algroth

Sry, wrong thread.

Agreed. It seems to be getting worse. I can hardly get through more than one episode at a time now and I'm sticking with it solely because it feels like homework for upcoming shows. Same thing with me, yeah.

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with Iron Fist the more I watch it. It suffers from the Prometheus issue of problems happening because people behave in increasingly stupid and irrational ways. Ward is an effing disaster and then some. This aside I have many other reservations with the series so far too, not least the fact that whereas the other three sagas each had their respective vision and felt like they were trying to go their own ways, this feels thoroughly pedestrian, like a watered down Daredevil. They have a pretty interesting character with a fairly intriguing backstory and could have worked on the new age mysticism to create something very different and much more visually striking than what we have here (think something akin to an urban Zhang Yimou), but instead we get the occasional overly choreographed fight scene in drab urban locations, where one dude's hand occasionally gets bright before he punches through a door or something, amidst a *lot* of perfunctory office drama. The only episode so far that seems to slightly stray from this path is the one directed by RZA, which is, yet again, anemic, silly and probably 33 chambers off of being something at all memorable. I wanted to at least say it's average, but it seems to increasingly be justifying its 19% RT score. It's bollocks.

Nope this time we decided for the unique badge instead Aww. Well, that's alright all the same. :D

So, will we get unique titles the likes of the Obsidian Order's?

Hooray, mateys!

Personally I can only see this game lending itself for co-op at best, and even that is somewhat sketchy: the first game at least is a very personal story of the protagonist, and doesn't really lend itself to giving two players equal protagonism; on top of that, my personaly experience with RTwP combat especially in these latest Obsidian games is usually that of pausing every few *frames*, let alone seconds, meaning it would probably make for a very clumsy and annoying experience to play with another who may himself have the ability to pause and unpause at any given time. Were this a TB game there's a chance the first issue could be circumvented by a friendly agreement on "who should play the main character", but with the latter I just see no chance of this working. And yes, Baldur's Gate did it, but its combat was much simpler and leisurely-paced, and to be honest the game simply didn't work all that well as a multiplayer experience. So yeah, with all that said, I would rather they dedicate the time on other things instead.

Yeah, the "levelling up" mechanic is a cool feature, not at all a detraction in my book, but on the other hand I do hope they play a little more with the soulbound weapon goals in Deadfire and not leave it at "deal this much damage to this type of enemy/proc this effect these many times".

I thought the Unlaboured Blade, Stormcaller, the Grey Sleeper and Abydon's Hammer were all great, and most of all I loved the "miniquest" mechanics added to these and other weapons. I can't say I had any problems with the soulbound items in the first Pillars.

It's why I'd like to know the budget. I'm not sure the game was "extremely cheap to make", but you can only know whether it was a success or failure depending on production cost, projections and so on, both of which I reckon were lower than Pillars'.

I think the dumbing down of tyranny did effect its sales. The review sites are flooded with reviews saying how mindless and boring the combat was. I think that, compared with it being a "dumbed down" 4 member party put off a lot of people. A lot of the core POE fans (me included) where keenly following tyranny hoping that it would be the equivalent of an extension of pillars, or even better, better then pillars. I was hugely let down when I played it. And so where the 1,000,000 odd Pillars fans when they read the reviews about the combat and magic systems tyranny implemented. The numbers speak for themselves. 160,000 purchases on steam over this time period is a complete flop and a commercial failure. On a personal level, I'm a big fan of Obsidian, Black Isle, isometric RPGs and Pillars (you can in fact read my review for it here), and yet only heard of Tyranny's existence two weeks before it was being released. I wouldn't be surprised if it flew over the radars of several more casual Obsidianites and Pillars players. Considering one of the main criticisms levied towards Pillars was to its combat, I think it's hard to point at combat mechanics being the factor that made the sales difference between either. As to whether it's a complete flop, I'd like some more concrete numbers first. What was the game's production budget? How much, exactly, do Steam sales cover (considering it can be also bought through Amazon, as far as I understand, and through Paradox's own site)? What is the approximate number in terms of money that it has so far gathered? The number of Steam purchases only represents one side of the story.

Ah, I can't say this was my experience, personally. I felt the first act, act-and-a-third had some fights that made me reload a couple of times, but these aside there was no encounter, not even those with the Archons, where I recall needing to reload out of having lost the fight. Not the case at all with Pillars, which had me spam-reloading with plenty of the boss and bounty fights: a line of tanks in front of a creature that could one-shot the entire party meant pretty little when all was said and done.

The term "dumbed down" is not meant in a perjorative way, at least as far as I am concenred, as in "game is dumbed down for filthy casuals". Not everyone wants all their games, or any of their games for that matter, to be complex, challenging and hardcore, and there is no reason on earth why they should either and no reason to critisise them for it. The point is that the most successful cRPGs by far from the new RPG Renaisance, Pillars and Divinity Original SIn, are uncompromisingly hardcore whilst those that have been dumbed down (I told you already Greg, Stop it!!!), er sorry, "streamlined", have been much less successfull. The brunt of the "dumbed down" slight is therefore aimed at developers who believe they have to do it to reach a wider audience when in fact it does precisely the opposite and seriously ticks off longterm fans to boot, leading to widespread critisism from this harcore fanbase across the interwebs which further depresses sales. It is aimed at the devs, not some sort of notion of "filthy casuals" and , as far as I am concerned anyways, it is certainly not aimed at you for enjoying Tyranny. Why do you find it dumbed down or streamlined, though? I will agree that it was not very challenging in terms of combat, but that can be chalked more to poor balancing than bad or "easier" mechanics. Also it's hard to claim a game like Tyranny is aiming for a "wide audience" when it is so overtly working towards disturbing and morally challenging the player, in a Milgram sort of way almost. This game is pretty much inherently working against mass appeal. Yes, it's the combat bascically for the twin main reasons of lack of friendly fire and reduced party size. Otherwise Tyranny is a very good game, but combat is really crucial in an RPG for probably a significant majority of players IMO. The effect of the changes is to dramatically reduce the tactical depth of combat and no amount of balancing can put it back IMO: it becomes essentially a question of raw power in terms of defensive and offensive stats - can I nuke you before you nuke me? Lack of friendly fire I can understand, less so a reduced party size which is not something I feel has any relevance to how tactical or challenging a game is. But for the former, whereas it's true that lack of friendly fire makes casting spells in the densest concentration of characters in a fight easier, the AoE in the game are pretty drastically reduced compared to the likes of Pillars, making positioning and targetting more relevant through these means as well. I think Tyranny is the easier game, mind, but more because of poor balancing than actual mechanics or lack thereof, but when all is said and done both present pretty comparable though different sets of mechanics.

It seems the only constant between gamers is to discredit other gamers' gamer status. You don't even have to play games to be one!

The term "dumbed down" is not meant in a perjorative way, at least as far as I am concenred, as in "game is dumbed down for filthy casuals". Not everyone wants all their games, or any of their games for that matter, to be complex, challenging and hardcore, and there is no reason on earth why they should either and no reason to critisise them for it. The point is that the most successful cRPGs by far from the new RPG Renaisance, Pillars and Divinity Original SIn, are uncompromisingly hardcore whilst those that have been dumbed down (I told you already Greg, Stop it!!!), er sorry, "streamlined", have been much less successfull. The brunt of the "dumbed down" slight is therefore aimed at developers who believe they have to do it to reach a wider audience when in fact it does precisely the opposite and seriously ticks off longterm fans to boot, leading to widespread critisism from this harcore fanbase across the interwebs which further depresses sales. It is aimed at the devs, not some sort of notion of "filthy casuals" and , as far as I am concerned anyways, it is certainly not aimed at you for enjoying Tyranny. Why do you find it dumbed down or streamlined, though? I will agree that it was not very challenging in terms of combat, but that can be chalked more to poor balancing than bad or "easier" mechanics. Also it's hard to claim a game like Tyranny is aiming for a "wide audience" when it is so overtly working towards disturbing and morally challenging the player, in a Milgram sort of way almost. This game is pretty much inherently working against mass appeal.

Yeah, I don't get where the "dumbed-down" accusations come for Tyranny myself, but that aside, Deadfire will not resemble it at all. This has already been addressed by Josh, he says there are elements he likes about Tyranny and will be employing, but mostly regarding some out-of-combat touches like the lore highlights in text and such. Cooldowns, combo abilities, spell creation system and the likes won't be implemented.

As one of the most important musicians of the 20th century, Berry is a huge loss for music. I can't claim to have been a fan, but there's no denying the influence and presence he's had. R.I.P. On a similar note, James Cotton also died a couple of days ago.

I loved Luke Cage. Sure, but I thought he was interesting and effective on his own right, and I loved the general tone of it all. It's pretty much on the same level as the first season of Daredevil for me as the best of the Defenders universe so far.

I suspect the old companions will play a role that is present but not essential to the main story, most of all because if we are to respect the choices made in the first game then we have to assume the old characters may not be alive for the second. Aloth, for one, has an ending that leads to him killing himself. Though it's not an impossibility, I doubt the makers would want to create an alternate main storyline just in case one or more of those three (or any other former companion that may appear as a NPC) would happen to have died in the previous game. I would also not chalk it up to accident that some characters are easier to find than other, but wouldn't do so to a hierarchy of storyline relevance either - I think this decision was determined more by pacing, to ensure that every player wouldn't miss the chance to form a standard party early on in the game. Edér, Aloth and Durance, being the three more "conventional" characters in terms of mechanics (mage, fighter, cleric), could fill up the prime requisites for a party early on and ensure a new player wouldn't accidentally venture into party-balanced areas on his own. In terms of how relevant each character is to the main story, I don't think Hiravias is necessarily any less so than Aloth or Edér.

Oh Gods, kill it with fire! https://s1.webmshare.com/yAvPP.webm

Superb video! Thanks for sharing, and I do agree with its observations.

I believe I'm approaching the end of my playthrough so I'll definitely be watching this soon.

"not only for all the above-mentioned traits"what traits? That she is a "down to earth"person and noble? Sorry, but that don't make any sense, those are not the qualities of a charismatic person. "but because she too is the designated huntress to carry out one of her people's most important traditions, and, depending on the ending you reach, may or may not become the village elder herself. That implies she has authority, and it also implies she is, despite following your lead in the game, a figure with presence and capacity of leadership herself."No... that implies she is wise, capable, with an incredibly knowlodge of the culture of her village and also how her village works - she explains to you everything about her village in the dialogues... well if you don't sleep whilst reading them-, but that don't implie that she is a charismatic person, there are leaders that don't have any charisma - Rick and Jon Snow from TWD are som good examples, some leaders are leaders because of their knowlodge, because they are wise and capable of doing their job, just like the traits that Sagani has, it seems that I know more about her character than you... odd. Like the DICTIONARY SAYS: charisma also means charm, magnetism, presence, she don't have any of those... For you. Personally I see all those qualities in her, and as I said before, this is a personal reaction one gets from a person or character. My points about her being down to Earth is a description of her kind of appeal, and these are elements that contribute to her likability and attitude as a character, thus also making her charismatic. Either way, you may not be done here, but I am: as your overreliance on the "dictionary definition" (which, if needed to explain, fails to consider the context in which a term is used) shows, your reading comprehension is frankly quite poor, and I would just as well be talking to a Turing chatbot. Cheers.

Charisma, in the everyday usage of the term, refers to a person's appeal, charm and authority. This is what people refer to when calling Sagani "charismatic" - you can choose to pretend they refer to her "divinely conferred power to influence and lead other people", but then you could also pretend that when people say Jaco Pastorius is a good bass player, they mean he's good at performing as a type of fish. Taking the everyday use of the word in question, yes, Sagani is absolutely meant to be charismatic, not only for all the above-mentioned traits but because she too is the designated huntress to carry out one of her people's most important traditions, and, depending on the ending you reach, may or may not become the village elder herself. That implies she has authority, and it also implies she is, despite following your lead in the game, a figure with presence and capacity of leadership herself. Again, whether it works for you, that is up to you and your own feelings about her. No number of flippant exaggerations and generalizations will make your point any stronger.

I like Sagani, but one of the best? I like her character and her personal journey, but I thought the way her story played out was kind of dull, and she acts like a mere acquaintance than a friend to you (there no development between her and the watcher). I can think of MANY companions in an RPGs that are more interesting, especially from PoE1. I disagree, of course. I loved where her story went, and I don't think she was kept distant from the protagonist (more to this perhaps on The White March too). I'll quote the review I did for the game over at the "now playing" thread (linked here in case anyone else would want to read it), where I give my thoughts on her and Edér... Gotta agree with you. Sagani and Eder were by far my favourite companions, not only because of their simple yet fulfilling quests, but because of the emotional depth behind their characters. I also liked Kana, because I like goofy academics. In a companion, I tend to appreciate a strong emotional connection, be it positive or negative. I'm hoping we got more of that in POE2. So far, what the devs have revealed leaves me optimistic. I liked/loved all three you mention but also find value in the more distant ones, I'd say. They can lead to an emotional connection to, albeit a different one: I can't say I would get along with either Durance or the Grieving Mother as people, but I can sympathize with the experiences they've been through and can see how that would have led to the very twisted and jaded vision they have in the game's present time. There is a sense of pathos to their current states that I think is especially reflected when their past comes to light, but they're no doubt very unlike the likes of Edér, Sagani, Kana and Pallegina, who are much more straight-forwardly open, friendly and likable as people. That is also partly why I expect the sidekicks will play a lot like Kana too.