Madscientist

Congratulations everyone. I did not read everything above, only that 4 people did it so far and thelee was the last of them. Where all ultimate winners turn based or rtwp or was it done in both modes? Ages ago I read that somebody guessed ( I think it was a dev, not sure) that it would be easier turn based.

I do not think that the rule system was the reason why DF sold bad compared to PoE1. If both games had a problem with that I could argue that they were meant to be spiritual successors of the IE games but they were not DnD and some people were upset by this. I do not think that the system of DF is worse than PoE. Both had stuff that may be hard to understand for new players. (PoE: Everything where the descriptions says it changes speed changes only recovery time, except dex. DF: Double inversion, a bonus of +20% and a penalty of -20% does not result in zero effect.). But both games are much easier to understand than P:K. But I do not think that PoE/DF are too simple or "dumbed down" as can be seen by the endless discussions about game mechanics in this forum. some examples: attack PoE, DF: acc + 1d100 - defense = miss/graze/hit/crit attack P:K: melee or ranged? normal, touch attack or flat footed? Which types of defense are used against which types of attacks? (dodge, armor, natural, . . .) buffs/debuffs DF: passive abilities stack (right side of skill tree,), active abilities do not stack if they influence the same thing PK: You need to learn for each effect what type of effect it is (morale, luck, enhencement, . . .) Only stuff from different types stack. To be fair, all games have exceptions that can make it hard to understand for the player. ----------- OK, game mechanics wise the only terrible thing in DF is ship to ship combat. I think it is not complex, not intuitive and most importently not fun. I think Josh wanted to remove it but his boss wanted it in (not 100% sure). Maybe that is a reason.

About game systems: I prefer rule sets that were designed for computer (PoE, DA:O) over PnP rules, but I have never played PnP myself. The first RPG I have finished was BG2, but I got it because many people said its a good game. I have never heart of DnD or PnP before and I read about that stuff only later. I learned the rules but many of them did not make any sense to me. Only when I realized that those rules were meant to be played with dice, pen and paper in the real world ( not on a computer) some things started to make sense. Even when I understand why PnP stuff is like this, much of it does still not make any sense for me when you play it on a computer. For example, I like that dex influences attack speed or int influences duration gradually by factions of a second. There are no rounds in a real time game, stuff like x attacks per round or duration of x rounds per caster level.

Ooops, sorry. For some reason Chris is mentioned in the german wikipedia entry. He is not mentioned in the english version though.

I had a new idea why DF sold bad compared to other games: Its a middle ground between open world and not open world. PoE1 was very similar to other games like this, especially BG2. A world map where you travel from one area to the next by clicking on it. Discovering new areas means trying to exit the map at all 4 sides. In DF the experiance is less focused than PoE1, but it cannot compete with huge worlds like Skyrim or TW3. In DF you search for a giant statue that is hard to miss, everyone can tell you where to go next. In TW3 you search for a person wants to hide, so searching a huge world and finding tons of other stuff along the way makes more sense.

Well, Chris made Planescape Torment, Kotor2 and Mask of the Betrayer. I think those were the best games in the history of RPG stories. Disco Elysium would be the spiritual successor in this regard. Chris did not write for the game, but he gave the devs some advice. Chris was great in turning RPG expectations upside down. The game is not about saving the world from an ancient evil but from yourself. Star wars is not about the battle between good and evil, but about two sects of fanatic mages drunk with power. Undertale would be a great successor in this regard. Personally I like anti heroes more than the typical heroic stuff. DE is great because your char is a total desaster. Other games I played and liked recently were Nier:Automata and Virgo vs the Zodiac. about translations: The worst one in history was Oblivion. The best part of the translation was, that lots of text was not translated at all. The rest was indeed an insult.

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.

Thanks So might for damage and per for hitting things would be most importent. I probably go for coastal Aumaua. I am not sure how int will work with turns. I do not have much AoE stuff, but duration could be good for some things. Dex seems to be less importent in turn based. I chose devoted+cipher to max out penetration because I really did not like the PEN vs AR mechanic. Thats one reason why I do not play on higher difficulties, there you always have to max PEN to do some damage at all. When dual wielding gets a general damage loss I might go for greatsword. Initially I chose sword because you have the biggest number of this weapon type. Are there good greatswords early in the game? Morning star and pollaxe have also 2 damage types, but even less unique weapons. If I use (great)sword for piercing/slash damage, should I take monastic unarmed training for unarmed crush damage? Does soul anihilation still produce focus before turning it to raw damage? So it would be the default attack no matter how much focus you have unless you want to cast a spell. Are weapon modals useful in turn based mode? I have not played PoE2 turn based, but I know lots of other turn based games. In turn based you usually need less actions to win a fight so each action is more importent. Having max might, per, a huge weapon and everything that boost damage sounds good. For spells this means I should take only those that do a strong debuff or massive damage. Not sure how dots (like disintegration) and beams (like ectopsychic echo) work in turn based. Yes, Mirke in the party plus joining Furrante would be great for an evil pirate. So its me, Eder and Aloth ( I just cannot play without them), Mirke and Xoti (for healing and buffs, she is the harvester of souls and I make sure she gets lots of souls to harvest).

Its been a long time since I last played and I never played it turn based so far. I want to be evil this time and I have already finished siding with the huana and valians, so I want to join another faction. I am not playing PotD, but normal or veteran. The Char: - I was thinking about a devoted/soul blade dual wielding swords. I have no experience with turn based combat in this game. Are these classes good? Which stats should I have? Is dual wielding the best style? There are many swords, they have 2 damage types and I like modwyr. Which spells should I select and should I cast spells or use the focus for the soul blade special attack? The Party Ok. its pirates or RDC. Which of my companions will stay with me if I join one of them, support slavery and work against the locals and the valians? I want to play with companions only. Serafen hates slavery, Takehu likes Huana and Pallegine loves Valians. Looks like the only option is to join RDC and have Eder, Aloth, Xoti and Maia.

OK, my question is answered. Thanks everybody. I am also tired of this discussion, but I wanted to know how all of this started. I don´t care if a game is turn based or real time as long as it is fun to play. There are many good and bad games with both styles.

For every new RPG there is a discussion if it should be turn based or RTWP. BG1 invented the rtwp RPG and because of its success many other games used it later. BG1 was based on DnD, which is turn based (like any other PnP system I know, because it is hard to do real time combat with dice). Many other computer RPG are also based on PnP games or they were inspired by them. If computer RPGs are based on PnP RPGs and those are turn based, why did they make computer RPGs with RTWP? At the time of BG1 the following game types existed (as far as I remember, its been a long time, only the types I consider relevant for BG1) - turn based RPG based on PnP rules (e.g. Reals of Arcadia trilogy, They used exactly the PnP rules so over 80% of spells and skills were useless because it could not be implemented in a computer game at that time) - strategy games (e.g. command and conquer, but they are not RPG with no character developement and no complex rule set) - action RPG (e.g. Diablo, not based on PnP) - JRPG ( FF7 was very successful, maybe it was an influence and ATB was considered a mix of real time and turn based???) Did the devs ever say why they did it the way they did, especially regarding the combat style? PS: With the new forum look, can you start a new line without having a big space between the last line and the new one?

A few dumb questions, because I am terrible in remembering names or who did what in what game: - Are Tim and Leonard ( the ones who direct The Outer Worlds ) involved with bloodlines 2? I thought they were the master minds behind all Troika games. - Was MCA involved in the original game? - I am not an expert for World of darkness. I have read that there is an old WoD and a new one and Bloodlines1 was based on the old one. Is Bloodlines 2 based on the old or new WoD? The first game was great (with the fan patch that fixes bugs and restores some content). The atmosphere was fantastic, game mechanics not so much. I will not pre order the game until I have more info.

I will definitely buy it. Lets hope that my computer is still good enough for this game.

One of the main reasons why I suggested the FFX like system was to avoid multiple actions per turn and to avoid that some stat make no difference (like dex 1 - 9 gives 1 attack, 10 - 19 gives 2 attacks and so on.). In FFX very fast char can make several actions in a row if the other chars are much slower. Yes, this increases the number of actions you have to select. But it serves the purpose of counting time "in real time" as good as a turn based game can do. If we allow several actions per turn that depend on stats or the effect lasts more rounds depending on stats we could just keep the current system. Your example is bad, because DnD has global rounds and I tried to get rid of them. Yes, in FFX or the FF with ATB it was hard to tell how long a status effect will last.

Thanks again Thelee and MaxQuest The link to the guide alone was worth it. At this point I give up and leave the math to experts like you. I have finished the game on normal and beat everything except the mega bosses. I will not play on higher difficulties because the armor/penetration mechanic alone is annoying for some tough enemies. I completely agree with this: The double inversion may be a good mathematical solution, but it is very unintuitive and most players (and some devs) will have problems to understand it. There were lots of bug reports where players complain the damage is wrong because +20% and -20% does not result in zero.

Thank you again So we could say: - penalties for attack speed have diminishing returns: two 20% penalties is a smaller DPS loss than one 40% penalty - penalties for attack time have linear returns: two 20% penalties is the same as one 50% penalties Are the results for damage equal to the results for speed or for time? The thing that makes it so complicated is that most chars wear some kind of armor which slows you down. There is also armored grace and the pet that reduces armor penalty, but you do not see the exact numbers in game. to the devs: WHY did you do this??? In PoE1 you invented a rule set that was relatively easy to understand. ( At least compared to most computer games based on PnP rules. ) In PoE2 you took the system from PoE1 and made everything more complicated. (e.g. double inversion, penetration system, . . .) I see no benefit in this, both for players and devs.

We do what we must because we can . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI

Thanks Max Quest I do now understand the concept of absolute/relative diminishing/linear returns. (At least I think so. After some more posts I will realize I know nothing.) But if I understand it correctly, the absolute linear ( or relative diminishing ) returns concept is only true when you have only bonusses. Do I understand this correctly: - Thanks to the double inversion, several negative modifiers will always have diminishing penalties ( both in absolute and relative numbers). That means the combination of penalty 1 and 2 will always be less than the sum of 1+2. - Things go to hell when you combine bonusses and penalties. ( I do not play computer games with a calculator on.) Even the devs did not understand it. ( See initial version of blunted criticals.) I do not know how much bonusses you need to compensate a penalty and I am not sure if the above concept ( absolute/relative linear/diminishing returns) changes if you combine bonusses and penalties. PS: Sometimes I have the desire to punch the guy who introduced double inversion. Attack speed will never be easy to understand ( especially when they measure duration for some abilities and speed for others ), but they should not have changed the damage formula from PoE1. All they needed was to define a minimum damage to avoid negative numbers.

Problem is peoples are morons too and shouldn't be trusted to lead anything either. Then what do we do?! Thats simple, we do the same thing again: We build bigger machines and sacrifice more people to create better gods. Either its works or we ruin the world completely. Everything will crumble to dust eventually anyway and we will not be there to se the results of our actions because we sacrificed ourselves. Somewhere in the future aliens will visit us and all they see is a bunch of immortal gods fighting each other all the time and the world is a dead wasteland.

If you make a system with action points, everything will change completely. You have to give each thing you can do an AP value and maybe change some abilities. The next question is: Should the number of AP be fixed or is it a variable? If it is a variable, what does it depend on? Do you remember Divinity Original Sin 1? It had variable AP. Result: Its best to max out speed. You act before the enemy and you have many AP which you should use to hard CC enemies before their turn. You could win most fights without being hit.

Hi Max Quest, you were faster than me. I have the feeling that 4 actions per round would be too much in any case.

I had to read the pathfinder PnP rules in the internet because the computer game tells you very little about game mechanics. So in pathfinder ( and probably DnD too, pathfinder is kind of DnD 3.75) you have: - free actions: These are "non actions", or stuff you need to do to perform an action or turn on/off a stance. Things like + barbariens can enter rage or stop to be enraged. Similar stuff for other "stances" + You can chose to hold a weapon with 1 or 2 hands + There are no items or spells as free action - Swift actions ( thats what you mean ). They can only be used once per round. + Quickened spells or some very fast extra attacks (e.g. cleave ) - standart actions: everything that is not described as sometings else, usually its doing an attack, casting a spell or using an item - full round action: You do somethings that takes a long time so you cannot move in this round. + casting a spell with a very long casting time. + making a full attack, where you try to attack more than once per round - move action: Usually you can use one move action and one standert action per round. You can chose not to make a standart action and move twice as long instead. You can chose not to move and make a full round action instead. For PoE2 turn based mode this means: You should only be able to use one swift action per round ( the stuff that is now a free action). You can do one swift action and one standart action per round. Maybe you can do two swift actions per round, in this case the second swift action would be considered a standart action and your round ends. PS: I have never played a PnP game and I read the rules only to understand the computer game. If somebody knows those things better, please explain this stuff.

How about: story-archs? The advantage DLCs have is that they are linear - while stories are more shallow that in the base game the narrative team has an advantage of creating more traditional storyline. Base game is highly unlinear and almost every bit of content can be done in any order. While individual quests do together create a wider tapestry they don't have a focused direction and buildup as a more traditional story would have. Witcher3, while being open world, consists of multiple linear lengthy paths, rather than bunch of individual vinettes. This free design can be done well: see Fallout New Vegas, and I might be wrong, but I think that the difference is that NV has a finally which brings a lot of your precious adventures together. Or I might be off. But yeah, there is lots of good stuff in Deadfire but it doesn't resonate, so to speak. I think thats it. In The Witcher 3 you have several main story quest lines you can follow however you like and each main quest line can lead to other side quest lines that are interesting on their own ( Bloody Baron family reunion, viking king election, conflict between several mafia groups, . . . ) I also think a good dungeon should also tell a story. A good example that was mentioned often was the vault in New Vegas, where you have the election who gets sacrificed. In deadfire I did not like the many small "dungeons" with only one encounter. They were not bad, they were just not very interesting. World map encounters that disappear after you solve them are absolutely fine (e.g. several bounties), but a dungeon should be a bit more than one room with one group of enemies and a few traps. I think Poko Kohara was the only halfway good dungeon in the base game. PoE1 had the temple of Eothas, Readrics keep and Skean cultists as interesting dungeons with a story and some importent choices at the end and at the end of the game you had sun in shadows with an epic boss fight at the end.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0688ry0ipxj291p/AAD7WliOALbje0guKlNsUEexa?dl=0 Here is a link to all the crash logs I found in the PoE2 folder.

In the article I read about the shrink gun. In Duke Nukem you could shrink yourself by shooting at a mirror and then you could walk through tiny passages for some time. In Half Life 2 you could use the gravity gun to pick up and throw objects. Somethings simple as using a cowbar or explosives to open new paths. Do we have an X-Ray gun that can look and shoot through walls? ( Perfect Dark for N64 had it.) Is there a way to throw enemies? Or push them back so they fall off a cliff. I really like what I see so far and I hope the funny things in the game will not be limited to dialogue but there are also funny things the player can do.