Mikeymoonshine

So one of the problems I had with the first game was that the way the game reacted to your character and some of your choices felt lacking in places. It was a well established world that had all kinds of cultural differences and history ect. However I get that there has to be some limit and an rpg can't be tailored around every specific choice. One of the biggest examples of this were the godlike, it's supposed to be this big deal to pretty much everyone yet if you play as one it doesn't come up very often. You can't even talk to Pallegina about also being a godlike (which i found really weird) or any of the gods about it. In Deadfire not only does the game have your character choices to react to but it also has choices you made in the last game as well and in my opinion it is a lot better but there are still some issues. Godlike for example aren't really a problem it comes up all the time and it can be brought up by your character in most relevant discussions. The game often has npc's referring to some aspect of my character's history and even their reputation in this game I think it is for the most part done really well. Also the fact that most of those lines are voiced makes it even more impressive. However sometimes I feel like some of it is actually too much. For example my character is from the living lands and several npc's have commented on this. Now I know the watcher is kind of famous but I did start to wonder why so many random people knew where my watcher hailed from. Like sure some of them would know but even like some random dude in Hasongo brought it up. I guess maybe there is an accent or something. Still it's a minor issue and for the most part I am happy with the reactivity to your character. On the other hand the reactivity to previous choices seems very strange to me. The game forces you to import a save, pick a set history or a created history in the intro and then that history doesn't really seem to matter all that much. There are a lot of lines in the game with the (this is a result of your choices from the previous game) icon but many of them are very pointless and sometimes I am not even sure how the game is supposed to be reflecting that choice, or even what choice it means. Sure sometimes it's great, if you break an oath to Hylea her reaction is hilarious and I think that worked well but if you gave the souls to Woedica it barely even comes up and I feel like this is one of the most impactful choices you could make in the first game. I suppose it's always going to be an illusion of choice, that is really how it has to be for the most part because there has to be a plot that will always be the plot regardless of what choices you made but it seems odd to me that Obsidian would go to so much effort to have you import your choices and bring them up so much only for them to not matter really at all. I didn't refer to import bugs here because they are not what the developers intended to be in the final product. I am Interested to hear what others think on the topic. I do not have experience with every choice and every type of character to fully judge the reactivity here. I do want to stress that I am more impressed than not with what they have done in this area.

Tbf I am pretty sure POE1 was beatable in about thirty hours but it took me 110 I think. I do agree that the main quest is massively lacking but the game overall is not lacking in content and I mean story content not pointless filler content. They have just put a lot into factions this time around and they probably consider that main story content too as it does tie into it.

The ammount of writing that goes into these games and they cut the parts that actually explain the plot. It does sound like he plans on adding them back in somehow though in some other formm

Yeah the skulls should be visible if you are only scaling up right? Seems like an oversight if not a bug. Scaling certainly makes the game more challenging on potd tho it was still a cake walk on veteran even with scaling.

Yeah, the gods did Pallegina wrong and then she learns that they are a total sham anyway, I don't think she cares how she comes off or she is too angry to see that the way she behaves won't change anything.

Oh we understand the approach perfectly. The problem with this is... it gets old ? You're constantly using the same 5-6 spells In the BG series you actually had the *choice* to specialize your caster or not : - wizards vs - specialized wizards for bonus casts vs - very specialized sorcerers The problem with the current incarnation of the mage/priest system in POE2 is that you do not get to make that choice. Sure, Grimoires are around to help offset this specialization a bit and allow you to swap some spells in combat, but this is... I don't know, tedious ? I, for one, have mixed feelings about this. Priests and druids don't even get a grimoire so they can swap out spells and gain access to ones they lost. The combat system has been completely changed and wizards sadly got a limitation just like every other class but it's still a lot less of one than the other caster classes get. I would have been fine with them just keeping the old system and I argued against them changeing it but it really isn't that bad IMO now that I have been able to play the game. I'm sorry you find it tedious I get that but then on the other hand I enjoy not having to conserve my spells as much as I did in the last game. So there are positives and negitives.

It's not always easy to compare play time, my first POE playthrough ended up at 2008 hours after I had played all the dlc. I have no idea why it took me so long to complete I seem to always take longer than average with these types of games. BG2 was definately less than that though for me. I have done quicker runs of POE but nothing under fifty hours.

I get the complaints. Used to be you would get a complete game and then maybe occasionally an expansion that was made after and sold separately. Now with modern technology games can easily be modified with new content added at any time. So dlc is now a way to bring in more profits for your game. This has lead to predatory business or practices all over the industry. EA is one of the most well known companies for this, the Sims 4 has just had so much cut out of the game and sold separately as dlc that really isn't worth what they are selling it for. The Sims is all about customisation though, so people want all the options and end up buying all this dlc on impulse and sinking tonnes of money into what is essentially a reskin of a very old game. Micro transactions also exist to manipulate people's impulses with the "pay to look good" or "pay not to grind" tactics that a lot of companies use. All of this brings in more money than a large expansion and costs a lot less money to do in the first place. All we can do is not buy from these companies and instead only buy dlc if it is actually worth the price it's being sold for. I think the white march expansions were worth what they charged for them. I think these will probably be worth it too though as I've said before I would rather a larger expansion. The market is different now from what it was and that affects every company even obsidian.

Yeah I agree the narrator is great in the cut scenes but her doing the dialogue box is a little odd. Then again I think the entire intro could just have been a cut scene that is also skippable. Like don't get me wrong it looks great but it's a chore to get through after the first time.

Everyone I want to romance is diametricly opposed to whichever watcher I want to romance them with, oh well. Maybe i'll just not bother.

So even a moon godlike is not good enough for her son? Who is? I think there is a case to be made for ondra being the most insane of the gods tbh.

Try dumping him incidentally has anyone tried romancing him as a moon godlike? Does Ondra react differently at all? I'm creating a Moon godlike just to see what happens lol Knowing Obsidian it makes literally no difference, then again the godlike reactivity is a lot better in this game than the first pillars so maybe I am wrong.

Try dumping him incidentally has anyone tried romancing him as a moon godlike? Does Ondra react differently at all?

If they aren't full blown expansions, would you have a time frame on when the expansions would come? I'm sure they are perfectly servicable it's just the fact that they all seem to be self contained side stories and retail for ten dollars each, one of them is just a combat thing. When I say "proper expansion" I mean something like Throne of Bhall, Dragon Age Awakening, shivering Isles, Witcher 3 blood and wine ect. Something large with it's own story, multiple areas, characters side quests, endings ect. The White march wasn't too bad but these all seem smaller and not parts of one big plot like the white march 1 & 2 were. So I am saying that I hope they do something bigger down the line.

So Theos has this elaborate plan to empower Woedica to become ruler over the other gods by feeding her a whole bunch of baby souls, the Watcher foils that plan only to give her the baby souls anyway and then it just never comes up again or matters at all? Even in direct conversations with Woedica and the gods who overthrew her in the first place? This is the kind of choice you don't put in if you aren't going to do anything with it becaue not doing anything with it is in and of itself a retcon. You're right, but in this case I think that, perhaps, they weren't really sure whether they would be making a sequel down the road - after all, PoE was something of a financial risk for Obsidian. The "let the bad guy win" options aren't really problematic if you don't intend to go beyond just one game. Fair but i never expected the choice would affect the game in some major way, maybe it didn't work as well as Theos thought? Maybe despite Woedica being empowered she still isn't strong enough to take on all the other gods and this Eothas stuff kinda puts all that on the back burner? They can easily just pospone the major consiquences of that choice to not play out until after they end the series. It should be aknowledged though and there should be some way to explain it in game. Other than these very cryptic tiny hints that don't even show up for everyone.

I do wish they had done it more like Baldur's Gate where even if not all the companions have proper quests most of them have something to say sometimes. Like Mirke would probably not work as a full companion but a little banter and the odd comment would be very entertaining.

ship to ship combat is very easy once you get the hang of it. I like the accents and Valian words, it's very immersive and makes me think the writers are taking the different cultures they have created seriously.

So Theos has this elaborate plan to empower Woedica to become ruler over the other gods by feeding her a whole bunch of baby souls, the Watcher foils that plan only to give her the baby souls anyway and then it just never comes up again or matters at all? Even in direct conversations with Woedica and the gods who overthrew her in the first place? This is the kind of choice you don't put in if you aren't going to do anything with it becaue not doing anything with it is in and of itself a retcon.

DLC was part of the fig campaign, the last game also had dlc. So it's actually good that they are releasing it soon and giving us details on what it will be. I was hoping for something meatier than the three dlc's sound, something like the white march or an actual proper expansion but they never said that this would be all the dlc ever released so who knows maybe we'll get an expansion after all. Either way I am pleased there will be post launch content. Sorry about you wanting to play it all at once but it's pretty normal to have to wait for a complete edition of a game to do that, I am not saying that is a good thing but it isn't an inherently bad thing either. They were very upfront about the fact that there would be dlc, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Seems like you are implying that because they are releasing it so soon it must be like ripped from the main game or should just have been part of the main game. I can see that perspective but non of it sounds like it has much to do with the main plot. It will have been budgeted and planned for but they didn't know what form it would take when they pitched it which means they hadn't started working on it yet then.

From what I remember from the backer beta they added an extra ability point for single class characters to help balence it because at the time multiclass was massivly OP. If you are going to have multiclass as an option you need some drawbacks.

Skaen's dialogue is that scene is also bugged for me. He says I whiped the memory of that elf girl on both my characters even though only one of them did that. Plus the other one who did also killed the father so?

I never expected much but nothing seriously? A line about the power she had gained when she was posturing about Eothas and maybe some kind of "woedica's boon" item would have been fine.

It was done to encourage grimoir switching and also because every other castet class got a limitation when it came to what spells they could access. Wizards still have more spells and the ability to swap out some of them. I think it was just a bit too much of an advantage to have the old system for wizards now that it's per encounter casting. Though to be fair there was also talk of specialised grimoires with certain attributes but so far I've only found about three different ones and most are just the same one over and over again.

I kinda agree about the sub classes to be fair. Like the wizard sub classes probably work better with a multiclass character. For single class it's a bit restrictive. I think they should probably have added more spells.

This is definitely easier than the last game was and no I'm not seeking out the most OP classes. Unless all the classes I have tried so far happen to be the most OP I guess. Like I haven't even played the first pillars on POTD because veteran was enough of a challenge for me.