Gairnulf

I'm playing Underrail. If you don't know about it I suggest you look it up. I especially recommend it to Tim Cain I think the best qualities for a game which should take your mind off another game which you are waiting to be released would be that the game you're playing to distract you from waiting should be 1) very immersive and 2) sharing very little in common with the game you are waiting for. Underrail is superb in both regards. And it's also a preposteously cheap game in terms of price. Would be a shame to skip it if you are an RPG player. Romaceable mutants are not yet confirmed though, so be advised.

Now that our hearts are "literally" crushed over the discovery that we won't be having romances, which I was appaled to learn today (despite of having followed the game for three years, I swear guys! ), this gave me an opportunity to think about actual shortcomings of most RPGs I've played, if not all. My point is simple, crude, and insensitive, like the courting attempts of a bearded Gray Warden - in the beginning of most RPGs I've played I've usually been struggling for money, actually taking quests for the rewards, and actually role-playing when asking npcs for money if I'm to preform some service for them. And I've always liked this impediment of being short on cash. As most of you know, but I'll describe it anyway, by the mid-game you are usually swimming in gold to the point that one wonders why not just load it all on a caravan and retire somewhere in the country, spending the rest of your days as a rich aristocrat with a recently bought title, surrounded in your mansion by all sorts of "romanceable" or otherwise "interact"-able female characters. Or male characters, or whatever it is you go for, doesn't matter. This phenomenon of getting illogically rich with respect to the plot and your actions is a problem which I wonder if and how it is approached in PoE. Discussion is welcome, as is developer feedback. Seriously, not even bulls...?

If you've made someone learn about the game, I hope they don't start seeing it something annoying

I really liked it, especially the BGII-directed nod in the rythm that it starts with. I didn't expect the ambient sounds at the end though, I don't know maybe they tie in with a specific scene where the music is used? I also wonder if the choral singing is some specific trait of Glanfathan folklore, or is it some sort of more "modern" religious singing which has adopted and converted an older Glanfathan folklore tune?

But please don't add a visual meter that shows how much until the debuff! Also, why tie it to Athletics and not Constitution? Athletic people get fatigued as well, depending on how much they have exerted themselves. I think the ability to resist fatigue should be a function of your stamina (not the game term, the real life term), represented by Con, while athletics is connected to preforming specific tasks that require athletic/acrobatic abilities - rope-walking, climbing, swimming etc. Please make sure that the timer doesn't pass while the characters are in conversation (I guess you are already checking that). As for indicator for remaining time untill debuff, I'd be ok about noting how much hours have passed since my last resting, like I did in the IE games.

I've always thought the graveyard is a silly place to commemorate your fans. Can't the city have some sort of hall of notable citizen or something?

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Magic bullets... the setting authors should say if this would be alright. Magic and guns reminds me of Arcanum's intro. How so? In the Infinity Engine games you couldn't really stealth reliably in dungeons because you would just trigger traps all over the place. Combining both stealth and trap-detection solves that problem. I hadn't thought of that either. But I've never had such a problem in the IE games. There it only took a few seconds of trap-searching to discover any traps if you had a chance to discover them. Then I would turn off the "detect traps" mode.

Bester, could you switch the animation used by player characters to walking instead of running? I'm just very curious to try how it would feel like to have my party walk around.

Damn, Kaine, you just took most of the things I was going to post in another thread about a new features wishlist Especially the codpiece revolver! I had this list in my mind mostly as a list of things I had found to be missing in the Backer Beta and knew won't be making it into the game. I think there has already been a commitment expressed from Obsidian to add some of them with a patch (stealth on party member level and I think volume sliders) but I'm including them for completeness. I think the argument "you won't miss them anyway" can become a slippery slope towards "streamlining" in the bad sense - taking away freedom of action from the player by removing features which weren't required for gameplay reasons but were there just to accomodate for different play styles. (No projectiles is a typical example of this). I agree with Lephys that rampant pickpocketing is pretty much power-gaming, but raising this as an argument against the mechanic of arbitrary pickpocketing is an example of "selective realism". Carrying 5 shields of varying size in your inventory isn't any more realistic than pickpocketing at will. Or than being able to hide in shadows in front of a closing enemy who hasn't seen you yet, etc. In the IE games the rewards from pickpocketing were mostly small and not worth the time, and the penalty for getting caught was the time lost in reloading (conveniently in that regard PoE seems to have rather long loading times ). More than one fail at pickpocketing usually meant that I would skip that target. So I don't think it was unbalancing the gameplay, and most of the trinkets weren't worth much if they were even worth anything anyway, especially when I was bathing in money by the mid-game. Even for the power-gamer it's much more profitable to go clear a dungeon and haul loot from there than to spend the same amount of time pickpocketing random NPCs. I'll leave the "conservative" part for a bit to make a suggestion - why not improve on the IE games' pickpocketing implementation and put in small quests or minor details about the world or characters that would only be discovered by pickpocketing NPCs? Because you don't need to only pickpocket valuables. For example while playing Thief, one of my favourite things was reading notes left by someone and learning more about the world from the context of the note. Or what about turning pickpocketing into a little gambling game - if you fail at pickpocketing you lose a small percentage of your XP, like 0.30% of your current XP? That would probably make you consider before pickpocketing unless you have reasons to expect the target would be carrying something really valuable (of course save scumming is still an option but the time lost in loading stays as a penalty). And the conditions can be made further more complex - lose a bit larger percentage every subsequent time you fail a pickpocket check, etc. So, pickpocketing adds a lot of possibilities imo, it's up to the designer to make use of them. It's similar to having a variety of arrows/projectiles for weapons - it doesn't kill the game if it's out, but can make it better if it's in. Not all the points are subjective, I think. For example the adding of interface features, is that subjective too? I think these are improvements whatever someone's opinion is of the playable part of the game, because they are just tools that go with that part. The opposite view - the game doesn't need anything, isn't an expression of support for the game or developers, criticism is support, because it helps them improve. And as for the subjective points in my wishlist - I don't claim to represent everyone's desires, hence it's called "My ... wishlist". P.S. Before the timer for editing my post has ran out, let me add something I forgot last night: 10. At least let us experiment with either a key for walk/run toggle, or with having characters use run animation only when in combat. I just want to try out the game with characters that walk. I only need to see it for a few minutes to check if this wouldn't suddenly make it feel a lot more like an IE game. This request has usually been countered with "this would make them move too slow, would be boring to the player" but isn't that what the "double speed" option is for?

I accepted a lot of IE features being omitted from PoE with the argument that they were not very enjoyable. I reconciled with other features being omitted with the explanation that development time/resources were not enough. When it comes to the expansion though, I will raise my expectations. Taking into account the fact that the team has experience with the engine tools and has a solid base to build upon. The features I was sort of disappointed to see gone from PoE and want back in the expansion are these, off the top of my head: 1. Arrows, bullets and bolts for projectile weapons. 2. Weight carry capacity on per-party member basis 3. Map notes 4. The damn volume sliders from IE games. 5. The damn interface feedback sliders from IE games. 6. Splitting the party between non-party-required areas, which in combination with 7. Stealth on party member level will allow for the party's prowler ro scout ahead in buildings effectively. 8. Separated stealth and trap-detecting stance - it just looks silly to have your party go semi-transparent and in stealth when you really want to look for traps, Immersion-breaking too. 9. Pickpocket as an ability - I think there is a no small segment of players who find it fun to pickpocket every npc just to see what they'll find. I know I've done it throughout Baldur's Gate and Athkathla It's similar to that silly mmo game where you just open chests. The surprise of what you'll find drives you on. Not to mention that a pickpocket mechanic can be used in quests. I'll limit this wishlist to features I want back from IE games, without writing about new features which I think would add to the gameplay such as a more complex search for containers mechanic for example. What do you think about this little list. Anything here that you also consider important?

People like to collect things, compare scores, score records. It's irrational

And the patch is usually one week later than the expected date.

You can rest outside of inns, but this expends a resource called "camping supplies" which you can buy in shops and is capped at 4 as a maximum you can carry.

Speaking from the position of a cheese-er: why use camping supplies when you can safely return to the Dyrford Village?

In the IE games, I wasn't rest-spamming because I was shooting for the shortest possible playthrough calculated in in-game time (days and hours). In the PoE BB though, I've caught myself resting before going into dungeons, if needed by means of returning to the village for the better bonuses. I'm aware of the argument that it's up to the player to refrain from abusing the system, but I wonder - could some disincentive from the habit of rest-spamming be added to the game mechanics, and if yes what would it be? Also note that with the game having "fast mode" retreating to a safe area to rest without using up camping supplies is even easier.

Yes, I also thought it probably needs its context to be understood clearly.

I think the "hating" part was only meant with regards to the engagement system. I don't recall anything else to have provoked so resilient and strong resistance, and why would modding the UI mean that someone hates the original one?

Yep, it really is him: http://www.gamewatcher.com/interviews/pillars-of-eternity-interview/12162

It's remarkable how we discuss ToSC like it came out last week, but don't forget that's not the case. I'm sure Obsidian has learned lessons from observing ToSC and from their work on PoE, and similar to how PoE aims to have an improved over IE experience, so will its expansion try to avoid the bad sides of ToSC. I'm an optimist about the expansion and I think it will constitute the "gold" version of PoE of course together with the original.

ToB had me forcing myself to finish it. I found the story rather dull - seek out and destroy. I think it's nice they will be releasing the fixes and improvements as a free patch for people who don't buy the expansion. But this also confirms my expectations there will be much to fix and patch in the initial release...

Yeah, read about it earlier today. Hopefully we'll get more coverage and front pages

Personally I was very happy to read that: http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-24-02-obsidian-pillars-of-eternity-will-grow-with-traditional-expansion-wants-improvements-rolled-into-a-free-patch

You can't go wrong with adding another 4GB to that Macbook I have an ancient Macbook from 'late 2009' at home but with an upgraded cpu and 8gb ram it runs like new,

Damn, I thought they had promised they would do that before release :/ Doesn't sound good. They are probably overwhelmed with bugs to fix.