Wormerine

I really dislike comparing a modern title to an 18 years old one. Baldur’s Gate was an inspired and influential title and it’s influence can be traced to this day. It has its shortcomings - some are by choice, some are straight up issues - but overall quality and originality outweighs them. It is still a game which holds up and one I wouldn’t shy from recommending. However, for impovements we don’t even need to dive into Deadfire. I did a straight playthrough PoE1, BG1, BG2 and PoE2, and I only gained respect for design of PoEs. There is a sophistication to PoE on mechanical and artistic level, which simply isn’t in Baldur’s Gate. A big part of it is that people, like Josh, worked on RPGs all the way since BG2 days and they refined and expanded on ideas, techniques introduced there. Technology is also better. But it’s not the competition. Games don’t need to be “better” or “worse” and I do think that both IPs aim to be quite different things, in spite of the surface similarities. And while BioWare used to be my thing in my teen years, nowadays I am more of a fallout (and therefore PoE) person. A straight, black&white colourful adventure just doesn’t do it anymore. The same way as my preference shifted from Kotor1 to Kotor2, even though Kotor1 is a better (at least finished) title.

Sometime 2019

What OS exactly? PoE2 works just as any other game and it installs were you tell it to or where your default steam/gog folder is.

I am surprised people talk about immersion on abstract isometric game. But anyway. There is more to turn based than “players ability to process informations”. I am curious how TB mode might work in PoE2 as originally (D&D) the system was turn based. The number based combat does seem to be a better fit for real time - after all when player is supposed to analyse multiple stats and analyse rolls, and that isn’t very intuitive in Real-time. In addition TB could do something funky with initiation and turn order giving the game extra depth.

Yeah just beat DS1 for the first time, and I did find the lack of momentum a great thing. It just gave enough info to have a goal in mind and let you explore at will. I have no idea what was all that about though.

I can't remember exact location for each weapon but its more likely you didn't explore enough:

Cool stuff. That's probably why I am so conflicted about the way Deadfire did companions. I do miss coherent, directed character arcs a simpler system and structure provides, but some of those interjections are pretty great.The "companion" problem might be more of a overall narrative structure issue then per say how companions were handled. I also like Deadfire more and more... Regarding to the "resolution" at the end of the post one bit from Deadfire really stuck with me as awesome:

I can certainly see the appeal. Out of curiosity what would you do with recovery? Would recovery be attatched to the look of armor, along with its base stats and only magical effects would be moved around? Or for the sake of balance would all stats be moved to the new armor and the look of it be treated as sleeve only. I can see a possible major imbalance by allowing to to put any enchantments on any type of armor. Wound enchantments be individual? Or applied as a full set?

As far as I know, it doesn’t mess with the economy. Drops are semi randomised, so they might differ between playthroughs. With so many patches item drops might have been nerfed.

*shrug* They would either do something new and creative or we would have another Deadfire romances - it doesn't drag the game down, possibly damages companions a bit, but in the end is pretty forgettable and forgivable.

I absolutely LOVE good old BG but frankly if you leave aside the ruleset (definitely an acquired taste) you have to recognize that originally the BG1 NPCs were a bit paper thin. There is a reason why the NPC mod for BG1 is probably one of the best mods for the game. The strength of Baldur's Gate was to take the fundamental fight between Good and Evil (a common trope in fantasy) and turn it into an internal conflict within the main character's soul. The struggle between Good and Evil becomes the inner struggle to embrace or reject the legacy of the Bhaalspawn. There are some nice things there, but I think that even black&white good vs evil isn't done too well, as I find it far too difficult to play as evil character - quests simply don't support it much. Sure, you can kill random NPC to balance it out, but that's not much fun. What Baldur's Gates did so well is to use gameplay loops as narrative fuel. You murder thousands of creatures and instead of it clashing with your character, BG uses it as part of the story and addresses it multiple times head on. Lack of choice works because no matter who you want to be in the end you are the Bhaalspawn. A bit of "would you kindly" there. Struggle is less with what you choose to do, but that what you do in the game is at odds which whom you probably want to be as the character.

The equivalent of the pet cleaver for companions.

Huh, that bug again? Might want to attach your save (attatch via dropbox, googledisk or send to: support@obsidian.net

:-D. Yes, because base game suffers from the problem of you being overleveled for the content no matter what difficulty you play on. Difficulties differ by enemy composition and stats. While I could see high level buffs getting dropped (game doesn't support it currently so it might take some programing time) it sounds troublesome to have enemies spawn in/out when changing difficulty. Therefore difficulty changes take place between maps.

I would say yes? I found the content of all expansions quite excellent, and Seeker Slayer Survivor, Forgotten Sanctum scale fairly well for 20 level character (so far I played all of them on that level due to loading my pre-endgame save). If you felt that Beast of Winter was worth your time, then the other two should be as well. If you didn't - both other expansions are pretty much similar - large sidequests which tells mostly its own story with some ties to the main game, and much needed developmet for sidekicks.

Giving the body to Concelhaut is ultimate example of Tayin's "Let's see what happens" philosophy, so I'm interested to see if even he thinks that is going too far :D He is somewhat impressed.

When starting up Baldur’s Gate make sure to use the PDF which comes with the game. BG UI doesn’t explain what everything does but the system itself is fairly basic, though the enhanced edition UI at least show how items affect your stats which makes things easier.

“Watcher’s Balanced and Completely Unremarkable Missile”

The more alcohol the better, I say!

They did respond but I assumed that it was a bug. My guess would be that it was fixed.

I don’t think it is out of realms of possibility that Microsoft might be interested in making a game within Pillars of Eternity IP, but I am not sure what form could it take. It certainly won’t be a system seller but a smaller title to expand library is not a bad investment. Even if it would stay isometric, it would need to stop catering to IE fan base, which I don’t think is bad in itself. At this point I am interested in Pillars game which doesn’t have to go through crowdfunding system.

Balance is happiness. Best you can do is to pursue it.

I do get a bit of the "it doesn't work as I am used to therefore it's bad" vibe. Why would monk be able to use his abilities with weapons? As far as "might" i somewhat agree as there is nothing in-game which connects power of magic with physical power. However, it is absolutely possible to create a useful wizard with low might - I don't mind. There was experiment during beta were might became strength and was responsible for physical damage, while magic and healing went to resolve. I though the system had some thinga going for it, but PoE system and classes simply weren't designed for that. PoE has an elegance problem. I consider myself to have a vague idea on how Deadfire works, but the fine details can be too difficult to remember and figure out. At the same time an attempt to simplify things have us commonly dispised penetration. Can't make a snarky comment about Pathfinder. Worrying word of mouth made me wait a bit on this one.

I encountered the destruction thing during the fight with Cristal Spider Queen. If enemy was petrified and she did her scream attack petrified companion would shatter killing him permanently. I managed to avoid it by equipping companions in danger with resistance gear so their addiction would drop to "paralyze". Recent expansions were first time I felt the wound system to actually have some effect. It was normal for my tank to die and get resurrected couple times making the would system actually mean something - neat!

Yes? I would be less positive about it, if it was made for launch - my philosophy is: pick want you want to do and so it well, rather than half-ass many things. However, now when games is well out I don't see it as anything less than positive. I would prefer redesign of ship combat though... Though the ship encounter UI looks nifty. I am curious who is responsible for it, and why it was made. Did someone wanted PoE to be turned based? Did low sales pushed higher ups to add turn based combat hoping to attract wider audience? I wouldnt riot, however, if PoE were turned based in the first place. I do like my RPG real time but I feel this is more of my nostalgia working. There is no decent way of playing PoE (or IE games) without heavy pausing so I do believe that high reliance on stats and hit chances mean that this system is not the most intuitive with real-time combat. So while I prefer real time I curious how well Deadfire will play as turn based.