Arddv
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Posts posted by Arddv
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Did you notice the 'illusion' part? Games don't need to be realistic, they need to succesfully pretend being such.
Here we may witness the 'sphere of knowledge' effect when the more we know (volume of the sphere) the more the contact surface with the unknown is. The same with videogaming - the more complex system developers try to create the harder it is to make them beleivable. This is partially why railroading works.
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You're frustrating the player through something they aren't responsible for. Punishing the player for something they didn't do.
How is it bad? Things usually tend to happen regardless of your agency and your mind is evolutionally conditioned to the decisionmaking in constantly changing enviroment. In the 'living and breathing world'. Of course it is unrealistic to demand such complex simulations from the devs, but they should at least create a beleivable illusion. It's no coincidence that people more and more often talk about immersion-beaking as the brain immediately marks such experience as 'fake'. And noone wants the fake experience.
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I kinda understand WHY developers don't go the 'imitating the DM' route - because it involves creating tons of content that the average player will never see. This average player must be hooked from the start and dragged through the theme park of sensations, preferably frontloaded, so that he won't jump off the hook with his pretty short attention span. And this is the reality developers can't ignore. These aren't 1990th where devs could spend years perfecting their vision and creating a work of art, because they knew the starved public would immediately consume anything thrown at them.
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I don't think cRPG implimentation of vancian casting is limited to a binary fork.
Another option can be making game designer defined rest spots a la Dark Souls bonfires, and I'm sure there are other ways more talented designers than I am can imagine. Myself I'd prefer some opportunity cost to replenishing resources, like timing out best resolutions to quests, closing side brances ie imitating the DM.
Also I don't quite get why modern gaming industry is absolutely terrified by the very notion of player failure. All these 'trap choices' talks etc. Making player unable to fail robs of significant chunk of experience, makes it less memorable. This is the way human psychology works that solving some problem after several subsequent failures is much more satisfying than breezing through on the first try. Nobody values things that took no effort.
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I can only tell about my experience, and I can definetely say casting in PoE1 (and more so in DnD games) feels a lot more rewarding, impactful and straight up cool.
Partially because every class got access to its own 'spells', so casters stand out far less, partially because casting lost this 'opportunity cost' associated with limited resources. But most of all, because I as a player have a limited amount of time and attention during any particular encounter, and in Deadfire I need to spread it thin over all party members equally while before I could funnell it into 1-3 party members leaving others on autopilot. Let's say I have attention and patience span to use 6-8 active abilities per average encounter. Previously I would micromanage 2 casters first to turn the whole engadement to my favor than clean up with martials. Now that every class can contribute to 'tilting the scales' equally, what's the point of casters anyway? Flavour?
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I'm more of a brestplate guy and I want my Osric's family, Steel Swan, and that black one from WM2 watcher. Now.
The ones that are currently in deadfire are either too shiny (Doc), pompouse (Pallegina / honor guard) or too ragged (Casita). Hell, generic enchanted ones look better than unique.
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I still remember that one quest from the fughters guild in Morrowind where you need to find some crab following directions in your journal (something like 'turn right on the third crossroad then left etc..). The only quest I spent hours on and never completed.
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Enter Stairs from the Gullet at night - bounty will spawn immediately on top of you and there should be no civilians around.
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I think some people here mistake complexity with depth. PoE2 characters are desighned as more complex and beleivable personalities than BG2 ones, but all this complexity mostly exists only in the designers mind. Their actual in-game implementation lacks depth.
And the same thing can be said about Deadfire as a whole. It explores lots of interesting and innovative concepts in both game mechanics and storytelling, but feels rushed, shallow and somehow generic. I feel no love or time put into these concepts to let them develop. They are like the sprouts of the beautiful flowers that never actually flourish. And PoE2 is a whole garden bed of such sprouts in different stages of growth. Neketaka for example feels pretty developed while the rest of archipelago looks like a barren wasteland compared to it.
Maybe this is a result of being underfunded and time constrained, idk.
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Deadfire has its moments, but they are more rare than in PoE1 and much rarer than in BG2. I absolutely love what they did to martial classes but wholeheartedly despise what they did to casters. Also Josh's "no hard counters" design philosophy lead to the dismissal of many powerful effects that some considered unfair and frustraiting (instant death, stoneskin, weapon immunities, level/attribute drain etc). So that encounters are less of a "problem to be analyzed and solved" but rather a "stat check obstacle".
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I think it is common knowledge that as soon as something tries to become mass product it becomes trash. It's not about games specifically, it's universal. And I think Obsidian does a decent job of walking the fine line between mass product (and therefore commercial viability) and a work of art. Not perfect, but decent.
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The (difficult) encounters of BG2 require metaknowledge. And, as you point out, when you have that knowledge it's quite simple.So claiming that is more complex than PoE is really a stretch. Particularly when you take into consideration that the devs have clearly stated from the beginning that they wanted to, and have tried to, move away from encounters that hinges on metaknowledge for the player to be successful.
It's still your prerogative to prefer metaknowledge encounters, however that is not the same thing as the BG2 encounters being more complex when you make a comparison.
You always play with metaknowledge. Just the amount required differs. When you choose lower common denominator, the result can always be described as 'dumbing down'.
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I think with the new patch Trickster surpassed Streetfighter in the position of the best rogue subclass for multiclass purposes. Wisards also became 15% better as a multiclass option for martial classes that don't have built-in speed buffs. Ciphers also got a nice buff, almost to the point that I want to try trickster/cipher(?) now.
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Strange. Before i could release him and have a reqular sword. Now w/e i do it eather i give him away or keep him with soul attached. Quest have been changed?
You need Xoti in your party to release Modwyr's soul. Stats are the same either way.
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Armor penalty reduction is capped, but -% recovery enchatments do not affect armor penalty, but instead are independant modifiers that influence recovery on their own.
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The most curious thing about this zerker+voulge combo is that action speed buff from voulge's lightning strikes stacks with berserker frenzy. Also static thunder discharge applies distracted on yourself activating streetfighter passive. If you can find a resistance to might afflictions you can safely upgrade your frenzy and apply staggered to the whole encounter on a discharge.
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There is a no-stat-checking dialogue route to resolve meeting peacefully.
In fact, you can complete both families quests (ruatai sailors and vault robbing plans) to get both sails and a hull, accept Bardato proposition to set a trap in the vault, then do peace talks, receive reward from both families, then rob the vault (just don't speak to the guard captain), then kill both family leaders for their armors (Valeera guy at night when he's alone in the room, don't forget to close the door, and Bardatto same way, albeit a bit tricky - you need to kill both the lady and her guard before they sound alarm - ie in ~10-15 seconds).
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IRC I got it at the end of the game in final encounter post Ondra's Spire shutdown. I went there with RDC and confronted VTC.
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The only case when I ever payed any attention to the confused status was when my berserker/fighter crit cleaved Eder which led to the party wipe and reload.
PS Does anybody know why cleave always registers 3 hits with dual wield?
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+10 Int alone is reason enough to multi with a monk.Why so? What does Int accomplish for the martial MC? Durations of self-buffs? By the time you get it you have enough resources to just renew them.
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Monk on crit procs are honestly the only reasons to consider monk multiclass. Besides, they have no built-in accuracy bonuses or hit-to-crit conversion to reliably utilise those procs, and antysynergy with the best current crit class - berserker.
Rogue kit brings lots of damage and afflictions to the table. Backstab is mostly for fun though.
Others aren't particulary gimped, rather... boring like it was already mentioned.
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Very good explanation indeed. I always wondered each time I had different ability showing in the combat log as a cause of hit to crit.
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Title.
I noticed that on Streetzerker crit build on crit effects trigger more often than on hit ones. Maybe it's variance, but if not that would be a rather unpleasant oversight.
Zandethus' Draconic Fury
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
A bit off-topic, but I see Daom mentioned as Action Speed buff. Does it give action speed now? My first and only p/t was the base game - I was waiting for all DLCs to be released.
And what the best action speed, accuracy, pen and hit-to crit buffs currently are? On release that were zerker frenzy and streetfighter passive. Did anything change?