Boeroer

Well, we'll speak again in 10 years I guess.

True - but I would argue that it's better to have no VO instead of bad VO. Unless you want to support players with disabilities of course - for them text-to speech would be great to have whatever the quality is unless you can understand it well. But as I said: 10 years is a lot of time for tech, especially when it involves KI. With a smart enough KI and good training I can see that text-to speech might indeed be a great solution to this problem. Those Google Assistant phone calls were impressive. And at the same time maybe it will also replace lots of narrative designers, composers, artists and testers - depending on how well it can generate game content that players like. That will be weird... Maybe we will soon have a "made by real humans" label.

Yes, Stalker's Link should help Maia to land CC effects, too.

Yes, it is. But if streamers can't be bothered to read out text rather than looking into the camera while it gets read for them then screw them I'd say. There's a very popular German Let's Player named "Gronkh". I don't follow him but in the few vids I saw he was reading all dialogues with different voices and intonation. It was engaging enough (and sometimes also funny) and he doesn't seem to have any reservations or problems with non-full VO. To the contrary I'd say. Of course you should be a streamer who can read fluently. Some might struggle with that. But then I'd argue they shouldn't play dialogue-heavy CRPGs in the first place.

Excuse my french, but streamers my ass. I feared that video might sound like it does. A bit like Commander Data reading the lines. Ok, it's from 2012 - but I also checked some text-to-speech for some learning software today (coincidentally) and at least that one still wasn't anywhere near a proper trained voice actor. But 10 years is a long time for those things - so maybe...

I think that's not odd at all. Especially if you discovered loopholes etc. yourself.

Oh, and I like to use the Red Hand on Maia-Geomancer, enchant it with double tap and then make good use of the Essential Phantom. The enchantment also works with the Phantom - so if you fight against vessels it's just an awesome combo. Had a lot of laughs in otherwise tough fights - like the SSS ghoul challenge or some fampyr fights - or even against steelclad constructs. Blightheart is also nice. You don't have a lot of other items that boost spell damage and the rest of that gun's enchantments is also great.

Afaik Stalker's Link works with all attack rolls. Also check out Takedown Combo. The one-time 100% dmg bonus also works with all sorts of damage. Especially interesting with high dmg single target spells like Killing Bolt and such - which makes it interesting for a Geomancer. It even works with DoTs. And if it's a DoT that hasn't a direct damage component (like Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, Disintegrate, Soul Ignition or some Druid spells) then the bonus of Takedown Combo doesn't even get removed after the first tick but keeps boosting the DoT damage until its duration runs out. Necrotic Lance doesn't work optimally because the initial direct dmg portion will remove Takedown Combo so that the following DoT will not profit anymore. Also a good thing is that Takedown Combo doesn't care who will cause the following damage.

It's pretty hilarious to think that Deadfire wanted to ride on the wave of "Pirates of the Caribbean". That hype was so dead at the time. Also Josh never intended Deadfire to be or even seem like a pirate game. As he said in some talk some devs liked the whole pirate theme so much they got carried away with it while Josh tried to step on the brake. But I think the promo pictures and other first impressions still transported that picture. @xzar_montyyou should maybe watch the first PotC movie. It is entertaining imo.

If you're rocking Essence Interrupter + modal with a fitting frontloaded build (e.g. Berserker/Streetfighter or Scout or so) Gorecci Street is actually not that hard with only MC, Xoti and Edér. But you need BB's money blessing for that and starting with BB's lvl 4 is also very helpful of course. I tried said Berserker/Streetfighter (with 3 CON so he reached Bloodied/Blooded/Heating Up quite quickly via Frenzy) and he blasted through Gorecci Street like the Pope blasted cigs. 😄 And for a solo Assassin it's very easy if he has Smoke Veil.

That would at least explain why Deadfire sold significantly less copies than PoE without PoE nor Deadfire having bad user reviews. If disappointment and problems with Poe lead to such a massive sales drop it would have found its way into revies, I'm still convinced about that. Same as the "abysmal marketing" and "IE games nostalgia was satisfied with PoE" theories: All three don't contradict the fact that user reviews for both games were good. That's why I favor those explanations.

Hm, I played PoE on a notebook with a 555M and it ran rel. well. I wouldn't say that this game desprerately calls for cloud gaming. But anyway: your point abput Microsoft/Google is a good one and makes most others moot in the first place.

I would be very happy with an episodic form of PoE3. I mean multiple smaller campaigns instead of a big long one. You'd have a rel. small main game with one starter episode and then you can buy whatever additional episodes sounds fun. A bit like the old Hero Quest tabletop game (which was fun!). They wouldn't need to be played in a particular order (although maybe a certain level treshold would be good I guess). You wouldn't need such a huge team and once the main game's engine is set the teams could focus on story and quest designs and itemization and so on (see Deadfire DLCs). Also smaller teams could work parallel and it wouldn't be too risky to let somebody less experienced take the lead etc. Try something new... Maybe that's a stupid idea, but atm it sounds rather nice to me until you convince be it's not.

The bonuses are very minor though. They hardly make a difference.

I really doubt that Microsoft (who now owns Obsidian and therefore also the Pillars IP) would allow a Kickstarter campaign for PoE3. The first hurdle for a PoE3: the devs must be willing to do it. After the release of Deadfire and the low sales numbers the mood was pretty gloomy. But as I already wrote: several devs now came forth on Twitter and said they would be on board for a PoE3. Maybe Josh Sawyer still wouldn't be willing to direct it (too bad), but as things like Beast of Winter shows: other devs can step in and still deliver a really nice RPG experience. Imo BoW was excellent and Josh Sawyer wasn't involved that much. Then Microsoft would need to approve it and fund the development. As I said above they want a big portfolio - all kinds of different games - for the Game Pass program. Not all those games don't have to appeal to millions of players - as long as they don't burn money it's a win I guess. Deadfire could have been a lot cheaper if it didn't have Full VO and some quicksand-features like ship combat. And yet it broke even half a year ago or so (so it wasn't a commercial failure after all). Microsoft bought Obsidian in order to have more RPG expertise. Deadfire wasn't a huge financial success but broke even after all. Even such games can be a benefit for Game Pass. So while it still seems unlikely that we will see a PoE3 in the near future - mainly because Obsidian still really doesn't know what went wrong with Deadfire and seems hesitant to retry - it seems less unlikely than a year ago.

Since this saying has its origin in Germanic tribal legislation/jurisdiction of the early middle ages and Planescape Torment def. feels older than that: I guess you are right. 😄

Twin Elms was too long indeed. Ukaizo: très short. They will get it right in the third game, because "Aller guten Dinge sind drei", as ze Germans say.

Okay wait, let me think this over... ... .. . nope, still lame.

It's a split personality. Lamest explanation - but it works!

Gorecci Street is extremely hard. If you could beat it on PotD then you are totally fit for the rest of the game on PotD: it won't get harder than that (if you don't force encounters with severely overleveled enemies). DLCs SSS and FS can be tough as well - but that's more about finding out what approach you need for a certain type of enemy. For example in SSS some fights really need you to not be hasty and use brute force but spare ressources until later in the fight.

There are microwave based, non lethal weapons that make you feel as if your skin is burning but will cause no serious harm when used responsibly and under normal conditions. Maybe it's not so easy to provide responsibility and/or normal conditions - no idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

I didn't have China in mind. It's easy(er) to push things through in an autocratic society like China, no doubt. But what I admire are the democratic countries like South Korea or Taiwan where the people and their governments did pull together. On the other hand they have experience with respiratory pandemics and also a warmer climate. But still impressive how they handled it.

Eh - Animated Weapons are powerful, not just "decent enough". You shouldn't use auto-attacks with summons whenever possible - because their attack abilities DO scale. Best example is the Dragon summon whose auto-attacks are bad but whose attack abilities (breath and tail lash) are pretty good because of "internal" PL scaling (I mean the PL of the Dragon, not the summoner). Most summons do not scale well - some however do. Not with the summoner's Power Level but with the character level.

It sounds like @Constentin Lévinebelieves that somehow @AndreaColombo's mod allows for more/higher/otherwise impossible stacks of resting bonuses?

You have to admire some of the asian countries and some like New Zealand that stopped the pandemic with swift concerted and mutual action of society and government.