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Sort of laughing at my team meetings where the manager lady asks everyone for one positive item for the day, but doesn't ask me that. I guess she senses it's a lost cause

The 1-year anniversary is actually tomorrow (Wednesday), if I’m not mistaken.

aw shucks, yeah that's mine. i don't pretend to be 100% accurate or claim that it's 100% my work - I hope I credited everyone who helped contribute it to it (there's some more updateds pending phenomenum's contributions, but i'm waiting on 4.2). but if people get good mileage out of it, that's all I can hope for

So PC gamer is fluffing about casting actors for video game characters (or their body parts. Like Steve Buscemi's eyes for Sonic ) and this is perfect:

am gonna ruin adam... a little. physics is the reason mcdonalds sold really hot coffee. the hotter a fluid is, the quicker it becomes cold... which probable doesn't mean what you think it means. the rate a fluid decreases in temp from 200-199 is gonna be faster than from 199-198. is not that if you have a 200 degree fluid it will reach room temp faster than one at 150. regardless, really hot coffee cools really fast, and that is likely the only time you is ever gonna see Gromnir use "really" multiple times in a post. mcdonalds didn't make huge amounts o' money on their coffee, and people wanted hot coffee. could spend more money on super-insulated cups, which woulda' cost mcdonalds money or, they could make the coffee hotter, so would stay hot longer. made sense to heat the coffee from mcdonald's point o' view. point is, there were good physics behind why mcdonalds served frightful hot coffee, and they did include a warning label, and as adam glosses over, the coffee spill were the old ladies fault, 'cause whether she is a silver-haired old lady drawn to look like adam's grandmother should not make her a better client. put a fragile paper and plastic cup o' hot coffee 'tween your legs with only thing holding in contents is a flimsy lid and hope. what could possible go wrong, eh? in fact, the jury decided the coffee spill were mostly grandma's fault, which is why actual damages were far less than the $20,000 she were asking for in her lawsuit. but again, illinois is a contributory negligence state, so if mcdonalds is deemed to be 20% at fault, they need pay 20% o' damages. sounds fair, yes? ok, and here is the kicker, the reason the award were so large were 'cause o' something called punitive damages. on these boards we have used the coffee case to illustrate how punitive damages work and why awards may be so large. because mcdonalds were a fraction at fault in the case there were the possibility o' punitive damages IF mcdonalds were wanton reckless or knowing negligent in their behavior... and that is where those other 800 people who got burned during a relative short period o' time become the linchpin to the big award. mcdonalds knew folks were getting burned. mcdonalds knew the little old lady were hardly the first to use her legs to hold the cup while adding cream ad/or sugar or talking on phone or adjusting radio or driving. mcdonalds knew, despite warnings, that people were getting burned, and they were at least a little responsible for people getting burned. so how does a civil court punish mcdonalds to make certain such behavior does not repeat? money. civil court remedy is money. if your neighbor did same as mcdonalds (which is not possible, but try and imagine your neighbor is the person responsible for all those burned people) how big o' a fine would need be level'd at her to make her stop selling sooper-hot coffee to little old ladies too stoopid to know better than to put the cup between their legs? if ms. ________ makes $50k a year, a $5k fine would hurt far more than if she made $500k, yes? ... see where this is going? lawyer pulls out a dry-erase board and shows simple math to jury. lawyer, all magnanimous, agrees a $5k punishment for ms. ____________ would be extreme harsh and unnecessarily high. so how 'bout $1000... or even $500. would a $500 fine be enough punishment to prevent ms. _________ from contributing to the burning o' 800 future customers? the thing is, mcdonalds don't make $50k. mcdonalds generates billions in revenue, +$20 billion. 50,000 ---- 500 20,000,000,000 ---- lawyer dramatic adds the zeroes and ends up with $20mil. and why didn't the other $800 people sue? more than a few tried, but most couldn't get an attorney to even take their case. lawyers were looking for the perfect client. needed somebody who suffered and didn't simple get a slight blister on their tongue. legal, burned tongue or lap makes no difference for the punitive damages calculation, but makes a difference to juries. needed somebody whom the jury would sympathize with. so, we get the parked car with everybody's favorite grandma as the victim, and she gets 3rd degree burns. ideal plaintiff. weren't a frivolous lawsuit, but adam kinda leaves stuff out and glosses over other points for effect. regardless, the basic misunderstanding were 'bout the nature o' punitive damages. single plaintiffs receive huge award for even minor injury happens 'cause o' civil court limited options for changing behavior o' bad actors. court punishes with money. the big award ain't 'bout the nature or magnitude o' the injury... ain't even 'bout how vile and cruel were bad actor. penalty is big 'cause the defendant is really, really wealthy and a monetary chastisement which would be effective in correcting such behavior must needs be really, really big. really. ... feel like paul harvey. anybody bother to read all that? oh well. HA! Good Fun!

wrong seals. though they is hypnotic, no? still wrong. priestly seal spells: repulsing, warding and searing. we first mentioned this in the now dark past o' 2017, but whenever we see folks discussing advantages and disadvantages o' priestly seal spells, we almost never see a recognition o' empowers. not only may a seal spell be cast before combat functional for free as the per-encounter usage will regenerate if one waits a few seconds to begin a fight, but the seal may similarly be empowered outside o' combat. sure, the empower will still count against the per rest limit, but the per encounter empowering will regen allowing for a functional extra empower during difficult combats. warding seal is a particular nice opener for a battle with multiple foes as it provides an aoe interrupt. a well positioned warding seal will interrupt multiple foes as they is activating their opening abilities. just sayin' HA! Good Fun! ps we would not be averse to obsidian adding militarized siberian seals to deadfire or poe 3... possible as a ranger companion. seems ideal for a coastal aumaua ranger. kidding. we kid.

we would be on-board with the retro union army unis... just so long as the standard dress uniform epaulettes were verboten. epaulettes is appropriate only for japanese anime characters, the us marine band and michael jackson... and we don't like anime. HA! Good Fun!

In the infinite generic ship combat actions, you can rank up your captain skills and your crew's skills, but your party characters do not gain traditional XP for class level ups.

Well, not like saber moves in the movies couldn't get more unnecessary.

Yeah same with my family. After my kid was born and maternity leave ended, my wife had to go back to work and we would up finding a private daycare. Its hella expensive but what else can you do?

I used to think it was a frivolous lawsuit too until I saw it on an episode of Adam Ruins Everything

I'd love to but I just poured hot coffee on my junk and I'm busy calling lawyers right now!

People love to make light of something that almost killed this lady. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/16/13971482/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit-stella-liebeck But we are lucky we have Gfted around to defend these poor global corporations that generously offered to cover 1/10th of the medical costs involved.

The coffee in that case was heated far too hot to drink, if I recall.

Paladin's Devine Retribution (PL 9) also triggers when any party summon dies (it has to get killed). That means if you have a Chanter (preferably Beckoner - Troubadour's also nice) and summon skeletons (prefreably the version that summons two additional after a skeleton's death) and then those skeletons die - every time you get Zeal for the Paladin. If the Paladin kills the skeletons himself it also works (might trigger further on-kill effects like Inspiring and Virtuous Triumph). You can combine that with a Barbarian who carries Grave Calling. The enchantment "Chillng Grave" also works on Chanter's skeletons, triggering Bloodlust, Blood Thirst and casting a foe-only Chillfog where the skeleton stood - every time you kill a skeleton. A confused Berserker will even kill them all with one strike due to friendly-fire Carnage and firendly-fire Chillfog from Chilling Grave (which counts as weapon attack and will thus trigger more Chillfogs). Berserker gets damaged by its own Chillfog then though can can one-shot himself unless you give him very high Fortitude and/or freeze DR. Basically you use your replenishable skeletons as fuel.

May 8th 1-year of pirating in the Deadfire.

I'm on my third go around with Athens. Sixty years into the game and I've FINALLY broken free from Phrygia. Now to from alliances with a few other Hellenisitc states and start kicking some butt. One problem though. Ptolonmy's boys in Egypt now control a huge chunk of the eastern med. And Rome hasn't really gotten it's act together yet to be any kind of a challenge to them. One problem at a time.

even Gromnir can find his sunny place with the right music. HA! Good Fun! ps we have an unnatural distrust o' anybody who dislikes bill withers music.

a most useful faq indeed. good work. HA! Good Fun!

Okey

Clear the Path is quite broad and very long. Comparable to Driving Roar but broader (maybe twice the size). Since it's a weapon attack it works extermely well with AoE procs. For example Karabörü... Also mortars work with it if you use a melee weapon in the offhand. Don't ask my why. But that leads to a ton of AoE attack rolls.

Tried playing as Athens in IM:RO. That s--t is NOT easy. You start the game in thrall to Phrygia. And they are a superpower when the game starts. If you deny any request they integrate you: game over. If you accept their requests they cripple you. So you are surrounded by Greek states also in bed with Phrygia so you can't expand. Meaning playing any Hellenistic state other than the big powers is freaking tough. Your only shot is to hope Phrygia gets into a two front war with Egypt, Macedon, or the Selucids and get's their asses kicked. The good news is they are likely to do that very thing. The bad news is if it IS Macedon guess where the battles get fought? That right... in the Greek States. Right on top of you.

Congrats Gromnir! I've been getting very little sleep with a new puppy in the house

saturday were the first day o' our retirement. no excuses, but our dogs didn't get the memo. for weeks we have stressed to the four pooches how saturday were gonna be retirement day, and we were intending to fully indulge our sloth for at least a weekend. no such luck. turkeys (literal, not metaphorical or figurative) got in the backyard on saturday and the dogs went ape$&%#... at 5:30 am. so we fed 'em 30 minutes earlier than normal and then took 'em for a walk. fixed irrigation lines and then began addressing some dry rot in anticipation o' the house getting a new paint job within the next couple weeks. took the older dogs for their second walk o' the day (15 and 16... the vet says multiple shorter walks is best for their arthritis) and by then it were time to pull our fully cooked pulled pork for dinner. after dinner we caught up on a couple correspondence we have been avoiding. before we knew it, were 11:30pm. sunday has gone similar to saturday, save for the absence o' turkey, so we were able to sleep in 'til 6:00am. retirement weekends, so far, doesn't feel much different than any other weekend. HA! Good Fun!

^I'm gonna have some new nightmares tonight

Can't say since I don't use those very often (I manually type the BBcode tags instead which is faster for me in most cases). But speaking of buttons: I have problems with saving posts when on mobile. The button will change from "Save" to "Saving..." but then it changes back to "Save" and nothing happens. Some Javascript hickup I guess. I didn't bother to look into the chrome console... It's not a consistent problem though. ONly happens once in a while. But when it happens it won't go away - until I copy my text, reload the entire page, paste and then save.

Better than nothing, I really hope they will hurry, because those time are really empty for RPG lovers... ATM I am playing old games, because there is nothing on the market...

Out and about at the Portsmouth Comic-Con. It's only it's second year, but it seems to be doing well and it was on May the 4th, so lots of Star Wars. General practice run before trying London Comic-Con in a few weeks with a few tweaks and tidyups now that I know how this works...

Pretty much the same for me. I'm basically waiting for TB to get some further optimization before I try another playthrough.

I haven't played Deadfire for some months as well. I mean besides firing it up to test some stuff every now and then. Can't say if that's purely because of the TB-induced bugs to RTwP or just because I got bored in general. But surely the TB messup didn't help. I am indifferent to the "TB vs. RTwP" topic. I like both. For example I liked the TB game "Blackguards" (but don't like D:OS I and II). And of course I like PoE and Deadfire. So - the combat mode itself is not something that drives me off or attracts me. But somehow I don't want to play Deadfire in TB again. I feel an objection to learn anew the mechanics of a game whose RTwP mechanics I already studied in depth and length. Maybe I'm alone with that, no idea. So, for me TB mode only brought disadvantages. Still - I can understand why that mode was introduced. There are players that stick to one certain system. They like TB and loathe RTwP and vice versa. They use those systems as indicators whether they will like a game or not. Those people won't buy Deadfire until it's TB. So in order to sell more copies of Deadfire adding TB can make sense. That, and the fact that turn based mode was worked on for Pillars since PoE came out. So they didn't start from scratch. Maybe there wasn't super serious work before they decided to release it - but work has been done on it before. So when sitting together and brainstorming about ways to increase sales I can imagine somebody saying "Hey we have some TB stubs and it works works quite ok so far. Why don't we finish it and polish it up real nicely to be able to sell to TB fans?" And doesn't that make sense? Sure, not good for me and Gromnir and others who dropped the game after TB was patched in - but as I already said: we already paid for the game and all DLCs - so it's understandable that Obsidian favors getting some new players over losing a few older ones (not thinking that they planned to lose players with it though. It just happened - but I guess one could have guessed so given the history of "patching" things. )

Can't please everybody. Ultimately I don't think the game was designed for turn-based systems. I'd fear if it was a core feature given a 3rd game being made, but the fact this was a bonus tact on makes me not all that bothered. Personally I don't think the game is designed anywhere near the ballpark of what makes turn-based games good (DOS is even further imo) and I'd really love to see the RTwP system pushed much much further in a future title with Microsoft money.

This is laughable. In the end, I'd rather have more options that increase a game's accessibility to more players (not to mention greatly enhance the game's replay value) than a few less bugs. Not to mention that this "diversion of resources" was not "unnecessary", as the addition of turn-based mode will be of great benefit to the console port of the game. Real-Time is almost impossible to do well on a controller, as it necessitates extremely long pauses due to the incredible need for micromanagement in this type of game. No matter how good your control scheme is, this would make the game feel like a complete slog. Turn-based on the other hand never interrupts the flow of the game, and thus fits much better into the slower pace of gameplay that a controller creates. This drastic increase in the appeal of the console port also has a secondary benefit in that many people who play RPGs prefer turn-based combat, which makes sense since the roots of these games are in a turn-based format and also since the gameplay in RPGs (but particularly in Pillars of Eternity) tends to have many layers of complexity. I'm very glad that more of the wider RPG community will care to experience the game, that turn-based mode will and has exposed Deadfire to a larger audience, as I'd greatly prefer forward-thinking, nuanced games like Deadfire to be leading the genre as opposed to games with shallow worldbuilding and storytelling (like Divinity Original Sin) or games overly obsessed with replicating tabletop mechanics in a format they weren't designed for (like Pathfinder Kingmaker). Regardless, there's very little Obsidian can do to improve the gameplay of real-time combat in Deadfire without a complete overhaul. The few flaws that Deadfire's combat system has (like the Penetration System, for example) are fundamental, the kind of tweaking you can do post-launch can't account for fundamentally broken mechanics that literally every encounter in the game is built around. Even if the development of turn-based has turned away resources from adjusting the real-time gameplay, the fact that it operates differently also gives the developers working on that mode a lot more freedom, allowing them to get a lot more done with it then a focus on real-time ever would've carried. And besides, in the long-term, modders can probably more smartly handle such nuanced mechanical adjustments than the developers anyways. Like, there's already a penetration overhaul up on the Nexus last time I checked, and its really great. So if anything happens to fall through, the modding support this game allows for means that it can be addressed by the community anyways, so it is far more in the game and Obsidian's interest to expand on it's number of features and flexibility as a game. Will turn-based ever be perfectly balanced? Probably not, but who cares? No game is ever perfectly balanced, as all things should be, but it doesn't mean it can't be very enjoyable regardless. I'd rather this community be larger and more influential than for Obsidian to be a few inches closer to a perfectly balanced game. By the way, I think it's very strange to suggest that CRPGs as a genre are in fundamental conflict with a turn-based format, when they were initially built on top of a turn-based game: Dungeons & Dragons. Even POE, which greatly adjusted the format to function a lot better in real-time (which I would agree has caused some of the fundamental issues that TB mode currently has, like action speed), is still greatly influenced by that original material. So, if anything, the format is actually a great fit for these types of games as they get closer to replicating the core tabletop experience.