you're further in the story and know the answer. I want to find out on my own.
Like I just spent an hour in the town running around talking to people, and I'm perfectly content to spend my time doing that.
So are charm/dominate attacks just insanely hard to resist, or are they buggy? My characters have pretty high will defense, around 60-70 apiece. Even casting prayer against treachery, a fight with 6 fampyrs had Aloth and Durance charmed pretty much any time they made an attempt, and so many of them were crits. I looked at some of those rolls and the numbers were in the 100s.
Me too. Might just be fampyrs though, since I don't generally that the problem, and my charm/dominate attacks look normal to me. And they also clearly keep targeting Aloth, which is frustrating because he has very low health, and blowing through his like 80 will defense, and then my Cipher murders him with what WERE party-friendly AoEs /shrug
Unlike in DnD though, Charm/Dominate attacks don't seem to have a penalty to hit. They just have shorter durations than other status effect attacks.
I love the writing in this game. I just got to Dyrford Village, and everyone I meet has me going "Hmmm..."
not to mention
The Grieving Mother. She's in my party now for that awesome backstory alone. My hypothesis is that she was a divine figure under Eothas. A mid-wife figure of sorts who helped weaving souls for the newly born. Since the Godhammer, Eothas' soul has been shattered and the divines under him got thrown out into the mortal world. It's just a thought. Please don't correct me if you're further in the story and know the answer. I want to find out on my own.
Like I just spent an hour in the town running around talking to people, and I'm perfectly content to spend my time doing that.
I don't know the whole deal with her character yet, having only done a few lengthy conversations with her, but man, every single bit of it so far has been fantastic. I cannot wait to learn more.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I haven't played this game since the weekend because work is crazy right now, so it's making me a bit twitchy. Just started Act 2, but decided to delve into the Endless Paths for a bit. I'm not quite ready for that, I think.
Battletag: Threeve#1501
PSN: Threeve703
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Reckless Assault on my rogue won't turn off now. And when I click the ability to attempt to do so, it keeps adding permanent lines under my active status effects list. Lovely. And that's on top of stat bugs and other abilities flat out not working.
I love you, Pillars of Eternity, but you are one buggy ass game.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Yeah, Expert removes a lot of things that seem like really fundamental aspects of the game's design. I mean it is expert mode, designed for people who are experts at the game...you could also just turn off the video output and force the player to navigate by audio and that would also constitute an expert mode. :P I'm not going to enjoy it, though.
Really? Thats disappointing to hear. I feel like there was no resolution to them like at all.
I was actually pretty happy with this. A lot of RPGs seem to think that quests should always end by tying everything up in some neat little package and everything is good if you want it to be good or bad if you're an evil character and everything is resolved and everyone lives happily ever after. That's a really childish way to handle everything, I think. Some issues can't ever get 100% cleared up. You can work through them to some extent but that's just life. Not everyone bottoms out like this in the game, but some people do.
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
Some of us did cut our teeth on Infinity Engine games and learned how to deal with a lack of AoE indicators.
It often involved not using AoE damage spells at all unless they specifically only hit the enemy mind you. I think the only direct damage spells I used in BG2 were magic missile, acid arrow, and horrid wilting. Only that last one was an AoE.
I think a lot of people didn't know all of what expert mode entailed, and just went "sure, give me all the hardcore options, I like it that way!" And then they were confused when everyone else was seeing AoE indicators and they weren't and thought it might be a game bug. I saw that in several different forums online.
in BG2 you didn't need aoe areas because 1) spells usually had pretty clearly defined areas that never changed(a fire ball explodes to here) 2) you had ways to work around friendly fire with various protection spells that don't exist in this game 3) the number of aoe spells was a lot smaller, as a druid I have like 20 aoe spells that will all hit my party. I can't memorize that many aoe markers and how much they increase by int, that's an unreasonable request. how many single target spells are there? like two total? 4) mages are a lot more damage oriented in this game, in BG you could have your mage focus solely on debuffing and summons and they were better than damage mages because you didn't need mage damage. in this game you have highly damage resistant foes that you need magic damage for
making aoe markers part of expert mode ensured that I will never, never play expert mode unless I'm doing it without any sort of mage or druid at all.
Jars on
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
Some of us did cut our teeth on Infinity Engine games and learned how to deal with a lack of AoE indicators.
It often involved not using AoE damage spells at all unless they specifically only hit the enemy mind you. I think the only direct damage spells I used in BG2 were magic missile, acid arrow, and horrid wilting. Only that last one was an AoE.
And some of us had no problem lighting the rest of the party on fire!
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
I'm doing a triple crowns run and I've gotten used to visualizing the areas in my head. Its not that bad. The circle on the ground around your characters have about a 1/2 meter radius (1 meter diameter) and you work from that. AoE spells even have that safe zone in case you're off by a bit.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
So what's the consensus on which difficulty settings are "the way it was meant to be played?" The way I reason it, it's probably Normal/Expert.
Thoughts? I think I'm ready to begin my REAL first run after putzing around to level 3 or so on 5-10 alts, and I'd like to make it ideal.
hard has the intended encounter setups, everything below hard removes enemies. take from that what you will.
also hard+expert or death.
What does expert remove?
Fun.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
Some of us did cut our teeth on Infinity Engine games and learned how to deal with a lack of AoE indicators.
It often involved not using AoE damage spells at all unless they specifically only hit the enemy mind you. I think the only direct damage spells I used in BG2 were magic missile, acid arrow, and horrid wilting. Only that last one was an AoE.
And some of us had no problem lighting the rest of the party on fire!
I just made sure my front line had high saves and lobbed fireballs into them like it was my job. You can probably do the same thing in this game if you want, but with the intel aoe expansion not harming allies, you just don't have to.
but you didn't even have to do that! send jaheira in with a protection from fire spell and bomb them with fireballs and incendiary clouds
I used to giver her all the red dragon gear + ring of fire protection. Gave her something like 120% resistance = Free healing whenever I firebombed her.
Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
For all this talk about expert options, I might be alone in wanting easy mode to be, you know, easier.
Mainly since I'm buying Obsidian games for the writing, not the combat.
Also, the collector's edition is freakin' huge.
What are you having trouble with? I find the combat to be pretty rewarding but I like the pause n play style. It can be difficult, but on Hard I haven't found any outright brick walls.
Best thing I've found is not to engage in open spaces. Find nice tactical locations where you can funnel enemies to your tanks and through your AoE spells.
And sometimes, just run away. You'll find stuff that is too hard, so come back a little later or find ways to avoid a fight.
the one thing I don't like about combat is how it doesn't feel broken down into rounds like D&D systems were. so I have to spam pause if I want to cast a lot of spells and it makes it feel more chaotic
Posts
Well...I can certainly see this is going to be a very cheerful life affirming tale.
And I managed to exit Raedric's hold after looting the place without everything crashing! Hooray!
Now on to Caed Nua, where it seems the Chanter party member is. Am I remembering right that there's some Chanter specific bug I need to try and avoid now?
Edit: No that's Ciphers I think. Chant on. Just got to remember not to save in Caed Nua now lest I create a super Chanter.
4C in base 10? Surely you mean base 16?
Yeah, you don't want to use the chants that lay down frost/shock (and I guess fire?) mines or whatever they're called, as the game records the position of all of them and it makes the save files bloat.
That the PoE world doesn't have constables robing people with civil forfeiture?
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
in... in the uk we call our police constables, coppers.
i hate this now.
Good lord, people
Yeah but the joke doesn't make a lot of sense. If you're a constable then obviously there must be a lot of copper in that job.
IN OTHER NEWS, I'm think of re-rolling. I don't much like my Chanter's stat spread (I just miss out on a bunch of conversation options), and I think I'd prefer a rogue or cipher to throw out damage.
I could also not waste cash on enchants and just start upgrading the keep earlier.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Eh, once you get rolling into the Endless Paths and do a few other dungeons, money just gets silly. I'm consistently carrying 20-30k around now, because any time I kill a large group of enemies, almost all of them are wearing several thousand gold worth of gear. I've been enchanting, crafting, and upgrading the keep regularly, and now feel like I finally start splurging on those expensive items in the various shops that are so much better than the rest of my gear.
Ingredients is what gates enchanting for me mostly.
Yeah. I'm in act 2, every one is level 7, and I'm still struggling to get anyone's items enchanted with "exceptional", but maybe that's meant to be a little bit later?
ToEE should have been amazing (and is with fan-made patches) - publisher woes caused the failure of that one.
I have it on GoG. I think after I finish pillars, I'll come back to it with those fan patches. I loved the combat system, but you could tell the game was just bleeding to death from all the cuts.
not to mention
Like I just spent an hour in the town running around talking to people, and I'm perfectly content to spend my time doing that.
Me too. Might just be fampyrs though, since I don't generally that the problem, and my charm/dominate attacks look normal to me. And they also clearly keep targeting Aloth, which is frustrating because he has very low health, and blowing through his like 80 will defense, and then my Cipher murders him with what WERE party-friendly AoEs /shrug
Unlike in DnD though, Charm/Dominate attacks don't seem to have a penalty to hit. They just have shorter durations than other status effect attacks.
I don't know the whole deal with her character yet, having only done a few lengthy conversations with her, but man, every single bit of it so far has been fantastic. I cannot wait to learn more.
PSN: Threeve703
What does expert remove?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I love you, Pillars of Eternity, but you are one buggy ass game.
Stayed up till 3am to kill Raedric last night. Reasonably challenging fight with Monk PC, Eder, Aloth, Durance, Kana and hired 2nd Priest.
Having Kana summon a Phantom from chants and an Animat from the Bronze Horn Figurine made it substantially easier I assume.
Seriously now, it removes critical things like AoE indicators which are clearly part of the intended design of the game. I'm a try hard masochist who plays on PotD and even I have it turned off.
Yeah, I can't imagine playing without the AOE indicators. That information is fundamental to my success, and IMO, represents character ability in a way that it makes no sense to remove. Of course, as people say, it's named expert mode for a reason. I'm baffled by the people playing the game for the first time that way though. Seems like a poor choice, as it means you're not learning the systems as designed.
That said, I'm glad it's a choice that the masochists can make and I don't have to
Some of us did cut our teeth on Infinity Engine games and learned how to deal with a lack of AoE indicators.
It often involved not using AoE damage spells at all unless they specifically only hit the enemy mind you. I think the only direct damage spells I used in BG2 were magic missile, acid arrow, and horrid wilting. Only that last one was an AoE.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
making aoe markers part of expert mode ensured that I will never, never play expert mode unless I'm doing it without any sort of mage or druid at all.
And some of us had no problem lighting the rest of the party on fire!
PSN: Threeve703
Mainly since I'm buying Obsidian games for the writing, not the combat.
Also, the collector's edition is freakin' huge.
I'm doing a triple crowns run and I've gotten used to visualizing the areas in my head. Its not that bad. The circle on the ground around your characters have about a 1/2 meter radius (1 meter diameter) and you work from that. AoE spells even have that safe zone in case you're off by a bit.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I just made sure my front line had high saves and lobbed fireballs into them like it was my job. You can probably do the same thing in this game if you want, but with the intel aoe expansion not harming allies, you just don't have to.
I used to giver her all the red dragon gear + ring of fire protection. Gave her something like 120% resistance = Free healing whenever I firebombed her.
What are you having trouble with? I find the combat to be pretty rewarding but I like the pause n play style. It can be difficult, but on Hard I haven't found any outright brick walls.
Best thing I've found is not to engage in open spaces. Find nice tactical locations where you can funnel enemies to your tanks and through your AoE spells.
And sometimes, just run away. You'll find stuff that is too hard, so come back a little later or find ways to avoid a fight.
PSN: Threeve703