Novem

Uh, no, that's not how that works. Recovery time in real-time means that some units attack more frequently than others. This is not the case in turn-based mode, meaning that any units who would previously have had a high recovery time that would've permitted the other side to attack multiple times before they attacked once is put onto an even playing field with units that previously outspeeded them by a significant margin. This is common sense dude, it's not hard to figure out. In turn-based, as compared to real-time, slow characters are essentially getting attacks for free because they are always guaranteed an action and an attack. Thus whenever you face enemy groups that are composed of fast enemies, they are essentially attacking fewer times, and thus you are being attacked fewer times than you would have been in real-time before they die (and the same is true the other way around). This is particularly the case for spells by the way. They are much easier to avoid in TBM, especially because even with min dex you can probably escape the AOE (another problem with how insignificant the difference in stride is from dumping). I never said it wasn't, I said it's worse, because it is. And there's certainly no point in maxing it, you just need to high enough to meet the break point in order to extend your effects another round. The upper points you invest don't actually do anything as far as duration is concerned, and don't do anything at all if you are using a character that does not rely on area of effect attacks. Dude I barely know what I'm talking about when it comes to this game's mechanics and even I know this. The fact that we're arguing at all over things that are so incredibly basic even when you probably have a better understanding of this game's mechanics than I do is real proof of how dark those glasses you're wearing are. PS: Because there are so many dump stats (and hell, even on casters, you can go min dex and still go pretty early in most fights using light armor), it makes the act of maxing any given stat much less meaningful as far as communicating the stats value. Of course you're prone to max an even partially useful attribute when you just basically got like 15 free points from dumping Dex, Resolve, and maybe even another 8 or so from dumping Constitution. Where else are you gonna put them? lol Fair point, but you're also ignoring that Medium Armor is also fairly useful on front-line characters that don't take lots of attacks, but still need the protection for when they do. Or at least that's always been my impression as a casual player. Meanwhile the Heavy Armor issue is so bad that even some rando on reddit that's probably only played the game for a few hours has caught onto the fact that Heavy Armor is the objectively correct choice on literally everyone that isn't casting spells. Then you're really bad at debate, you mostly only responded to points where you could be proven factually incorrect, lol Of course I think you're just playing at aloof and don't have a real argument with which to respond to most of my points, or are otherwise just too fed up to continue the conversation. I think what I wrote is worth something a lot more substantive than the silly one-liners you've decided to respond with, and I'm the one who isn't going to continue the conversation past this point because you're being incredibly disrespectful and also because you're far too down the rabbit hole to listen to reason.

Which is why I said "as". Dumping dexterity has next to no impact on combat at all, arenas and ranges are too small for the pitiful loss in stride (someone with 4 Dex can still move 11m, lol) to make any difference and Initiative is only situationally useful. Resolve is a lot more useful because having longer status effects on you makes a marked difference in combat, and Deflection is the best defense in most situations. I'm not saying it isn't a dump stat, but that's more because increasing the other stats provides more benefits than keeping your Resolve up. Moreover, it's the only real dump stat among all of the stats. Combine both of these things, and it's not really a balance issue as much as a buildcraft issue, and a minor one at that. This is not a serious argument, just a shield against having your opinion criticized for being bad. I did, that's why I know it sucks. Every person takes 1 action per turn, that means they only get one attack. This means that there are fewer attacks happening overall because in RTWP some characters can attack multiple times by the time another gets off one. This makes perfect sense, when you are getting attacked less, that means you defenses are being checked fewer times and thus they are objectively less useful. No it isn't. We've already discussed Dex, but there is also Intelligence, which loses half of it's use as a stat in a vast majority of situations unless you happen (or design your build) to hit a breakpoint that ups or decreases an effect by a round. AOEs are not useful on every character, therefore single-target focused abilities are weaker in TBM (especially when they only last one round, and either way it also means individual points in Int aren't very useful on their own). And Resolve is almost completely useless in TBM for the same duration-related issue and because defenses are less valuable than in RT. Yes it is clear. When half the stats lose so much value because they are tied to mechanics which have been changed to be less scalable, this reduces the number of viable builds, because there are fewer good options. Especially because TBM has not opened up any space for other attributes to shine, the other attributes that weren't effected by the change are still exactly the same as they were in RTWP, and the reason RTWP is so incredibly well-balanced is because every stat had its usefulness and none of them clearly outclassed the others (Dex was the best stat, but it wasn't so much better than it crowded out the others). Yes, those are problems. If you're going to pretend that those two things have as fundamental an impact on combat (and equipment choice) as Dexterity though, you're the one spinning things. (BTW, there's a mod that addresses the second thing, and as I've already said Resolve isn't as useless as you make it out to be, reduced hostile effect duration is useful in the vast majority of situations, it's just not as useful as the benefits you get from increasing other stats) You're greatly exaggerating the issue. I mean, yea, let's just throw light armor on your tank and see how well that goes, lol What I think you're also being completely blind to is that you're viewing this from a really faulty perspective. No casual player (which is what I would consider myself, by the way) is going to attempt doing that kind of thing in RTWP, meanwhile in TBM it's really obvious that the best strat is to give almost everyone Heavy Armor (except your priest and maybe your caster) because Initiative is useless to most characters. Moving incurs recovery time in RTWP. You are punished for attempting to kite (not to mention costs you time you would otherwise spend attacking). There is no significant penalty for attacking after moving in TBM. It doesn't take any specialized knowledge or builds to successfully kite in TBM, the only thing stopping you is the fact that it would make battles take even more of an eternity than they already do. Or well I guess it wouldn't even effect that much because there is no punishment for moving and attacking on the same turn, you don't lose anything and there's no opportunity cost like there is in RTWP. The idea that the situation is in any way equivalent is a fantasy. And? The point is that if I can notice this many issues from just an hour of playtime, then there's something seriously wrong with the mode, which there is. I'm not speculating at all. It's really obvious that when you take mechanics and shove them into a mode they weren't designed for they are going to become flawed. Duration, for example, is a mechanic made for a real-time game that for some reason is sticking around in a rigid turn-based mode. That's why RTWP is better, not just because it wasn't "the original design format" (which is not an argument I ever made, by the way). Congratulations. Yes I have, quite thoroughly in fact. I specifically point out that I don't mind if someone enjoys it more. Enjoyment is not a qualitative measure. And yes, you are in fact looking at the situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses. There's a difference between enjoying something more and thinking it's actually better in reality. Exactly, through your tinted glasses. I never made that argument. Pretending I did is seriously disingenuous. I observed this behavior more than ten times... in the starting cavern alone. That's when I lost count. TBM is legit the only time in my 150 hours of playing POE2 that I actually noticed an issue in the AI. I'm not very perceptive about these things, because as I said I'm a casual player with just a fairly simple understanding of the mechanics. The fact that any issue was noticeable to me at all, but especially to such an incredible degree, is clearly reflective of a serious problem. Oh by the way, TBM is also the first time in my entire time playing either game that I actually truly dumped a stat. I've played about 400 hours of both games combined, but the closest I've gotten is putting Constitution on 7 or 8 on my caster characters. I know that's probably not the most efficient, but I don't care because I'm just assessing the stats at face value. Unless I magically became a min-maxer, me setting Dex and Resolve at their minimum values the second I rolled my second TBM character (it took a few tries before I was satisfied, because the class I initially had in mind wasn't satisfying with the way Intellect was changed to function) while knowing next to nothing about the outside conversation about the mode. The fact that I wouldn't say I'm all that good at this game (I can't even progress in POTD without a mod that turns off that stat bonuses), and yet even I knew this was the best way to do things is really reflective of a fundamental lack of depth here. But uh... I did. I knew that's what you meant, which is why I pointed out the "spotlighting" thing to begin with. Seems you didn't read what I said properly, because my argument was that the loss of significance makes that additional spotlight pointless. Impact is just as important to the relative satisfaction of using an ability as your ability to pay attention to it in the heat of battle. Note, I don't think negatively of you because of that, my own fault for not being clear, You're making an assumption. I said that's what I had "marked down". I was writing down faults I found in the TBM because I was intentionally testing it and pushing it to reveal issues, since I plan on updating my review of the game (not that I expected you to know that, just adding context). I never at any point said that was all that I had played of the TBM, just that the issues I specified were altogether something I'd found in that initial block of time. But I'm good as far as what I've progressed to on that. I'll probably run through a bit more than I have to capture footage for my review, but after that I'm not touching the mode again until modders tackle it. I generally prefer Turn-Based games, but Deadfire's implementation is a complete mess. Good for you. (not sarcasm, just pointing out that your personal experience does not in any way undermine the point you are attempting to defeat) Well I don't know what to tell you, but it is. If you can take your glasses off for a few minutes, you can scroll up and read why. There's no reason why you can't prefer the mode and yet still realize it's incredibly flawed. I don't know about you, but I generally have high standards for the things I enjoy. I don't just ignore the problems they have because I like them, and I certainly don't pretend other things have problems in order to make the thing I like look better. But that's because I actually want the things I like to be the best version of themselves, and so it doesn't hurt my feelings when people utilize legitimate critique against them, and I'm the first one to deliver it as well (ex, I think the first Pillars of Eternity is one of the best works of fiction in video games, but I also know and often criticize the first act for being a completely impenetrable mess and the ending for robbing you of agency at the last minute, among other things). All I'm saying is that you should be a bit more self-aware about the things you say. You can express your preference for something without putting something else down or denying the reality of the situation because it's inconvenient. Even if you enjoy TBM as it is, you should want it to be the best it can be, and it very obviously isn't at the moment. Instead you're only concerned about justifying your preference in order to have your opinion validated, and that isn't very productive. For one, if you believe in your opinion, you shouldn't need it validated by others. And you don't need to justify your preference either, because it's yours and that doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else, because no one else is you and thus no one else shares your exact preference. I'm not saying you shouldn't express it so you can relate to other like-minded souls, but that you shouldn't feel any need to defend it because it's not about anyone criticizing it, it's about you. Anyways, secondly and finally, if your concern is where it should be (for the game), then you should be willing to savagely tear it apart if it's flawed even if you do like it bunches. Because that means it can be better in the future, and you don't have to offer caveats when you talk about your love for it to other people (like you did at the beginning). I mean, you should see my original Pillars of Eternity II review, I swear I spend more of that video criticizing the game than praising it, and yet I still gave it an 8.5 when it came down to it. Because I can be objective about the things I enjoy, I can put aside my preference for the sake of providing the best and most productive possible analysis, providing an opinion based on the facts rather than what I'd like to believe is the case. And I like to imagine that people doing that is part of the reason why the game is so much better now than it was when I released my review, and certainly much better than when it launched. That's the best and most effective form of participating in a discussion, in my eyes. And it is not at all what you have been doing, which is why I'm here calling you out for it, because it's always a disappointment to see. I hope you improve, so you can better contribute to the conversation, (<this is not meant to be passive aggressive, this is my legitimate hope, because I don't really get any enjoyment from sardonic quips or mean-spirited comments when they're directed at people who aren't intentionally being intellectually dishonest, I don't think you are so I'd prefer to be as respectful as possible, though I'm sure I slipped somewhere in this diatribe due to frustration, my bad, apologies) Either way, off to bed! Have a nice night,

I don't know what game you're playing, but Deadfire is an extremely balanced game in RTWP, and your examples do not in any way prove otherwise. Resolve may be a dump stat, but it's nowhere near as severe a dump stat as Dexterity (which you can dump completely with no consequence) or even itself (both attributes which are reliant on duration are worse, not to mention that low defenses don't mean as much because you aren't being attacked nearly as much) in Turn-Based Mode. And well... that's the only substantive point you made to that effect so there's not much else to argue against. Regardless, the suggestion that there's "very little to ruin" is absurd. Each attribute in real-time has value (yes, even Resolve). In Turn-Based, half of the attributes either suck or are worse in almost every situation unless you're gaming the system towards specific break points. This irrevocably makes combat worse, because the problem isn't just that you "can't follow build guides" anymore, it's that there are much fewer good and viable builds to begin with. Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Initiative is only situationally useful, unlike the original Action Speed which was always useful (meaning balance-wise there's almost no reason not to dump your Dex and then throw Heavy Armor onto most of your characters). Turn-Based also rewards extremely cheesy strategies like kiting with ranged characters and just generally running around like an idiot because there's nothing that really punishes you from moving around all the time when attacking and even if you dump your Dexterity you generally still have more than enough Stride to outrun monsters for a little bit (except for the faster ones, I'm sure). It has a LOT of issues that the original version of the game (even beyond this, and this is just the stuff I had marked down after the first HOUR of playing TBM, I'm sure there are many more nuanced flaws) didn't have because the original mechanics were actually designed to operate in the format they were created for, and they still are but have just been kind of tossed into the Turn-Based Mode without much consideration. Either way, Deadfire is really well-balanced in RTWP. There's an incredible amount of build diversity, attributes scale reliably in a way that makes sure every point is always useful and dumping any one will always be felt, there's a compelling reason to choose between different armor weights and weapon speeds because Action Speed/Recovery Time fundamentally effects your damage output and number of hits as compared to the other side, running around recklessly is quickly punished and you're consistently rewarded for having your units in position before battle conditions change, and so on. I don't know where you got this impression that Deadfire is somehow not a balanced game, there was certainly a problem with difficulty for a while, but on a mechanical level Deadfire has always been exceptionally well polished and thoughtfully designed, with a perfect balance between clarity and depth. And in terms of buildcraft, you could pick basically anything and make it viable as long as you had a basic understanding of the mechanics. I'm not saying you're wrong that TBM can be fun, because as I said earlier it benefits from many of Deadfire's strengths. It still has the really awesome Afflictions/Inspiration system, and I like how TBM plays up elements of combat like the Interruption/Concentration system (and other such nuanced factors) because you really have the time to buckle down and consider your moves. I also don't mind if you prefer it due to just generally enjoying the format a little better. But it's a tad (and that's an understatement) ridiculous to suggest that it hasn't broken the vanilla game's mechanics on a fundamental level. And no it's not simply a "new meta", Turn-Based is provably a shallower, less balanced, more unpolished, and significantly worse version of the game. I honestly believe it's absolutely crazy to suggest that it's somehow an "improvement" to Deadfire's combat, you'd have to be looking at this situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses to see it that way, especially if you've ever even touched other far more polished and well-considered Turn-Based systems like Divinity or XCOM. It's an alternative, one that may be more fun for a certain type of audience, but it is in no way an improvement (especially when core mechanics often don't function properly or are ignored by the AI, Engagement is so ridiculously finicky there and the AI often seems to just intentionally provoke Disengagement Attacks even when it's a hilariously bad idea, which is something that never happens in real-time and thus greatly mystifies me... and have you tried Galawain's Challenge? Man those enemies do not seem to be aware of their bonuses). PS: Couldn't find somewhere to fit this, but this claim that individual actions are more significant in TBM just doesn't sit right with me. Like, sure, they get spotlighted more thanks to the way the mode works. But the way the mode works also makes those individual actions less significant. It's much easier to miss AOEs without the ability to retarget them, attacks are less effective and deal less damage over time because you output so much fewer of them with the dexterity changes, and because there's less punishment for moving and attacking simultaneously (since enemies can't react right away) you're under quite a bit less pressure while trying to set up any particular strategy. PSS: I think you're underselling just how tedious TBM is. As I said, damage values are still tuned for real-time, but the pacing of the game is much slower. Even on fast mode, battles take an absolute eternity. The beach cavern on POTD in Real-Time takes 10 maybe 15 minutes at most to clear, the same cavern takes more than an hour on TBM (I believe I even have video evidence of this). TBM makes combat encounters more than five times longer on average from what I can tell, and even worse it reduces the importance of resource management. Whereas in RT when your abilities were all gone, the fight would be almost over, in TBM the fight's still in full swing. There's a construct encounter in that cave which took me more than 30 minutes, and 80% of the fight was spent flank killing the one dude (with only basic attacks) because he has so much health and you do so little damage. That fight takes maybe 5 minutes at most in RTWP, and he's much easier to cleave through because he's so slow that you can get out nearly five attacks by the time he outputs one, but TBM puts enemies designed like that onto an even playing field they weren't designed for and it creates extreme tedium. I literally cannot imagine trying to beat the whole game on TBM, I imagine it's already 60-100 hours long with the DLCs, and I'm sure just by the virtue of playing TBM you'd more than double that playtime due to just how long combat takes (and that's probably underselling it as far as I'm concerned). TLDR: No, it still feels very, very tacked on. Which is not to suggest the devs didn't put a lot of work onto it, but that it was stapled onto the existing game in an inefficient way despite not being a good fit. PSSS: btw I just want to make clear that I'm also glad the mode exists, but you are greatly understating the depth of its incredible number of very problematic issues, and greatly overstating the original games flaws in comparison.

Honestly, I think the better idea would've been to make the combat system CTB-based rather than Initiative-based, because Pillars gameplay style would've far more directly adapted to such a system. Pillars mechanics were never designed around every person getting one action per round like in this tabletop-inspired Initiative system, each action is supposed to have a certain speed and incur a certain level of recovery time. You can do this in a CTB, so the effects of Pillars attributes wouldn't have to change and they would all be directly scalable in the same way they were in real-time. Higher dex would give characters more actions, more quickly. Intellect and Resolve could scale the duration of abilities based on the turns of individual characters rather than entire rounds, which makes both useless until you trigger specific break points. And they should've allowed you (and this part isn't even wholly necessary, just switching to CTB would address most of the problems so this is just my opinion) to trade your movement in a turn for an additional attack (or made attacks consume a chunk of your movement) so you don't feel like you're wasting a resource by standing there at the end of every action (and to keep damage output similar to real-time so the encounters didn't drag, and so "kiting" could be punished, etc). Every one of the problems Turn-Based Mode has is a result of them awkwardly forcing mechanics into a structure they weren't designed for. Honestly I feel like if they were going to design a turn-based system this way, they should've based it on the tabletop game Sawyer was making instead of trying to force the game's mechanics into another format. Just my opinion though, because if they were working with a CTB, they would've only had to balance the game by tweaking numbers rather than overhauling entire mechanics and systems. If they make a Turn-Based Mode for POE3, I hope they look at doing that instead.

While I can't compare to how it was before, as this patch was the first time I played it, it's just not very good. That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, it benefits from many of the strengths that Pillars of Eternity II already has as a game, but it also undermines many of those strengths with the mechanical approach it decided to take. The attribute system is way more rigid than a Pillars attribute system should be, focusing the system around min-maxing alike to other games. You're almost completely limited to one action per turn (since there's no AP system or ability to trade your movement for an action), preventing many characters from taking advantage of effects they themselves inflict and overall just making the combat far less dynamic than it is in real-time. Health and damage values are clearly tuned for real-time play, which causes combat in even easier encounters to drag (as you just straight up output less damage in turn-based than RTWP), and I imagine would massively increase the game's run-time. I have to agree with Wormerine's assessment that it's just a straight up inferior experience. I'm sure there are people out there who can and will enjoy it, so I'm glad it's in the game, but if you're choosing between the two or don't plan to go through the game multiple times, just play real-time. Turn-Based, for as much as I usually really enjoy Turn-Based games, is not worth the loss in the complexity of Pillars buildcraft, the slog of the longer encounters, or the reduced depth of many of combat's core mechanics.

Well I'm still not entirely sure how it works, but because duration is measured by rounds, the "ability duration" aspect of Int only seems to be effective if you can hit the break point to make an effect last another round (which takes about 20+ for most abilities). It doesn't seem to be able to make an ability last partially into the next round from what I can tell, and so anyone who doesn't use a lot of AOEs doesn't really need it.

I'll be back the day after tomorrow to respond to the whole (places to be), but for these two points in particular... Literally all you need to do is read my initial reply, wherin I very specifically note multiple examples of both of these things.

Why would I be anything but consistent on what I believe to be true? And why would I do anything less than call people out for unreasonable, dishonest, untrue, immature, and otherwise silly behavior? I prefer discussion which is intellectually honest, with a clear division established between personal preference and objective analysis. I find it distasteful when people either conflate the two or pretend their opinion should be treated like the latter despite being infested by the former, and otherwise express that they feel the world should conform to their taste irregardless of the perspective and situation of others. I especially find it distasteful when they present their opinion and then manufacture evidence for why they feel a certain way instead of just saying how they feel without the hackneyed (and unnecessary) attempt at legitimacy or substantiating their feelings with actual facts. More importantly, why would anyone respond to such an obvious cavalcade of mistruths? It's kind of funny you accuse me of trying to "control the narrative" when you yourself see fit to pretend like my initial reply somehow commented on things you didn't say, even though I very thoroughly engaged with every single individual point you made (and, more importantly, your substantiation for and commentary on those points) in a very direct and logical way. PS: I don't care how you feel or what position you take as long as you're honest about it and what led to your conclusion, I may disagree but I can respect that. When you make things up though in order to manufacture legitimacy for your position, that's intellectual dishonesty and it makes it impossible to have a real conversation. You're allowed to believe and feel whatever you want, and I'll respect that because that's the truth from your perspective, but if you're going to give reasons and try to convince others and legitimize your position as being of overall value, then those reasons need to make sense and be truthful for the sake of being constructive. And when your reasoning is based on ignorance, you need to be willing to re-examine what led to your conclusions and make a better argument, rather than floundering around and taking offense to being corrected (because people are just wrong sometimes, and I would never assume that they would do that on purpose, but the defensiveness that results shows that they usually did).

That's a nice wall of lies you've got there, I'm not going to dignify it with a response.

Personal opinion? Every substantive point I put up there is backed by a significant amount of evidence, which I just divulged when asked about the topic. Also, it's a little rich for you to use "personal opinion" as a criticism when you think YOUR personal opinion should shape the kind of games an entire studio makes, rather than what brings them financial success (you literally just said that POE should die as a series rather than be recontextualized into a more popular format, can't really buy you as an actual fan at that point). And you never tried to have a conversation in the first place either, you can't exactly say you're done doing something you never attempted. Having a conversation requires you to actually address what someone says in a substantial way, but all you've done is simplistically lash out in an extremely biased and emotional manner.

Um, the only thing I went on a "tirade" on was your advancement of total misinformation about a game you fundamentally do not understand. I don't care whether you like or dislike the game, but your post was factually inaccurate and based on total ignorance of the topic you were talking about. This isn't about "controlling the narrative", it's about intellectual honesty. If you don't want to be criticized, don't say things which are obviously wrong to anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. And I'll write a "wall" whenever what you say is substantive enough to justify it.

That's another element to the mechanic which I'm very glad you brought up. My arguments have mostly been focused on why it's an unsatisfying system for the target, but it's also a very irritating system for the attacker. You should try that penetration overhaul I mentioned, it scales underpen more slowly.

It OBJECTIVELY makes armor LESS important in several situations (that's like... the entire problem), it actually DOESN'T make the player use a variety of weapons (only ALLOWS it, which is a very important distinction), as I've already pointed out it has almost nothing to do with the degradation introduced by Abydon's Challenge, and as far as making designing encounters "better"... what is that even supposed to mean? Are you saying you think it makes encounter design easier for the developers or something? If so, sure, that's an opinion that at least makes sense (though I shouldn't have to make your argument FOR you, it's really hard to have a conversation with someone who just says things instead of substantiating their claims with evidence and reasoning, so if you could "go on and on", please do so, so that I can understand where you're coming from instead of just responding to each idea you present on an intrinsic level). And what do you mean my "take" on per-encounter? I didn't make a qualitative assessment there, I only pointed out things which factually make the combat more dynamic. It is a fact that combat has greater variety because you have greater access to more tools. Personally, I do think it's a positive change, but I just want to make it clear I was not complimenting the game there, just pointing out mechanics that provably give the game more variety, in the same way penetration provably does not. And what's your evidence that the mechanics would "fall apart" without it? What you say after making that statement is not in any way logically related to whether or not Pen has an impact on other game mechanics. And wouldn't adding scaling pen actually make it MORE of an attrition mechanic? If you are hitting for reduced damage, that would make you need to output more damage in a combat encounter, which would result in less durability after the fight ends. That would mean your resources would deplete more quickly, which focuses the game more on management of those resources (IE, Attrition... which also brings up something I'd like to note in that Abydon's Challenge would also be more effective as attrition under DR for the exact same reasons, more hits equals less durability). Regardless, adding scaling pen is not in any way an overhaul of the mechanic. You should test the actual overhaul of the mechanic in Deadfire Combat Tweaks instead.

All of the top most popular strategy games are turn-based. XCOM, Fire Emblem, Civilization, etc. In addition ever since the CRPG revival, the most financially successful game (Divinity Original Sin) is turn-based, and it has had two entries to prove the endurance of that formula (not to mention continues to sell like hotcakes,). More importantly, if Obsidian didn't also believe it to be a financially successful formula (and they have access to a lot more consumer data than any of us filthy casual analysts ever would), it wouldn't be a post-launch addition in Deadfire. There's also just the fact that if you hang around a lot of internet message boards where people play RPGs, you will CONSTANTLY hear the sentiment that turn-based is more appealing to people than RTWP. Even among people who play these types of games, the sentiment that people enjoy turn-based more than RTWP is very prevalent. While yes this isn't a ton of evidence, there's not exactly that much of a sample size. You have to make assumptions based on the data you actually have. Divinity Original Sin I & II, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Wasteland II and III, Tower of Time, Torment Tides of Numenera, Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition I+II (along with Siege of Dragonspear), PST Enhanced Edition, IWD Enhanced Edition, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity I & II (as well as the Complete Edition for consoles), Mutant: Year Zero, and I'm sure there has probably been a resurgence of the genre in terms of niche indies as well. The genre is niche, and was dead before Pillars of Eternity. Even just the major games I've listed here is a lot of activity for a genre whose games take a lot of work and time to produce, and which have a relatively small (if dedicated) audience. And these are just the games that are already out, there are also other upcoming games in the genre like The Waylanders and Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen.

But you have yet to name a single substantive reason why Pen makes the game that way, wheras I've contributed several reasons why it doesn't. And that is unsurprising because as I've already said, Penetration is not responsible for the excellence of POE2's combat. It certainly doesn't make it more "dynamic". In fact, it does exactly the opposite. It makes the combat more predictable and readable, which is exactly what the mechanic was created to do. And while it isn't exactly DR, the penetration overhaul I've already referenced multiple times already shifts things back towards a DR-like system (it's really more of a compromise between the two extremes that DR and Pen represent) and the game still rocks (and it makes the game better, because it makes equipment choice meaningful again). Wanna know what makes POE2's combat more dynamic? Per-encounter spellcasting, expanded character progression, multiclassing, subclasses, the class resource system (along with the great deal of nuanced changes each individual class's playstyle received for the second game), the superior encounter and enemy design, the passive/active skill system split, the improved stealth mechanics, and more. To say any of these systems are solely responsible for how great Deadfire is to play would be ridiculous, regardless of whether or not you would include Penetration among them for some mystifying reason. And there's no need for an overhaul to ascertain that, all you have to do is compare the wide swath of differences between the first and the second game to each other, and have played both games enough to grasp the significance of the changes.

Good point. I will never pretend to be a math guy, but I will object to "incorrect facts". Everything I said is still true, you've just used one very specific example which defies the standard between the two basic weapon types as a whole. What I said about this system creating the situation which you describe, where a dagger can take on a heavily armed and armored target, is still completely true, and it also still completely true that the first game less often created this situation because DR limits low damage weapons ability to impact armored targets far better than Penetration as a system ever would. That was in fact Daggers entire niche in the first game, you'd use them on low armor targets, while you'd use higher damage weapons like Greatswords against people with high DR. The whole buffing thing is an entirely different argument by the way. I don't disagree, but I don't think it has much of anything to do with the substance of the conversation we're having. You can have damage buffs just as easily as you can have penetration buffs, they have little to do with whether or not it's a bad mechanic, which I think I've provided a very compelling argument for why it absolutely is and I also think I've very aptly countered your argument for why it potentially isn't.

I never want to play another video game with Divinity's truly awful attribute and skill system ever again. Pillars of Eternity (both of them) has really given me an appreciation for just how much well-designed, fundamental systems like these can impact my enjoyment of a game. I 100% agree. I can't imagine limiting themselves when they've shown they can capably do both would be good for the future of the series. Plus, I'm a stickler for accessibility features, and one of the reasons I love Deadfire so much is the insane extent its gone to in catering to the tastes and needs of so many different players. The ability to tailor the experience to my liking is one of the primary reasons I enjoy it so much. And same! Can't wait to finally try out the turn-based mode with the next patch where it will hopefully be coming out of beta in preparation for the console release.

Well you shouldn't be happy about it, but you certainly shouldn't be actively hostile about the idea. What you've just said is essentially "I can't have what I want, so you don't get to have what you want either, wahhh". Me, I'm an actual fan of Obsidian the studio and Pillars of Eternity the series, so I'm going to support whatever will make those things successful while still serving their actual audience, people who are fans of these games as deep, complex, role-playing games in general. If it was RTWP that created that success, you certainly wouldn't see me whining about it, because I'm not here just to have my niche within a niche catered to. Anyways, there has yet to be a financially successful modern day RTWP, narrative driven CRPG that has not banked on nostalgia for sales. Deadfire would've been that game, and it was a failure. We'll have to see whether or not a Pathfinder II is that game (which I would think is most assuredly happening), and I hope so since it would be a shame to see the format completely disappear, but I wouldn't say its incredibly likely based on how the genre has played out since the launch of the original POE. And no, while Divinity's cooperative play is certainly a factor, the turn-based mechanics (and the way it's sandbox nature interacts with those mechanics) are much more responsible for Divinity's financial success. I would say that when you are trying to measure a game's financial success, you should probably listen to what the people who play it say they love about it, and the co-op is almost always an afterthought to the fantastic combat and the sandbox shenanigans. In addition, ALL of the mainstream, financially successful strategy games are turn-based. And it is very easy to see why, because turn-based games are a lot more accessible due to being less overwhelming. This is regardless of how much you want to reinterpret things for your own convenience. That is not at all a logical conclusion from what I stated. The idea that they should make an MMO shooter from this is not at all a logical extreme of this conversation, and the implication that it is... seriously disingenuous. Even if we just remember that the one RPG studio which did that (Bioware) created a financial failure with that format. There's also the matter that Obsidian is a company that makes narrative-driven RPGs, that's their reputation and their specialty. You can only be financially successful by serving your audience and your fans, this is why building and maintaining a brand is super important in the game industry. And it should be remembered that Pillars of Eternity was a game that saved Obsidian as a studio, because they started catering to an audience that hadn't been catered to in a long time. The situation has changed in that the audience now has a great number of games to choose from, and time has seemingly borne out that turn-based is the more financially viable format for these types of games. That's not just my opinion, that's just what any logical person would draw from the data we have access to.

I'm just saying that seems like an extremely unreasonable anger to have. You can't really expect a business to keep making products you enjoy just because you enjoy them. They have to be able to turn a profit somehow, and especially now they need to be able to create something that will move Xbox's. If a RTWP game can't make money, then it doesn't matter what your personal opinion on turn-based is because that may be the only way for the series to continue at all. Would you rather just have no POE games rather than having the series built around turn-based? Because I'd prefer to keep getting POE games regardless of what format they need to embody in order to generate revenue, and I honestly don't really see the purpose in getting invested in any particular combat system as long as they don't compromise on the game's mechanical depth. And in order to make real-time accessible, you need to make it more shallow. I'd be a lot more concerned seeing Pillars of Eternity move in Dragon Age's direction than it committing to a turn-based format, that's for sure. And what do you define as something representing Pillars of Eternity III anyways? Would it be because The Watcher is in it as the player character, or that it has to answer the questions left over from Pillars of Eternity II's ending? Would it be because the same characters returned, or you got to import your narrative decisions from the previous game? DOS has a tactics spin-off coming out soon that does most of those things with it's own player character/storyline and it isn't considered a direct sequel. I'm just saying that a POE tactics game could essentially be a POE3 in just about everything other than the name and style of gameplay, and so it makes your justification for being angry about it kind of thin.

I think it's rather questionable whether or not it would be reasonable to get mad about it. A Pillars of Eternity tactics game has been floating around as an idea for a long time, and by any measure Pillars of Eternity II was a massive financial failure in comparison to the first game. If the third game is built around Turn-Based and proves to be a more financially reliable format for the game, then I'd rather Obsidian do what they need to do and keep making games with the kind of quality and polish that Deadfire has regardless of what format they use.

And that's really only one of it's problems. Don't forget it's hilariously awful buildcraft, complete lack of character diversity, and the great overemphasis on level gating.

The dagger does less damage per hit because it has a lower initial damage value through spread, it does more damage over time because it has a lower attack time and recovery. In fact, daggers have much higher damage potential because that ability to repeatedly attack works nicely with builds that pump up your ability to snag critical hits more regularly (not sure how effective it is because I've never done such a build, but that is my understanding of the weapon's intended niche). Also, while daggers tend to have a bit lower penetration, they aren't that far off from most other weapons in terms of the value of the stat as far as I'm aware. Regardless, as long as you can get the dagger over the target's pen value, the damage between it and other weapons is overall normalized in any builds that can utilize the dagger's potential damage effectively. By the way, speaking of, you seem to categorize much of this as my "opinion". It is not, these are objective facts about how the game functions and how it was designed. In POE1, a dagger does much lower damage, and thus would struggle in every situation against a heavily armored target because the damage flatly reduced. In POE2, as long as your dagger can clear the penetration requirement, it has a higher overall damage potential than a sword assuming you have the build for it. PS: I never made any argument that simple was bad, in fact I complimented the simplicity of the damage profile multiple times, only that compromising on meaningful choice, on the depth of what the player is allowed to do, is antithetical to good RPG design. Because it is, and that's what this system does, because it inherently creates situations where switching your equipment to something with higher Penetration or Armor values is completely meaningless (or actually worse, in that it makes your character objectively worse in combat), which is particularly problematic for Armor since it incurs nasty recovery speed penalties. It makes Heavy Armor in particular a generally worse investment than it should be. < This scenario right here is an example about how my statement about meaningful equipment choices is objectively true, and has absolutely nothing at all to do with systems of attrition (neither does the penetration system for that matter, I don't know what relation you think that has with Abydon's Challenge beyond maybe like... you have to hit things less and so your weapons degrade slower?). PSS: POE2's combat is better than POE1's for a great number of reasons. The Penetration system is not one of them. Even if you just directly rolled the Penetration system back to DR, that would not magically make POE2's combat as "bad" as POE1's. Overfocusing on one mechanic like this is doing a dramatic disservice to the frankly insane amount of design work that went into overhauling the combat for Deadfire.

I mean you can feel that way if you like, but nothing you just described has anything to do with the fundamentals of each individual game's turn based design whatsoever. Not to mention your description of how Divinity's combat works is quite provably not in any way how the game actually plays. I don't disagree with your criticisms persay, but the conclusions you draw from those criticisms are just nonsense that honestly seems to stem from you just being bad at Divinity. I'm not saying you're wrong to point out that the lack of "expendability" in Divinity's characters is a problem (it's super tedious and adds just about nothing to the game, it's a mechanic that very obviously only exists to replicate a tabletop experience and it doesn't fit in a video game whatsoever, I've been making the same complaint since Baldur's Gate), but your description of how combat plays out in response to that is just laughably wrong (not to mention has nothing to do with each "unit's" lack of expendability, and it is also a mechanic that is only tangentially related to Divinity's actual combat). Like, seriously, if you actually think that damage is the only thing that matters in Divinity's combat system, you don't know what you're doing. Crowd control, status effects, environmental manipulation, and positioning (especially with teleports and other mobility aids, hell positioning is more important in Divinity than any other game that's been discussed because it's the only one with height advantage), are more important in Divinity's combat than simple DPS by a hilarious degree. If any game has a rock-paper-scissors dynamic going on (and I don't think that's a bad thing, in fact it's one of my favorite things about the game on a mechanical level), it's Pillars on many, many levels. Most clearly though, the Afflictions and Inspirations system, which has a literal rock-paper-scissors dynamic going on in Deadfire with it's complex web of very well-defined counters, To get the best efficiency out of that system, you literally have to be actively pulling out the very specific counter to afflictions you suffer and countering the inspirations your enemy receives. Combine that with things like how damage works, the penetration system, and a litany of other factors and Pillars is a far, far more mechanically straightforward game. And that's not a bad thing! Pillars manages to fit a whole lot of complexity into relatively straightforward mechanics. The game is really easy to learn, and manages to do that without compromising even a smidge on its depth as an RPG. Anyways, it seems to me you're basing your analysis of the so-called "fundamentals" of DOS on a single structural decision the game makes in terms of the need for resurrection scrolls and using it to inform your entire opinion of the game's mechanics. That's absolutely ludicrous, there's a lot more to video games (and especially RPGs) than whether or not your units get up after combat. PS: I hate that you've made me go to such extent to defend Divinity. There's a great deal of reasons why both Original Sin games are nowhere near as great as they've been billed, but your take on them is just silly. PSS: I don't know why you're complaining about Fire Emblem's so-called lack of expendability when the games have had a casual mode for nearly a decade. PSSS: These games will NEVER resemble in any way the 4x strategy games you say you enjoy. The things which drive normal strategy game design completely conflict with the entire idea of narrative-driven role-playing games. Of course your units are expendable when you're managing an army of faceless soldiers rather than a small company of fleshed out adventurers. The more invested a player is on a "unit", whether on a personal or mechanical level, the less expendable that unit can be while maintaining the game's integrity. And those games are also ironically far shallower by necessity, since individual "units" in an RPG need to be complex by nature in order to reflect identity, while individual units in grand strategy games are very simple and exist within a system of predictable counters. Which is expected for units which exist in a game where the player is focused on a far wider scope of events. The idea that somehow Fire Emblem has shallower combat mechanics than something like Total War: Shogun II is completely laughable. Call me back when each unit in a Total War game has 8 different stats and different equipment that you have to manage on an individual basis, lol... but that will never happen because that much complexity would make a real-time game like Total War a complete slog. It needs to be shallower by the very nature of the way its designed as an entry within it's genre. Like, seriously, I can't get over this notion you seem to have that RPGs are somehow less complicated than most Grand Strategy games, which have very simple mechanics by the very nature of them being what they are. The more you expand a game's scope, the less complexity you can introduce (because micromanagement kills the pacing of real-time games), and what has more scope than a game that literally builds its brand around its scope?

That may be your personal opinion, but general consensus (and I would agree with that consensus personally) is that DOS has excellent turn-based combat. DOS gameplay has a lot of issues, but it's fundamental turn-based mechanics are exceptionally well designed. I would say that's probably why the series has sold so incredibly well despite it's wide swath of design issues. I would also say this is reflective that the future of CRPGs, likely including Pillars of Eternity, will probably be rooted in at the very least an OPTION for turn-based play. Turn-based is quite frankly just more accessible, it lets the developers maintain the depth of mechanics more easily while still catering to a wider audience. We'll see what Obsidian decides, but I think it's rather unlikely that a third-game focuses it's investment on improving the real-time gameplay over either including a turn-based option at launch or making it the focus of the game (even if it's treated like the Pillars of Eternity Tactics spin-off that's been floating around as an idea since the first game). Besides, if that Microsoft money goes anywhere, I'd hope it goes into getting the TTRPG to a place where it can compete with stuff like D&D or Pathfinder in terms of production quality when it launches. I honestly believe that's a better investment for the future of the series, especially as far as expanding its audience is concerned.

I'm pretty certain the game had gone on sale several times by and before January 24th. If that initial break even number was a number based on copies sold at full price, then the actual number units that would need to sell would be much higher. Still, I wonder if it would be possible to calculate how much the game has grossed in revenue using all these numbers, and how much it would need to gross in order to break even. Or at least calculate a sort of "effective number of copies sold", as in... not the exact number of actual units sold, but how the money the game has made equates to units sold at full price. I'll leave that up to you though, I'm not much of a math guy, lol