Wormerine

When I started playing RPGs I would pretty much try to recreate myself (at least visually, albeit modify stats to be likable, smart and at least somewhat competent in combat). I used to play RPGs doing things I would do, rather then thinking about role-playing: creating a character and figuring out what they would do. There were only few games which made me behave in a way, I can't imagine I would: Fallout1&2 and Gothic. It actually made me not enjoy Obsidian's RPGs for quite a while - going from KOTOR1 when making good choices was easy, into KOTOR2 when my choice were turned against me was rough. Obsidian games felt to me unnecessary dark, and I thought they are simply bad at setting up stories. What I didn't understand is that creating a character with his personaity and goals was my job, not theirs. Probably a turning point for me were Witcher games. As I was familiar with the books and Geralt as a character, I tended to play as him. After first Pillars of Eternity was crowdfunded I was scepting if it will be any good, because in my mind Obsidian was more of a Bioware wannabe, and only one game of theirs I enjoyed up to this point was NWN2. Anyway, awaiting PoE release, I decided to give Obsidian's games a go and made my way through their catalog and saw their games in a new light. I found that their games work really good, if you attempt to roleplay. Who would have thought. That said, still I like for my "main" PC to have some similarity to me. I wouldn't pick a deranged, evil character for my first playthrough, for example. The biggest challenged for me is not not meta-game: make decision based on what items I want, or not wanting to skip fights. For example in first PoE I killed Llengrath purely because I didn't want to skip the fight, even though my character wouldn't do that.

Well, they are not different then in PoE1. The difference is that they talk to PC more, which does feel a bit contrived I think. They are really quick to invite Watcher to their domain and "accidentaly" share cosmic details. I dunno, maybe they really like showing off to mortals and someone knowing their true nature makes for a rare opportunity to vent:-). As far as pettyness... I think it was quite present before. The backstory of White March is all about a god using sledgehammers to solve a problem and and other disagreeing with her. There was much much more 1 on 1 companion talk in PoE1. Which I do and don't miss. It wrecked a pacing really really badly. You meet a new companion: spend next 15 minutes talking to him/her. At the same time it made for some pretty good reading. PoE2 relience of companions reacting to things around them is good, I think, but Obsidian would need to figure out how to develop characters and further their arcs through it, rather then constantly reinforcing things we already know about the characters.

Unfortunately yes, this is still very much an issue. I managed to beat Lord Imp without issues, but I can;t go through the encounter in Sacred Stairs without aggroing entire city. It is strange, as guards do seem to ignore you know most of the time, and hostile nemies usually seem to come from outside my range. In case Obs would still consider looking into this issue here is a save: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SAKwxTvFUMik4tpWtamNK5JyMNxes_nX/view?usp=sharing PS. Alright. I managed to finish both fights. In 5.0 guards don't seem to get involved in the fights by themselves anymore, however, civilians are an issue. When a civilian walks into the fight he panics and calls for help. That can get attention of guards and if they spot you they become hostile. I believe that using laud abilities invreases chances of attracting civilians from afair - at least the attempt which succeded made me slog through the fight while using weapons and abilities with laud casting, but quiet finish, as enemies were closer to guards and civilians as my party was. With Imps it was a simple matter of fighting on the pier, as far away from crowds as possible. In Sacred Stairs I lured enemies down the stairs near the enterance to catacombs: The plaze in the middle is the danger zone. It sucks that the issue wasn't fully solved, but at least it is beatable.

Well, many companions in PoE1 ended up as different people at the end of the adventure, and Deadfire simply used a hammer to straight out any unique changes and create a bland middle ground for each of the 3 returning companions. Hopefully, they wouldn’t do anything like that for PoE3. I don’t think that creating a companions with two different content packs to be faithful to expected reactivity is a necessary thing to do. I would be happier with a smaller cameo, which will reflect her journey in the direction we set her on in PoE3.

Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, all bugs should be fixed by now, as 5.0 was to be the final patch. Granted, ongoing playthroughs might be plagued by old bugs which don't get retroactively fixed. What you missed is this beautiful eldritch shield: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Weyc%27s_Oracular_Focus

Did you give it a go? Is it worth picking up? For the context I did play Warcraft3 and Starcraft1&2. I have been thinking about picking up Warcraft3, but I am not sure if it still holds any entertainment value.

System shock is just and injury - it can be removed by resting. What do you mean the party cannot rest? If you are in the wild, just use rest button, if you have enough food for the injured party, or if you are in the city find an inn.

I did encounter this issue pre 5.0, but I did finish the Imp fight on my first attempt after patching to 5.0. (playing turn-based). Guards walk by us without showing concern. Odd.

I am doing it by memory, but I think this is it: Here you burn the horn. Here you erase the book. PS. You should be able to interact with the brasier even horn is not in your inventory. If you can't, then it is a bug.

Whatever you guys settle on, those looks excellent to me. Great job Boeroer & Phenomenum!

Really? Huh... If a command console was enough to simply switch between modes, then I am surprised it wasn't implimented as a feature.

Yeah. His influence help me move from thinking of games as products made by faceless corporations, and start thinking about people who make them. His videos also introduced me to indie games. Stumbled on his first ever WTF video, and stuck with it till the last one. I discovered some great games thanks to him, new on old. Thank you for Deus Ex TB. Ah, I am stuck halfway through the base game. It bored me quite quickly. Still, there is something appealing by the superserious narration delivered by Bullwinkle J. Moose.

Yeah, this quest lacks nuance. Your quest is to find stolen fruits, that’s is the quest objective and is impossible to complete the quest without handing stolen fruits to the Mataru. thats mainly the problem. You can’t just leave the fruits with the Kuaru. Sure, Mataru won’t accept your koiki as a replacement, but why can’t I give stolen fruit to Mataru, and give Kuaru some of my fruit to get seeds from? Second part of the quest is fine: roparu is disliked by everyone in the village, and is accused of stealing the koiki fruit. You can either prove him innocent (and sentence the Kuaru) or not, and roparu takes the fall. As the second happens whenever you confirm false suspicions, or don’t say anything and so the journal entry is the same. It is no innacurate, by the end of the quest you know that the roparu was wrongly accused of this particular deed, so even if you remain silent you still frame him.

I felt that removing party size to 5, did help me to manage individual characters to the fullest (in PoE1 they tend to be on auto, especially that with limited resources use of skills is discouraged). I do tend to brute force my way through Deadfire encounters in real-time, if I play too much of it. I feel it is more of a problem of difficulty then real-time combat. It is quicker (or feels quicker?) to leave things on auto, and have your party slowly maul their way through enemies, rather then try to figure out which defence is the weakest, properly debuff enemies and effectively take them out. A benefit of turn-based combat is that playing ineffectively really feels crap, as you have to watch ineffective swings hit one by one, and it is quicker to properly tackle enemies, as there is no “fast forward” option. The downside is, that some o the fights can really really drag. Finally going through Beast of Winter, and some enemies can take a long time to kill (some fights were lengthy even in real time). I think it would work in games favour if they found a way to punish inappropriate play. Problem with those kind of games is that everything can be beat with inflated stats, so as you level up killing enemies gets easier, and players engagement with systems decreases (at least in my case). i thought an accomplishment of Witcher3 system was that even if you were overpowered, game would punish your u for playing badly - enemies would block you attacks, your attacks wouldn’t hit etc. (Although, I felt the leveling system of W3 hurt the game more then helped it). Naturally, it is quite a different game, but underlying philosophy applies. If avoiding enemies attacks, and figuring their attack pattern becomes optional the combat becomes less satisfying, not more. i wonder if it would be prudent to design a party cRPG were new levels would add complexity to combat and unlock new tools to the player, but not make characters simply statistically better.

In my over 300 hours in Deadfire I have never encountered anything if that kind. Something must have gone very wrong. I hope that the verification fixed the issue.

Well, there already is "scale only up" option. Those challenges aren't there for you to show off (well, unless you go for the ultimate) - they are to make things a bit more interesting for the next playthrough - it's for your own personal enjoyment only. Another key elements in developing those was how much work would it require to create one. There some really cool things one might do as an additional modifier, but they would take a bit more manpower. If you are looking for extra challenge, I am told Deadly Deadfire is pretty good: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/43 I am not 100% sure if it works with 5.0, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

Sorry, Had to.

I think it is a neat idea, and I will have to give some of them a go. I have been enjoying mutations for the coop mode of Starcraft2 quite a bit, though I felt it was done better, and it was more appropriate for a 10-15 minute mode. The reason why I didn't give any of them a go just yet, is that none look interesting enough to warrant a full playthrough.

It depends what you look for? If you want everyone to do massive damage some classes will simply be better then others, and on classic some really useful support/buff/debuff spells might not be valuable enough for those characters to feel necessary. I was never a fan of Druids so I am not the best person to discuss good Druid builds, though I do remember my full Druid Takehu doing quite well on my PotD playthrough (I am by no means a minmxer and never managed to reach absurd levels of power some people’s builds do). Hanging Sepulchers are notorious for being oddly balanced compared to its difficulty level indication. It’s been reported by multiple users as a difficulty spike, and indeed on my last playthough it did stand out as a more difficult section.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WFlBV_nkWk8E9ppQqiqLbljMWHjicENd

GOG wants to make competition their market by relaunching their Galaxy Client as a universal gaming hub, allowing to manage games across different launchers: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/05/22/gog-galaxy-2-0-claims-to-be-a-universal-games-launchpad/ no news about release date, but they opened signups for beta (existing gog account required).

Well, boat is still better then keep in PoE1, which Is better then keep in NWN2, so it’s a slow progress . As far as RPGs it is still the best “keep” system I have seen (I didn’t play Kingmaker yet) though the bar is overall low. Smart camera is dope. Improvements there are quite a few that stand out: 1) items - I like unique weapons and Deadfire is full of them. 2) I am in constant awe by companion reactivity in DF. Having them join conversations and recognise NPCs and each other is impressive. Sadly comes at a cost. 3) I like the map. Always have been a fan of those, be it Fallouts or Arcanum. there is only one fault I see in Deadfire and it’s sideffect of all those improvements: and that is lack of narrative control over the story, be it how plot is delivered, or how companions are explored. There is plenty of good material in DF, which doesn’t get communicated effectively. Companions, world, factions, Eothas it’s all good, but it doesn’t “pop”. Little buildup, little linear progression. Shorter, more controlled adventures in DLC showcase how more engaging those stories can be with a bit more narrative control. I feel Obsidian took the cry for more freedom a bit too literally.

It’s currently in beta, so use at your own discretion. The PEN fix worked, though you might have to wait till a level up, or respec your character till it activates. The only downside is that the PEN boost not only applies to imbued spells, but the shot itself giving you easy overPEN. If it is just the fix you are interested in, it’s in extras.

Thanks so much guys for you work. I added to current built of the Community Work to my playthrough. The fix for the Arcane Archer works! (for anyone interested: to have the PEN pen activate for your current character, you have to either wait for the level up, upon which the perk will be activated, or retrain your character) One thing, though I am not sure, if it is fixable. The PEN is indeed scaling with Arcane, however it applies to both imbued spells (good!) and the shot itelf. As such it gives a pretty decent boost to a short which already benefits of base weapon PEN. I would take this, rather than no PEN for imbued spells, as it makes the subclass' unique feature rather weak.

I had my first chat with Ms Woedica. It was a pretty lenghty conversation as I was deep into the playthrough by the time 5.0 landed. I think it is a really good addition, though I will need to see it in a complete playthrough to see if it's implimentation feels natural. It gets a much needed background and incentive to engage with Deadfire's political situation, even if ones character is purely focused on just saving his soul/helping out Gods. Considering some of its content, I do hold hopes to see PoE3 at some point into the future. The introduction of in-lore fast-travel mechanic might not go to waste after all!