Crucis
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On 4/25/2020 at 3:32 AM, Ontarah said:
I don't care if these are voiced or not. I'm just generally of the opinion that the more companion dialog of all kinds there is, the better.
Voice talent is extremely expensive, which is why I'm not a fan of it, except on a very limited scale. Now, if most of the companion dialogs were text based, that'd be fine by me.
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On 4/22/2020 at 3:06 PM, Ontarah said:
I was quite satisfied with Deadfire and overall had way, way fewer quibbles with it than I did with POE. Things I would want in POEIII:
1) Go back to 6 person party. I really disliked the reduction and now that I've played it once "as intended" I'm probably going to mod it to allow increased party size in future playthroughs.
2) Ditch the persistent level cap on DLC. DLC should raise the level cap.
3) Allow for a wider range of philosophical positions about the nature of the gods (ranging from "It's my life mission to destroy them" to "They can do no wrong" to "I don't care what they do.") reflected in actual in-game decisions you can make and not just flavor dialog.
4) Work harder to gradually scale difficulty on Normal so newbs can learn and/or have some kind of Tutorial mode that doesn't amount to "Here's a big pile of junk you need to read."
5) Less purple prose describing dialog. Ideally *no* description of dialog unless the player would literally not understand what's happening without it. BG didn't need it. It adds nothing to POE but tediousness.
6) More companions, less open world.
7) More companion banters and dialog, less text adventures
Things I thought that were massive improvements from POE that I do not want to see replaced or removed:
1. Spells and abilities are per encounter and not per rest
2. Health regeneration after each fight (though I'd be fine with no regeneration but being very liberal about where and how often we can rest)
3. Romances
4. Unique magical items and weapons are actually unique and the enchantment system enforces that uniqueness
5. Your companions helping you to pass dialog checks and/or being able to consult a companion who has the obvious knowledge to answer a specialized question for you
6. There being a much greater variety of dialog skills to choose between
7. The companion reputation system
Overall, Deadfire was a solid step up both in combat and companions. The plot was a bit weaker, but so long as the plot isn't *bad* that's one of the things I care about least in an RPG.
Responses.
1) 5 vs 6 person party. I can life with it either way. I find 6 person parties more fun because it's easier to build a party for the long haul. With 6person parties, I like to have a core of 5: a couple of front line tanks, a priest, a spellcaster (cipher or wizard), and a ranged weapon specialist, while leaving the 6th slot for either a jack of all trades character, or as a character I'm using for a specific purpose in a specific battle (like someone built to help the part deal with fampyrs). But with a 5 person party, it gets a good deal trickier, and I tend to lose the jack of all trades character.
2) Persistent level cap. Yes and no. I think that the problem with the DLCs is that the game is balanced for how it was released. And when the "normal" PoE1&2 DLCs are added, you end up with characters who could be might be much more powerful by the time you're making your stretch run for the final battle. I wish that the DLCs were more like the BG2 Throne of Baal expansion which was appended to the core game, AFTER the final battle of BG2 was fought. This way, you don't really have to worry about screwing up the core game with DLCs and a raised level cap. The expansion would have a higher level cap, and you couldn't reach it until after completing the main story line.
3) Nature of the Gods: Personally, I'd rather see a PoE3 ignore the Gods completely. I'm quite bored with the Eoran gods being central to the story.
4) skipped
5) Purple prose: Honestly, it never bothered me.
6) More companions, less open world. These should be two items. More companions, definitely. Less open world, I described how I'd like to see this accomplished in a post elsewhere. What I don't want to see is the game being like IWD1 or 2 where the storyline OBVIOUSLY forced the player down a super narrow path. This was super boring after a while. What would work much better is having a number of larger strategic level maps that covered, perhaps, different countries. And so long as that part of the story stayed in that country, it was open. But at some point, the main storyline would require you to go from country A to country B. And once in country B, you couldn't return to country A. You stayed in country B's open world working the storyline and whatever side quests existed, until it was time to move onward to country C. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
7) More companion banter and dialog, etc. Meh, I don't really care for this, because I foresee it eating up a lot of the budget due to voiceovers, which IMO should be cut wayyyyyy back. To me, voice overs are a waste of money that would be better spent on actual content, rather than pandering to people to lazy to read.
Moving on to "Things I thought that were massive improvements from POE that I do not want to see replaced or removed:"
1. Spells and abilities being per encounter rather than per rest. Personally, I don't think that this was an improvement at all. Honestly, I didn't like this entire part of the new PoE2 combat system. I think that magic is vastly more fun when its use is limited and the player has to manage his limited uses of those things.
2. HP recovery and rest, etc. I kind of feel the same about this as I do about point #1. I like having to manage limited resources. However, regarding resting, thinking back to PoE1, I'm not really sure what "resting supplies" really are? Campfire wood? You can rest without a fire or even a fire to cool. There's plenty of food that can be eaten cold, and probably would be if you were in a dangerous area where lighting a fire could attract dangerous creatures. Blankets? While having a blanket would be nice, I don't see it as a consumable supply. Blankets seem more like something any experienced traveler would have as part of his travel "kit".
As for where one could rest in the wild, it seems to me that resting in an area that hasn't been completely cleared would either not be allowed or come with the risk of being attacked by wandering monsters local to that area. On the other hand, say that you were on the 3rd level of a dungeon, but you'd cleared the 2nd level, I'd think that you should be able to rest safely on the 2nd level.
Side note: It annoyed me that the party could be on the PC's ship and be making a long voyage, but not be considered rested. Seriously, you'd think that your party could be resting most of such a journey, barring moving through a storm. My thinking was that if you'd been at sea for at least 1 day uninterrupted, the party should have been considered fully rested. /side note
3. Romances: They could remove romances as far as I'm concerned.
4. Unique magical items: I think that greater effort should be put into making certain that there are at least 4 different weapons, shields, and armor for each type.
4a. Generic magical weapons/armor: Honestly, it annoyed me that there was so damned many +3 or higher magical weapons (I don't remember the proper adjectives for the different levels of enhancement) and armor. It seems to me that anything that's (probably) +2 or higher is extremely costly to make, and really is far too good for regular troops. Now, I suppose that the Devs may have seen these generic super enhanced armors and weapons as substitutes for other things like jewels or coins as a way to provide rewards. Personally, I'd rather just get the jewels and currency, though there may be other ways to do this. In the game Pathfinder, I think that they have a system where you can find valuable relics. Now these relics can be sold at a regular merchant, but for much below their proper value. What you apparently needed to do is find some sort of special merchant who deals in such relics and would give you top dollar for them. This could be an interesting mechanic.
5. Companions helping pass dialog checks: I agree 100000%.
6+7: Agree on these two as well.
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On 4/22/2020 at 3:06 PM, Ontarah said:
The biggest one of all. DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT make it turn-based. Turn-based optional? Fine, whatever. Turn-based required? NO NO NO.
I completely agree with you on this, Ontarah. I greatly prefer the nice flowing style of battle that RTWP provides. Every time I watch a video about turn based combat, it looks so damned slow. So much stop start, stop start, stop start. Now, admittedly, if one wants to pause a LOT, you can also get a lot of the same stop start, stop start thing. But you can also just let the battle flow and issue your orders while everything continues all around you, if that floats your boat.
EDIT: Meant to include this point in this post. I have no problem, I suppose, with the game having the option for turn based. But the game should be designed with RTWP as the primary combat mode. Honestly, I don't know what the appeal of turn based is over RTWP. I really don't. Turn based looks so damned boring to me.
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16 hours ago, Boeroer said:
Well, they have Stormspeakers (Storm pose no threat as long as a tribe has one), plumbing wasn't a thing in most western civilizations until fairly recently, Huana invented the Voyager which is not a canoe (and it is said that the war canoes of the Wahaki are a frightening and impressive thing to behold) and are scattered around the Archipelago since some foreign dudes came, build some wheel and annihilated their ancestors who build the largest and most advanced empire on Eora and fed them to soul constructs they now call "gods".
Also that's the same argumentation that was used by colonisation forces in Earth's history - and look how well that turned out.
If other people have it worse than you (in your opinion first of all) it's a reason to offer help (not to force it on) - it's not a justification to dominiate.
Of course this is a rather progressive viewpoint in the scope of the history of man. Surely you made that statement from the perspective of the RDC.
Boeroer, this is modern reasoning, not the sort of reasoning one should expect out of civilizations from around the 1400's to 1700's.
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17 hours ago, coralzombie said:
What weapon types are under utilized by the players and why?
To me, the primary reason certain weapon types are underutilized is that there just aren't enough of the unique ones in the game.
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2 hours ago, thelee said:
for me: spears, pollaxes, maces, stilettos, rapiers.
spears and pollaxes because when i plan out my parties engagement factors in, and rarely am I ever in a situation where I've planned around using a weapon to give me engagement. spears also get the shaft because weapons that do pierce damage only are uninspiring because pierce immunity feels like the most common.
maces - i think about PEN issues a lot, and while a mace could help a lot by debuffing AR by 1, these days I bring a long a chanter for shield breaks, have expose vulnerabilities, and otherwise am rarely in aistuation where debuffing AR by 1 helps enough characters (at least two, I think) to be worth using over just having the mace wielder use a weapon that grants +2 PEN.
stilettos - just don't really find the unique that inspiring, and by the time i'm strong enough to fight rust for his poignard I can't be bothered. Am making an effort this time around. Also, pierce-only weapon damage is a lame choice for me because of immunities.
rapiers - mostly because of the fact that it's pierce-only.
in the past i would also put arbalests and crossbows as under-used weapons, but these days i give basically every member of my party either arbalest or crossbow proficiency as their last proficiency just so that I have an easier time with Hauane O Whe.
Another problem that I have with pierce-only weapons is that if your character is using a pierce-only ranged weapon, the way I see it, the last thing you want for a melee weapon is another pierce only weapon.
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5 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:
He said she was his favorite companion. You can throw it off and ignore she's a broken individual in that regard. I do not. That's like saying you enjoy having poop around the house because you like the color brown. If I say "but it stinks" I cannot because you didn't bring up the stink part? Come on. Things aren't only about what you see.
But you are also entitled to your opinion. If I choose to form an adventuring party I would not pick a person who cannot respect themselves and others. Even in real life, because their destructiveness would make the group less and perhaps even endanger that. Empathy means nothing if it means it allows harm to others around you.
Favorite characters/companions aren't only about liking the personality of the character in question. Sometimes, unlikeable characters are good characters/companions. Also, not everyone responds to the personalities of other people (or companions in a game) in the same way. Let me give you a little example that I literally just read last night.
In the 1960's movie, The Sound of Music, the lead actor, Christopher Plummer, didn't like lead actress, Julie Andrews. Why? Apparently, he didn't like that JA was so incredibly nice and cheery all the time, saying that she was like a Valentine's Day card all the time and it really grated on his nerves. Now, I think that lots of people would really like that sort of person, but CP didn't.
Anyways, I personally think that you're taking this entirely too far. I take all companions and sidekicks into my overall group, though I don't use them all. I like having them in the larger group because it allows me to have a ship's crew with more firepower than just the core party of 5. But I also tend to rotate certain companions/sidekicks into the main party, to deal with situations I feel my current party isn't well suited to face. For example, if I'm not using Pallegina in my regular core party but I'm heading to a place I know is infested with fampyrs, I tend to rotate her in and someone else out, because I just like what Pallegina brings in battles against famps (mostly the Aegis of Loyalty ability). But that's just me.
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18 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:
I don't like people or characters that don't like themselves and wallow in self pity. So I dislike Pallegina the most. If she ever does turn up in the next game, by God let it be as an adversary so I can kill her and be done with it.
I'm not really attached to any of the characters. At all. The only character I liked in the entire series was Grieving Mother. Voiced by one of my fav VA's and her backstory was fascinating.
Pallegina was my favorite companion, in large part because I love her accent. OTOH, GM was one of my least favorite companions in PoE1 because I seriously disliked her text only "quest".
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On 3/27/2020 at 4:42 AM, AeonsLegend said:
I do use sidekicks, my gripe is that they don't comment or are a part of the main story. This is why I mention only actual companions. The fact that I have to make "hard" choices doesn't bother me if I only play this game once or perhaps twice. But since this game, like DND games has many options for you to discover and many classes to try out there's a lot of replay value. And this means that the companion selection is incredibly poor when it comes to the main story. Like I said before. That is definitely a mistake on Obsidian's part.
For what it's worth, Aeons, is that if sidekicks did comment and were part of the main story, then they wouldn't BE sidekicks. They'd be companions.
I imagine that Obsidian didn't have enough money in the budget to pay for more companions. Heck, as I remember reading, the sidekick Ydwin was supposed to be a companion but the kickstarter campaign fell short of the goal that would have provided the funds to pay for the work.
Also, I think that part of the problem from my perspective is that they spent too much money on voice acting. I prefer more content over voice acting as much of a game as possible. Oh, sure, if it's a game company with a giant wallet, fine. But if the game company is operating on a limited budget, I'd prefer content over excessive amounts of voice acting every damn time.
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2 hours ago, Taevyr said:
Personally, for open world I prefer the approach of Pillars I and Tyranny: Have a world map consisting of various zones, and restrict movement through either plot or "natural" reasons, e.g. how "flooding" restricts you from entering the areas closer to Twin Elms in Act 2 of PoE, or how Tyranny has the blocked mountain pass in Act 1, and the faction-based access in Act 2. Another possibility that I like, but is a bit less effective, is zones with restriction through enemy level: such as how Dragon Age: origins puts a few high-level encounters in the zone leading to Orzammar; One of the most enjoyable parts was returning and beating'em later in the campaign, or managing to beat them at that lower level on a future playthrough. Unfortunately, these days it'd probably lead to players complaining about a lack of balance , rather than getting the point and coming back later.
Deadfire..... kind of took the worst of fully open worlds without getting what makes'em interesting: The open world put a lot less urgency on the plot when you were expected to spend a lot of time just sailing around, which works in a sandbox like Skyrim and New Vegas where you're free to do what you want, but not a more story-driven game; the zone-based exploration meant that the larger zones with an ongoing or connected quest, such as Nemnok's, Shattered Reef and Cignath Mor, were quite interesting, but the single-zone bounty islands or those dots you visited only to plunder the village, drain the pond and pluck the fruit started feeling like busywork rather quickly.
The empty/smaller islands also lacked what makes an open world like Skyrim and New Vegas interesting, which is the atmosphere and general feel while wandering the world: the sea shanties definitely added atmosphere, but gaining 20 water, 50 fruit and whatever you found in ruined village #8 by exploring empty island #15 didn't quite have the same attraction as getting to the top of that one mountain and just enjoying the view in Skyrim, or warily exploring the far reaches of the map in Dragon's Dogma: None of those have anything special about them other than existence, but the general atmosphere and lack of urgency can make them enjoyable to explore. The Old City, Oathbinder's Sanctum and Wael's Island had atmosphere, but those were zones/islands large enough to establish that atmosphere while exploring them; For the world at large, a 3rd-person RPG will always beat an isometric in my view, and for good reason.
For PoE3, I'd like a few more large dungeons, but barring that, I'd like there to be less "throwaway" locations: make fewer but larger locations with a minor quest beyond "go map these", or add some plot connections and even restrictions if necessary, such as in locations like Cignath Mor or Bekarna's observatory that only became available/relevant during/following a certain quest. I also like Boeroer's idea of letting players choose between a guided playthrough or a "free" playthrough, though it might just end up as double work for the developers.
One way to isolate different areas within the plot like in PoE1 could be (for example) to have part 1 of the story be in Rauitai, then have part 2 in Valia, and finally have part 3 of the story in the Living Lands. You'd have to make a long journey to get from part 1's area to part 2's area, perhaps by ship (but without any of PoE2's ship issues, just a simple passenger ship journey without incident).
A problem I had with PoE2 was that on most of the smaller islands, the combat areas (buildings, caves, dungeons, whatever) felt far too small. PoE1's areas were significantly larger and more involved.
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13 minutes ago, Boeroer said:
Deadfire is an open world game, so is Skyrim: a game where you can go everywhere and won't get restricted in your travels. That means you could end up in a place where enemies are way too powerful for you - or too weak. That's why Skyrim has scaling and Deadfire has, too. Else a majority of the encounters could become unfun. But those problems with difficulty etc. are not my personal problems with open world games. They focus on exploration and that's a fine thing to have in general.
But what I don't like is that it's nearly impossible to tell a coherent story/follow a plot in a somewhat cosistent way. I mean unless you stick to the "default" path through the game. But if you do that: why having open world in the first place? So as soon as you leave the trodden path it is inevitable that the main story/plot comes to a halt and you'll have some kind of sideshow. That also means that often players (me as well) get the feeling that the main story isn't really that important and without it you might get the feeling that you are lost somehow. Where to go next? Hm... no idea, doesn't really seem to matter that much, does it? I believe it's incredibly hard for designern and writers to create an open world game experience without sacrificing consistency and urge of your plot.
PoE didn't have that open-world approach: you could visit all places only after you unlocked them. E.g. you can only go to Raedric's Castle if you first go to Easternwood - and so on. And on top of that you had three acts that were seperate from one another. Deadfire keeps this only in citites where you have to unlock the districts by traveling to the adjacent ones first. But the world map is free with the oly excaption that is Ukaizo. This might also be related to the overall quality of the plotline, but Deafire's plot feels a lot less compelling than PoE's (and even that didn't give you an overwhelming urge in that regard, but was fine for me). I think open world does play a part in this. Skyrim has the same problem, at least for me: what am I supposed to do again? Like: ultimately? I tend to forget...On the other hand pure dungeon crawlers like Exe of the Beholder drop the player into a room and there's only one way out. You fight your way out of the dungeon (or into it in pursuit of X) and usually there's puzzles and fights and all - but you can't go left and right that much but are focused on the main goal. Funnily anough those games often have very little story and plot - maybe because they don't need tham to create motivation and tension. The setting itself does already provide this. And of course such games are so much easier to balance.
Usually fantasy RPGs are somewhat of an interactive story though. So plot, story, motivation - those are important. Else it's more like a combat simulator or a tactics game. See Battle Brothers: open world, focus on tactics/combat and no overarching plot/story, only some "random" goals to achieve and contracts to fulfill. And it works just fine - but it's not a game like Deadfire or Baldur's Gate or Plainscape: Torment or anything like that.
So I would argue that the current "open world hype" is bad. An RPG has to be advertized with that or else player are gonna say "Wut? How 2000!" - even if it hurts the overall experience. A somewhat open world is okay - let's say open "stages" of the game world. Like open acts. Too much railroading like in Legend of Grimrock would hurt the replayability I guess - too much open world hurts the story and the feeling of progression. Something in between would be fine. It would be easier to write for, it would be easier to balance (no scaling of encounters needed) and it would be more exiting - especially in the first playthrough.Maybe one could even do a game where the first playthrough is not open world but you would unlock areas like Berath's Blessings and then would have a more open world in additional plythrougs..? Hm... getting interested while I write this...
I have no doubt that if the designers wanted to go for (I don't even know what term to use) semi-railroad/semi-open world model, they could have the side quests all tied to certain events happening that would only be available after certain other events had been completed. But if they weren't careful, it could end up seeming too much of a railroaded plot and not enough open world, if you were literally forced to do the side quests in only a single order.
I don't think that your Berath's Blessings idea would go over very well. There are a lot of players who only want to play the game to completion once, and might feel cheated if additional content was locked behind how many times you'd completed the game. This makes me think that this idea would go over like a lead balloon.
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On 4/6/2020 at 1:00 AM, Boeroer said:
Camping supplies were 4, 2 on PotD. So on average you were right.
Although it maybe would often be just a lable I agree that it would be nice to have the Animist thing with all classes.
Afaik, all the negatives of subclasses are there to balance out the bonuses. But sure: if you'd have no vanilla class you wouldn't have to balance the subclasses with that vanilla class. See Paladins and Priests that have no drawbacks vs. Wizards subclasses which have massive ones bc. of vanilla Wizard.
All in all I'm pretty happy with the classes, multiclassing and subclassing though.
I personally am not a fan of the open world approach. I very much like dungeon crawling in the style of Eye of the Beholder or Legend of Grimrock - here I don't mean the graphics and style now but the from of progression. So I would totally be for a big dungeon. Hell, the whole game could be one big dungeon for me.
Like I said earlier , sometimes it's next to impossible to not have some negatives. Like the Devoted subclass. But others could be worked around.
I'm not particularly fond of how they did wizards myself. I don't like the old "schools" system, because it's so damned old and stale. I wish that they could develop some wizard subclasses that completely dumped the school system.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the open world approach. I'm not familiar with those other games, so they don't help to explain open world to me.
I don't think that I'd like a single large dungeon as the entire game. I guess that I like moving from place to place above ground and exploring. Also, if I compared BG2 with IWD1or2 (ignoring companions), I think that BG2 has more replay-ability because you aren't forced down a fixed path of going from place A to B to C …. all the way to the final location. I think that it's more interesting to choose your own path.
BTW, regarding paladins, a problem that I have with them is that they're so damned similar. They each have their one unique difference between pally subclasses. One! It seems to me that they ought to at least have one special ability every level or 2 that they gain to create more differentiation between the subclasses of paladin, similar to how priests get different subclass specific spells every level.
Regarding "the animist thing", the idea would be that the true base class would never really be seen/used by the players. And the generalist subclass would have its own special subclass benefits. But those benefits would be tailored to be as generalist for the class as possible.
Another thing I'd like to see is a more even distribution of unique magic weapons and armor/shields by type. It's sad that there are so many sabers and so few of other types of weapons.
One other thing, I think that the game needs to make a better effort to make single class characters more desirable to play. Right now, only a handful of classes are desirable to play as single class, largely due to how strong their level 8 and 9 abilities (usually spells) are. But some classes have such weak seeming level 8 and 9 abilities that it's not worth it, particularly when you consider how you get nearly as many ability points and all those additional class resource points for multiclass characters. I kind of think that many single class characters would need a greater number of resource points as well as better upper level abilities to make them worth playing (outside of the few classes that already are worth it as single class). But would that make the already pretty good single class character classes overpowered? I don't know.
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16 hours ago, Climhazzard said:
There are places I think Deadfire innovations were an improvement over PoE, and places I think they were a downgrade.
-Didn't really care for the armor/pen system. Armor doesn't really feel meaningful as long as it was enough to prevent overpen There's a mod on Nexus that does a good job with it. I was personally content with the system PoE used though.
-Multiclassing is nice, but they definitely shouldn't add in more classes, let alone subclasses, if they're going to retain multi classing. In the interest of balance. Except, I somehow feel that "watcher" should have been some kind of unique progression path, maybe a parallel path or something of the like.
-The endurance system from PoE was good, bring it back. As for rest, take a look at Pathfinder, I felt it had a nice rest system. Also, vancian casters, I didn't really mind them.
-Deadfire's inspiration/affliction system was a great idea. I'd definitely keep it. Though maybe buff both a little.
-Comparing both games to pathfinder or D@D, there's two things I really liked. A: No prebuffing. B: No random rolls on stuff like disarming traps, or conversation checks. Some people might disagree with me I guess but... Playing pathfinder, I felt like I constantly had to manage a million and one buffs before every battle, not fun. As for rolls on traps, etc, I feel like that much randomness should stay in the roguelike genre. It works in PnP because every consequence is permanent, in a crpg it just encourages save scumming.
-Deadfire's spellcasting never felt that good. A lot of effects were pretty short compared to the total cast/recovery time. This felt especially bad playing cipher. PoE felt better in this regard, at least I thought so.
That's all that currently comes to mind when thinking about game mechanics, which is what I mainly care about. Location, anywhere but an archipelago. Story, just whatever as long as it's good. Characters, the watcher and whoever, Eder's the only one I'm attached to, but him getting to settle down somewhere and have a peaceful watcher free life would be well deserved I think, lol.
Good post, Clim.
* I didn't mind the PoE2 armor/pen system myself.
* While I mostly like the underlying mechanic of how multiclassing was handled, I'm not really a fan of most of the subclasses. I would like to see the generic "no subclass" option sort of removed and replaced with a subclass that represents the generalist (generic) version of the class. Check out the Druid class where the Animist subclass does exactly this.
Another change to MC that I'd love to see is the removal of the negatives as much as possible, along with the removal of the "no subclass" option. (Tie them together...) Then make the generalist subclass have some additional benefits that the other subclasses wouldn't get, just as the generalist wouldn't get the benefits that are linked to the more specialist subclasses. Now to be fair, I think that certain subclasses probably can't exist without certain negatives (or at least it would be difficult to make the specialist subclass work without the negs). Like the Devoted subclass. It'd be hard for the Devoted subclass to work if the character could have more than one weapon proficiency. OTOH, some negatives seem rather unnecessary to the subclass unless required for balance.
Another thing is that I'm not sure that all subclasses' unique benefits currently scale very well as the characters level up.
Honestly, I could go on and on about subclasses and issues I have with them, but I'll move on.
* Endurance system from PoE1: I agree, I liked it as well. As for Vancian casters, I also agree. But I think that the issue here is that some people just want to take their wizards and never have to worry about running out of castings, etc. But one of the most enjoyable things in my first PoE1 run through in the huge dungeon was falling the 3 (?) levels and having to fight my way back up. I was running low on resting supplies so I had to be VERY cautious with my spell castings and not just spam castings every battle. It was a blast having to work hard to survive to get back up to safety with limited supplies and thus limited rests and limited spell castings. I had to try to avoid fights and sneak through levels as best I could, and only fight when there was no other option. It was a LOT more fun than just blasting through all the enemies in every room without worrying about anything other than perhaps dying.
Resting is tricky though. I don't know what pathfinder's resting system is like, but if you'd like to describe it, that'd be cool. But as far as PoE1 vs PoE2 (and the old infinity games) go, the problem I see with unlimited resting is that if the system has Vancian spell casters, players are too tempted to just spam rests after every battle. OTOH, you'll have some players (whom I consider lazy … hey, I'm entitled to my opinion) who will just return to a town to rest or pick up resting supplies so that they can spam rests as much as possible, because they're the ones who want to spam their spells as often as possible. I personally like the challenge of trying to go as far as possible before resting, and only returning to town if things get critical. That said, it did seem to me like the number of resting supplies that a party could carry seemed rather low (3, I think). If I'd had my druthers, I think that I'd have set it at around 5 or 6.
All in all, I don't know if there's a perfect answer to this. Different people have different tastes.
* Prebuffing. I agree completely. If there was one thing that I loathed in BG2 (less so in the other Infinity engine games) was pre-buffing. Pre-buffing is boring and tedious as all hell.
Regarding location, in past comments, I've said that I'd love to see a PoE3 that continues the Watcher's story go to the land where Rekke's from. (I forget the name.) But I've changed my mind, in large part because I think that I read that it was mostly desert. Yawn. Now, I'm leaning towards the Living Lands because of the great variety of environments from valley to valley. I'd rather avoid The White That Wends, because after IWD1+2, as well as PoE1's WM1+2, and PoE2's BoW, I think that I've hard enough of arctic settings.
I'm not sure what I think about a PoE3 that's set in the future with a totally different set of companions and a new main character. Would it even be a Watcher? Or maybe be just some random adventurer?
One thing I would hope for is another BIG dungeon. It might be nice to encounter a previously unencountered sub-race or possibly a new race entirely. Maybe have a part of the story be about some underground "world" where this new race lives. Part of me would love for it to be underground dwelling elves, but not "dark" elves as such. But if not regular elves or pale elves, what would an underground version of elves be? I don't know.
I'd like to see some new, fresh ideas, not merely PoE1 moved to a different place on Eora with a different cast of characters. This is kind of why I think that a new sub-race of elves might be interesting, if done right.
I'd also like less interaction with the gods of Eora, and have the story be more about the heroes dealing with more mortal problems.
Well, that's all I have for now.
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On 3/18/2020 at 3:21 PM, Daudastund said:
In Beast of Winter DLC the boss fights were artifically hard. 4 Concentration and op Corossive Touch which I could only avoid with Withdrawal. BULL****! After this turn of events I was totally dreaded, especially when my reward was to sell my soul to Rymgarnd, because I had no resources left after the dragon fight ( and to be honest, i was tired of this ****)
Now I'm against this Oracle of Wael fight, and **** this ****, I play on lowest difficulty for this crap. This game is not enjoyable to this point, though I like the concept of the story.
A big problem with the PoE games is that a large portion of the loyal fanbase are vocal veteran powergaming players for whom the game seems ridiculously easy and would constantly complain thusly. Personally, I'm not one of these power gamers. I prefer a more role playing play style and usually play on the "Normal" difficulty setting. This makes balancing the game incredibly difficult because there are also players who are new to this style of game who have a difficult time handling the toughest fights. And honestly, I don't know how they can satisfy both ends of that spectrum.
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@AeonsLegend Don't overlook using sidekicks. Yes, they're not as good as full blown companions, but they're better than nothing if you don't want to be stuck playing with faction limited companions.
Regarding faction-limited companions (FLC), it's a double edged sword. On one hand, yes they limit your choices when certain companions will quit if you choose a path that they don't like. On the other hand, there's a certain realism to the idea that you have NPCs that have their own factional alignments and would refuse to work with factions that are diametrically opposed to their own. And another part of the problem is that the presence of FLC's wouldn't be so bad if the number of non faction limited companions was greater. But that may be intentional, since it forces you to make some tough choices.
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19 hours ago, fced said:
I don't understand why Vela is calling me Captain, my watcher (women) took her as a baby, so she should consider the watcher as her mom and not her captain ????
I wonder if the developpers play their games, if they identify themselves to the watcher as we do... nevermind i know the answer, those sort of problems are recurrent on too much games. It is a fact Devs don't play their games, (except Bioware when they developped Dragon Age Origins).
I don't think that this is a question of whether the devs are playing their game. This seems more like a writing issue, and I'd assume that the writers have the conversation scripts available to read without having to play through the game to check the quality of the writing. Of course, one assumes that somewhere in the mix, there must be some testers who play the game and check out those scripts vs what the game puts on the screen to see if the scripts were accurately transcribed into the game.
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9 hours ago, daven said:
Can't you get some inspiration from the backgrounds available in the game? I'm pretty sure you choose background/former profession or something for your character. In the first game you have a conversation with someone which allows you to develop it further if I remember. I quite liked that in the intro to the first game.
Honestly, Daven, the backgrounds are a little too thin on info to provide enough inspiration. The best source I found online was a DnD related website with about 33-34 backstories. The general idea, at least for me, isn't to get details as much as inspiration. The details can be filled in later.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/100_Character_Backgrounds_(DnD_Other)
7 hours ago, Boeroer said:I always do backstories "backwards": I'll come up with a mechanically interesting/fun concept and when it works I'll figure out a backstory that justifies the build choices I'll make.
Example: I will build a SC Berserker focused on Vengeful Defeat, Effigy's Husk, Barbaric Retaliation and (cloned) Ring of Reset and then think about a backstory about a manic guy with a death wish who put on a cursed ring he got from his former wife who now is a Banshee so he can't stay dead but has to rise again and again. Like masochistic Romeo and sadistic Juliet - but without dagger, poison or family feuds...
I guess that it's just a difference between you and I, Boeroer. I don't worry that much about the build beyond choosing whether to play single class or multiclass, and what subclass or classes to play. I particularly don't like planning a build in such detail that I'm planning out what end game equipment I want to use for the build. (It feels a little too meta-gamey to for my taste.) I prefer to just take it as it comes.
Also, I guess that I'm a bit stuck in my own box, so to speak because I've gotten to prefer playing my PC as a front liner, as least mostly so. In my last run through, my PC was a Swashbuckler, who generally ended up in melee, but would fight from the mid rows at times. Never finished that run through because I'd set the difficulty to increase with character level, and it got to the point where I was having so much difficulty killing big bads that the runthrough stopped being fun for me. So, I'm tempted to do a similar character, though perhaps not a swashy exactly.
1 hour ago, claudius said:On the Pillars of Eternity 1 General Discussion (No Spoiler) section of the forum me and another forum member named Alendra posted backstories of our characters. We each had our own thread. It's on second page of PoE1 General Discussion forum. You could take a look at those and you could make your own thread inviting Pillars people to share backstory ideas??
I'll check it out, Claudius.
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One of the things I wish that this forum or the wikis had was a list of ideas for character backstories. Not character builds, but backstories. I can't speak for other players but I find it VERY difficult to get into creating a new character without a backstory. To me, my characters are more than a hollow shell of pixels and stats. It's hard for me to get into any character that doesn't have a backstory.
I wish that there'd been some pinned forum thread or a page on the PoE wikis for backstory ideas for people like me who care about back stories, but often find it difficult to come up with ones that fit the character we might like to play. But for what it's worth, I know that that ship has sailed so to speak. Still, I thought that I'd bring it up, if only to get it off my chest.
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17 hours ago, Boeroer said:
While I would think that a not-so-far-in-the-future third part should stick to the mechanics of Deadfire I also don't care that much about RTwP or TB. Players who want to turn this into a confession of faith behave kind of silly. There are games that are great and use TB and there are games that are great who use RTwP. Don't understand why one has to chose to only like one. I love PoE/Deadfire and Battle Brothers because they are fun to play for me, not because I celebrated some kind of communion with RTwP or TB evangelists.
But still: if a PoE3 is made in the next few years I would like it to continue the mechanics of Deadfire as I said. It's quite some work to learn a whole new system and I would like to avoid it if possible. Deadfire's rule system is in a good state (not talking about bugs and oversights especially on consoles). Some minor tweaks like simplifying the stacking rules should suffice. And there already is TB and RTwP - so it's not too far fetched to expect to see both in a PoE3 again (one as main mode, the other as additional I would presume).
By the way: a recent poll came to the conclusion that a slight majority welcomes the switch from RTwP to TB for BG3. You wouldn't guess if you read the Larian forums (lots of "true" BG fans flooding the place while acting like broken records). There you would get the impression that BG3 is doomed to fail - while Larian (or Vincke) reported that they got overwhelmingly good responses on PAX and social media (other than their forums). Bubbles...
Boeroer, long time, no see.
I generally think that the Deadfire rule system is in a decent state, though I could be improved around the edges.
Here are some thoughts on that, largely related to classes.
1. I would like to see the overall class/subclass design tweaked as follows. Remove the downsides for subclasses as much as possible. At the same time, remove the concept of using the title "no subclass" for the generic class. (Note that not all classes have this issue.) I'm thinking that the Animist subclass of the Druid class should be somewhat of the prototype for this. That is, the "generic" subclass for the class should have an actual subclass name. (Henceforth, I will call the "no subclass" subclass the "Generic" subclass of the class.) After that give the Generic subclass a strong enough set of additional benefits that the downside of choosing one of the other subclasses in that class would be to not have those added benefits tied to the Generic subclass.
I will say though that sometimes certain subclasses seem like they need their downsides to help define the subclass. And other times, it seems that a subclass' downsides only exist to justify or "pay for" the benefits. I'd rather do away with the latter. An example of the former would be something like the Sharpshooter subclass of ranger. Now, in theory, I suppose that one could definitely set up the Sharpshooter in a way to not need its negatives. For example, give it a to-hit bonus that only applies when using ranged weapons.
This removal of the dreadfully boring "no subclass" name is something I like about the Druid, Priest, and Paladin classes, among others. And I think that all classes would benefit from not having an unnamed "no subclass" subclass.
2. I would like for there to be a TRUE no animal companion option for Rangers. Ghost Heart rangers are a poor substitute. Also, there would need to be more non-AC related abilities included for rangers. I will say this though, an alternative or option here might be to change how abilities are added to AC's in the first place. Perhaps as the Ranger (with AC) levels up, the AC levels up behind the scenes, with strictly AC related abilities assigned to the AC. Note, I don't mean abilities that reflect the Ranger and his/her AC's team work. I mean abilities that direct affect ONLY the AC itself. But that said, there's still a lack of non-AC related abilities in the Ranger abilities tree.
3. I would still love to see the Wizard classes schools removed and have the class be given non-(old) school subclasses.
For example:
The generic Wizard subclass might be called Mage. The Mage would an arcane generalist with equal ability in all spells. The Mage might also receive a bonus to his Arcana skill to reflect his greater education in the Arcane arts.
Then there might be the Elementalist. The Elementalist would have greater power in elemental spells, but lesser power in non-elemental spells.
The Necromancer might specialize and have greater power with death spells, including those that drain health from an enemy.
The Martial Wizard would specialize in a style of wizardry relating to physical combat using arcane weapons and defenses. (Would prefer to call this one a battle mage, but so many of the good names have been used for sub classes and multi-classes, PoE is running out of them.)
4. I'd love to see the Paladin subclasses be enhanced along the same lines as Priests, with a column in their active abilities table strictly for abilities relating to their Order. Right now, the ability differences between the Pally orders are minimal. And the greatest difference between the orders seems to be in the favored dispositions. I think that it's be nice to enhance their active abilities tables to include order specific abilities for each order, at all ability levels.
That's all I have for now.
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I would rather that it stick with RTwP and remain a party based, single player RPG.
There are some things I wish that they'd massage around the game mechanics (classes, in particular), though I doubt that they'd listen to me.
Personally, I wish that they'd avoid anything to do with the Deadfire region and get back to a more traditional setting. Perhaps in the Living Lands (because of the wide variety of environments). Perhaps in "Rekke land" (I keep forgetting the name of Rekke's home region.) I'd suggest avoiding The White That Wends. These people (i.e. the developers of the old BG and IWD games plus the PoE games) have done enough arctic centric games or expansions, between IWD1/2, the White Marches, and the arctic PoE2 expansion. I'd rather see a PoE3 in a more temperate environment, though, let's say if they did the Living Lands, I wouldn't mind one of the valleys being a cold one, as long as it was one of many and not the entire game.
I think that it's a fair point that the devs might have to try to figure out why PoE2 didn't sell so well. Was it a case of the old BG/IWD veteran players had had their taste of nostalgia and weren't interested in a sequel? Or did the pirate motif turn off some potential customers? or something else. I have no idea. I bought both PoE 1 and 2, and would buy a PoE3 if it stayed true to the basic concept.
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On 2/25/2020 at 10:56 AM, daven said:
They are real aren't they? They talk to the character on Skype chat throughout the game. Berath brings you back to life. Pretty sure that they exist.
The problem/issue isn't that "the gods" don't exist. The question is more along the lines of:
1. Are "the gods" really gods?
2. What is a "god" in the context of PoE?
The gods as we know them in PoE are immensely powerful beings constructed by the Engwithans. And on that level, I suppose that one could consider them "gods". But are they paragons of the concepts they espouse? That seems rather questionable at times.
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6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:
Frankly they do seem a waste of time and effort, except for Konstanten in SSS and Ydwin in BoW. Does Rekke get reactivity anywhere?
One properly fleshed-out companion would have been nicer than all of the sidekicks put together, in my view.
I have to disagree with this. Sidekicks give the player some party building options, particularly if there's a companion or two that you don't like, or perhaps for whatever reason, you lose a companion. I actually wish that there'd been more side kicks. Side kicks can be seen as either prebuilt mercenaries who have some background and a small amount of conversation. Or they can be seen as Companions Lite, as in lite on any personal questions or semi-regular deep conversations or whatever.
I wish that the DLCs had added something like a couple of Side kicks per DLC, and not in places within the DLC, but just placed around the game like the initial sidekicks.
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On 12/6/2019 at 4:41 PM, Boeroer said:
Something that also plays a role (when it comes to perceived strength) is how fun a character is to play. And it's no fun to watch your party whittle down an enemy very slowly - even if your dudes are sturdy as hell and can't really lose.
Once you've determined that your party can reliably win a fight the qualifier for "stronger" shifts from "who can win this?" to: "who can win this faster"?
Boeroer, I guess that it's a matter of perspective. I've never associated nuking the enemy with having fun, so slowly whittling down the enemy has never bothered me nor reduced my enjoyment of the game.
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On 2/10/2020 at 12:18 PM, Ascaloth said:
Oh yeah, I've got a doozy of a concept for PoE3 here.
The story starts about a generation after the events of Deadfire, when the effects of Eothas breaking the Wheel are becoming more apparent i.e. Hollowborn births, proliferation of blights, world out of balance... you know, the works. And your protagonist is not the Watcher of Caed Nua we know (who's long dead by this time) but a brand new character, justifying starting from Level 1 yet again.
That said, he/she retreads the story beats of the first PoE by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ending up as an Awakened Watcher in his/her own right. But our Watcher's flashbacks revolves around one mysterious figure in particular, and is compelled to travel all over Eora to make sense of these visions and find out who this figure from the past is, for the sake of their own sanity if nothing else.
Our protagonist goes globetrotting, and sees how the breaking of the Wheel has affected all the denizens of Eora. They tend to get flashbacks when they arrive at a new land, but where the flashbacks in PoE1 were simply dialogue options, the ones you get in PoE3 actually lets you control the mysterious figure from the past (you even get to decide what the past figure's stats/Classes/race/gender/avatar are), and carry out the actions and decisions that the mysterious figure made back then on their own adventure. When your Watcher returns to the present day, they and their Companions can retrace those steps, and see how the choices of the past have made their mark on the present day.
After some adventuring and sleuthing, we arrive at a revelation; turns out our protagonist is, or rather was, the Watcher of Caed Nua. Unlike in PoE1 where we were chasing Thaos, we've been chasing our own past self in this game all along. Our visions have been following the Watcher of Caed Nua immediately after the events of Deadfire, how he/she made their mark on Eora after the breaking of the Wheel, and maybe how and why they eventually had to meet their demise.
But since the Wheel is long broken, how did the Watcher of Caed Nua reincarnate... Literal God-dammit, Berath.
Now here comes the real kicker; Eora was not a static setting throughout the whole game. All of the things you did as the Watcher of Caed Nua in the flashbacks? Those actually affected various details in the world that your current Watcher has been travelling through. Everything you did in the past had an effect on the present, and had you done things differently as the Watcher of Caed Nua, you would have experienced an entirely different story as the current Watcher altogether.
It's like how the choices you made in PoE affected certain things in Deadfire, except this time you're kind of playing through both campaigns concurrently, and seeing the changes happen in (kind-of) real time.
I mean, hell. The PoE setting is practically perfect for these kinds of time-warp shenanigans.
In all honesty, Ascaloth, I'd rather have a PoE3 story that was less dependent on the gods of Eora. After two stories/PoE games with the Watcher getting dragged across parts of Eora due to the whims of the gods, I'd rather have a story with a less divinity related plot line, at least for the majority of the story line. Oh, maybe some deity is pulling the strings, but I'd prefer it to be unseen for a good long while.
As for whether the main character should be the Watcher, I'm kind of split. Part of me would like to continue the Watcher's story. And another part of me would prefer otherwise.
A plot that I had in mind was one where the Watcher returns Rekke home to Yezuha (I think that that's the name of his unknown homeland). And it turns out that there's some mystery that needs solving, etc., etc., etc. This would allow for a nearly whole new cast of companions, though I can see Eder coming along, since he's the Watcher's best buddy. As for what this mystery would be, I have no idea. I just like the idea of the plot starting with taking Rekke home to Yezuha.
I could see another plot taking place in the Living Lands, which is a place I find intriguing, given its varied environments which would make for quite a variety of maps and areas to explore. I think that the one place I wouldn't want to see as a destination for PoE3 is The White That Wends. I feel like I've seen enough of frozen wastelands, between the White March and the PoE2 expansion that was in a frozen wasteland.
Pillars of Eternity 3 Companions
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
AL, In POE2, you're there because Berath wants you to discover what Eothas is doing, and then later to stop him from destroying The Wheel. How you get from the start of the story to its end is entirely up to the player. What would be more boring to me would be a game where the story was nothing more than a straight line from start to end, sort of like the IWD games.
Anyways, I think that a problem that games like this have is that if the designers make the storyline too obvious it gets boring fast. And OTOH, if they bury it in mystery too deeply, some players may get confused easily and not know what to do next to progress the story. And I don't think that there's any easy answer here.