Wormerine

Keys on those “grey market” stores come from various sources and it would take a lot of effort to track each and every key. Polygon attempted it once: https://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/8006693/the-truth-behind-those-mysteriously-cheap-gray-market-game-codes Probably the most extreme cases were keys bought via stolen credit card information. Ubi made a big fuss about it a while back. Another dirty trick is buying a key in an area with a lower pricing or during a deep sale and reselling it for a profit. Keys might be also spare ones - someone receiving a gifted copy, getting key from a bundle he owns/isn’t interested in. Or as in the case of Polygon article someone selling a key distributed for promotional purposes. Whatever, the keys come from, those “grey market” sellers are not authorised shops - they don’t get keys directly from developers. They act more like an e-bay - just a platform for transaction. How dodgy the source is may vary. If you wonder if buying from those sites is an acceptable thing to do - well, I don’t think there is any chance Obsidian will gain anything from those sales. Overall, I would recommend avoiding those, especially when new releases are concerned.

I found her quite annoying at first, but she ended up being my favourite companion in Deadfire. She just grew up in her own enviroment and it is difficult for her to accept other points of view or be subtle about what she believes. Certainly a character flaw but a believable one and it fits the character well. I wouldn't controbute her flaws to lack of inteligence, though. What I did find frustrating is that I didn't had a chance to talk to her, tell her about what we found about Gods in PoE1 and see her react - but it is part of the bigger problem - us being Watcher from the first game is for the most part irrelevant.

Oh? He gives you a quest? I did aquire the sword but without interacting with him.

From what I understand almost nothing changes. There might be recognition of the deed from one of the characters but that's about it.

I am yet to try any of those (probaby for my 3rd playthrough, but I am also sort of waiting maybe for the turn based mode if it will ever happen) so here is my view on them purely based on discriptions: Quite interested in using: -Galawain Looks cool on paper but expect it to be dull/frustrating in practice: -Berath -Abydon -Rymgrand -Hylea -Woedica Not interested in at all: -Eothas -Magran -Skaen -Ondra -Wael Not doing solo and cenrtainly not triple crown. Personally I see most of them as too irritating to commit full playthrough to (not a big fan of starting and abandoning a playthrough). What I would be interested in is a "random" option - alternate between a random Fire every once in a while (every hour maybe?) Well, except the Eothas one. Screw that one.

It depends what world they go for, how inventory works etc. Scavenging for food fits post apocalyptic setting, might fit SF, but so far I didn’t see and indication that survival in hostile enviroment is the focus of the game. We haven’t seen much though.

Managing penetration is one of the key elements to success in a fight - that means using right weapons for the situation, abilities which buff player pen and/or decrease enemy Armor. I must agree though that with addition of DLCs (which IMO are well balanced) Deadfire has some major difficulty spikes. I found DLCs on Veteran to be a perfect fit for me - I find PotD to be a bit too much of a slog - I can beat it so far, but I don’t find it hard enjoyable. Base game on PoTD on the other hand ranged from just right to easy.

With another patch on the way out and the bug still persisting, I am bumping the thread, at least until I am told that Noriko's case is hopeless.

"Defend the position"? What position is that exactly? Getting an extra subclass for each class was a rather fantastic surprise. I do believe that not warning about lack of reactivity for them might be a danger especially when new players come into the game now knowing those were added late after development of the base game was concluded. No one is arguing that reactivity for those subclasses shouldn't be added. It's just highly unlikely. Did anyone really expect that they will dig through the base game, track were each of the classes should/could have reactivity, modify quests, do the writing and rehire voice actors, on top of the design that went into creating those subclasses? I think that would be cool. I think that how it is now, it is bound do disappoint/piss off current and future players. But as Insane Commander stated I do prefer to have those subclasses than not have them. People complained why we don't have access to some unique subclasses. Those subclasses are added, and people complain there isn't reactivity to them (I do think it would be nice to at least cover the obvious spots - Temple of Woedica is a pretty glaring issue). If they patch in one or two, then people will complain that there aren't more. <shrug> That's why we can't have nice things. Though if Turn Based mode is really being developed, then who knows. Maybe extra reactivity will be added as well.

There is little need to upgrade your ship for ship to ship combat, if you are not doing ship to ship combat. If you were to use ship combat system, other ships pack more firepower - Galleon or Junk can disable enemy ship in a single volley.

xD Every ship in Eora is equipped with its own Doomsday Machine.

There is nothing "broken" about it - you are just not in business of capturing ships. You board the ship, slaughter the crew, take what's on board and sink the ship. If there is something that doesn't make sense then it is that you still retrieve loot when sinkin the ship.

Yeah, I searched for Deadfire OST on spotify the other day and it's not there. I have my OST from the backer portal.

I think they are just generic ships to make the map feel less empty and give you something to raid if ya want.

Ship combat is in this awkward spot we’re enough work has been put into it to make it its own system with some interesting ideas, but not enough work to make it rewarding. Though my experience is rather the opposite - enemies get to rarely do anything essentially stunlocked by unmissable damage done very by yours truly. Essencially stop before every shot and move when your enemy is shooting. Ammo doesn’t change chances to hit. Enemy shot from a broad side is easier to hit, while ship from bow/stern are more difficult to hit, but hits do raking damage (2x).

With refund policy in place for Epic Store I finally felt secure enough to dip into another store front and give Hades a try. Not something I was thrilled much, as I liked Supergiants games for being unique and interesting and they got more and more unusual with every release. Hades did seem to me like a couple-years-late-to-a-party-project. For the most part I didn't change my mind - Rogue Light games is something I lost interest quite a while ago, and unless you do something very interesting gameplay wise (Invisible Inc!) I ususally skip them by now. Hades does seem like something that should follow up Bastion. Gameplay is fairly similar. Right now the game is light on content, in length, enemy variety, skill/gameplay variety, but the game already feels polished and is quite enjoyable to play. For a first early access build it's very promising. However, what took me by surprise and what makes me look forward to more of the title is Supergiant's signiture, which I didn't expect to see here - yes, visuals, music and voiceacting is excellent as usual, but the story is really well done as well! In a procedurally generated rogue-light game! Don't want to spoil much, but the game has already a decent number of characters with whom you get to interact on a regular basis - both in a home area were you go after each death, and in dungeon. The game even had a little bit to say once I reached the end of current dungeon: Hey, tomorrow is first big update. Hoping for something meaty.

As mentioned above some weapons/buffs apply to proficient weapons. So yeah, it generally smart to pick a modal for a weapon you will be likely to use. You never know when you will need +2 pen.

I really can't say. Played through with both imported and created save and I didn't notice any major or minor gap in reactivity. If there is an missing reactivity it's either very niche or very minor.

To be honest, if I could shape water into animated statues at will, I would probably start doing it seconds into every conversation instead of just zoning out. You can't rest on streets because of Baldur's Gate. However PoE straight up doesn't allow you rest instead of being interupted by a guard.

My 2nd PotD playthrough sort of stopped due to a bug which made it impossible for me to continue progress Beast of Winter. I started working on other DLCs meantime, but I get such bad framerate in SSS arena that it discourages fighting my way through it for the 2nd time (and I don't have cipher to cheese my way through it by mindcontrolling half of the enemies). Still have some megabosses to tackle.

I doubt there is much opposition - it would just take work. Considering the stash is shared there is fairly little need for access to "unused party members". I think it would be nice to have as if you do want to transfer a weapon equipped by non-active party member it is slighly inconvenient to do. Still, I would describe it as a niche quality of life feature.

Here's my answer: Because these games are mainly designed as escapist power fantasy for an incredibly conservative male audience who want precisely that and would get royally angry if it were any other way. Because many game rely on positive feedback loop - you do well, you a get reward. Of course, it evntually creates an issue of good players being rewarded for being good and making it easier to be good in the future. What you mention is negative feedback loop, which punishes player (albiet equipping the ring is optional, making it an optional negative feedback loop?) for doing well keeping the challenge more even. What? I am smart? Nah, I just watched Gamemaker's Toolkit on the subject:

Those boss fights are for people who want to respec, specialize and min-max their characters. The base game suffered from the lack of tough opponents. I would prefer if they were intergrated into the game in the first place, and they were part of the larger quests - fighting Adra Dragon was exciting becuase of the buildup. Fighting just a monster without context isn't as exciting. In addition Adra Dragon or any other challenge boss in PoE worked better as there was always another way to "solve" them. Unfortunately, due to the complete overhaul of how Deadfire combat works devs had to rething how epic bosses play out - making fight last much much longer was one of the obvious needed changes considering abundancy of resources available to characters. As it is, those mega-bosses are there for those who want challenge and provide little else beyond satisfaction of beating them. If that's not your cup of tea, really don't worry, and just ignore them. They weren't in the game in the first place, there is nothing that special to be gained by beating them. I had fun with the first two megabosses, didn't yet try out the other ones.

On some basic level I somewhat agree with you - I don’t think Deadfire handled grand universe changing story well. More time is given to a conflict in the Deadfire - it’s more fleshed out, characters in game care more about it. The destruction of the wheel is somewhat damaging as it makes the central conflict of the game somewhat irrelevant. Now, what I just say is not quite true - conflict in the Deadfire ties to ways you can influence Eothas. But I don’t think it works as well as it could/should have. I disagree strongly that PoE should drop the grand ideas and be just a fantasy adventure. PoE1 showed what great universe it can be. Even though it’s heavily flawed I find Deadfire far more interesting than most IE of old (except Planescape) or something fun but incoherent like Divinities. It might be a matter of taste, but if anything I wish for any future PoEs (if they happen) to explore its ideas further. I think that not being able to stop Eothas is not an issue - not being given enough space to process, understand and react to it (and have the world react to it) is. PoE companions and world well resonated with the reveal. Deadfire god content feels a bit too much like lore, and not enough like a story.

Errrr... ok. At least he will be looking good casting Minoletta’s Minir Missile while the actual spell will be eaten by enemy armor, because they don’t happen to be vulnerable to crush/corrode. Sure, with varied repertoire you might have a spell or two per fight to cast, but I feel it’s not enough to justify wizards presence in the party. Wizards flexibility to adapt to every encounter (not a big fan of wizard’s subclasses) is their best strength, IMO. @Boeroer you make we want to try multi-classed wizard, I was thinking about making a wiz as my 3rd character.