xzar_monty

By the way, is there a major cRPG out there that does NOT have a boss-fight at the end? I suppose it would be a brave thing to do one. I can deal with boss-fights (once) if they have a meaning. But stuff like the megabosses in Deadfire feels totally uninteresting to me. (However, I think it's nice that they're there for the people who like them, and that they are entirely skippable for those that don't.)

So, what are the options that did change things significantly in PoE but do not in Deadfire? You are not being very clear in what you write, so could you perhaps explain this a little? Also, what are the limitations that you are talking about in the final part of what I quoted? Your post as a whole seems a bit odd, because I don't frankly understand the problems you describe -- I didn't seem to have them. Also, if a game appeared as unpleasant as Deadfire seems to appear to you, I certainly would not spend 50 hours playing it. One or two would be enough (in fact, I only spent one or two hours playing D:OS2).

That, again, is not hatred. It is foolish, yes, if that's what it is.

I agree that @bugarup is being a bit too silly for this forum, but your comment isn't exactly great, either. Ever notice how the word "hate" is thrown around a bit too much these days? Notice how you did it yourself? You know, bugarup's usage of the word, and his attitude, do not actually constitute hatred. Hating is strong. Bugraup is just being silly. (Yes, this comment is ever so slightly grouchy. We had a good discussion going...)

This, btw, appears to be a temperamental thing. The desire of novelty vs. love of repetition. A good way to illustrate it is music: some people love to improvise and play the same piece slightly differently every time. Other people can't improvise and absolutely insist on playing a piece "according to how it's written". There are degrees to this, of course, but the extremes are also quite apparent. Please note: neither approach is right or wrong.

Please be aware that many of the Deadfire translations are known to be awful. So you may learn plenty of very strange things without knowing it. The idea is wonderful, I agree, but the application is lacking.

One thing you really should know is that the first island is going to be extremely tough on PotD. Gorecci Street and the Digsite are really going to test you. Nothing that happens after the first island is likely to be as difficult as the beginning of the game (except perhaps the megabosses).

Your argument becomes a lot less convincing the minute you resort to using terms like "boomers". Please don't generalize like that. It doesn't help.

This is a really good question. As a rule, I don't replay these games, because my approach is so story-oriented that I tend to lose interest once I know how things turn out(*). However, the smarter cRPGs have solved a part of this problem by introducing more characters than you can reasonably have in any one playthrough *and* providing those characters with enough unique content so that multiple playthroughs become a possibility. So, if I do a second playthrough, I tend to rely on characters that I didn't use on my first playthrough. That gives new motivation. But obviously the story problem remains. I think the only game I've played more than 3 times is BG2, and even there I didn't do ToB on all playthroughs (because there's so much railroading). I've done PoE three times and Deadfire twice. My current, third Deadfire playthrough appears to have stalled, and I don't know whether I will ever finish it -- there's a clear sense of just going through the motions now, because I know how everything is going to turn out. (*) If a game has a clear "good" and "evil" path, that's not enough for me, because I just don't enjoy playing evil. This is not to say that I'm a goody-good paladin or anything; I simply don't like to play evil. In DD terms, I'm generally Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, maybe Chaotic Good, but never Evil.

FTL is described as roguelike, which sounds great (NetHack being probably the best game I've ever played), but although the game does look interesting, I think I'll give it a pass. But Avellone appears to have been quite busy at some point.

I understand all these concerns perfectly well. However, what about these that I think are equally valid: 1) Especially in interiors, the sprites are too big, which means that they can get stuck in all kinds of corners in all kinds of unfunny ways. Even to the extent that once an encounter starts, your characters cannot actually move (except perhaps one by one, and starting backwards) because they all occupy essentially the same spot. That's a funny one. [To be fair, though: In PoE your biggest enemy in the game was in-combat pathfinding. It was a lot more dangerous than any monster.] 2) The area which the game regards as "clicking on the character on-screen" is a lot bigger than the actual character sprite on the screen, which means that you can't direct any of your characters to move close to the spot he's in at the moment. This is not possible, because the game regards "clicking close to the sprite" as "clicking on the sprite", i.e. activating it. 3) Movement speed dropping to your "field of molasses" essentially at random but also essentially in every single fight, at least once. I know you can get it back to normal, but for crying out loud, I shouldn't need to do that in the first place. 4) The blatant cheating in many of the encounters. Monsters appear out of thin air into spaces that were vacant (as far as I know, your regular wolf or goblin cannot teleport), traps appear in places that didn't have traps before, etc. I have no idea what the designers were thinking here. Having said all that, and keeping in mind that the writing is cheesy and poor, it's a miracle that the game is actually good! I have finished it. The last chapter was terrible, the encounter design was so mean and cruel it's beyond belief, but I did finish the game.

At this point, I'm quite unlikely to try them. But thanks for the info on where he's got his reputation from. Appreciated.

I agree that Zahua looked really interesting. But I was playing a monk myself, so...

No.

I don't know if that's controversial, but I honestly don't know what he's like. As you say, he appears so late, perhaps even too late. I've done a couple of playthroughs, and it just hasn't felt natural or right to take him along. By the time I get to him, everything's already pretty settled, and I don't want to change things around just for the sake of it. Apparently, Hiravias has something hilarious to say at the final confrontation with Thaos. I've no idea what it might be. (You get to Kana early. You get to finish his quest quite early. After that, it's easy to give him a rest and take someone else along. But at that point, you're not even close to meeting Hiravias -- or at least I was not.)

In fact, the internet used to be an incredibly good place for excellent argumentation. It's only with the Eternal September of 1993 that things went wrong. Before that, lemme tellya, it was great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

I'm not sure about "most", but yes, this is a frustrating phenomenon, and it appears to be getting more and more common. The inability to distinguish between one's own reactions and the source of those reactions... Heck, I don't like James Joyce's Ulysses, but it would be mad to claim that it's not well written. Another aspect of this baffling black-and-whitism is that if you present a criticism of a game or some other thing, or if you simply don't like it, then for some reason you're regarded as a "hater". I just can't get my head around it. Metallica haven't been interesting for ages, and their drummer has got so much worse than he used to be, but that doesn't make me a "hater". And of course, if you do like something, then you're a "fanboy", as if you don't have any critical faculties at all... It's all very strange.

Do you know any of the reasons why they're putting Sagani down? She has a very good backstory, and there's a fairly poignant, almost a tragic sense to her quest and her being so far away from the rest of her life. I think it's well-written and well thought out. Aloth's indecisive nature is also quite well portrayed, but what keeps him from being one of the best characters is the fact that although you can give him a kick on the backside, as it were, you don't really get to know whether anything happens, whether it changes anything. Now, this is realistic, because change is genuinely difficult and people tend not to change even if they should, but it doesn't make him an interesting companion in a fantasy game. If there's a sense of being caught between two worlds, it's best (in a fantasy game) if you can somehow affect change -- see, for instance, Viconia and Sarevok in BG2.

Ok, fair point, thanks for that. I am by no means an expert on Pathfinder lore, and if it's indeed there in the PnP, then it's a different matter. Good clarification, that. (The whole transforming weapon thing looks a bit silly to me, but that doesn't matter, and I'm not using that as an argument.)

There is that, I agree. I believe Deadfire made a huge effort to balance things so that pretty much all reasonable choices lead to a good (or at least not bad) game. And I must say Obsidian succeeded really well. The game is not able to react to choices in the way the GM is in a PnP, but choices tend to be rewarded. For me, the downside of all this balancing was obvious in the items, both loot and shop items: nothing stood out. Nothing made me go wow. It's a logical consequence of this balancing, but it was still disappointing. (However, Deadfire is a great game.)

Hmm. I understand the logic here, but it appears it speaks of an entirely different approach from the one I tend to have. Broadly speaking, the choices appear to be these: 1) Playing the game in a way where optimization is key and where one of your primary aims is to squeeze out as much potential as is mathematically possible. By potential I mean your capacity for damage output, AC, all that. Along with this, there may be a desire to exploit the system, even actively look for possible loopholes in it. 2) Playing the game in a way where the emphasis is on building your characters according to your personal preferences and role-playing desires. You make choices and then you live with them, even if some of them may not be ideal in terms of how much damage you can deal, and so on. The point is role-playing, adventuring, all that. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but the more strictly you commit to one of them, the more different they become. If there is a sentient weapon in the game and if that weapon is able to transform into any shape, then it also means that your choices don't really matter that much anymore. Whichever choice you made, this weapon will serve you. From an optimization perspective, this is perfectly fine, but from a role-playing perspective, it's an obvious cop-out.

In my view, Durance's a zealot driven to extreme actions by the power of his faith. I would say this applies quite well to Xoti, too. He does do some soul-searching towards the end, which is good, and I agree that he is a nicely-written character, but I don't think he's especially different. What is certain is that he's not your goody-good rpg priest, that's for sure. Thanks for the Kotor info. I haven't played any of the Star Wars games, so I cannot comment on them, but if he's done good work there, that's obviously great.

But there is a difference between Watcher visions in general and Durance & the Grieving Mother in particular. I am inclined to agree with @theleeon this. For the record, I have no previous opinion or even knowledge of Chris Avellone, but my experiences of his writing (Durance, the Grieving Mother, Nok-Nok in P:K) are not anything special. Durance is genuinely good, but a fair amount of that is due to the voice acting. The Grieving Mother is ok, but she remains too distant and ethereal to be engaging. Nok-Nok is not interesting. (I think the best-written characters in PoE are Eder and Sagani. There are no best-written characters in P:K.) Where did Avellone gain his reputation? This is a sincere question; I really do not know. I am not saying he's poor, but he hasn't especially shone in what I've seen, so I'm curious.

This is one thing I've been wondering. If demon hordes are laying waste to everything, how can you start at level 1. Well, I suppose you're not going to meet the demon hordes for a while...

Very interesting, thanks a lot for that! I don't know whether that can happen in my game, but maybe we'll see.