the_dog_days

That looks more like chaotic good than lawful evil to me, but I always get the DnD alignments mixed up.

This came out for PC yesterday. [ Right off the bat I get a reality check from a talking cat. First thing's first. I need to try on the more ridiculous of the free dlc outfits (got them free because I have Trails in the Sky 1-3 in my library). I was tempted to go like this for the whole game. Random cool pic for the opening cinematic. You can always tell when someone's a good person if they have a copy of Woo Baby on their bookshelf. Back in the first game Princess Alfin asked if Rean would be her honorary brother. I was all for it (honorary or not, that's got to put him somewhere in the line of succession, right?), but ultimately didn't get a say. Seems she's still hung up on the idea. Annabelle had my favorite character arc from the first game. She went from hapless noblewoman to Ash Ketchum. Now Annabelle has reached her next evolution: Professor Oak. Elise has weird ideas about the nature of Rean and Celine's relationship. Prologue ends with a boss fight that becomes a mech fight. Now Rean has a mech. In the words of Princess Alfin:

(I hope this doesn't come off as snarky or overly upset, because I still intend on playing the game and I still think I will like it even despite these problems.) Worsts 1) I suspect that you've already fixed in your in-house build: the Transcendent Suffering bug. I didn't even know this was a bug until I saw someone mention it in another thread. Everyone kept talking about how great monks were I didn't say anything because I was reasonably sure one of the many number crunchers in the forum knew what was going on more than I did, but this had me confused for the longest time. 2) This next bit kinda hurts to say, but everything about spell casting time/interrupt/concentration/Might/Strength/Resolve. I can't point out any one of these things individually because they're a ball of twine and all work together. Making spells per encounter + buffing them up meant that there has to be a means of countering that. Enter the long casting times, interrupt, and concentration. The new way Resolve (first beta build) worked meant it became a dumpstat for casters. Separating spell damage and weapon damage, renaming Might to Strength, and assigning spell damage to Resolve was the purposed fix for that but now 'tweener builds suffer. You can still make a tank healer, but if you want what I call a Moses build (someone leading the charge and parting the Red Sea, as it were) you've got an uphill battle on your hand because anything you can do within that role with a druid, mage, or priest a barbarian, monk, or even fighter can do better. 3) Armor and penetration: penetration is a hidden godstat. Its not hidden in the sense that I can't see it, but hidden in the sense that you have to dig into the mechanics to buff it. The way that you need penetration and armor to have success makes combat actually feel more rote than POE 1. My best experience is with the new mechanics within the scripted interactions.

I actually planned on trying to do this anyway. I wouldn't balance it (who has the time?), but i would re-implement abandon POE 1 systems.

Been rewatching Dr. Quinn on Amazon Prime. Don't judge me.

I thought it was more of the case that of a wide versus tall build. Single class goes tall so it will have access to higher level spells, but multi goes wide and get's to grow faster than other-wise but is split between two pools. It's specialization versus variety. I, for one, don't think there's many options for either single or multiclass characters in the current beta build. They both need to fatten up (to borrow your analogy).

Slow mode is making an unofficial comeback within combat only. The devs have said that they play on slowing down combat speed as soon as it starts so that it plays like slow mode without having the toggle. (I think I remember Josh Sawyer saying that feedback for the first game was that three modes were too many toggles so they removed slow mode, and the contradicted by making a walk toggle.)

This sounds like an excellent idea for a mod, but not something the devs should be worried about right now.

I found the culprit.

I plan on running a skeleton crew and avoiding ship combat so the stream wasn't too interesting to me.

Good news. It was a big complain during in-house testing as well. Yesterday during stream Josh confirmed that they will remove it and you will be able to move/change spell without loosing your resource. care to put the link here, please? https://www.twitch.tv/videos/229121722

That's amazing. I almost wish someone walked by and did the audio equivalent of a photo bomb and yelled 'Manchuria' immediately afterwards.

I thought that was the full name of the game.

From the feedback I've seen, think of the worst Bethesda release you can remember, and that's about it. Some crashes, missing geometry, infinite loading screens, bugs in the very systems that are critical for gameplay, and some developer oversights (like dropping stolen goods onto the ground right in front of a guard just before he checks you for holding stolen items).

I couldn't have said it better myself. After completing the beta a couple of times, these days I'm replaying PoE1. I'm having a blast! The combat is so incredibly polished and FUN! I wish I could multiclass there, instead of in Deadfire. It's unfair to compare version 3.0+ to a raw beta, but for sure in Deadfire we are going to have a lot to get used to. I still don't understand why they had to go to such lenghts to change the combat. It will take them at least a year to balance/fix it WHILE keeping it fun. The problem is that some of the changes are due to foreseen balancing problems with multiclassing while others are due to mixed feedback on POE1. They got rid of graze, endurance, engagements, changed casting times, and got rid of slow mode in response to feedback.

Its getting destroyed by critics for bugginess. I honestly didn't expect it to get released this year at all, so I'm not surprised.

Yeah, that's exactly what I remember. Shining the Holy Ark is still my favorite in the series. Its pretty simple in terms of difficulty and a bit short for an RPG, but I enjoyed a lot. (I even bought a used Sega Saturn years later so I could replay it.)

You can't pick.

Shining Forces 1-3, Shining in the Darkness (dungeon crawler), Shining the Holy Ark (dungeon crawler), and Shining Wisdom (a Zelda-like).

All the Shining Force games follow the same basic combat system. And yes, I've played all three, melkathi.

Does anyone writing or directing a superhero movie ever research the characters? I've seen no evidence of this.

I love what Ubisoft did with Watch Dogs 2. After realizing that WD 1 was unintentionally cringy, they decided to make Watch Dogs 2 intentionally cringy. A lot of people misinterpret the game, not noticing that the game is self aware.

Making the cat lead the charge. You should be ashamed, Keyrock.

Fair point.

Guys, I know I'm coming off as a hypocrite, but maybe we've gone too far down the rabbit hole.