Wormerine

*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.

I didn't play as Wizard, but I would've surprised if you could join the circle, full-stop. They make it clear it takes a long time, so I would expect a complete quest chain to make "circle application" happen. In addition, you didn't really anything which would impress wizards I think (you don't research magic nor create new spells). Making you part of the circle would mean introducing player to bunch of circle secrets. You could of course just give player a "circle member" perk with minor buff, but I feel that would be more disappointing than not being able to join circle.

Once you know he goes there you should be able to find him. He might even go there before you gather clues, I dunno. Just to make sure you look at the right place: If you can't find him there, you might want to send over your save for the devs to investigate.

I wonder if it will be getting inspirations from Josh's tabletop design.

What’s the fun in not playing the game? I have everyone on autoattack (and occasional no AI if I want to time my recovery) and manage every ability use. It’s way more fun that way, than watching figurines smash it out with little imput from yours truly (what can I say - I am a control freak).

Glad to hear it. No worries about my save though - I fixed it soon after posting this issue by replaying the fight and during the conversation with Wael not entertaining the idea of giving Concelhaut his/her body. And I like your writing! Looking forward to whatever is your next project.

Now that is a very good question.Turn time limit, like in Invisible Inc. time trial?

You are not the first to report such issue with this particular area. I think it might be a good idea to to head over to bug section and report it with as a save attatched (I usually use google disk as saves are too big to be attatched). https://forums.obsidian.net/forum/130-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire-technical-support-spoiler-warning/

Curious. I will certainly give it a go. I can’t really thing of anything that would make the system not work as Turn Based, but balancing it to be fun might be tricky. Certainly it can’t be 1:1 translation or combat will go for way too long.

Oh boy. It must have been one of the first two. I am 75% sure it was “go-ahead to chop you to pieces” but might have been the 1st one.