Boeroer

Lords of the Eastern Reach wasn't done by Obsidian but Zero Radius Games and before Deadfire/fig.co times. LotER was announced in May 2015 and fig.co only opened doors in October of that year. As I said before: Josh Sawyer writes the TTRPG in his free time (currently) so I wouldn't think we'll see any crowdfunding for this.

You mean with a Spellblade? With mortars I would prefer dual because both mortars complement each other very nicely: Hand Mortar + Blinding Smoke unlocks Deathblows and then Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot gets all the nice Deathblow bonus. Also: Full Attacks are just better with dual mortars and the Spellblade has plenty of Full Attacks. Generally pistol + modal is better than dual pistols when it comes to auto-attacks. But again: Full Attacks like dual weapons. But imo mortars are a lot better than pistols on a Spellblade in general. Also because of dual damage. I like pistol + modal on chars that don't use Full Attacks - like Ciphers, Chanters... I would always go for Eccea's Arcane Blaster at least as backup weapon because pierce-only weapons can be so frustrating.

With a Witch both Veilpiercer as well as St. Omaku's Mercy are viable because of their 50% chance to skip recovery on crit. Borrowed Instinct + some crit conversion from Barb in combination with attack speed and Blood Thirst let you shot quickly. Hunting Bows now also work well with the modal, especially with Borrowed Instinct. Guns and crossbows are a bit suboptimal because Blood Thirst doesn't work with them. I also like to make Serafen a SC Barb and go ranged with a bow, aiming for Driving Roar later which is an extremely good ranged dmg/cc ability (given its low cost). Spellblade: any AoE weapons like mortars or Minor Blights are great when you want to apply stuff like Toxic Strike to many enemies at once. Infuse with Vital Essence makes the AoE bigger. Alacrity speeds you up, Combusting Wounds amplifies the AoE dmg... Blightheart is also good on a spellblade. One of the best ranged single target dmg weapons in terms of dmg is Nannasin's Cobra Strike - but its range is very short, like a reach weapon basically. But it is a ranged weapon (with high base dmg and a nasty DoT).

My theory 1: the crew needs a certain amount of xp in order to advance in ranks. If you have 4 ranks you can still gain xp. That excess XP doesn't seem to do anything further. 2: Some crew might already come with a higher rank. But they also start at 0 xp. Maybe it's none of that, maybe one, maybe both. Anyway you def. won't feel any difference between 4 stars with 29 xp and 4 stars with 108 xp so don't bother trying to demystify this (unless you really want to of course). You could check if the master crew you can get via breath's blessings (several 4 stars) start with 0 xp and if they still gain xp. That would explain a lot I think.

Since there's GamePass they don't necessarily need to only develop big games. Microsoft wants lots of content for GamePass which might lead to more small(ish) games being developed. Fingers crossed!

While I liked Dragon Age Origins I really didn't like Inquisition.

He was just taking (part time) parental leave.

I think that's not mutually exclusive. The detailed lore and nod to several historical events like colonisation etc. can be very interesting as well and you still can have a great overarching narrative. Detailed "history" and lore cam make a game feel more deep and alive. I think despite a lot of old RPG cliché like dwarves, elves, wizards etc. the world building of PoE/Deadfire is great. With BoW combining those two things worked a lot better. But maybe it was easier because it's shorter and more encapsulated. Maybe it would be a lot easier to do a game that consists of several smaller but nicely told "campaigns" and a very simple overarching "narrative" that just connects them.

I think because Obsidian vowed that they are only developing for PC they just didn't want to touch console ports - which I understand, it's really not their expertise. And maybe their "style" of implementation also makes porting difficult. It's easier to develop software for a single platform and completely ignore others - but it makes it a lot more difficult to bring it to those other platform then. I know from experience that's it an be very frustrating and enfuriating having to "fix" or convert somebody else's code. It's even bad if it's your own. I remember when I did my first browser-based administration software for a client (like... nearly 20 years ago I think) and at some point they wanted to switch from Internet Explorer to the new Firefox browser - holy moly that was bad. Nowadays with all the frameworks it's no biggy, but back then it was like having to rewrite more than half of the software. God it was a huge steaming pile of spaghetti with a thousand bandaids afterwards. Man I really don't want to remember that... So I'm sympathetic when it comes to bad ports. What I don't get is the poor communication though. You could just tell people what's going on and why. Most players will understand.

I guess most players don't know this, but making a good CRPG that feels like a quality game is extremely difficult. You can be a small indy studio and make very good roguelikes, tactic games, deck builders, platformers and so on - because with those games you need a good game mechanic and taht's basically it. Nice graphics, music, writing etc. will help, but they are not definig the game most of times. Look at Slay the Spire: its graphics are simple and not really breathtaking, the music is good but not jawdropping, there's nearly no writing. But it's a great, really great deckbuilder roguelike game. More than 1 million sold copies... Same with FTL (music top notch though in its own niche, pixel graphics good as well but nothing AAA-like), Among Us, Hotline Miami and whatnot. You need one or two really good aspects and that might be enough to land a hit. With CRPGs you need the whole package: good story/writing or else it feels like reading a cheap novella with Fabio on the cover. The branching dialogues are very complicated, you have to do quests with several outcomes, the world is supposed to "react" to what you do, companions should feel "alive", you need decent graphics that can be simple but don't look cheap, your game mechanics better be great, your char have to be customizable, you want lots of loot, interesting abilities, the balance shouldn't be off, the music can't be too awful. And then people also want VO because it helps their immersion. Imo CRPGs are the games which need the most comprehensive set of talent and experience to be done right. At the same time they are a niche product most of times so you won't sell millions of those. So who does these games must really be dedicated and passionate about it. If I were to make a game I certainly wouldn't start with an RPG, jesus no. The underlying systems alone... So I understand why there's not a ton of good new CRPGs out there.

I'm not a fan of arguing with realism™ when it comes to game mechanics in the first place, but whatever: Have you ever traveled over land from A to B over the several days by foot in a region that is on the infrastructural level of a late medieval country? I did so several times: in rural Uzbekisten, Kirgistan, Kazachstan, Romania, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and more. Although I am able to fish (ok), hunt (meh - not worth bringing a big hunting weapon imo) and gather (ok) I always needed a good amount of consumable "camping supplies". This mostly included dried food, water, oil, kindling, ethanol, soap and firewood (or something else to burn) and stuff like that. It's not trivial to just go and hunt your supper, even if you are an experienced hunter. It's also not trivial to find edible plants etc. There is no guarantee you will find fruit or vegetables like wild onion and carrot or animals, let alone being able to stalk and kill them with a bow. It takes a long time to fish and hunt - are you willing to sacrifice all that time when traveling? Traps take way too long to be viable when just passing through, too. It's especially difficult with timid animals because you will not be silent enough while trampling around with a big backpack with pots and stuff and tools attached: most animals will be gone once you arrive. Often there's not enough firewood to gather. Wood has to be dry to be able to light a fire without fire accellerants, you can't just chop off some fresh branches and light them, it doesn't work. Depending on the season, the weather and the region it can be surprisingly difficult to gather firewood, dried dung or something like that. Sometimes you find good stuff, sometimes you don't. So what you need to bring depends on season/weather/region your travalling through. For example in Kirgistan you dodn't need to bring firewood - dry wood was everywhere. But it was very cold at night so I burned through all the wood quickly. In Costa Rica it was no problem to fish and gather stuff, but it was raiing season and finding good firewood was surprisingly difficult - but on the other hand I only needed it for cooking because it was very warm all the time. Imo it's ok if a game just simplifies that and assumes you always have to bring something when you travel - and calls it "camping supplies". After all it's just a game mechanic that wants to prevent rest-spamming. Whether you do that with supplies or random encounters doesn't really matter - I mean mechanically. Your goal is to prevent rest spamming and both solutions will work somewhat I guess. You just have to anticipate what players like better. Then you can rationalize your solution afterwards like I did above. I believe most players prefer camping supplies over random encounters. Maybe it can be done without either. Deadfire for example has no resting limitations at all (besides needing food in order to remove injuries but food is plenty). But the more easy it is to rest the more "gamey" it feels imo. You will recede from the roots of CRPGS (TTRPGs) if you allow spam-resting. That may not be a problem per se - just saying.

Absolutely imo. I really like Witches with Furyshapers. The mace's enchantment and Lingering Echoes don't work with Fear Ward (because it's its own "character" or entity) but still nice.

Yes, I'm aware that you are experiencing this*. But as I said I just checked my game to reassure me (and you) that this is not normal behavior. Maybe it's indeed limited to the initial boat fight. If not you most likely have some mod hickups and maybe you'll have to restart the game after deactivating your mods to get rid of this. * Another explanation could be that your INT is very high and your Carnage just barely touched some other pirate. It's hard to tell because all enemies in this fight carry the same name and there's no Carnage AoE indicator. But the next posted is rel. far away so maybe that's not it.

If they didn't successfully pitch Avowed to Microsoft how could they develop it now? They are owned by Microsoft.

I don't really understand what you mean by "stationary targets" and "better Sneak Attack". Carnage should apply to all enemies around the one you are targeting with your attacks. The one you are targeting shouldn't get hit by Carnage. I just loaded a savegame with a Barb (only mod is Community Patch) and my Carnage works like it should (not hitting the initial target of my attacks).

In the unmodded game Carnage usully only applies to the enemies surrounding your target. The only exception is Barbarian/Monk when using Force of Anguish because the attack pushes the target into the Carnage Area after the initial hit.

I have it installed for some years now (properly updated) and it has 27 GB with all DLCs and ca. 300 MB of savegames. The player log and several other stuff that accumulates over time might also add a bit of disk space. So I would say that those 66 GB are not correct. But maybe that's just temporary during the installment? Or maybe you have some extra content (must be a lot though)?

indeed. Don't get too close. 2m is more than you might think. I remember there was an issue with arquebus + Backstab some time ago. So if you are using an arquebus that might also be a problem. But I think that one got fixed.

Backstab works like advertised and is not unreliable. As long as you are stealthed or invisible while the attack is executed you gain the Backstab bonus. It may be that you unstealthed right before the attack went off - because your stealth wasn't high enough for example or because you accidentiall bumped into the enemy which will lift stealth at once. Are you using the Community Patch maybe? With the Community Patch the Backstab dmg is a separate log entry under the original attack.

Edér with a shield already has 4 engagement slots once he uses Defender Stance, 5 as soon as you pick Persistant Distraction. You can add more with other abilites or items but I think that more than 6 engagement slots is overkill.

My personal favorite party composition with official companions is: Edér as Swashbuckler (main tank, engagement) Xoti as SC Harvester of Gaun (buffing, damage, healing) Aloth as SC Wizard (CC, debuffing, damage) Tekehu as SC Watershaper (healing, damage, CC) MC Mostly because PL 8/9 spells of Priest, Wizard and Druid are lots of fun. But obviously there's tons of other nice compositions. It depends a lot on how you want to play. E.g. if I want to use AoEs a lot then the above composition is great - but I have to make sure to cramp enemies together in a spot (with the tank, pulling, luring etc). If I want to go for strong single target action instead then the above composition is not that good.

I forgot: you can get Ryona's Vambraces via dialogue, you don't need to fight the dragon.

Most spells which are ranged and targeted (meaning you have to pick an enemy and not the ground) work with penetrating shots afaik. Missiles, Mind Blades and so on. I don't have a comprehensive list so some might not - but if it's ranged and targeted there's a high chance that at least the initial impact will benefit. It's most interesting for multiprojectile/multihit/jumping spells.

Haha - reading that after learning how you beat the game including Megabosses was a bit like reading "I'm just a very casual basketball dude who happens to play in the NBA". Because it frees up several ability points which you can spend otherwise - is my interpretation. Rules may take away choice - which can liberate you from making tricky decisions.

I personally don't think Critical Focus is worth it. If you have a Priest even Zealous Focus is a bit meh and I'd go with Zealous Charge which is nice to have on a ranged char with shortish range (blunderbuss). Vielo Vidorio's base duration of 6 secs is way too short for my taste, I never pick it. I like to take Runner's Wounding Shot so I have one more gun ability per encounter in addition to FoD. I like to use Prestitigitator's Missiles, too - because Penetrating Shot works with it (without affecting the recovery) and that way Pallegina can unload two longer ranged attacks (Wrath and Missiles) before closing in with the blunderbuss attacks. If you take Intense Flames (and put a burning lash on the weapon) you should also get Scion of Flame imo. FoD (50%) + Intense Flames (25%) + Burning Lash (25%) (combined 100%) all get a raise of 20% then which is pretty good - also in order to help the individual lashes to overcome the burn DR or enemies. Before getting Silver Flash I like to use Lead Spitter because the Rending (+3 DR bypass) enchantment makes it more useful against non-low DR targets. I will add Ryona's Vambraces (+3 DR bypass) because with blunderbusses you want to have all the DR bypass you can get. But: lahes don't profit from DR bypass at all - so when using a blunderbuss with Flames of Devotion it's still best to target low-DR foes or switch to an arquebus for the high-DR foes which you want to shoot with FoD - you just get more dmg out of that. Pliambo per Casitàs ist one of he best ranged weapons for a Paladin imo, especially in combination with Coordinated Attacks. In order to switch from blunderbuss to arquebus I like to equip the Coil of Resoucefulness and add Quick Switch. That way I can switch to the best tool (blunderbuss against squishies, arquebus against tough ones) without any recovery penalty. If you have party members with DR-lowering abilities you can spare you the arquebus-fuzz most of times I guess.