KDubya

Sorry, I had to clean off my screen as I spewed coffee out while laughing. Thankfully I didn't also piss myself When Bethesda took over the franchise, nobody complained and furthermore, it is the ultimate proof that a genre change, as well as mechanics and perspective change doesn't call for community paranoia I take it that you've never been to the 'No Mutants Allowed' website, especially back when Fallout three came out. The hate there is strong for Bethesda and what they did to Fallout. When New Vegas came out the hate was replaced with acceptance as they made a great Fallout game but Fallout 4 doubled down and went full on 'murder-death simulator 2.0' and further threw out any similarities to a Fallout game. Now Fallout 4 is a fun game, perhaps even great, but it is a terrible Fallout game. I really hope that they don't remake Baldurs Gate into a Skyrim clone.

This has 'cash grab' written all over it. Make a new DnD game - great, make it big budget - great, but why in the name of Gorion call it Baldur's Gate Three? The Bhaalspawn saga got completed in Throne of Bhaal, you went from naïve hero in Candlekeep to godhood, vanquishing all on the way. There is no where left to go with that story. The game was sort of 2nd edition AD&D which is archaic to say the least in today's gaming. Plus there is no way that WotC does anything not 5e so it'd be an entirely different game system. So you have totally distinct game systems and a completely new story and you'd call it Baldurs Gate Three for …… reasons? Only reason I can see is an attempt to cash grab via nostalgia and name recognition. Make it its own game with its own name and it can be judged on its own merits. Unless they are going to Fallout Three the game and change it to a first person action game in an open world.

Well they could have it be a direct continuation of Throne of Bhaal, here's one way: After you assumed the mantle of godhood, another god comes along and takes your soul and you die. This new god also threatens the remaining godsThis would be in the opening credits. Next you are in the realm of the dead and you get offered a chance to regain your soul by helping the remaining gods You then start character creation based upon your memories of your past life. You start the game at level one and proceed to regain your soul and godhood while chasing the bad god across the world. Woops sorry this is the plot for DeadFire

You can't put much faith in the Steam reviews, a simple up/down system just doesn't work very well. Plus since most people are idiots their opinion is rather worthless If you read the reviews they paint a picture of a game that has a lot of flaws that are being addressed by the devs and a game system that is poorly explained to people unfamiliar with the Pathfinder system, but that there is potential for greatness inside. You'll have to wait and see if time fixes the flaws. I figure to wait a few months and see where it ends up before purchasing which is what I'd have done with Deadfire if I hadn't been a backer.

It is a structural problem with the game itself, levels mean too much. Any tough fight the best answer is to come back at a higher level. Levels get you accuracy, defense, hit points and new abilities. In Baldur's Gate you hit a hit point cap at level nine or so, levels past that had a minimal impact. Additional levels also took substantially more experience which further reduced level bloat. In Divinity Original Sin 2 you only get to choose a skill and some stat points which might unlock another skill slot, access to skills is fully realized at level 16 and you'll end up 18-21 or so. You'll have a fully fleshed out build at 16 or earlier but still have levels to gain which are helpful but not crucial (other than the level bloat from equipment stats but that is another animal) Somehow you'd want to combine a few different game systems - Use DOS2 for the minimal impact on levels at the high end for skills and use the fixed nature of the Deadfire equipment. Personally if I max out a character I get bored and seek to finish up the main quest and call it done. Perhaps better balance would change my opinion but its hard to say and probably will never happen anyway.

Back in the day, early 80's and junior high, I had a paper route and mowed lawns for cash. With that disposable income I bought games and figurines from this little war game shop War and Pieces in West Hartford. It was great. Had the whole Grenadier line of DnD figures, lots of fancy Ral Partha ones. Would spend days painting, reading articles in Dragon magazine as to how to paint and all that. No way you're getting any sort of quality pre-painted figure for $25. That said I'm with Karkarov, Obsidian just should not have offered the figurines as the quality was going to be poor for what they could afford. Better to have nothing than to have crappy workmanship. EDIT - grammar

I'd rather they gave all shields the ability to bash instead of having it be only for two unique shields. Been playing a lot of Divinity Sin 2 DE and really like how character builds are dependent on skills and tactics rather than the heavy reliance on specific unique gear use like DeadFire has. The random nature of the gear with random bonuses makes the moment before identifying something sort of like Christmas morning, full of anticipation. Here there are a few specific pieces that are integral to your build and everything else is vender trash

Backing for a physical copy and getting a code is a **** move by Obsidian. When I was living in rural Thailand before we got halfway decent internet I'd actually take a weekend vacation down to Vientiane Laos and stay at a hotel that had high speed internet and do all my downloading there. I spent three weeks downloading Witcher 3 off of GoG running it all night 24/7 just to find the file corrupted. One hour at the hotel and it was done.

This would take a ton of resources, I highly doubt it will happen. But you raise one good point. Why can't my Wizard just blast their ship with a Fireball? That's really hard to understand. I agree that the chance of it happening is slim to none but then why include the crappy ship combat that they did? If ships, ship combat and pirates are a big part of your game then do them up right, don't half ass it.

The core issue is not that PotD is too easy, its that the new AR/Pen system combined with PoE's system of Accuracy versus defense and the new affliction versus inspiration systems just don't mesh well into a fun coherent system. In PoE accuracy was king and hard CC ruled all. Solution was to not bring Vancian casters like Wizards, Priests and Druids. Not the best but doable and resulted in challenging fights throughout the game with a more attrition style of your regen + your damage output overcoming the enemy. Worked best if you also avoided rest spamming. The new armor system needs more asymmetry to it. Why does Legendary Plate make you immune to nearly everything? Add in some additional armor from Berzerker or GoldPact and you can face tank the world. It also stops all spells because why not? The new affliction system also feels unrewarding. I spend four seconds getting a six second paralyze that gets me some bonus to possible critical damage? Should have just auto attacked and killed the guy instead. New Vegas had a nice armor system where you had a damage threshold and a damage resistance percentage when you used the JSawyer mod. Was a nice elegant armor system. Recently got Divinity Sin 2 DE and really like the dual armor system and the way it interacts with the CC abilities. Some enemies have high physical but low magical and vice versa, makes for choices and tactics in both target acquisition and character building. Without a complete redesign of the core systems I don't see how you salvage the game. I got 200+hours in, had fun but just have no reason to go back through it again to experience the combat.

-snip- 3) looking forward to naval combat patch if one is indeed in the making. I doubt we will see it again. 4) main plot isn't quite engaging. But deadfire, faction and quest design is rather excellent. Really well implemented lore. Naval combat needs a complete rework. Make it 2D not that funky compass thing which takes into account closing speed, wind direction and allow spells. If I have a Wizard let me cast a wind spell to move my ship faster or against the wind, let me cast fireballs in addition to the cannon fire and so on. Concerning the factions: I found it implausible in that I could be the ship hunter for all factions at the same time with no negatives. I hunt Principi and they still hire me to hunt Rauitai who hire me to hunt Valians. No one remarks that I'm the guy who just sank their fleet while being paid to sink someone else's fleet. Until the final ending their is no need to make a choice and commit to one side or another. At least force me to wear a disguise or fly a different flag or something.

Concerning Open World: I liked PoE better than DeadFire for 'open world' In PoE you could go to several locations before doing the Maerwald tower unlock. Freedom but limited, the same with chapter two. Similar to how Baldurs Gate did it. Keeps the story focused with landmark events heralding a new chapter. In DeadFire you can sail where ever and do whatever with no sense of urgency. The story gets lost. Concerning PoE III being open world I hope not, especially if it stays an isometric party based game. Open world like Skyrim and Fallout 4 work great because they are single character first person games based on exploration. Wandering around the Commonwealth or Skyrim stealthily stalking animals and then discovering the entrance to some tomb/bomb shelter or whatever makes for a great game that just sucks you in. I just don't see how a isometric party game is going to get that same feel. Now if Obsidian could make a Fallout 4 engine based game that was both open world but with a plot and a point like how New Vegas expanded and massively improved Fallout 3 that'd be great. I don't think that will ever happen as I don't think that Bethesda likes having New Vegas thrown in their face as being a thousand times better than anything they've ever come up with story wise.Since Obsidian will never get a shot at Fallout again they should get the development rights to 'Gamma World' an old school PnP post holocaust game with mutants, technology and magic. Do that up open world first person with a plot and you'd have a winner Concerning the newest DLC In the base game you reach max level before the ending The first DLC adds more experience so you reach max level faster The second DLC will add even more experience so you'll max out even earlier.Why didn't they hold back levels like they did in PoE so that you needed the DLC to obtain the next levels? Something like base game level 12, first DLC level 14, second DLC level 16, third and final DLC level 20.

The sad thing is that a lot of these issues came up in Beta when there was perhaps an opportunity to actually make the big changes that we are asking for. Unfortunately the chance was missed and basically nothing got implemented for the betterment of the game.

Galactica

Does it have the same base damage and two damage types? Only slash damage but has the proficiency of the one handed battleaxe. 7 base penetration is the same as all standard one handed weapons, Dual wielding is the optimal choice in near every situation but two handers are close enough especially with classes that have a lot of primary attacks instead of full attacks like Fighters, Soul Blades and Monks. Plus two handers look cool and the two handed axe looks very cool.

Its treated as a Greatsword which also has a lower penetration compared to other two handers, so no bug but feature.

You could get FoD at level five instead of dirty fighting, or at level three instead of escape. I'm not sure how often you'd need to escape and if you did would another cast of mirror image not work better? Other options would be at level nine instead of Bear's fortitude, level fifteen instead of exalted focus, or seventeen or eighteen. Eternal Devotion just gets you +10% damage so its easily skippable, the +15% for the group'd be better. Scion of Flames is just an additional point of penetration, doesn't seem especially vital to have or not. EDIT: I think GoldPact makes for a much tankier guy instead of Bleak Walker Lay on Hands is a really great heal, especially at the early part where you'd really appreciate it. It will be appreciated in the tough early encounters like the digsite

What does 'S tier' stand for? A, B, C, D all make sense but why is 'S tier' higher? I think it'd have been better to organize by weight class, have all the heavy armor together and so on. Listing pros and cons for each and what type of build synergy they have would have ben great.

What ability are you taking instead of riposte? I'm not a big fan of riposte as far as building an entire character around optimizing for riposte but if you have nothing better to pick then its free damage which is always good. You're already dual wielding which meshes well with full attacks from riposte, you have deep wounds to inflict raw DoT and your deflection will be quite high due to stats, deep faith and trickster spells so getting some free damage from riposte is not bad. Plus it fits for roleplaying reasons and character theme.

Looks pretty good. I like the first stat spread, only change I'd make is to add one to perception to get it to a base 18 at the start with your Berath blessings. I think 18 is a breakpoint for seeing a lot of the harder traps and stuff.

I pretty much stuck with the one that had the paralyzing iceball. An AoE that casts fast, does damage and paralyzes at PL four is all I need.

I really don't like the Darcozzi ability, if its for roleplay then ignore this. I'd look at Bleakwalker for better FoD, Kind Wayfarer for the FoD that AoE heals or Goldpact for the great armor buff. I also really like dual wielding for both Paladins and Rogues to take advantage of their many full attacks. If need be you can have a dagger and hatchet set up with both modals active and still out dps a shield user. The attack speed bonus from dual wielding lets you wear heavy armor without becoming a statue or if you stick with light you turn into a cusinart. Stat wise I'd bring Might back up to base ten at least. Why the huge Intellect? Why aspire to get +40 to will at the expense of fortitude? Paladins have access to immunities which are better than defense. Is the huge Resolve for deflection to get riposte? At 30% chance on a miss I always found it bad, maybe for a solo where everyone can only attack you it makes sense. I like more balanced stats like this: Might 15 more damage, more healing Con 10 Dex 15 faster attacks Per 18 - more crits, more hits and finding all the traps Int 10 - Res 10 Ability wise I'd move two weapon style up to when its first available as its a massive damage boost. I also like to just take Crippling Strike for a one guile damage boost instead of having multiple rogue strikes. Take more Paladin stuff like the on kill effects and the defensive boosts if desired.

Taking bounties and running missions for all parties at the same time should have been restricted, or at least force you to be stealthy or outright lie to your other employers. Make it so sinking RDC ships for the VTC and sinking VTC for the RDC makes them both go after you unless you can frame a scapegoat (Huana?) or something. Would have gave a lot more immersion to the factions. As it is it reminds me of the factions in Fallout 4 which isn't a good thing. Double dealing the factions should have been a source for great skullduggery and role play instead of just another reason to kill whatever crosses your path. Concerning the collecting of certain heads for turning in bounties, my character collects EVERY head from the slaughtered. He carries hundreds of them around in his bag of holding and pulls them out to see which are valuable and which are not. You need something to hang from all those masts

The enemy seems to have the faster reloading cannon, not double bronzers, so they can reload and fire just as fast from one side without the jibing that the double bronzers require. So due to this I found no reduction in enemy fire from removing their sails to prevent jibing. Granted I did this but a few times and then went back to just sinking them. Hopefully they redesign the entire ship combat and add that in a future DLC. I'm OK with being a Pirate but I'd like to have some fun ship combat.

All you need is cannonballs unless you want to make it harder for yourself. Chainshot kills sails but killing sails doesn't get you anything except for more return fire and more damage to your ship. Grapeshot for killing the crew is also just in case you want them to suffer before you sink them. Maybe you can kill off their gunners and stop any return fire but its a sure thing if you just sink them. I wish the ship combat was better and involved 2D positioning, facings and all that but its not. The epitome of naval combat is 'close with full sail, turn to port or starboard, hold, fire, jibe, hold, fire, …… until thye are sunk.