Archaven

Some insights and quote on what Josh take about reduction to 5 characters: "We had talked about it going all the way back to Pillars of Eternity.. But doing that to a spiritual successor of games that almost always had six party members didn't seem like a good idea". "It makes a significant difference in how easily you can process what's going on screen. As the party size grows, the number of combatants also grows. So with five party members, it feels just a little bit easier to manage" Along with smaller party, the class system is completely overhauled, the speed slowed slightly and the 30 odd afflictions re-imagined into broader categories so that countering them is more intuitive and doesn't require spreadsheet to track them all. AI governing companions and enemies has been much "improved" and that players can rely on companions to make smarter decisions in combat without having to guide them at every stage. My take on this: I don't have much problem or difficulty in processing what's going on screen in first PoE. But i understand that this may be a problem for many people. Since devs already don't mind offending vocal minority like me who prefers 6, why not go with 4? In my opinion, 4 would really be the best. With even much lesser party characters, they can even go further with the reduction in skill or spells. So it's much more "manageable" and "easier" for new comers and players who have no experience with this kind of games. On the other hand, for veterans who are more experienced who kept complaining about how easy the game was, this can also increase the level of difficulty for veterans, since they have even "lesser" firepower/utility from 1 less character. Why not go further Obsidian? Regarding the AI.. i turned it off in most of the old IE games. I don't know.. maybe i sux at programming those AI script. They don't really work the way i want it. Even with Dragon Age Inquisition, i turned it off all completely. I often see that my AI companion wasting their spells or not using it correctly or efficiently the way i want it. It would be great this time around if i can see how good the AI has been "revamped" and even more so with the AI scripting stretch goals that we already hit. To me, the idea of a party-based RPG it simply means i will be controlling most of my characters. If the AI can be so good that they can basically not getting themselves killed, providing support to the rest of the party and even helped killing stuffs that i merely only need to control my main PC, that's a good direction we are heading towards!

Does that mean Obsidian in a financial crisis yet again? ​Depends on what their contract was, and whether they were expecting something like this. Or were at least well informed. Still they would need to find a comparable project to move to next. That really suxs... I hope PoE2 crowdfunding can help them a little.

Does that mean Obsidian in a financial crisis yet again?

1st island unlock.. 14 to go... i doubt we can even hit 3

I hope the sub-classes can be meaningful and not just offering slight or small bonuses.

With 1 less party character right now.. i'm guessing combat will be much more difficult as well. It may come to a point where hard is really hard. Strategy will only help to a certain limit. Victorious in a battle may end up with heavy casualties with only 1-2 surviving characters. My issue with this is that, fallen companions gain no experience and XPs. This often leads to reload and trying my best to have as many characters alive as possible for the XP gain. IMHO, this should not be how things were designed. Every companion who participate and support in combat should be rewarded on the XPs equally. I'm not sure if this was changed in PoE or in later expansion.

In the update (text at least, haven't watched the vid), Kaz mentioned that the bloom had been exaggerated for this demonstration to show it more clearly - it would be lessened in the game itself. I'm not referring to the explosion scene. I even mentioned the "Final composite screenshot". Most often in many games, i find bloom actually makes visual look worst. There are games which allows the bloom effects to be enabled/disabled. I cant recall if PoE1 has a great deal of graphics options, it would be great if the bloom effects are not forced.

I wouldn't be surprised as well but i'd be disappointed. The big problem of affliction removal is that they can be reapplied 0.5s later equally easy. Got poisoned by a spider? No problem, you drink an antidote and you're fine! Half a second later spider hits and poisons you again. You've just wasted your round and and antidote, congratulations. Liberating Exhortation sounded great but didn't work as well because it wasn't suspending afflictions gained after it was cast. Enemies with afflictions on hit could ruin this mechanic, i hope Obsidian will not let that happen. These are legitimate concerns, but even if they haven't thought of them - and I think they will have - they should be obvious in playtesting. I will be very surprised if they take away immunity spells but keep enemies who spam-apply conditions. I suspect they'll actually keep both. +1. Completely agree. One may think devs wouldn't be oversight. But they do. This kind of happen to be in Original Sin IINM. I've got poisoned, use antidote and then the poisoned get re-applied the next round. This become an annoyance simply that you must get poisoned, cursed, debuffs and tough your way in to complete the battle before you can remove those affliction. In other words, it's an artificial way to up the difficulty so that game becomes harder for your characters to get handicapped intentionally?

I like to comment on the texture of the mud (video starting at 0:28) in reference to the light source. It looks abit bland.. i'm not sure how to word it. Is it the mud suppose to reflect being a little wet in regards to the light source? This part looks a little artificial to me. Maybe to fix this, they could redo some of the textures of the mud? Now onto the reflection of the water (video at 0:32 onwards) it also don't seem quite "right" to me personally. Maybe there's too much bloom added to effects? I'm someone who actually hates bloom. Will there be a graphical option or slider to adjust the "level" of bloom? In the final composite screenshot of Kaz Aruga demonstration, it seems there's this overused of bloom too on Pallegina and Eder's shoulder pads and cause it becoming blurry. Thanks!

I hate the approval system. I often need to choose the decision where I have to offend the least companions possible. I even have to micro manage these approvals so that all party members have an overall party approvals towards me so that they don't leave my party or even leave and go rogue.

Another level cap increase? Seriously? This is one of the most pointless stretch goals. If they are increasing the content (more sidequests being added) that leads to the need for increasing the cap then i'm fine. But i doubt this is the case considering in some articles i read, the length of the game is similar to PoE1. With same amount of content with just increase level cap, they are probably bloating the XP gain faster so that you level faster. I'm opposing in having many levels IF each level up does not has any significant gain. They are again holding back those goals that people really want. Considering they are making a sequel, the budget for orchestra should already been included in the budget and not unlocked via stretch goals. Full orchestra, it's not something that is going to add to the game significantly, IMO.

- I like to be able to rename my character. I remember have to restart an earlier game just for this. - I like that i be able to annotate notes in the map/world map. This is really great for someone like me to mark place of interest that i may need to revisit.

It was quite some time i haven't been playing PoE.. i like to see some of the audio options for PoE2: 1) Individual volume slider/options for music, ambience, dialogue, effects (weapons/spells), weather/wind. 2) Options for playing/repeating the music in a specific area randomly? Let's say you enter an area.. music start to play for that area. Once finish.. i think you never get to listen them again? Maybe repeat this music after 10-15 minutes? 3) Let you select or play a list of "unlocked" tracks depends on your progression on how far you are in the game. 4) Seamless fade in and fade out background music when entering combat and out of combat 5) Maybe not related to audio options but.. i find the war music sometimes kind of "annoying". But has Obsidian played Dragon Age Inquisition? Man i love that awesome battle music when fighting a dragon. Google Vinsomer Battle Theme (Storm Coast). There's also one that is and the end of the game... Is simply ~!@#$ epic music! 6) I can't wait for awesome epicness of PoE2 music

Well if if we end up with 3 island.. i dont mind they do 3 MEGA island though

Unfortunately.. we haven't even get 1 unlocked yet

I like Neytiri.. female Amaua in blue? resembling the movie Avatar . Too bad we have an Amaua companion alread.. and she's not blue

But ranger is not necessary an archer? Hmmm maybe Spellslinger? Arcane Sniper? Arcane Shooter? Obviously one of these names needs to be "Stormcaller" ;o Avatar of Storm.. Grimdawn

2.5M soon.. perhaps they are waiting for 2.6M being hit to release double happiness.. ahem double release of the stretch goals.. that way they can still release a mediocre goal at 2.8M and 3.0 will be the one that everyone wants... in other words... fishing .. fig funds up 1.22 -> 1.24. Which i'm right.. they are slowing releasing the funds to aid achieving goals.. also another +350 backers to unlock the 1st island. 15 island this time around seems far reach

Enough of OT here.. bring proper discussion to appropriate thread. Let's guess what's the next stretch goal shall we? Please be a new city stretch goal or the 8th companion.. it's 1M past the previous companion though.. And 8th is actually hinted by Feargus himself.

But you don't. I mean there's a reason for quicksave and quickload. If you get crushed by enemies then nothing stops you from reloading and trying a different approach. And on normal and hard WM is not more difficult than the main game. You have to have the appropriate level though. Maybe yours was too low. Ever tried to beat Raedric or the Skaen temple in Dyrford with a underleveled party? Even worse than WM I'd say. Same with Caed Nua when you first enter it with a party which level is too low. One or two levels may totally change your perception of the WM encounters. Who knows? I actually did and got my arse hands down the first time i play the game in readric's hold with a low level 3-character party . I then learnt with more party characters.. game became actually much easier.

I think part of the reason is there are a hundred different things that fans want/don't want, so Obsidian have to be incredibly cautious about making changes based on fan pressure or risk opening the floodgates. After all, if I want to change X, and I see Obsidian cave to pressure to change Y, I am going to assume pressure will make them change X as well. Very soon we have design by committee which, as we all know, is totally the best way to design things I agree with you. Devs cannot please everyone. There are certain changes they are open for discussion though. I personally love the per encounter approach rather than vancian. But i can see that if enough pressure, they may actually reverse the idea, IMO. But out of everything, the biggest way to prove that a developer is wrong is by boycotting them with sales.. which Obsidian is very smart.. They know "our loyal fans" wouldn't do that .. they'll just follow and obey whatever we've designed

I think the reason they're not going to be convinced is that they've spent a lot of their adult lives making and balancing CRPGs; JE Sawyer has been working on them for just under 18 years. The decisions they've made come as the result of a lot of experience making and playtesting games, and watching people with all different experience levels play their games. It is going to be very difficult to convince them to reverse a decision they've obviously put some thought into, especially when the arguments are rubbish like 'but if someone wants to play with 5 they could just choose not to recruit that last person'. EDIT: I have heard it suggested that one of the advantages of crowdfunding is that it also opens a dialogue with fans regarding the development of the game. I would suggest that it is also one of the disadvantages, because it opens a company up to a lot of people who think they know what makes a game good, but often actually don't. Request was a plea to ask them to allow people who want to play with the 6th character to be able to unlock them unofficially via some file tweaks. Not asking them to reverse their decisions. Also, making a statement about someone's opinion: 'but if someone wants to play with 5 they could just choose not to recruit that last person' which is actually also a fact as "rubbish" is really uncalled for. You are indirect implying that if a cook has been cooking for past 18 years, and he is much better cook than anyone else as a patron who thinks if the food he cooks is tasty or not, actually don't. Or a singer who has been singing for more than 10 years and a judge (who doesn't know how to sing) shouldn't be even judging him. Very good reasoning you have for calling it rubbish simply for disagreeing.

+1. exactly

During the Q&A he also mentioned that Fighter + Barbarian would be Brute and Rogue + Wizard would be Spellblade. Thanks for the info mate. I like most of those except "avenger". I mean, who is he avenging? Do all druid/rogues have someone to avenge? It just doesn't have much to do with the classes abilities. avenge some of the fallen companions? remember you are hunting a god

Nice list. Would definitely save some name suggestions in this thread.. so i dont need to use some of the boring default titles like "brute"