Wormerine

Still present in 5.0

I think I would prefer TB, if it was done with it from the get go. As it is, system is originally designed with RTwP in mind and as such some mechanics simply work better in the original enviroment. In addition, many fights in Deadfire come down to swinging at enemies and waiting till they die. When I play a good, balanced, challenging encounter, I think I would prefer it in TB. The only real benefit of TB combat is that it is unaffected by performance issues (framerate dipping, and stutters whenever a creature is summonned) which I am experiencing regularly.

I don't knowww. I can't believe it is intentional, as it makes imbuing spells fairly useless later in the game. Saaaad

5.0 and spells from imbue effects still don’t gain pen with power level. Booooo.

I really wanna that patch. There is little hope I will be ever good enough for it. Story content! The dilemma I have to face now, is whenever I should abandon my current play through and start another, or soldier forward. I do like my character so I might stick with it, and do new play through later on, this time, finally with some challenges. I was hoping for revised finale, though I am looking forward to what you guys cooked up. It seems like a smart idea to incorporate exploration into faction-less path. It remedy at least a bit people from complaining about little story content, while ignoring majority of quality content the game.

Specifically? Formula itself.

I like it, Really well written. But I still don't understand how debuffs are calculated

Yeah, I have no idea how one might get 260 of mostly gameplay on one playthrough. My total PoE1 count (and it's fairly reliable as I never leave the game running in the background and I always playd it with access to the internet so every single hour is accounted for) is 284hours, which consists of two full playthroughs (base game + expansions) one on veteran, other on PotD, reading everything, aside of the backer content. Deadfire is on 291h but it includes about 50h of beta, one full playthrough plus DLC, 75% of a playthrough without DLCs and 50% of turn based playthrough (and no DLCs). Deadfire might be more compact experience, which is interesting, as in my mind it is a much more expansive game. It is probably the lack of books - I spend a lot of PoE1 time reading, Not to mention 10 min+ wall-texts of companion introduction.

Yeah, lots of people dislike her. She ended as my personal favourite of PoE2 companions. "That was about as useless as a bump on a pickle". Manm to confusion of people around, that line made it into my everyday vocabulary. Or maybe that's because I attempt to say it with really bad southern accent. Considering, how flattened out companions felt when transfered from PoE1 to PoE2, I would rather have PoE2 companions have a small cameo, but with interactivity intact, than be flattened out into something which can cover for multiple endings. I for one would love to fight the evil psycho Xoti Who says monks can't be passionate? PoE doesn't always adhere to traditions.

There is slight attempt to address both “issues” but not by much. 1) story and characters of DoS2 are still absurd and inconsistent. The overwhelming amount of puns from DoS1 is toned down, but due to open nature of DoS2 I found it actually less compelling, and it felt to me like a bag full of short skits with such a loose (or flexible) quest design that punchlines didn’t get proper buildup. Still, due to its nature, I found it difficult to care about anything that happens and in DoS2 I truly dreaded seeing a new city with tons of NPCs to talk to. Now, to its credit, DoS2 has bits of brilliance, both in its humour, quest design, and consistent use of mechanics, but I just found too much crap between these enjoyable moments to be able to soldier forward. For example - elves have ability to eat flesh and see glimpses of memories of the person they eat. That opens come cool alternative ways of continuing quests, some of which are quite clever and funny. However, to not make it too easy to find those valuable pieces of meat, the game is littered with pieces of meat - so if you don’t want to miss those cool ones you spend a decent amount of time stuffing meat down your elves throat, and mostly reading useless garbage. Same with seeing ghosts, same with talking to animals. I feel it might work better if one plays in coop (every one takes on himself a piece of exploration) but managing the full team and going through all those chores to find couple cool bits is exhausting and boring. And the story is absurd, inconsistent, sometimes funny. 2) the only major change to combat, that I can remember is the armor system - characters have physical and magical armor which, gets decreased with every physical/magical attack (pretty much extra health bar) before enemy can chip on your health. As long as a character has physical or magical armor, status effects won’t work in him (so for example you can’t knock down someone with physical armor, or stun with lighting if they have magical armor). So the game isn’t anymore about stunning enemies before they stun you, it’s about taking down their armor as quick as possible, before they can take down yours, and then stunning them. Granted variations in enemy armor composition, might force a slight change of strategy, but it pretty much works, as it did before. Gave up on it somewhere halfway through, and I sort of plan to return to it, now when the enhanced edition is out, but I don’t really want to play it anymore. I actually liked DoS1 better, it felt more focused. DoS2 seems like a pretty darn good toy box, if one is into creating custom adventures.

Somewhat yes - but the thing is, for the most part PoE design doesn't take advantage of being a real time game - a vast majority of mechanics aren't affected by move from RTwP to TB. It's not lets say Starcraft, which all gameplay revolves about being done in real time. There are some mechanics which are causing major problems. The question is, will Obsidian come up with solution and if they do, is it a solution which consumes a lot of tinkering with individual system. We will find out next week :-).

Perhaps. For me turn-based was a reason to return to the game, I was pretty much done with it, so while it introduced problems, it also made game interesting again to me. I got a taste of it, gave my feedback and voice my concerns and froze my play through waiting for a patch. I became active on forums once again, as news of incoming patch spread.

Feedback from you perhaps. I for one love this stuff. I wish Deadfire had a bit more of "Storm of Zehir" in there. That overworld map just begs for a wee bit of simulation.

I don't think it turned out nearly as bad as you suggest. Frankly, I never found Deadfire turn based combat to be as tedious as Divinity's can get in come cases. The biggest issue turn-based had that mechanics tied to real time (ability duration, recovery etc.) didn't translate well. We will see if they came up with a fix next week. As far as tedious encounters - yes, there are some of them. Boarding ships in TB is just tedious affair, and there were some encounters which really, really dragged on - an ambush in sunken city for example. On the other hand, I felt quite a few encounters got enhanced, showcasing enemy composition, that I didn't notice in my two previous playthroughs. I don't think it is the case of how many enemies and how many characters you control, but if an act of giving an order to your unit is an interesting decision to make, or not.

That is not what I have been suggesting (I think I clarified it further in my later post, that I don’t think ditching RTwP would be good). Rather, the turned based system well amplifies the best and worst elements of the design. Ideally I would like to see both modes at launch for PoE3, considering they both seem to rely more or less on similar ruleset. There is some things to figure out, but hopefully, if Obsidian figures how to translate PoE combat system into turn based system now, it might be much easier and cheaper to launch with both for PoE3. What I meant was, that in RTwP it is easier to ignore problems - speeding through dull encounters, completely ignoring key mechanics, playing improperly due to inability to properly manage the party and taking it for difficulty. Turned based, encourages to properly engage with mechanics but at the same time it showcases how repetitive or shallow some encounters can be, as player input is necessary. When player hasto make a move and realises there is no real decision to make, it sticks out far more in turn based mode, then in RTwP, where fast forward and auto AI will do the job. Therefore, my suggestion that designing with turn based in mind and testing from the get go, might result in better experience overall for both modes.

You kiddin? After a year, beta is finally coming to a close

I tend to be flexible with styles of games I play. I grew up with infinity games and I found Deadfire's turn based system more intuitive. While in its beta form I think it is inferior, due to stay and balance issues which don't exist in real time. But a stat based game system, which wants you to analysing defences and choose the best course of action works better when those breaks for decision making are build into the game. Sure there are players which will ignore the system, and power through on lower difficulty levels, and there are those who have a grasp on the gameplay without the need for mandated think-breaks. But for majority of players TurnBased might offer a more intuitive experience. If PoE3 happens, to be honest I wish it was designed using turn based system with real time alternative - playing turn based really highlight interesting fights and really boooooring fights. Make game interesting in turn-based, and it should work well in real time as well... ...right?

Originally, when multiclassing was to be more flexible (dnd3 style) companions would pick first class from limited selection, and then could multiclass which whatever you wanted them to. Obsidian's answer to roleplaying was: "you pick the class, it is up to you to explain why Eder can cast spells now". When they changed how multiclassing works they limited class options for the companion. The reason gives was unexpected UI issues. So I don't think there is anything on design level that would stop Obsidian from doing that - just that it might take more work, then one might expect.

I quite enjoyed Endgame. The key is not to think too much - it's pretty inconsistant with its own rules, even though those are pretty vague. Otherwise you will just say a lot of: I tried to get into Sonic games recently as I like platformers very mucho. I tried Generations and Sonic Mania. Oh boy, I didnt' enjoy them at all.

I think it should be in "spoiler" subforum. Tis difficult to discuss areas, without spoiling anything. I liked all of the "choose your approach dungeons" the most, be it Fort Deadlight, Slavers camp or Nimnoks temple. From DLCs Beast of Winters inBetween has special place in me heart. I liked the least the finale - such a not fulfilled potential there, for some epic story and combat time. Far too short for a conclusion of a lengthy adventure.

"I can do it all day"

That is some money talk my limited brain doesn't understand. Seems like Deadfire really didn't sell well. Is anyone able to translate this percentage into sold units? On the other hand, Phoenix Point's deal with the devil (aka Epic) seems like a pretty good boon to those who invested via fig.

The patch adding turn-based mode certainly seemed to bring a lot of issues across both modes. That's unfortunate. There was quite a bit of happiness when t-b was announced and from colloquial evidence it seems to bring new players in - Obs can look at the sales and stats and see if it was worth it or not. T-b mode doesn't necessary detract from anything, though it's addition did have negative impact on overall quality. Hopefully, the next patch will squash all the bugs. Whenever, it was redesigned enough to fix some issues which come from translating rtwp system into t-s remains to be seen. I have been enjoying t-b mode quite a lot, and it might become my preferred mode, if it won't feel as mechanically inferior in certain areas. Edit: typos

No one is speaking against crowdfuding. I am speaking against giving money, when being blackmailed with an IP I like, by a corporation, which as far as I can remember didn't publish a decent game in a while. There is no crowdfunding, because Obsidian is owned by Microsoft and is funded by Microsoft. No matter if you pay Microsoft for PoE3 after release, just before, or before they start production, Microsoft will fund it and, if it wishes to, influence PoE3 developement. If Microsoft would decide to crowdfund PoE3 I would hope there would be an uproar. Not from PoE fans, but anyone interested in crowdfunding and gaming in general, because that would be a new cAAApitalism audacity.

No they are not. Microsoft is the parent company, Obsidian is the subsidiary. I have been ignoring Obsidian in this conversation, becase, they are not the ones I take the issue with here. Hopefully, Obsidian are allowed to do their thing, in which case crowdfunding is unnecessary - their payroll is from Microsoft and they will produce games that Microsoft will {hopefully] profit from. My understanding is limited, but I think Obsidian is not financially independent in any way. I don't think you can just give money to Obsidian and bypass Microsoft. You give money to Microsoft, and they include it in PoE3 budget - be it by allowing more people to work on it, allowing them to work for longer, or just they have "free" money to pay wages with and project stays unaltered. Purely speculating here.