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I am really just saying I am not worried about taxes going up for the wealthy. They will be fine. They don't need me to worry about political candidates making their lives more difficult. As you said, even Sanders would be limited in his actual capacity to limit the growing inequity of wealth in this country. Also, it is fairly personal that I can't afford a single family home on a two-teacher income. Those housing prices are driven by the disparity of wealth in the Silicon Valley.

I don't want to repeat myself - but it seems that several people still don't consider the following (very basic) point that contradicts most of their arguments, including this one: If the sales numbers dropped so harshly because a lot of players didn't like PoE or Deadfire for whatever reasons (be it overly complex mechanics - you name it) then the user reviews would reflect that. Which. They. Do. Not. If anything then this is glaring obvious - and indisputable. I don't understand how such arguments can be repeated over and over again when this question hasn't been solved yet. Nobody who came up with such a theory was able to explain this baffling conflict. Even if some of those arguments sound reasonable: this simple point seems to invalidate most of them. But maybe there is an explanation for this. I just can't think of one. It would make some sense if players knew beforehand how the mechanics of Deadfire worked - like from playing PoE - and decided not to buy it then (hence no reviews from those players). But then why didn't they voice their dissapointment in the PoE reviews?

Glad to see you are OK what with everything going on.

Eli

This is an anagram of Action Used, and you know a game in which actions are used? BG2.

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the Kickstarter scam par excellence: Star Citizen. Which, funny story, is not a scam at all but rather a case study in how crowdfunding success can completely bog down a project. Ironically, I'm sure it will be a wildly successful commercial product... at some point in the 2030s. In any case, how many actual demonstrable scams have come through Kickstarter? Seems one of those words that people throw around so often that it's become almost meaningless.

I can fix illegal immigration right now: work permits for anyone who wants them. And as long as you are employed (within a reasonable amount of time) they don't expire. Why is there a demand for illegal immigrant labor? Because they have no leverage. You can screw them on money and they can't do anything about it. Make them all legal and you have to pay them minimum wage (at least). If the war on drugs has taught us anything (spoiler alert: it hasn't) it's that you can't get rid of a thing in demand by attacking the supply of the thing. But you CAN get rid of the supply be attacking the demand. Plus not having people treated like slaves is a very good thing.

My mood right now.

Still got this as well as 99% of the stuff in my link below and also... A GOG or Steam key for Grim Dawn Pioneer Edition

@Elric Galad Haha, funny you mention threatening presence. At some point last year (around the time I hit myself with the field boots to instantly kill myself through Barbaric Retaliation) I actually rolled in the sickening effect vs engaged targets, combining it with the no engagement vs lower level enemies. I didn't notice any imbalance because once you start to reach PL 7 (with other mods to savage defiance upgrades or other changes to earlier PL abilities) the choices become very competitive for SC Barbarian and most enemies who are dangerous by that point already resist constitution afflictions or resist all other afflictions that would have made the sickening effect more useful. The main purpose at that point was to bolster your accuracy with Brute Force vs mobs. In a team setting, you're actually applying constitution afflictions via other party members in big AoEs, so the Barbarian having this effect can be redundant unless you've worked out something for positioning. "Off-Tanking : reliably absorb damages. The limit is : Barbarian has bad Deflection... Only thing that they might be missing for this role is probably a reasonable Rage cost-efficiency for Savage Defiance." While your points here are valid, the simplicity of Savage Defiance means that if you reduce its rage cost and give another survivability tool, you can overtune the Barbarian to the point of making solo easy. I tested some things regarding reducing the cost and adding in Invigorating Strike as a PL 1 active primary attack ability that grants an all-damage shield (base 5 which scales with PL) and having both was enough to create a full turtle kit that could take on all of SSS and other DLC content solo with little trouble. It's probably better to decide whether you want to introduce another survival mechanic that synergizes with Savage Defiance or focusing on Savage Defiance and its upgrades only. "AoE Damage : Should have been of the class focus, but I would say it is only for Single Class Barbarian (Heart of Blunderbuss or Driving Roar vocal cannon). For MC, Barabaric Blow is meh and Carnage is not enough. I like spamming Spirit Tornado though : Instacast + scaling as a PL1 ability is suprisingly good for a bit of AoE DPS. ...I would advocate for a bit more cost efficiency for Tier VIII... Carnage is good enough as a passive (PoE1 version would cause stupidly overpowered Multiclass), I think it should be supported by active abilities. However, accurate carnage is a tad weak as it is, and could be buffed a bit... maybe ? This should be Barbaric Blow role to support the AoE component Barbarian..." Decreasing rage cost (by 1) for HoF and IoBR hasn't had too significant of an impact in my experience. It makes HoF a little more fun end game since you have some breathing room before and after its use, and IoBR is still competing against vocal cannon shenanigans. Yes, basically buffing accurate carnage to scale with PL and to add an increased carnage AoE component that also scales with PL fixed any issues I had with the passive while not making it feel like it had an overwhelming impact. It just made the passive ability competitive with other options. Barbaric Blow base should probably just get a conservative change like @Boeroer suggests. Give it a push so it triggers carnage on the enemy you hit. With other changes to the Barbarian, it'll synergize nicely, especially if you do what I did and add a PL 8 ability called Aftershock that just procs a second carnage AoE. "- Mobility : with leap and wild sprint, I think barb has what needed. Leap could be used for other purpose though... - Debuffing / CC : should be another focus of the class... Too few effects, debuffing the same stats (not INT, DEX, CON and PER afflictions) and too much Tier 1 that can be easily resisted. Some ideas : Leap is vaguely Okayish for 2 Rage. 6s Dazed could be replaced... One of the Yell upgrade (Roar line ?) could be change to inflict Confuse (or Distracted, etc...). Barbaric blow upgrades could be completely reworked to inflict a debuff... on the whole Carnage AoE. Weakened, Dazed..." Leap is used to sequence break maps and speed run through many locations that normally can't be bypassed. Doing things like leaping past triggers, onto higher terrain (if it's programmed into the map properly) and moving more efficiently to save time during Eothas challenges. I'd say moving it to one earlier PL is about the best change you could give it. Removing or adding more afflictions to it is not needed. I've also messed with reducing the rage cost by 1, but I'm undecided on how powerful it is. On one hand, I love leaping around with such a low resource cost and being able to unload even more abilities, on the other, isn't that kind of the definition of broken? Especially for a 1 point ability? I would caution against reducing the rage cost. Wild sprint is fine. I would focus on the upgrades because they're not worth it atm. What I did was add a charge effect where you get a bonus damage lash for 5s after activating any of their upgrades. Really awesome synergy that doesn't actually break the ability since you run out of rage really fast when doing your thing at mid to late PL anyway. Yell abilities that confuse or distract, in my mod experience, isn't game breaking at all. The move suffers from cast time and recovery. For most of the game using them is iffy at best. Go for it. Crushing Blow and Barbaric Smash doesn't need any debuffing mechanism. If you mess with the conditional bonus damage a little like with the gatecrasher +200% damage vs full HP target (which on testing is not as broken as it seems, especially if you take away the crit damage modifier) idea implemented by @Grape_You_In_The_Mouth in their Barbarian mod, you'll find some solid purpose in the upgrade path. The explosive keg VFX on gatecrasher is just icing. As for Barbaric Smash, you are welcome to increase the crit damage as you intended earlier. I've done the same myself, and found it to meet many thresholds for 1 rounding threats, but as @thelee pointed out it's still less reliable than a fully upgraded Paladin's FoD, so it's fine.

No. American games have terrible translation because the developers 1) don't understand the amount of work involved, 2) are not willing to pay for the effort required for a good translation, and 3) are not in any position to evaluate what they get, i.e. as the American developers themselves don't speak the foreign languages their games are translated into, they are unable to realize that the translations tend to be absolutely terrible, utterly worthless. I cannot stress this enough. For somebody who speaks Spanish, Italian, German, what have you, these translations can look so terrible that it actually feels like an insult. Like, dear @Madscientist, if you buy game of computer role-playing and very big adventuring and you see language in game looks like this language, then will that language turn you to a happy customer, or, contrariwise, could it possible even be you will feel the company of making computer gaming is laughing and thinking ha ha that fool boy we have he's money now yippee. It is rare that I claim expertise, but this is one of the few areas where I do. I have been working in this realm for over twenty years, and here I know what I'm talking about. Most (if not all) American cRPG devs simply do not understand what they're doing with their translations. It's a shame, it's an utterly rotting shame, and they should just stop. Forget about the translations: they are so bad that they are not worth it.

After reading this wall of text I want to add my 2 cents. Disclaimer: I am a nerd and a scientist, so my opinion is probably very different from the average computer game player. I try to make a list of reasons why Deadfire sold so bad and then try to find arguments why this reason is false. 1.) Chris Avellone was not a writer for the game. contra: Does anybody know a successful RPG without Chris? He is mentioned in the credits of Disco Elysium. I mean bigger RPGs by a studio, not works of a few people or only a single person such as Undertale. 2.) people do not like the pirate setting. contra: Does anybody know a successful pirate RPG? The only example I know was Risen1+2 where part 1 was a not pirate and part 2 was pirate. As Gothic fan I liked part 1, but I did not play part 2 and I do not know their sale numbers. 3.) The game is too complicated. DOS is simpler and more successful. contra: P:K is even more complicated and it is poorly explained inside the game so I had to do lots of reading in the internet to understand the mechanics, but it was a success. I guess that people who play RPGs like math and complex systems more than the average person. 4.) DF is not BG2 or DnD. Maybe this helped the success of P:K. contra: DOS and DE are also not DnD. But they are very different from DnD. PoE 1+2 are very similar to the old IE games but they are not DnD. 5.) DF was on FIG, not on kickstarter. contra: Does anybody know a successful crowdfunding RPG that was not on kickstarter? 6.) nostalgia works only once. ( This is an opinion, no idea how to prove or falsify this.) 7.) The german translation of PoE 1+2 was terrible, maybe other languages too. I helped to improve it by reporting errors to the mod makers, but it is still far from good. P:K and DOS 1+2 had good translations. Hypothesis: American games have bad translation because devs assume everyone speaks english anyway. 8.) Was another popular game released at the same time as DF? I heared that Bloodlines suffered because it was released at the same day as Half Life 2. 9.) The game was buggy. contra: P:K was almost unplayable at release because of bugs. Most bugs have been fixed in both games. 10.) The story was not very engaging for the player. My opinion: The factions were good, but the main story with Eothas was bad and the scipted scenes with the gods were terrible. personal opinions: - I really liked the ship as stronghold. More engaging than PoE1 (worst part of the game) and even BG2. - Ship to ship battle is terrible. - I like the character creation. Its a middle ground between simplistic DOS and the science of P:K. - BoW and FS are great, better than many parts of the main game. Not a big fan of SSS. - I dislike that there was no large dungeon that told a story. (poko kohara may be the only exception). Durlags tower was great and BG2 had several great dungeons.

items and abilities didn't get useless. for people who care about good game design, imbalanced/broken gameplay is as bad as non-critical bugs like buggy stacking. i think the bigger question is that they spent a lot of time implementing turn-based which, while interesting, really should've been staffed better, because it definitely increased the bugginess of the game. there are lots of stuff in 5.0 that were working just fine all the way from 1.0->4.0 but then broke as soon as the turn-based beta appeared and never really got fixed. before turn-based mode i would've considered deadfire a generally rock-solid experience, post-turn-based mode less-so.

I liked how different classes interacted. Rangers backing up Barbarians. Healers following Paladins and Monks around. Cultists of Fervus... doing whatever the mushroom induced hallucinations and 4th wall breaking told them.

Agreed! With three people active, the challenge has a pulse again. We'll soon have it up on its feet, dancing the jitterbug! Best, A. Btw, thanks for the compliment on Astrid. In BG play I had a favorite character, Alesia, a bounty hunter- which as you've surely guessed is where my forum name comes from. Playing Alesia solo no reload style is what really made me learn the game. I'm hoping Astrid will be the same for me in PoE.

Fair enough. I liked Aloth in both POE games, so you'll get no complaint from me.

More Pillars of Eternity. I have moved more around Durgan's Battery, got asskicked twice (once by golems, once by Meztla ) and then kicked her ass myself. After a while and two new Soulbound weapons, I have moved back to Caed Nua and finished 3 more bounties. Someone is planning to attack my Stronghold, so I am planning to defend it by myself

****. ****.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, Concrete Monster! I'm glad to see you posting! I'm sorry I wasn't around to greet you when you entered the challenge. Also, please accept my apologies for the response delay to your recent post. It's good to meet you and it's good to see people active. Best of luck to Elanna! A Priest of Eothas is a compelling choice from an RP perspective, in my opinion. I look forward to future updates, Best, A. PS: I'm almost ready to start posting on my solo rogue. I'll likely start today or tomorrow!

Started playing The Long Dark's story mode Wintermute yesterday and I'm digging it. I bought the game back in 2017, when it was still in early access, dabbled a bit in Survival Mode and liked it well enough but decided to shelf it until the official release and some of the story episodes were out. The improvements made to the game since then and the quality of the story content is impressive -- the game oozes atmosphere, from art style to sound design, music and voice acting, and its more calm and thoughtful pacing is such a nice diversion. There's something oddly relaxing about sitting in a cave (having just looted a hidden stash of supplies after following directions on a note I found in an abandoned house), in front of a campfire, waiting for my Rose Hip Tea to boil while watching the night fall outside.

People generally get along just fine. It's governments who pick fights and tell them who they are supposed to hate

I for one wish we didn't spend that kind of money outside of the coutnry because we need it ourselves. Too many people dealing with poverty because of this issue. The main problem here are Russia and China. You always have to aske yourself: 'where do the hardliners get their support?' China is exchanging oil for chinese products right now(no money or $ involved) with the Iranian government. So long as they have the Iranian regime covered, this ordeal is going to continue. But perhaps the horrifying fact here is that both China and Russia would even benefit more if Iran went to a war with the U.S. That would be the end of both Iran and the U.S, considering how much they could both lose while China and Russia get the upper hand.

And here I am with my three weeks of PTO banked up for just that occasion .

It might eventually, if Intel sticks with it. Drivers and no (? presumably, certainly the AMD agreement is CPU only) patent cross licensing is going to be a big problem. Larrabee was surprisingly decent but it was a fair while ago now. They do have a lot of talent working on them and unlike at AMD Raja is likely to be well funded. It's a pretty awful time for Intel to be trying to launch non core products though, since their fabs are a mess.

This made a lot of sense to me:

I do admit my MIN pick is wishful thinking.

for what it's worth, about +2 Con Ngati's Blessing: I always get it at 35° 35' S 45° 6' E refusing to kill the marine creature

Canadian firefighters (or 'Kanadian' depending on who you ask) pitching in with a helping hand https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/canadian-firefighters-australia-wildfires-1.5410727 After hitting 40C+ degrees in every state, fire conditions are expected to worsen. For our American readers, that's the equivalent of every state from Oregon to Florida hitting 104F+ degrees at the same time.

The spam I just read aside, everything I wrote was factual. But, people can't handle facts so they cry.

Deb of Night > all

Tower of Time giveaway on GOG!!!

if it makes you feel better, we think o' the beach boys underrated album when we hear "holland." HA! Good Fun!

Mind-Altering Cat Parasite Linked to Schizophrenia in Largest Study Yet What type of pet should I buy? Hmm...

Gromnunism is the future.

Or so guerilla marketing teams would have one believe. Though Aladdin is probably more a result of rewriting a story being a doomed effort, rather than some corporate sexism masquerading as veneer of progress #ghostbusters. Still Jasmine's number was awful all around, tonally a departure from the score, and thematically could have been actually empowering without immediately denying her her moment by turning her into a damsel in distress.

Waiting for the Russians to introduce their own space corps

... you can't get fooled again?

So, umm, I’m old enough to recognise Yoko Ono, but who’s the woman to the right?

Adaptive gives you +2 ACC per hit for 30 secs. It stacks up to 10 times (and should stack with everything else since it's from a weapon). Thing is that you basically get up to 10 instances of Adaptive which all last 30 secs. So it's not uncommon that the first instance runs out while you are not yet at 10 stacks. If you are hitting too slowly you can never reach 10 stacks because the first ones already expire. So let's say you hit every 10 seconds (just for simplicity) and add a stack (stack A,B,C and so on, seconds remaining in brackets): sec 0: A[30] --> +2 ACC sec 10: A[20] B[30] --> +4 ACC sec 10: A[10] B[20] C[30] --> +6 ACC sec: 20: B[10] C[20] D[30] --> +6 ACC sec 30: C[10] D[20] E[30] --> +6 ACC and so on. If you'd only hit every 10 secs you'd only be able to stack 3 instances of Adaptive. If you'd be able to attack every 5 secs you could stack 6 instances. On-hit usually includes on-crit when it comes to procs. Flames of Devotions should add their ACC bonus to everything. Also works with Ring of Focused Flame by the way (another +10 ACC). Usually you can check the used ACC per attack roll in the combat log (press shift while hovering over the log entry).

Greetings employees of Halcyon, We want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible team behind The Outer Worlds. It is because of their hard work and dedication to this project that we received the Best Narrative, Best Performance - Ashly Burch, Best RPG, and Game of the Year nominations at The Game Awards. To all of those who voted for us in The Game Awards, you are all fantastic and we are so grateful for your support. The reception to The Outer Worlds has been unbelievable to see, and even just being nominated means a lot. However, the journey isn't over yet as we are excited to announce that we will be expanding the story through DLC next year! Details will be made available at a later date. Now we would like to allow our game directors, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, to share a message with you all: We just wanted to personally thank our team for doing a wonderful job and our fans for their tremendous support. And Tim would like to say what an honor it was to work with me. – Leonard Whatever, Leonard. Now that we’ve finished, I expect that certain photographs will be destroyed, as per our agreement. – Tim

Oh I'm sorry, did you not realize Outer Worlds is a giant fetch quest?