Wormerine

Hmm, I wonder what will happen to all our POE1 pets and especially space pig and obsidian wurm. I hope we'll be able to get them again in POE2 with cool bonuses. After Eothas' attack on Caed Nua they will all be scattered across the Deadfire. Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Say whaaat? Didn’t know I am participating in discussions here with such a fine and recognised crowd. I knew that the name sounded familiar, but never came to my mind that the inspiration went other way around.

Tyranny combat better? Blasphemy! There is a promise of detailed companion AI, which should allow you to specify, what skills they use, in what situations etc. Hopefully, it will make for a more controlled and precise AI for those who don’t want to micro their entire team every couple seconds. It is not in the beta as of yet so it’s difficult to say how well it will work.

I would say backer beta is really for people who are interested in the project, want to see how it develops, want to give feedback and make sure it is the best game it can be (or it fits the most my taste:-P). As far as fun-buy it is not a good offer. It is not a polished early access game Klei tends to release. There is little content, its buggy, unbalanced, runs poorly. The benefit of such convoluted to pay paywall is that only people who are really interested in the project get in. And its part of crowdfunding culture by now.

Absolutely, if you focus on damage dealing spells it is a a very good idea. With the new casting system it is very valuable as you can cast a lot. But it’s not like giving strength to wizard is useless. There are builds you can do which benefit from strength (using summoned wizard or crowd control spells + damage from weapons) and that’s what makes this system intriguing. Different ideas for different classes might result in different attribute spread.

I think it might be because there was no “preselected questions from twitter” section. Those tended to be the more condensed, informative parts of streams.

Wasn’t it just like that in old D&D games (always have been powering through those without really learning systems so can’t tell). It does make more sense, but it makes everything much more complicated. The question is, would it bring anything worthwhile gameplay wise? I don’t really see what it would add, except making things more convoluted.

I dont have the same issue If difficulty progression is done right. I do encounter the same problem, If enemies stay the same but they are simply higher level. While I prefer to face strong opposition in the late game (as a matter of fact I prefer when difficulty rises, not gets lower) it sucks if it feels that you fight same enemies over and over again. However, if you face groups enemies that you struggled to defeat before in smaller numbers, or had to outright avoid it can be super satisfying. One of my best RPG memories is facing Shadowbeast in Gothic. Shadowbeast lived deep in a forest, which you could go into at the very start of th game. Of course, one time I did take a shortcut through a forest and run into one. It was larger and more threatening than anything I saw till this point and pretty much killed me in one hit. I have been running away from it ever since. But now, many hours later, I am lvl 16 and I am talked with bringing horn of this thing. And so I set out to my doom. Still not a cakewalk, but now I could fight it and defeat it. Super satisfying.

I could say it as a system to save clicks. You press spell you want to cast and the spell gets prepared, and when it is ready game pauses and you decide when you want to cast it. Of course, you might end up "preparing" spells by accidents, and can you "try out" spell before preparing it? Nah, I think change creates more mess, but I do see it working.

Wouldn't that be constitution though?

"What are we going to do tonight Tiny Animat?" "Same thing we do every night Baby Lagufaeth!" Don't forget about Larry

Where, do you think. those "crew mutinies" are coming from?

I doesn't seem bad, but I don't see a benefit of suggested change either. The only abuse I could think of is "preparing" spells far away from the fight and than running in and casting it with no recovery and no danger of being interupted. I think that you can't retarget spells beyond your range for a reason. Maybe a massive walking slowdown when "carrying" a ready spell (like in Magica) would prohibit possible casting-outside-battlefield: abuse.

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/168050660961/1-will-there-be-a-room-below-deck-on-your-ship I guess, that means "yes"

That’s what backgrounds do, no? Giving you a head starts on certain skills based on your past. As the system itself (taing certain skills with better results per invested point) I don’t think it’s necessarly. Fallouts were single character RPGs which meant even if you focused on 3 skills, at some point you might want to upgrade less defining skills. PoE is Barry based, which means you will probably pick 3 skills per character and focus on them, rather than spread around points with one character.

There is a point to be made that solution can be satisfying without being challenging. A good example of that is Portal. A very enjoyable game, which makes you smart, but most of the puzzles are really easy. However, because game engages the player (while easy, puzzles are creative and fresh and game doesn't hand hold the player) the game stays fun. The bigger problem comes, when game is designed around certain rules but those rules aren't reinforced strong enough, so even if you play the game in a "wrong" way it still doesn't matter - the game doesn't really engage player with its mechanics. And of course there is a satisfaction of "progress", clearing up map, increasing procentages, gaining lvls etc. Never got into those games.

So ready to hunt:

I don’t think party assist to be a thing in scripted interactions. In those you tend to pick people who do certain actions, therefore only their skills come into play. Party assist is implimented to give your party’s social skills a role in regular dialogue choices, as otherwise they would be pointless.

We still talking about writing AI which analysis situation and reacts accordingly. AI can’t think for itself, and will follow scripted reactions. Strangely enough, the more “intelligent” AI is, the more stupid it becomes ones you understand how it works. I played original XCOM for many, many years and never got bored with encountered, because AI is basic to the point it will often do illogical things and surprise you. New XCOMs have much more robust AI with enemies reacting to your move, focusing vonourable enemies, refusing to run throug overwatch, if it’s probably going to kill you. That also makes AI very predictable, and after couple of hours of game any resemblance of intelligence disappears, with AI reactions you can easily predict and abuse. I think this “simulation” is possible but in a much less wordy, procedural RPG. To me it seems like developing entirely different game, which doesn’t support the game you are actually creating.

First of all there is no keep in Deadfire but you will have your own ship, which will act as one. Early in development some kind of room for pets on your ship was teased. Whenever it is still a thing, we don’t know.

HULK SMASH

...maybe dealing with publishers wasn't all that bad.

I am pretty sure Josh said they designed PoE around normal & hard. Why wouldn't you add easier difficulty settings? You wider the target audience without compromising game.

I am really not sure how experimenting with attribute spread has anything to do with appealing to the mass market. It seems pretty in line with what they wanted from PoE system and in line with ideals Josh presented in the GDC talk. From his presentaton: Pillars' Goals: * six atributes - check * class abilities are not explicitly associated with attributes - check. * Influence statistics of importance to all classes linearly - check * Primary goal: "no bad builds" - need to see the beta build but seems like a check. Some multiclassing might get awkward with bad attribute spread. * secondary goal: ensure that dumping stings - check - it seems that in support of this problem the change was made. I certainly wouldn't say their games didn't have clear direction, but they tend to feel like they lack polish.

Did you play recently a PvE version of multiplayer game? I like Starcraft. Blizzard is a big, talented company with lots of cash to spend. Playing unscripted game of starcraft against AI isn't an engaging experience (though its much better than it was years ago.) The AI isn't up to snuff to analyze your behaviour in sensible way and react. You write as if AI was capable of thinking by itself. It's not. And its a game we are talking about. Simulating natural human behaviour and reactions will be much tougher to achieve. So lets say the game would allow prebuffing, and would make certain creatures recognize danger - beatles would attack you no matter how prebuffed you were, merceneries might decide to run instead, if they "sense" you are too prepared for them. So... how does it work as a game system. What does this system add to the experience? It is supposed to make you prebuff before "more inteligent" enemies to avoid combat if you wish so? If that's the case how do you limit resting to make sure players won't prebuff before every fight. What useful tool does this system give designers when creating quests. Is it a clear and engaging system for players to interact with? Will enemies running away will be satisfying for players. Won't they miss key loot? Do devs write dialogue to support those behavours? How variations does it need to become predictible and boring. Are those behaviours hand scripted or generated (it was supposed to be a tough fight but you have 5 mages in your party and they all prebuffed and you have no more spells but the game thinks it can't kill you so they just leave.) What does identifying items have to do with anything? So yeah, you had to identify an item before using it, or pay for identifying them. Its a cool system. But neither BG or PoE have an economy to balance that. Money is a non issue. So what is the gameplay purpose of identifying things? "you need inteligence to indentify an item!" "What if I don't have enough inteligence?" "Well, nothing really." "So what's the point?" "Well, it was in Pen&Paper. Doesn't really do anything in this game, as you can leave whenever you want but we still implimented the system. Seemed like a good idea at the time but we really don't know what to do with it" I am still trying to figure out what game you want to play and I can't figure it out.