So, before going to bed, these are my first impressions, I stopped just after killing the Engwithan Titan -
1. I expected to be assaulted with lore in Tikawara (the village you start at), but was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case and the whole village was over with quite fast. Skill checks are everywhere in dialogue, but they are mostly cosmetic alla PoE1. There was only 1 quest where you can get extra clues if you manage to pass the skill check, at least that's what I found. The quest itself was eeehhh, I won't spoil it, but if anyone wants me to talk about specific things about the writing I'll put them in spoiler tags.
2. The highlighted words will probably continue to annoy me, but for different reasons. The Huana call the gods by different names and it highlights them, telling you an entire myth surrounding those gods. Considering there is a priestess in the village versed in such lore, this should not be happening. The highlighted words should just say "the Huana name for Berath" and nothing else, you should be able to ask the priestess about any such myths. The UI is not a free lore dispenser.
3. I love the overland map. It's like NWN2 SoZ and it makes me want to replay it again, which is probably what I'll do after this. It uses those CYOA texts where you get to use your skills a lot and it can give you a distinct advantage in combat. You can find places that aren't specifically marked on the map that give you bonuses. It sounds worse than it is, so that says a lot. All in all, very good job.
4. The combat... is a mess. One of the problems is the UI - it's almost unreadable when you are on the battlefield, it's buggy as hell and it's still a pain in the ass trying to figure out what buffs and debuffs you have. Watching the models fight is also unreadable, I really have no idea what is happening and I'm blindly going through it, reacting to whatever I can actually decipher. I can't even decide if it's too fast or not because I don't know if that's the problem. I also don't know if a spell has been cast or if it has affected anything, I simply can't read it, it's such a jumbled mess. There is so much to say about the actual mechanics that I don't know where to even begin.
First off, I got rid of the pre-generated Rogue because I am one and I didn't need another, and I made a Cipher/Ranger instead. My Druid/Rogue and the aforementioned replacement tore the mobs to shreds. The Cat Spiritshift is ridiculous, through the roof damage + super fast attack speed + the insane maneuverability of the Rogue tree + the survivability of the other Spiritshifts makes for an almost unstoppable killing machine that blasts its way through the battlefield without worry about engagement, positioning or anything else. The Cipher/Ranger also does insane damage with only her bow, yet her spells fall a bit on the wayside because, like I said, I don't know if they are successful or not 90% of the time. My custom characters are 10x as useful as the pregenerated ones, much more damage, survivability and utility.
Strength and Resolve are completely useless as damage-dealing stats, my custom characters have both at 10, but they still annihilate everything. It's still much more beneficial to dump CON, RES and STR and raise everything else. Penetration is a weak and annoying mechanic that you almost have no control over. Nobody has any spells that affect Penetration, at least I don't think so, I don't actually know what the inspirations/afflictions do, so maybe some of them do affect it, I'll come back to you on that, nor do I have access to talents that increase Penetration. The only thing I have are the stiletto and war bow modals, which lower your attack speed by 100%, but give you a measly 2 Penetration in return. It's a bit vague which spells are affected by Penetration and which aren't. I think stacking this when you can and stacking Accuracy is still the way to go.
It's very easy to not fall in combat, so I didn't rest even once until now, only the Wizard fell once, but the wounds are so pathetic that it doesn't matter.
The ranged enemies immediately target whoever is casting *anything*, so I found it more beneficial to wait for them to use up their first attacks and then start casting with anyone. I don't think spell casts are really as slow as people say they are, but I have to test this more. That's it for now with combat, even though I have more things to say, I'll do it later.
5. The buuuuuugggsss. Soooo maaaaaaany buuuuggggs. I hope they are on a bug squishing spree because it's awful.
That's it for now, will see what more I can say tomorrow.
