Multihog

Yeah, it wasn't something that made my ears bleed, but it didn't really add anything positive either. The ambient tracks are great for the most part, though! Need to mod this bad boy in: Regarding the Arcanum OST, it was a bold choice to compose the entire soundtrack for a string quartet. It's original but also kind of limiting because you can only do so much with a string quartet. How well that worked for the game I don't know, but it surely is an interesting approach.

The music is a bit of a mixed bag in general. While most of the ambient tracks are decent (other than the ones copy-pasted from PoE1), the combat music is pretty underwhelming, like this one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EHwOgHlub4 It's pretty dull, repetitive, and lacking energy. 0:59 is just funny; it stays on that chord forever. All of the combat tracks are pretty meh to be honest.

Now THAT sounds like a flawed system, deeply flawed. One more reason to postpone playing PoE2 by a couple of months.

Ah, TW3, the mindless dotted trail-following simulator. Easy fix for that: turn off dotted trails. You forgot the little detail that the game is unplayable without that; it's built around that trail. Even the devs stated that it's not playable without it. You are talking about the dotted trail on the minimap, right? Yes, but it's not limited to that. The problem also manifests as step-by-step instructions when it comes to quests, every quest involving holding R2 and activating glowing objects. It's just overall brainless gameplay. Better than I could explain it: https://img.fireden.net/v/image/1486/42/1486422191070.png TW3 is everything wrong with modern RPGs. Ah, I see, you're one of those guys. Yes. For good reason.

Ah, TW3, the mindless dotted trail-following simulator. Easy fix for that: turn off dotted trails. You forgot the little detail that the game is unplayable without that; it's built around that trail. Even the devs stated that it's not playable without it. You are talking about the dotted trail on the minimap, right? Yes, but it's not limited to that. The problem also manifests as step-by-step instructions when it comes to quests, every quest involving holding R2 and activating glowing objects. It's just overall brainless gameplay. Better than I could explain it: https://img.fireden.net/v/image/1486/42/1486422191070.png TW3 is everything wrong with modern RPGs.

Ah, TW3, the mindless dotted trail-following simulator. Easy fix for that: turn off dotted trails. You forgot the little detail that the game is unplayable without that; it's built around that trail. Even the devs stated that it's not playable without it.

Ah, TW3, the mindless dotted trail-following simulator.Similar to BG2. I agree with OP,Witcher3 is a new BG2: an open game with bunch of well written, engaging linear adventures. Personally, I don’t feel like Deadfire is a pirate game. I spend most of my time in good, old fashioned dungeon adventuring. I am having increasing worries about narrative design (be it story or companions) but I will withhold my judgment until I beat the game. Saying TW3 is "the new BG2" is a disgrace. TW3 is a mindless game that doesn't challenge the player intellectually whatsoever. You don't even need to listen to any dialogue or read a single line of text to finish the game! It's barely a game. I actually put this to the test: I finished 3 quests in the game while ONLY looking at the minimap and spamming the action button with the audio muted. Comparing this to BG2, which is an immersive game where the world and dialogue actually have something to do with gameplay, is insulting. In TW3, what you're supposed to do comes from the step-by-step list the game provides you with and the almighty dotted trail instead of the world. It's dumbed down trash. This is how you don't make a game: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/91602195869626006/A9BC9E79398AA65CA37DDA7D4F267ED915331631/ This is how you make a game: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/929301838903550287/CDC248076BF6DA27F2DEE84F9F780CCA2C789BDF/ https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/885378750237167335/94E764F0FDB7CC93625C69678BA3DABCE6533266/

Yeah, this. Currently there's no way to prevent your people from wasting AoE spells on isolated enemies. This system is quite flawed, actually. Very lacking in many ways. Also, how come modal abilities aren't included at all? I'd also like to see some kind of a rank system like DA:O had. [Enemy: Rank is Normal/Veteran/Elite or Higher] or something along those lines. In DA:O, that way you could reserve your most powerful spells for the more dangerous enemies and not have them wasted on trash mobs.

*High five*

Yeah, that's it. Almost every line she delivers sounds overly emotional towards the end of the sentence. I can't quite describe it, but "cadence weighted with pathos" seems right. Agreed that the rest of the voices are great, though. I used to be against full voice acting due to reading faster than the voice acting, but I've grown to enjoy it quite a bit.

I played PoE1 on PotD. I started on Veteran but found it too easy to the extent where I was bored with the combat. I restarted on PotD, and it was a blast throughout. The superbosses were a lot of fun, and Llengrath took me like 20 tries or something, but it was an incredibly rewarding victory in the end. I liked how it was crucial to learn how the status effect, stats, and other things in the combat system work instead of just effortlessly blowing stuff up on a lower difficulty. You'd really see the effects of a major debuff on the enemies. I'm playing PoE2 on PotD too, and so far it's easier than 1, but that's already being addressed by the devs.

Ah, TW3, the mindless dotted trail-following simulator.

I don't like the narrator either. It's like she's trying too hard to sound "epic" or something, and the result ends up being unnatural and cringy. I can't stop paying attention to it, and it all but destroys any mental image I'm getting from the text. Yeah, I just reached the excavation site too, and man was the narration annoying there.

Hmm, thanks for the heads up. I think I'll hold off on continuing until they beef up the difficulty. Gaming without challenge is quite boring, so I'd rather not ruin my first playthrough.

No. I choose one and roll with it. Even if I end up disliking it, I can make up for it with the party. It's a bigger deal in something like NWN, where you only control one character.

What kind of douchebag reply is that? Do you not realize that the only reason Google is filled with information is because someone ASKED for said information in the first place (outside of articles)? Whatever you search for, the answer is often found on a forum of some kind. Not like this.

And why exactly shouldn't it be robust enough to play the combat for the player if they are able to design behaviors complete enough to replace human input? I don't see any reason to cripple it, and I'm sure Obsidian didn't make it lacking on purpose. Like I said, it's an interesting, valid, and fun way to play the game. It becomes sort of a pre-planning/management game, always improving and patching holes in the tactics that you've designed. Then once you've near-perfected it, you can just marvel at the results. You should try it in Dragon Age: Origins (with the mod I mentioned in the OP.) And I'll tell you that there's nothing OP or gimmicky about characters automatically running away from melee. Dragon Age: Origins had that, and it worked perfectly. It's also super easy to do yourself: just pause the game, and tell your guy to move away. This isn't Starcraft 2. Agreed. I have no idea why they didn't do this.

I'd say having more choice, which leads to interesting combinations and more potential playstyles, trumps precise balance in a single-player RPG. Besides, having a lot of spells and a balanced game aren't mutually exclusive.

I agree, but I used a lot more than 2-3 myself, especially when it came to priest spells. I loved the vast selection that allowed for so much freedom in playstyle. I can't help but feel restricted with the new system. Sure, the extensive selection of spells meant that there was a learning curve to mastering the spellcaster classes but, in the end, it was well worth it. It was reminiscent of—like you said—D&D and Baldur's Gate 2. I agree that the new system appears to sacrifice freedom, choice, and healthy complexity in favor of accessibility and a shorter learning curve; in other words, it wouldn't be entirely wrong to say that it's dumbed down.

Letting the players essentially craft their own AI via this interface is great, but I feel it's missing some crucial options: 1. Include items such as potions instead of just abilities. This would reduce the burden of item micromanagement. Example: If [self: Health < 30%], [Consume: Potion Of Moderate Healing] or [self: Threatened by Multiple Enemies], [Consume: Potion Of Ultimate Badassery] 2. Allow the switching of weapon sets. Example: [self: Enemies in Melee Range > 1], [switch to Weapon Set 1]. This is for the purpose of switching between ranged and melee automatically, and why not for other purposes such as switching between different melee weapons as well. 3. Make an automated auto-attack behavior type that makes a character attempt to keep their distance from enemies, i.e a ranged character fleeing from melee enemies—also maybe one that makes ranged characters attack targets but not move automatically. 4. Add an [Enemies Clustered, At Least #], so that AoE spells don't get wasted on single targets. 5. Include modal abilities. 6. Add some sort of way to distinguish enemy ranks/challenge ratings so that the player is able to specify that they want a certain spell/ability to be used only against strong or weak enemies. For example: [Enemy: Rank is Normal/Veteran/Elite/Boss] 7. Make a search function or find a better way to sort the different functions. As of now, it's too cumbersome to always scroll through the massive list of conditions. Maybe introduce filter tabs. 8. Instead of having fixed [Less Than 50% Health], let us type the exact value we want. 9. Allow more debuffs as conditions. Example: I want my Paladin to attack the enemy he's cast Sworn Enemy on. However, I can't specify "If:Sworn Enemy - Then X" (Some of these ideas are copied from other people's posts who contributed to the thread. Thanks to them.) Most of this—and much more—was possible in Dragon Age: Origins, which this system was inspired by. With the Even More Advanced Tactics mod, by carefully designing the AI behavior, it was possible to finish the entire game on the hardest difficulty without ever manually commanding anyone, and I did that. It became by far my favorite way to play the game; it became its own game within the game, a very unique experience.

My experience so far has been marred by a bug that prevents me from clicking the UI, either parts of it or sometimes all. It doesn't seem to be tied to any specific situation, but I suspect it MAY have something to do with the Steam overlay because when my UI was entirely unresponsive, opening and closing the Steam overlay fixed it for a while, but it doesn't completely go away ever. Either way, as per bug reporting guidelines, I've included a save file regardless. Another symptom not shown in the videos is that buttons in menus get stuck down, and I have to click them twice. Here're a couple of videos demonstrating the issue: Completely unresponsive interface: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kh24of9qb225tvn/2018-05-10%2023-13-41.flv?dl=0 Unreliable inventory buttons: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jvy2sbnjj0bllv8/2018-05-10%2023-27-14.flv?dl=0 As you can see, this is game-breaking, and I can't play like this. It affects every part of the UI, from the inventory to the options menu and everything in between. Since "Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file", here's the save file https://www.dropbox.com/s/ks9mw6hkje7u4s1/Dorf%20%28f93e5bbd-1f36-470d-9e3f-7767b98c9e9e%29%20quicksave.savegame?dl=0 DxDiag.txt

This was the #1 reason I enjoyed the combat in Neverwinter Nights. Playing the game felt like playing some map editor due to the incredibly blocky environments, but the combat was satisfying because the characters actually did some sidestepping, parrying, and blocking instead of just standing there trading blows. Dragon Age: Origins was also amazing when it came to combat animations. It's unfortunate that the fights in PoE2 will, just like in PoE1, once again look static, but the combat log gets most of the attention anyway, so it's not a deal-breaker or anything.