Wormerine

Josh mentioned somewhere they want to add "surrender" to shipcombat. Maybe that will have something to do with it? Or be tied to damage.

I'm not expecting an animated miniature of our hero, more like a wood-textured static table-top figurine, either a generic one, or a texture applied to our character model so it's unique. I really like the idea of the world map as a map on a table, with wooden figurines of our ship and hero being moved across the map to show our progress. Dragon Age Inquisition had a really beautiful world map in that style. That was their first approach. I liked it. For various reasons throughout the development they decided to change it.

* * I couldn't resist too, sorry.

It’s difficult to find convincingly disprove a false accusation. You can’t come up with a proof that game was dumbed down - we can’t do anything else beyond pointing out that the design is pretty much the same and folks who work on the game are not responsible for the port. No one ever claimed that Deadfire couldn’t be made without funding. They couldn’t make first PoE, true, but they were going to release Deadfire no matter how campaign would go, from what I understand. It wouldn’t be as robust title as it is shaping up to be, but probably would comeout. Most of the stretch goals were tied to production value (more VO, more translations, more companions, orchestral soundtrack) or were tied to features that could be cut from release, limiting scope and bringing it closer to first title. It is all guessing of course. Non of us knows how Obsidian budget looks like. While funding game by itself might seem like noble thing to do (afterall, why fans should pay for production of a game?) devs who did that felt that advertising power of crowdfunding and community is a significant one. For Banner Saga3 Stoic turned back to crowdfunding after self funded BS2. Review were positive, fan reaction was positive, but it didn’t get traction BS1 got. They believe it is due to lack of push and attention which crowdfunded game gets. Tyranny didn’t work for obsidian nearly as well as PoE1 did. Did that push them to try crowdfunding well once again? Were they planning it all along? I have no idea. However, I find developing sequel for a year and coming to crowdfunding with gameplay footage and clear idea of what the game will be like to be a fair deal. They are developing game I want to play and be as good as it can be, I am happy to chip in some money more ina form of donation than purchase. If Obsidian betrays my trust, or they game start disinteresting me I will not support their campaigns further. Do you see any promises from the campaign broken? Complaining about extra platform makes as much sense as getting angry that extra translation being in production. If porting game to consoles really breaks your heart so much, feel free to ask Obsidian for a refund. Not so long one of the fans disappointed with game progress received one, they might give you one as well. Problem solved. Those dirty consoles won’t get a port of a game funded by your cash.

There is already topic on ship2ship combat. OP goal was to create thread regarding exploration and resource consumption. Let’s not merge these two together as it anly makes conversation move difficult, with need of repeating oneselves etc.

Wouldn’t that be potentially worse? Right now the simplest solution is to improve a rather rough pop up notification. I could imagine it being much softer, until you reach a critical point (running out of supplies) at which point game alerts you to the problem. Consuming supplies on a daily rate, while notifying and accounting you on weekly or monthly basis could have catastrophic results. You would loose hundered or hundereds of supplies at once, potentially jumping from 100 moral to 0 moral in a matter of one morning. You would need to do calculation on how much food will be consumed. With daily accounting it’s easy to see how far you can travel and when you need to seek out a port. While daily supplies are consumed fairly rapidly in the world map, it’s where you travel long distances - majority of the game will be spend on land where time flows much slowly. Consuming supplies monthly just seem absurd. You could beat current beta content couple times over, and not once reach a supply consumption.

I am confused. It is B.B. I hope B.B. is not the “near final build”. Did gameinformer get access to a different build? Did they all get access to a different build but are allowed to showcase BB only? Is near final build including cut skill trees, old UI, and half implimented features? Have journalistic previews lied to me this whole time???? (just kidding I know they do that).

I get were you are coming from. I am just guessing, but I doubt simpler mechanics are reason why ME or Witcher3 sold better. It is not about simplifying mechanics - it’s about boosting presentation. No matter what you sell visuals are the best marketing tool. Even in music where visuals are pretty much meaningless and good cover album or an attractive artist has higher chances of success not matter how they sound. All those titles had great, expensive trailers. They sound and look great (well except Bethesda trash, but it’s trailer even made me dip into Skyrim). I havent seen someone who picked up PoE and said: it’s way to complicated. Most complains are: top down isn’t immersive, it’s not fully voiceacted, graphic look like 2003 etc. Now, boosting presentation does come with cutting complexity - full dialogue with recognisable cast will encourage less writing and reactivity. High quality model of main character and full voice acting him/her will limit character creation choices. Design becomes more about reusing the same animations and set pieces without player feeling constrained instead of giving player space to role play and designing game around responding to those choices. Deadfire seem to open up compared to POE1 with more choices and freedom of exploration so is that really the case? If PoE port made its money back and not much else... isn’t it worth porting it again? Even if gained just a bit of extra cash, from a narrow audience - that is still a gain right? Do they need to make (quoting Jim Sterling) not only some money but ALL OF THE MONEY? Couple sells last time, maybe more sales with Deadfire. If they don’t loose money by doing a port why not do it again? Nothing lost, potential future customers gained. If they hurry they could sell the DLC as well.

There is no oil, gunpowder interaction though. For example if you cast slicken followed with fire spell it won’t ignite. HOWEVER, what if it’s oil barrel (do they have those or only gunpowder?) we spawn slicken instead of explosion when shot?

There is nothing wrong in working with publisher. Most indies strike a deal with a publisher to help with release. But working with s different than working for one. The worst part publisher can do is sabotaging game for selfish gain, and they can do it more so than a dev. Publisher can simply discard game dev or IP that got sucked dry or is mistrusted, while Obs and dev team is directly attached to the product. I really don’t care if they outsource advertising and distribution to other entities. As far as a financial benefit of quicker port to consoles - they might be able to sell DLC there as well, if they hurry, which might help in making expansions profitable if there is enough market there. And as far as Josh sabotaging his own game for conlosers’ sake: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/170589270476/aw-hell-son-couldnt-you-have-at-least-waited

“including hands-on impressions of a near final build“ That answers my previous question.

It’s amusing how “console racism” is a thing. Couple years ago making strategy game with consoles in mind would be a travesty, but XCOM happened. And sure, XCOM2 benefited by being designed as PC game first with more robuts UI and then being ported for consoles. Whatever the future is, Deadfire is developed by obsidian it’s PC in mind, port is done by completely different team, just at it was the case with PoE. I didn’t play it in console, but Josh stated he was surprised how well it was ported. Any changes you have mentioned as “dumbing down for consoles” are modifications to design issues IE games had by coping mechanic from tabletops without being able to find meaning in them per rest spells? None sense. Fake resource management. It doesn’t have a role to play in cRPGs - you can rest whenever you want, just with PoE you have to waste a bit of time. On the other hand food in Deadfire? Oh, look at that - an actual resource management. 5 part memebers. I assume you didn’t play beta. Silly complains of less strategic variety of combat disappeared as soon as beta dropped. It’s not about making things easier to control - with per encounter abilities in play the game is much more active requiring much more micromanagement. Therefore change to 5. Yes, they changed systems. Good for them. I welcome an ambitious developer who isn’t satisfied with “that was good enough last time” and attempts to fix issues it sees with its work. And about “project Indiana” not being hardcore RPG... we don’t know. How do you define “hardcore” RPG. Lots of buttons? Drowning in numbers? Unclear mechanics which you need a calculator to understand? Pfff.

Same. Whenever it make sense or not - it’s kinda what you expect by now.

It’s more of a case that some aspects could have used an improvement. However, once they changed those, new problems appeared which needed to be solved. Solving those created next ones. I am personally a fan of Sid Meier’s 33 rule - keep 33% that’s working, improve another 33%, replace remaining 33% with new stuff. I never figure out what’s happening to leftover 1%... If I want to replay PoE I replay PoE. It will be nice for Deadfire have it’s own quirks.

My guess is that Obsidian thenselves could have provided the footage too. But it's possible. Some of them have written they have been playing it for the last week. That’s what I am wondering - did they have access to larger build, or just B.B. and screenshot were provided by OBs. Trying to estimate legitimacy of them gushing over the game, compared to my experience:-).

I wonder if outlets got to play backer beta or something more up to date. For most part it looks what we have, but some of the screenshot show new areas, other ship types, full skill trees etc.

There is a concept of dumbing down in regards to controls - through the years a lot of genres suffered by being designed to work on pad, removing useful utility designs like shortcuts, better UI or lowering variety in gameplay to support pads. Keyboard&mouse vs pad vs joystick have different advantages and sometimes favoured control method isn’t best suited to game’s genre. What’s more, an act of playing game on a cauch, possible in a distracting environment vs in a corner, with headphones and a private PC can also influence design. That said I really haven’t seen an example of sabotaging a good PC title for console use in years. And how could anyone look at Deadfire and say: “yeah, that was designed with consoles in mind!” is beyond me.

Oh no, a wider player base will be able to enjoy the same game I do on a later date. How it completely ruins my enjoyment! Jeez, it’s like a console war in here. Glad to hear they will be porting this to consoles again. Let them know how good RPGs look like .

:-D seems like I am the only one liking long casting times. I was watching some review of PoE1 recently and quick casting was weird.

It was confirmed that there is no wind mechanic. There is something called “advantage” - one of the players gets “advantage” for the round: they move first + get +20m movement - how it gets decided who gets advantage - no idea. Aim is certainly tied to distance (default cannons have effective range of 200-400m), you can boost aim by doing a “stop” move before firing. If other factors are at play - dunno. Tooltips seem to not work properly. You can do one fullsail mover or two half sail moves per round. Josh said they will probably erase the limitation.

“A good composer does not imitate; he steals” Igor Stravinsky* *While often credited to Stravinsky, like it is the case in many popular quotes, there is no found evidence to actually support the claim that it was ever said by Stravinsky.

I would give two reasons not related to the sequel: 1) this is highly subjective but ending made the game for me - I had many issues with storytelling, pacing and quest design in PoE and for the most part it was an average experience to me. The ending tied previous story threads and characters arc in a way that elevated everything that came before, making my subsequent playthroughs enjoyable, as I could see where all the individual threads (both good and weak) are building forwards. Whenever it will be the same to you - I can’t promise but I would recommend giving it a shot. 2) if you didn’t play White March yet, it is worth returning to the game. Sadly, if you do full playthrough with WM the quality difference between base game and expansion is quite visible. As far as Deadfire experience - I doubt importing save will boost sequel much unless you are set on continuing this very character with his/her choices. It all depends how robust “save creator” will be - from what was teased it is supposed to allow to create full endgame save modifying both big and small decisions.

Bought humble monthly for Civilization6 (which is pretty solid for vanilla Civ game) but got distracted big time by Snake Pass. Really charming game with creative twist on platformers. Camera can be a bother in tight spaces, but for the most part really tight controls, even with mouse&keyboard (pad recommended). On a side, finally making my way through Divinity:OS2. Not really digging it. It is probably the best coop RPG out there, but as a singleplayer experience it doesn’t work for me. It feels like a coop centric game which you can play singleplayer. Not bad per say, by any means, but something I play for my RPG completion sake, rather than enjoyment. I am sure if I gather a trusted friend or two, I would have a great time. D:OS1 was the same - great with a friend, average alone.

I can't say that because I have trouble visulizing what you are suggesting. Do you play sailors in turns? You raise hull number by using a sailor? Is it supposed to fit within existing system? If not building entirly new engine and gameplay two months before release seems like a bonkers idea. What would core gameplay revolve around? Deckbuilding? Resource management? Do you equip ship with cards and than it playout by itself? I would rather stick to traditional naval gameplay, and improve its representation in turnbased minigame, as it is now.

@DexGames It seems like they are developing minigame combat system to me. I was expecting "sea combat" to me more of a scripted scenario before boarding. I am not sure what takes more work at this stage - improving relatively simple combat system or handcrafting bunch of unique encounters. We will see. Derelict ship SI was really cool.