Voss

Depends what they are. At this point they're nice in theory, but may well not be cost effective. Just like the PoE1 Cipher- for a long time it was worth sticking with the low level paralyze and simply recasting it, as the higher level stuff wasn't cost effective.

Doesn't berserker\skald have a similar hit to crit conversion? (From frenzy) Grab some clubs and bang on your drums (enemies) all day.

Honest question: why do you assume that they would port PoE 1 to PoE 2's engine? What would be the point of that? I can't help but think it'd be a considerable waste of time with zero return. Because that's what developers do these days. Skyrim, for example, had its... 5th? iteration for... reasons, recently. All those FF re-masters and Enhanced Editions. The game industry is taking cues from the film industry and just wholesale stuffing old content into new boxes.

An acceptable answer, certainly of the original trilogy. Both it and DA2 were very good at tight character stories that actually developed the companions. Terrible end-games, though, but that's hardly surprising.

I think Mass Effect 3 was great! Ok that's a lie, I think it was better than people said, but it is the worst real Mass Effect game. On a 10 scale I would give it like a 7. I refuse to count Andromeda as a Mass Effect game by the way . It was such a let down after 1 and 2 though. Yes, Andromeda does not exist, let us not speak of it. Andromeda was the best ME game. (Though as many games do, it falls apart in the final act) ME1 fondness is mostly nostalgia and posturing at this point. Replaying it , it's a fairly hollow series of fetch quests.

From the context, josh was commenting on banters specifically. Actually, not being part of the relationship mechanics cuts down on banter. Banter is specifically dialogue between characters. (Eder wanting to pet Sagani's fox, she warns him about being bitten, etc). It -doesn't- mean they won't be barking their equivalents of 'For Eothas!' or 'What does the flame reveal.'. Nor does it mean there isn't a short dialogue tree about their origins and goals.

Seriously? It isn't. The NPCs and 'story' simply aren't interactive enough. Its an entertaining hack\slash and exploration game, but the RPG elements are light and largely irrelevant. And choice and consequence are kept in the writers' hands, not the player. Its generally true of all of Bethesda's games and New Vegas as well. And most third acts of obsidian games (which have a noticeable 'we ran out of time\money, so sit back and let us tell you how you should feel about this and what your choices really meant')

Is the fact that ydwin won't ask to pet the ranger's eagle but Eder will worth any amount of internet outrage?

They didn't state that there would be banter but they didn't state that there weren't be banters, so you can use that argument for both cases. To be honest I thougth it was quite clear that there would have some banters.That isn't how logic works. If the stretch goal doesn't say something is specifically included, then they're under no obligation to do It. I'm still not particularly convinced you know what 'banter' is in this context

Do you need one? Your citation doesn't mention banter at all. They'll likely have barks, but that's about it. Seems a waste in several cases, since they've made such a huge deal about full voice and the critical role kids (and some are just sidekicks), but there aren't any broken or misleading promises here. Assuming you know what banter is (and isn't)...

So... 'Back in the day' meaning... 2015 to 2016? And specifically the prequel to this very game. Ok? White March was exactly this for a Kickstarter cRPG. You just said it was very well done. Pick a stance for at least one post. There are concerns with some of Obsidians dlc practices (Tyranny), but ranting about how terrible the practice is and citing ones you think were excellent is just...bizarre.

ToB was also rather terrible, both in terms of writing and having to cope with high level D&D (and failing). So as expansions go, it's a pretty poor example. On the other hand, obsidian's recent expansions (for Tyranny) have been absolute garbage tier, short missions with little content at all. Or even portrait packs. So these are probably going to be a crap shoot in terms of quality. Hpepfully at least two will be White March rather than Bastard's Wound (or tales from the tiers...)

Ugh, no. Spare me from pointless tech 'improvements' that are worse than current devices in all possible ways. If a developer wastes time and money on implementing that kind of crap, the game isn't going to be worth buying in the first place. It's like the local McDonald's putting in kiosks to spare customers from the convenience of ordering and paying at a register, only to have them have to go to the registers to pay anyway. Two lines, more waiting, and now with folks milling about between the two confused.

Obsidian isn't EA last time I checked......Never have I played their main game, and felt it was unfinished before.... And even in PoE 1. WM DLC's were completely separate from the main game. Hmm. All of obsidians games have felt unfinished to me, a terribly short 3rd act wrapped around a terrible, dull bullet-spongey boss fight.With most of the interesting plot threads abandoned elsewhere, to boot. But the meat (particularly side quests and exploration) are usually worth sticking around for. But that has little to do with 3 dlc. If they're anything like white march, they'll be significantly better than the main game. As long as they aren't like dead money: a railroad through bad combat to a pointless conclusion and a bar on just leaving and skipping all the garbage.

Does a barbarian\druid get carnage and stag carnage off of all of their attacks?

Not sure what you mean. In PoE 1, all you had to do was throw the laggards into a couple stronghold 'adventures' and they caught up (or even surpassed) the party. If there isn't anything like that, I suppose they could fall behind. I'm not really worried about it though- with a few exceptions (Pallegina and Maia, ie paladin and ranger), there is a lot of redundancy in class availability. For the most part you can pick companions on personality and not worry about missing roles or skill sets.

Well first one correction, you mean Original Sin 2 AND Persona 5, cause I promise you Persona 5 does not have even half the budget of say Witcher 3, maybe not even a quarter. That said, you are right, it does not tell the whole story. But it does make my point, people like VO in their video games, even RPG's. This is not a "bioware" thing, or a "console fanboy" thing. Looking at the top rated RPG's for the last 5 years you will see almost all of them had full VO, or really close to it. If it was not considered an important feature, or worse considered a detriment, all the top rated RPG's wouldn't have it. A lot of users on niche forums, which is what this is, live in a bubble and refuse to ever consider the big picture. My post is not to say full VO or death, or even that Deadfire can compete with those games (though I promise you I will like it more than Original Sin 2). I am just pointing out that full VO is basically a staple of most video games these days, even RPG's. Suggesting it is a mistake is living in denial of modern gaming standards, and more to the point, no one has any proof to indicate the money could have been spent better elsewhere. Or a rejection of modern gaming 'standards,' since they're fairly crap. A good chunk of IGN's triple AAA 'RPGs' you cited.... aren't RPGs. They're vaguely RPG-adjacent, but not much more- a lot of (shoot or hack/slash) & exploration games. Last year's critic's pet was an RPG, but that was deemed excellent long before even the review copies were in circulation. But if your entire point boils down to 'no one has any proof to indicate the money could have been spent better elsewhere, then again, no one has any proof to indicate the money couldn't have been spent better elsewhere. That isn't much of an argument at all. You're blithely assuming that full VO is a draw or even noticed in these games, but there isn't anything inherent in their sales that highlights full VO over gameplay or writing. Nor does it account for critic/publisher deemed failures with full VO like ME:Andromeda. Given that Obsidian still hadn't resolved what the basic attributes even were (among a lot of other ugly system changes from PoE1, or even beta3 to beta4) right before they delayed release, I'm very confident that they've had some serious project management problems. 'Suddenly full VO' as a major feature in the lull between delay and release does little but reinforce that perception.

Immersion? What's immersive about constantly cutting people off in mid sentence because they're. just. not. keeping. up? This really feels like setting money on fire just because someone at the top read an interview with Bioware that full VO is something that the kids like these days.

Which Thaos would have fixed himself: he was done collecting souls for Woedica, and would have let the activated machines power off. The game actually tells you this. And getting rid of the grandmaster unsurprisingly doesn't alter the behavior of this unbelievably stupid organization. They mindlessly follow the commands they already have (as witnessed if you don't break the machine in heritage hill: they just reactivate it again as per standing orders). So, while you've accidentally ended Thaos' personal role in various atrocities and genocides (by murdering him over an obvious answer), the organizations and gods he created will continue them like the mindless idiots they are.

Disagree entirely. There is a ton of mindlessly derivative nonsense unrelated to anything at all, but nothing inspired or interesting. Or hidden, particularly. Just click on anything that passes by, nod at the infodump, shrug and move on. Azeroth sadly has a lot more hidden and interesting secrets. My first impression was actually pretty good. It even stayed pretty steady over the course of the sidequests in chapter one. Chapter two lowered it immensely, the end of chapter 2 broke my opinion entirely, and chapter 3 impressed me immensely (in a bad way) by having the game/story devolve even further into railroad nonsense, bad even worse storytelling and nothing interesting to see or do, except witness writers regurgitate the same stale palp they've done a half-dozen times before. All the while the game became less challenging, less interesting and less interactive.

Mine? They don't tie together at all. I was happy to murder Thaos because he was a genocidal maniac and religious zealot, and the key to the most hamfisted railroad plot ever. The soul-question-navel-gazing drivel was a complete waste of time, and read like a first year philosophy student's first attempt at simplistic questions that most people wouldn't even bother with. The only 'pressing question' I had was why he was so obsessed with not facing reality, and why he chose to be a murderous &@#& as his method of not coping with it. Especially since his methodology produced even more death and suffering in trying to a) create it, and b) maintain it and c) restore it after it already partially failed.

That stops regardless of what choice you make.

Its actually easier on hard, because there are fewer summons, and they don't automatically block the path to Maerwald. The big problem is is getting caught on the scenery and not realizing the bedroll and crap on the floor isn't valid to walk over. If you stay bunched up, it can be easy to be burned down.

Nope. Just be the first character they run into, and the terrible AI takes care of the rest. Engagement only matters if you're stupid enough to run your squishies in front of the tank, and then try to run away.

A fair and reasonable review of PoE, I feel. I think the biggest issue it doesn't mention is that many of the problems were raised during the beta period... and never addressed.