Fenixp

Dat ass indeed. They also left out the bits of storyline where you're falling trough the floor and veritibirds fly backwards. Still, I'm quite hyped - ain't gonna buy it until at least a year after release tho. Anyway, Darksiders II: Deathfinitive edition got released and I got it for free 'cause I bought complete collection of Darksiders II (friggin' love the game). It's cool that they brought brand new features in, like crashing on launch when you change resolution to 1080p.

Yeah, Honest Hearts seems incredibly appealing on the surface, a brand new landmass... Tiny landmass largely in the style of the main game with some unique aspects, yes! But then you find out just how incredibly forgettable it ends up being.

"All companies which failed to hire me suffered a mysterious outburst of accidental fires in all of their offices."

You should move on to something more friendly and relaxing to rebuild the bond, like Monopoly.

Awww, Sagani ended up last. She was definitely my favorite character. Oh well, at least I can feel special now.

That's ... Kind of bad, actually. The AI seems to take a lot less disengagement damage since 2.0 or so, if AI's engagement radius and damage got buffed in turn, that would pretty much eliminate option of using engagements to your advantage and only keep the aspect of your party being locked in place. Hm.

It was actually all skill. ... That's what I keep telling myself. I am absolutely looking forward to the moment when something explodes inside the application.

So, bought Skyshine's Bedlam. It's pretty damn entertaining, but very random and the combat system is quite simplistic for the most part, yet it's quite difficult and extremely suspenseful - your dudes die fast and it's got the XCOM level of "Okay, cool, now I'll do this to secure my highly trained sniper, right, nothing can happen to him now. ... Oh. That happened. ****.". Still, a) Fantastic art style b) Postapocalyptic That's all I need to be happy. Yes, I'm a shallow person. And not only NPCs, they have constructed the entire hub area to be extremely relatable. Dragonfall is an excellent RPG.

I was under the impression that animats are a result of extremely advanced animancy - in other words, it would take an expert in the field to reprogram and influence them. When I played the game, I was myself surprised that my animancers were capable of charming them. As for guls and fampyrs, I guess you could explain it away by their essence being substantially different from that of a healthy being - then again, that would warrant a high resistance at best, not an immunity.

I made a thing that nobody knew how it works work. I still don't know how it works, but it works now and it's a thing that works as opposed to two days ago when it did not work. (it already kinda worked yesterday, but not really) I've had to install Visual Studio 2010, .NET framework 3.5 and an obscure version of Silveright Tools into a Windows XP SP2 Virtual Machine for the thing to work using the powers of total guesswork. I'm not sure how happy is my employer about me taking a week to do so, but guesswork takes a ton of effort. Impressive, innit? Yeah, I know, with this amount of information it's a quite difficult feat to appreciate by an outsider, but I feel like sharing :-P

Finished reading Ratcatcher. It was okay. I feel that Sagani kinda lacked motivation to even get into what she got into in the first place, and I think that the intro should have been cut a bit shorter and plot expanded upon a little - as it stands, plot actually properly started somewhere halfway trough and ended far too quickly. Anyway, it was good enough for me to look forward to more short stories.

Yup, that's why I said the RPG elements in Warcraft 3 were quite lite, and that dota expanded upon them ;-) As for whether WarCraft 3 is or is not a pure RPS... I don't care TBH. I don't think it is, or at least I don't think it's a traditional RTS, ymmv. Me neither, thus me using the cop-out term of action RPG. In other words, vast majority of resource management. So is counter-strike. So is counter-strike, on higher level anyway. Kiiind of like money in counter-strike. Majority of team arena games, regardless of them being shooters or hero clicker things, require a large degree of strategy and resource management. It's dictated by their format of being based around a group playing as a team which has to properly allocate its resources to achieve a given goal. These aspect won't make them RTS games. The real reason DOTA games are being called RTS is because people are hung up on it being Warcraft 3 mod, that's it. There's not a single reason as to why it could not have been made in a mod for, say, Half-Life 2. It doesn't use just about any base characteristics of Warcraft 3, it is its own thing - and that's fine. Yes, there are, and they're all defined by a single player always being in control of numerous units around the battlefield that he has to single-handedly manage. That's the key thing here, it's a single, lonesome player who makes the strategy in strategy games, not a team - not to say a team can't play strategically too. No, controlling summons does not make a strategy game alone, because vast majority of gameplay for vast majority of people does not contain this. Yes, even Dawn of War 2 stretches boundaries of RTS in its singleplayer. When all is said and done tho, moba games play nothing like RTS games to date, which makes RTS lose all meaning when calling moba games that, which is why they got their own genre. I do not want to see RTS games defined "But you have to click to tell people where to go!", we might as well merge action RPG and RTS then. When was the last time you played a dota game without nearly constantly providing input? :-P Seriously, even some RTS games require you to constantly micromanage everything, that's not a very good argument. And, as I said, it has been proven that DOTA formula can work with different control schemes. Right, I'm repeating arguments already, so I'm out :-P

That doesn't mean much, Half-Life 2 has a mod called Lambda Wars which is a strategy game - genre shifts are hardly a rarity in modding scene. Besides, one of the major features of WarCraft 3 was that it somewhat mixed two genres Blizzard was known for - real-time strategy game, so base building, logistics, resource collection and management, and a lite action RPG, so character progression (both experience and loot-wise), so it can't really be argued that it ever was a pure RTS. What then dota did was to take away pretty much all the real-time strategy part of the game and only left the lite action RPG bits, which it expanded and built upon into an arena-styled game. It ends up sharing a lot more with Diablo than it ever did with Warcraft 3 - you construct your character in such a way that it's as efficient as humanly possible at any given situation, grab the appropriate skills and items to grow the character in a desirable way which will help you win the match. Everything else is quite commonplace in action RPGs - yes, even skillshots. The argument for MOBA being called "RTS" is that you need to utilize tactics and strategy to win, but that applies to pretty much all team-based MP games. There's a reason it got its own genre tho - it doesn't share all of its fundamentals with neither RTS nor Action RPG. Just to further my point, moba games can work with a different perspective and a different control scheme, like Smite, Monday Night Combat or Awesomenauts, but it would never work without the RPG elements. Edit: The mod's called Lambda Wars, actually.

Everybody needs to play this. Fallout meets King's Bounty in a largely unexplored setting. I would argue that DOTA is essentially an arena-based action RPG with less persistence, so it would technically fit into the action RPG genre quite nicely.

But uh... But I bloody loved the story and the plot :-/ Seriously tho, been trough that discussion already, again a topic on which opinions are torn and again a topic which has been discussed to hell and back. It definitely rates among my favorite videogame stories (and no, I really am not a complete illiterate who'll take anything for good :-P I'm not as lame at reading as I am at playing videogamez!) I can definitely see why would a lot of people dislike it tho, and I see some issues with the story myself. Let's not get into actual arguments tho. We're on discussion boards. They exist solely for people to discuss their standpoints. I absolutely love (almost) everything about Pillars of Eternity and will freely admit I'm a bit of a fanboy, does that render my arguments meaningless? The worst it does is make me biased, but it's videogames we're talking about here, it would be difficult to find a person without opinion on anything while playing them ;-) And act of discussion, especially with a person as courteous, informed and willing to give detailed explanations as Sensuki (oh sure, he has slipped in places, but so have I - we're all passionate about our hobby, lack of emotion would be a bit strange), is a joy in and of itself - it's enriching, educational and helps me understand aspects of game design I usually don't care about. Remember, without opposition, discussion would be no discussion at all, and I'll always respect a person who can disagree with me in a civilized manner a lot more than a person who agrees with me without saying why.

To clear up my playstyle, Sensuki: First of all, I am not a power gamer. Unless I really, really enjoy a game big time, I won't try to look for the most efficient builds or playstyles - when I merely find the combat good or so-so, I focus on roleplaying a lot more than on tweaking my party to make it more efficient in combat, which was definitely the case in Infinity Engine games. Furthermore, I played all of them on Normal difficulty and played trough all of them about 1.5x (aside from Planescape which I finished 3 times already). I do not believe I have abused rest spamming - then again, it's quite hard to tell how often did designers want you to rest since the game gives you no indication of this, so I only ever rested when I felt like I needed to, that was just about the best I could do as I really didn't enjoy resting after every battle - as you said, it would make resource conversion meaningless. I did not use a mod which would unlock resting. I won't claim that I'm particularly good at Infinity Engine games, but that's partly due to the fact nothing ever motivated me to get good at them. As for Pillars of Eternity, that I have finished twice, and both were roleplaying focused runs on normal. Since I greatly enjoy the game and its combat, I want to make at least a third playtrough once second part of the expansion is out on a higher difficulty level. I'm pretty sure I'm far worse than you at the game's combat system and have no aspirations to get better than you at it, I'm quite simply not that kind of player. With that said, I still stand by the argument that all Pillars of Eternity is doing is to make gaming more diverse and interesting for all of us, sadly not all of us will appreciate the same things about the same game, that's just reality of subjectivity. As for your shattered dreams, well, I do hope you have learned and won't back a KS project without either giving creators a lot of leeway or without being absolutely certain how is the project going to turn out, as I said, the reason why I did not back Pillars of Eternity was that it wasn't based on Dungeons and Dragons and so I knew the ruleset could end up being just about anything.

Nah, you don't. Rail Nomad spoilers follow.

20 years from now, people won't care about patching process. What they will care about is playing the game for another 20 years because they didn't get to try all the class combinations that they know will all be enjoyable because all of them have just the right amount of power and utility to make them interesting.

And as I said before, I honestly don't care :-P The information is available in UI and I have the game set to autopause every time something significant happens. I never argued that Pillars of Eternity is as readable as Infinity Engine games, but since all of my decisionmaking is happening in paused mode anyway in both engines, for me, the difference is tiny. Well, the former is what Pillars made me do a lot more than Infinity Engine games, whereas in Infinity Engine games I tended to have precisely the latter issue. So... Eh. Such as this being completely irrelevant to this discussion ;-) You'll just have to take my word for it, I dislike speeding up general gameplay, even in real time strategy games.

How about adding a poll? You want inventory management: Yes, No, I don't care? Anyway, I don't really give a **** - if Pillars contained system similar to that present in Baldur's Gate, okay, whatever. Having a stash accessible in stronghold would be a big plus for uniques, but I could easily do without that as well. Similarly, I don't mind the system Pillars of Eternity uses either, and it's not like there wasn't a form of endless stash in Baldur's Gate 2 - I guess you've had to find it there at least. Neither of these systems makes too much sense however. I suppose I'd just lift weight restrictions, because all that did was that I spent several minutes swapping items around inventories until it was okay - that's neither fun nor immersive, it's just busywork.

I generally enjoy faster paced combat and I would never attempt to read a situaion without pausing a game anyway, so ... There you go I suppose. I like when real time with pause system is actually designed in such a way that you need to periodically pause the game to play it, otherwise I feel like it's just a real time system with pause function (yeah, there's a difference, no matter how small). I love that the combat feels so quick and deadly. As for what's better about a game being less readable in real-time - not much at all, then again I never claimed Pillars of Eternity is more easily readable than Infinity Engine games, quite the contrary actually. But I have no issues with pausing to read and analyze a situation, so I honestly don't care. Which is why I specifically said 'Accelerate combat' as opposed to 'accelerate the whole game' ;-) I don't particularily enjoy playing games faster than intended, for various reasons.

Yup, that's by far one of my favourite parts of combat in Pillars of Eternity - the speed. It's fast, it's chaotic, you need to pause constantly to be able to play the game properly. As far as I'm concerned, that just means it uses real time with pause principles properly - there's no way to accelerate combat in Infinity Engine games, yet all you really need to do in Pillars of Eternity is unpause and have autopause options set up properly. You need to pause, analyze, react - you can't hope to succeed by just clicking fast enough, on higher difficulties anyway.

And that's cute, but it doesn't change the fact that it's indeed neither an arbitrary nor a self-imposed rule. The game very strongly suggests you how does it want to be played which removes the 'Arbitrary' part and adds significant amount of downtime during the actual gameplay to impose the rule on the player by making the game less enjoyable while abusing it. Infinity Engine games had arbitrary and self-imposed rest limitations, in other words, there weren't any. Pillars of Eternity lays out the rules in front of you very plainly, but then adds "If you screw up, you won't lose." The only arbitrary and self-imposed thing you'll ever need to do is to reload instead of returning to town to resupply, which doesn't really make any sense as there's (almost) never a reason why should your party not be able to leave an area and return back later. Remember, it's roleplaying as well as a game.

I know for a fact I'd like the game less if it just implemented Infinity Engine combat :-P Anyway, all you have really managed to prove is that Infinity Engine combat is easier to pick up, which doesn't really mean much aside from that and is a fairly logical conclusion - if you asked me what happens if you let a bunch of players play IE combat and PoE combat, I would instantly reply with "Surely, they would pick up the IE combat a lot sooner", yet I'm going to prefer combat in Pillars of Eternity more. It's faster, it has a bit more going on and puts more information which you don't really need as a beginner on display. A game which is easy to understand does not suggest a game which is either easy or not complex. It just means a game which communicates its concept in a natural and intuitive fashion. Hell, Dark Souls is fairly easy to understand, my wife figured out the controls and basics of fighting mechanics quickly enough - it's the meat of the game which is pretty damn difficult and requires a lot of planning and understanding of its core mechanics. But on its surface, it's easy enough to pick up. What exactly is it that you believe you have just brought into the discussion aside from absolutely pointless negativity? Sensuki, I have read and re-read your post and found that all I'll do is to repeat things I have already said with different wording, so in order to not get into a bit of a loop, I'm going to ignore parts I feel like I have sufficinetly explained previously. We can throw our reasoning for liking and disliking these systems around all day and it won't really accomplish much, so thank you for reading my arguments and responding in a coherent and eloquent manner, I will think on what you have said next time I'll play Pillars of Eternity and see how it changes my view of the game. I would ask you to do the same, but you have been invested in the issue for much longer than I and have most likely given it a lot more thought than I did. Oh and thank you for the offer, but I think the video you have posted explains how does the AI work well enough (not that it's particularly intuitive mind you) With that said... Well, Obsidian was quite clear that they're not going to use DnD ruleset, massive mechanical changes were kind of to be expected, and Pillars of Eternity really is the closest a game has ever gotten to the original Baldur's Gate in its presentation of exploration and often enough storytelling (altho Obsidian has taken a good bit of Planescape there. And then there's Icewind Dale) - anyway, my point is that Obsidian has most certainly delivered on their promise. Of course, the counterpoint to that would be that different people valued different parts of those games differently. Ever since I've seen Obsidian claiming Pillars of Eternity is going to be a spiritual successor to Infinity Engine games, I thought it'll be a disaster - too far from the originals to please fans of those and too old-school to capture a new audience. I mean, there's a reason as to why you don't see a backer badge beneath my avatar. What do you know, when I tried it at my friend's place I found I quite like it and then, buying it for the full price, it quickly became my GOTY of 2015. I think it turned out quite well considering :-P Still, you can't ever please everybody, and you seem to be one of the unfortunate people who ended up on the "displeased" pile, which I do understand is even more jarring since you're one of the people who made the game possible. Please, do not tilt at windmills. What you are describing is not an issue, and is something I would be quite displeased about as well, for very simple reason that I like my games to be as varied as possible. I always loved real time with pause combat, and I felt that implementation in some games was better, in others it was worse (Re-reading the post, I was going somewhere with this and then forgot. So yes, some things are better than others is a powerful argument now!). Still, Pillars of Eternity brings yet another take on it, and while it's not exactly my favourite implementation, it's definitely amongst those I liked the best. Still, saying that you don't want a game which sold 500 000 copies to significantly influence industry would be to vastly overestimate its importance - and even when mechanic of a game is a big success it doesn't necessarily become a norm, let alone a mechanic on which people are as torn as engagement system. It might appear in some games in the future, but that's about it - do you see attacks of opportunity from Neverwinter Nights being used everywhere?

Resting limitations are not a self-imposed, arbitrary rule - the game discourages player from traveling back into towns and rest spamming by making it inconvenient, which encourages player to complete as many encounters as possible while resting as little as possible. Yes, lack of convenience is also a form of restriction.