Blarghagh

I don't have time to respond to everything you wrote and i have no desire to write a novella, but I'll respond to a couple things that stuck out. First, your statement that a tabletop game isn't comparable to a cRPG is flat out false. Just because you don't feel like the comparison is valid, does not automatically make it so. My personal opinion on the matter still stands: even in the cRPG medium, encounter design can be tailored to rectify pretty much all of the "issues" that have been quoted as the reasons for reducing the party size from 6 to 5. Just look at the IE games... there are no shortage of encounters where a bunch of trash mobs weren't required to make a challenging encounter (i.e. dragon fights, demilich, Irenicus, to name a few). Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'm getting tired of 'micromanaging' being brought up as a NEGATIVE all the time and used as justification to introduce simplification in games where there's already much too rampant oversimplification already (look no further than The Elder Scrolls franchise). I actually happen to LIKE micromanaging. I loved combat in the IE games and still do. Given the choice between another playthrough of BG2 or PoE, I would choose BG2 any day. Which leads me to comment on the statement: What better content? I liked PoE, don't get me wrong, but an actually worthy successor to BG2? I think not (in my opinion). BG2 is the superior game, by far. After all this time and getting back to the genre, there were high hopes that Deadfire would be to PoE what BG2/ToB was to BG/ToTSC. Personally, for my own taste in games, I don't see that happening now because they're departing too far from the formula that won them their initial KS success in the first place, by appealing to fans of the IE games. Last but not least, I have to comment on the 'nostalgia and memory' comment. It's a tired, old argument and it needs to stop. I've heard it way too often when attempting to discuss the merits of the IE titles compared to what's on offer today. The thing with nostalgia and rose-coloured-glasses is that they don't stand up to modern/recent exposure. Nostalgia is when someone claims 'those were the good old days' without being able to remember the flaws and negatives of the thing. This isn't at play, though (for me, anyway) since I still play the IE titles all the time. There's no 'nostalgia' when I can say, unequivocally, that I'll be playing through BG2 again in the next few months for probably about the dozenth time in my life, if not more than that. BG2 set the bar high, and it hasn't been met yet. I was hoping Deadfire would aspire to. But, for me, it never will because of these fundamental changes to the gameplay mechanics. Nostalgia doesn't disappear if you touch something again later. Regardless, when I said better product I didn't mean "better product than BG2", although why you'd take such a sentiment so personally is a mystery to me. I simply meant a better product than it would be with 6. By pointing out so many things that worked for BG and the Infinity Engine games that didn't work for PoE, you pretty much make my point for me that those things won't neccesarily work for the sequel. For the record, I like BG2 just fine for what it is and I'm halfway through a Wild Mage comedy playthrough with my buddies Minsc and Jan Jansen right now, but I also don't think it's a pinnacle of gaming. You conveniently handwave everything I said without any real counter argument regarding the difference between tabletop and game design, but that still doesn't make you right. A tabletop game still doesn't have to account for screen real estate, visual bloat, readability, UI size, pacing, as well as budget and resource allocation during development etc. - since you like to boast "I know, I'm a DM" I'm going to counter that with my "I know, I'm a game developer" experience to point out that a game dev is not going to have to infinite time to perfectly tune every encounter the way they want it. Budget (of both time and money) will override a lot time-consuming design work. As I've already explained in depth, this change of party size is a much more economical change than rewriting the engine, pathing code, ability and engagement system and pretty much everything else so they can tune their encounters around 6 better. Especially because I still see no reason why 6 is better for PoE other than "well it totally worked for those games!" Using BG2 still as an example because you did, despite being a "spiritual successor" PoE has some very different requirements. The most important difference is that half the classes in BG had no real abilities to speak of and the others shared the same abilities. For the most part Monks, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Barbarians were set and forget, Clerics and Druids shared a lot of the same spells, and Mages, Sorcerors and Bards had access to exactly the same spells. Other than backstab and traps which were useless until ToB, thieves were practically a non-combat class with their strength lying in disarming traps, opening doors and picking pockets instead. In PoE, every single class has it's own list of unique and important skills and abilities with their own effects and strengths, not to mention all the other systems in place that affect combat, like the engagement mechanic and crafting, that BG2 doesn't have. There's so much going on that it's a LOT harder to keep track of, and you have to use your characters a lot more even in trash encounters. Despite being isometric RPGs with RtwP combat, their combat systems really aren't that similar. For the record, BG1 and 2 actually had waaaay more boring trash than PoE. IN BG1 you're cutting down scores of Hobgoblins pretty much the second you're on the road, and anyone who thinks BG2 didn't have trash fights where you were up against hordes of disposable, boring enemies clearly never played enough of it to hear the phrase "you have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself". Your handful of examples are the exception rather than the rule, barring Irenicus, whose encounter holds a high place in the "most disappointing end boss" pantheon especially considering how cool he was before you fight him. Entire armies of orcs, sahuagin, drow, beholders and vampires get put to the sword in that game in fairly dull filler. The difference is that the trash isn't very involved - it doesn't take any effort because devs weren't focused on game balance and challenge. BG 2 is all about setting and companions and flavour and good ol' fantasy escapism. Half the fun in BG 2 is in creating character builds that completely break the game, like Kensai/mages or Ranger/clerics. PoE takes some cues from that, but the tactical side seems to take more cues from Icewind Dale and the story more cues from Planescape Torment's philosophical discussions on what life is worth, and it adds its own goals and designs like how it takes great pains to have all the classes be mostly balanced which BG 2 definitely was not (go ahead, pick Wizard Slayer and pretend you're not gimped from the start by a completely unviable and worthless kit). Being inspired by IE games doesn't mean having the same priorities as a single one, as clearly the IE games all had very different priorities and goals. See, even just a cursory look at the community behind the IE games provides ample evidence that this statement is just ridiculously uninformed. BG/BG2 were released almost 2 decades ago now, and they are STILL relevant today, played by tons of people, modded to hell and back, and then even after all that an enhanced edition of the Vanilla (unmodded) experience was released and sold exceptionally well. There may come a day when i eat crow, but personally I don't believe for a second that PoE will ever have the same following that BG and IE titles in general did, and STILL DO. BG2 was everything it's cracked up to be. Who cares, though? This isn't BG 2. This isn't TRYING to be BG 2. At most this is a sequel to a game that was, as a "spiritual (not literal) successor" to isometric RPGs and IE games, in part inspired by some of the things that were also in BG 2. It never advertised itself otherwise. What worked to make that game great was a combination of lots of things, but PoE isn't looking to carbon copy all the things BG 2 did and doing one thing different at all is going to upset that balance. Again, what worked for BG 2 isn't neccesarily going to work for another game. If you want to play BG 2 again because it's the best game ever or whatever, no one's stopping you. But you've got some very wonky expectations for PoE. For the record, while I like BG 2 just fine and this is not the argument I'm making, an argument could be made that all those things are true simply because it panders to the lowest common denominator. Skyrim is modded to hell and back, doesn't make it a good game. Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, doesn't mean it's the best movie. Final Fantasy VII isn't the best Final Fantasy, Majorah's Mask sucks, World of WarCraft has people paying good money every month to play it for over a decade but that doesn't make it anything more than a loot pinata simulator etc. etc. blah blah yadda yadda. Your arguments don't prove quality, just popularity. Yeah, lots of people keep going back to BG. So what? Big whoop. Lots of people also have some extra pounds because they keep going back to McDonalds.

Ah, dear BG1 lightning storms. Jaheira screaming in distress as Khalid gets one-shot by a random bolt from the Gods. Me laughing at the useless berk's misfortune. Good times, good times.

A tabletop game isn't comparable even if you insist otherwise - not just because party size and challenge rating aren't the same thing, and because party size restrictions aren't really a thing in tabletop, but because in game design the encounter design doesn't exist in a vacuum. A game has many other things to take into account, like pacing, visual bloat and readability (hugely numerous complaints about PoE encounters) to deal with. Just because it works for your DM campaign doesn't mean it works for game design: Because of the aforementioned visual bloat and readability problems, you're restricted in how many abilities you can add to your encounters. Lots of ability effects going off at the same. Those effects could be short or small, but then your player might not see them all. They're long and flashy? They bleed into each other. Encounters just turns it into mush, hard to keep up with and hideous to look at. Especially if you want to add any cool visuals to it - who wants their fireball to be a little pop? It might read well, but it's not cool. So instead of giving your encounters more abilities, you could make your encounters have more hitpoints and hit harder, but that's boring, makes fights longer but not really giving your players more meaningful choices. What you want is to make sure your party has to position itself strategically, but again because of visual reasons like that bloat, readability, resolution, UI size, screen real-estate etc. you're also restricted in your arena size. Most rooms in PoE take up the entire screen, so obstacles are minor and even if they weren't, the pathing issues would make it a nightmare. But you still have to, as I said, balance your encounters with the amount of players out in the field, because the sheer amount of active abilities in PoE means all characters in your party are going to be using abilities. Reducing the amount of abilities per character would remove a crapload of strategic choices per encounter from the player, and one major goal of PoE was to make sure no class was boring like an IE game fighter (set and forget), so that's a no-go as well. Options are getting incredibly reduced, aren't they? So in the end, to make sure most characters have something to do and it's still challenging while also keeping it readable, PoE ended up throwing in extra trash in most fights. They don't require a lot of micromanagement or screen real-estate but they do affect positioning and how many abilities the encounter is able to hold, after all. Raedric got some extra guards, trash encounters were larger because you can't really have two Xuarips pose a threat to anything to put it bluntly but you need some trash for flavour and lore reasons. And lo and behold, excessive trash and need for micromanaging (six players worth of abilities) every encounter ALSO become a numerous complaint about PoE. I mean it's all well and good to dump this all on the encounter design not being good enough, but no offense, game designers have much more to deal with to make something work than a random DM. As Josh himself stated, this choice was designed exactly to make it easier for them to create more interesting encounters with the limitations they currently have. Less bloat and trash, more readability and strategic choices. With the addition of multiclassing to make up for it so you can still cover all the roles you could before with less characters in your party, it solves or at least lessens a lot of issues. I mean, yes, they could pour all their energy and completely rewrite their engine and the way abilities work and everything else so they can fix those issues just so they can keep it at 6, but considering they can solve it more easily this way and concentrate and actually delivering more and better content, why would they? I'm not sure what's so magical about the number 6, other than "The IE games did it", in the first place. If your nostalgia and memory of a game hinges on a number, I'm not sure what will make you happy, tbh. It's a balancing act, and right now it's more economical to use 5 for a better end product.

As much as this makes sense, I don't like super-long cast times (battle-speed in PoE1 was such that lengthy chants evocations (4-5) didn't get used much if at all as the battle was over already - summon drake to deal with the one ooze that's left). that's the kinda trade-off being proposed though, yes? is more powerful, but takes longer, so why would you use your tactical nuke to deal with the single ooze? with per encounter, your are less likely to have exhausted all of your useful solitary ooze killing spells during your previous two encounters. You wouldn't use it on a single ooze - is my point (added emphasis to 'that's left' above for clarification). At the start of battle there were a number of enemies more dangerous that would make that summon useful - by the time it became available, it was useless (except when facing the uber-dragons who could last that long.) If it takes too long to cast a spell, that spell almost never gets used. I can understand that from a purely balance perspective - but not from a fun/variety perspective Not that I think uber-nukes should be available for every encounter either - it's a balancing act. Of course it depends on how long is 'long' - may be they hit the sweet spot that I think is perfect, maybe not. It's why I like my idea of being able to defend the caster at the expense of attacking - it'd be a tactical decision 'wail on an enemy physically and cast faster spells' or 'defend the caster for a while and wait for a big boom' I agree with you. This cooldown system has some issues, though currently the vancian system does too. But also, ideally there should be something preventing you from using your nukes on a random pair of trash xuarips, I just think the Vancian system's a pretty poor way to do that. Ask yourself, are you being encouraged me to ration your spells for encounters because it's interesting or rewarding? Or are you simply being discouraged from using spells because what you have to do to replenish them is inconvenient and boring as sin? Any mechanic that can easily be worked around if you're willing to be bored or inconvenienced for a bit (slogging back to an inn or paying for more camping supplies) isn't a very meaningful mechanic, IMO. Judging by judicious use of rest-spamming in IE games and even PoE (like I said, it's only a slight inconvenience) not a very immersive one either. Seems to me the Vancian system is currently failing to reach its intended goals on all accounts. Something that might work is like the health/endurance split. Per encounter spells combined with per rest magic points. Higher level spells cost more points, running out doesn't stop you from casting but causes some kind of fatigue (like injury except for using too many spells instead of taking too much damage) that makes you much weaker. Still managing your resources, keeping the rest mechanic, and not using nukes on goblins, but also no reason to sleep between every fight because you used up your daily alloted usage of Slicken and your mage isn't completely useless when you've used up his spells. Possibly combined with some kind of soft cooldown on resting, something that gets removed in case of injury or fatigue but otherwise a perfectly healthy party can't sleep for 8 hours 20 minutes after they slept for 8 hours. I dunno, just spitballing right now.

4. Less trash and more readable and tactical encounters - most fights in PoE (and the IE games too) ended up having extra trash to deal with the amount of characters you were bringing and how many abilities they have. 5. Redundancy: With multiclassing returning, characters have an easier time assuming multiple roles. That's ridiculous. First of all, that's not what's happening. With six, you're going to get encounters padded with more trash to balance out the amount of players you put out on the field. You have enough characters to deal with any meaningful thing the enemy throws at you unless they give the enemies an impossible amount of skills too. That's the aspect that's currently broken with six, and the aspect they're trying to fix. Second, none of these "aspects" exist in a vacuum. A change in one aspect is going to affect the other. A game needs to have many systems working in tandem. You say you don't want change for the sake of change, but what you're saying is more like staying the same for the sake of staying the same. Once again I have trouble understanding some objections. How is six characters more tactical? I feel like five + multiclassing is plenty to cover all your bases and experiment, while leaving you with more meaningful choices. In PoE you can have a dedicated tank, a DPS-offtank, straight DPS, DPS caster, support caster and debuff caster in one team. You literally don't have to choose anything. You can cover every single possible weakness twice over. Less room for each role makes you have to make more tough tactical choices, not less. You can multiclass into those things, but you're not going to be able to cover all your bases as well with people entirely dedicated to it, meaning you'll have more a challenging and interesting experience where you have to make more choices that actually matter.

Isn't that the intended trade-off? Access to two sets of skills on one character compared to being better with one set of skills on the other. For example: If the fighter/mage doesn't lose out on deflection compared to a pure fighter of the same levels, then the fighter/mage casting stoneskin before the fight is always going to be the better option for tanking, isn't it? Either multi-classes need to sacrifice something for their versatility, or they make pure classes obsolete. But then, I still don't see the need for perfectly balanced power levels in a single player game. Again, viable is good enough for me, I don't need optimal. My balance concerns are "can I make my way through the game with it", not "can I make my way through the game with it easier than anyone else". The only one forcing you to pick the optimal path instead of the path that seems more interesting is you. Especially in PoE, where the difficulty difference between classes seems to be "my Watcher is godlike" and "my Watcher is even more godlike".

Can you explain to me how it's strategic? I've never understood this claim. It seems to me that the choice you refer to as tedious is the only choice you're making. It's convenience rather tactical. You ration your magic because the game gives you mind-numbing boredom if you don't, not because rationing it gives you a tactical edge anywhere because in practice, resting before every encounter always gives you the tactical edge. It's a punishment mechanic, not a tactics mechanic.

Did you feel good about this comment? There is nothing to feel good about when there are criminals as presidents... Tell me about it. Tax evasion is a serious crime.

Tumblr slang for aromantic/asexual. Everything's gotta have a cool tumblr nickname now, despite the fact it makes it look like a fad instead of something real and means tons of people will take it less seriously. I don't think the Watcher should be canon "aro ace" because there should be no canon watcher in the first place. It's a roleplaying game where you make your own character. Their worldview and development should be up to the player. A game with a set lead character established as such could be interesting, but not PoE.

Warmongering sentiment.

Fair enough. I disagree, and I fail to see how your problem seperating viable from optimal should be anybody else's burden, but I'm sure more people feel that way and if it's enough, then Obs should act on it by balancing. Personally I feel like all classes should feel powerful, but it doesn't matter to me if one of them is more powerful than the other. Heck, half the time I gimp myself because I don't like minmaxing - I prefer to have a believable, balanced character than for example dumping int and having the "headcanon" of my character being an idiot because it's more optimal to play the class that way.

Well an equivelant to Bard/Red Dragon Disciple/Pale Master won't be possible I believe? Didn't they say max two classes? I'm not concerned about other people making crazy op builds. I've never been sure why in a single player game everything needs to be perfectly balanced. I don't care if one combo is optimal as long as the others are viable.

TBH I've never liked Vancian casting. It works in tabletop, but in game so far it's come down to spamming a sleep button. Oh no, Aloth ran out of spells again, better sleep in this dungeon surrounded by enemies even though it's the middle of the day. In all practicality it IS per encounter because you can just sleep between every fight, with a slight inconvenience - camping supplies/finding an inn is at most a bit irritating. It's not like dungeon enemies respawn, or at least I've never seen them do it. If I really need more spells I'll go through the irritating slog of retracing my steps, going to an inn, and finding my way back. The only thing encouraging to use less spells isn't strategy, it's annoyance.

Pretty much the only difference I remember is the sniveling guy who greets you at Gilded Vale asking if you've ever given birth to a Hollowborn.

Also dual-wielding scepters and a bunch more combos if I understood that correctly.

On the flipside, we've also had some completely insane "promancers" that felt like any companion you can't romance isn't a companion at all and claimed that to be realistic something HAS to include a bunch of romance and more importantly sex. Fair is fair, some of the BioWare fanbase is... rabid, to say the least, about romances.

You don't really want to come up with the old but flawed argument that just because it's fantasy everyting is possible/arbitrary, do you? Because that's not how fantasy works at all. But yeah, I doubt most people believe that real life is that simple. That's not the issue I have. The issue is that I prefer believable characters that act like real human beings and interesting and meaningful relationships between complex persons instead of just stuff that is full of clichés and flawed concepts about human relationships, even in a fantasy setting. We're pretty much in agreement, honestly. What I meant with my little jab was that in BioWare's ridiculous cliché-storm settings like Mass Effect and Dragon Age those things are perfectly acceptable. Some people here seem to oppose the very concept of romance in games simply based on BioWare's track-record of it not being realistic enough for them. I'm not sure where the idea came from that in those universes, which are about as deep as a puddle, romance needs to be the thing held to a higher standard? I personally don't like them very much, but I can see why people would and am dumbfounded by the sheer hatred some people exhibit. During the original Project Eternity kickstarter we had to institute a dedicated romance thread to keep the flamewars from spilling out... In PoE, which is conceptually a much darker universe trying to paint a much more realistic picture, you'd need a much different approach. Personally I quite enjoyed some of the unrequited love elements present in Obs' KotOR II (especially after the restoration project - Atton's dying declaration of love was nothing short of fantastically written and performed) and I feel an approach like that would be interesting and fitting. None of that gift-giving nonsense. Essentially what you need is a romantic entanglement that doesn't exist simply to "win".

Yeah, it's like in real life. Just say some nice things, be a bit cheesy and make the right presents and every woman will adore you and let you **** her in instant. Life is so simple. /not But the dream lives on, thanks to Bioware... Yes, I'm sure many people think this is how it works because it's how it works in a game with elves and trolls.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/28/after-years-of-liberal-hate-george-w-bush-is-getting-the-respect-he-deserves/ Compare and contrast: https://www.businessinsider.com/george-w-bush-poncho-inauguration-2017-1/?international=true&r=US Once a joke of a president and a symbol of stupidity, always a yadda yadda. It's unfair though. Clearly he never wanted to be President, he was forced into it. He just wants to paint.

When did Bush become respected? Must be a Texan-only idea.

Bioware's best romance was Aerie/Haer'dalis. The fact other people were having their high school drama time made your drama time feel less like gratification for teenagers.

That doesn't seem fitting to a group that mostly consists out of puritan christians.

I hope it's a priest, there always needs to be a priest for those who don't wanna play as priest themselves. Apparently the stretch goal companion "Xoti" is a Priest/Monk, so you've got one.

Excitement for Pillars 2 got me to play Pillars 1 again. I've never actually finished it due to my birth defect of serial character creation, but I'm hoping my Death Godlike Ranger will make it through. Chunked Durance for talking to me, though. **** that guy. EDIT: Damn, looks like I'm not the only one. I second WoD's question - when can I actually access White March stuff? Last time I played was pre-expansion. I'm currently lacking both DPS and Mechanics, so I'm looking to pick up that construct Rogue ASAP.