Wormerine

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies. Never found unlocking soul bound a problem. I However, I never bothered with unlocking soulbound which I would never use.

Probably the largest singular problem with the handling of romance in RPGs is that it's a thing that you can optionally do. Conflict between characters isn't a thing you can optionally do. Neither is pretty much any other emotional development. I mean, sure, outcome A or outcome B might occur between your party and some NPC depending on your choices, but you don't just get to choose "Nah, I'm not gonna have anyone be mad at me." Romance is just a part of the people-simulation of the world and characters. Generally, it gets crafted into the game as this weird, super-separate add-on (which is bad), AND it gets wayyyyy too in-depth. Like "This character whispers sweet nothings into your ear... what do you do? (list options of things to whisper back)." It's just weird. The rest of the game doesn't go into that level of detail with interactions, but then, now that it's "a romance" (again, the weird separate thing), it gets all of its own super-zoomed-in interaction details. Or, worse, you get basically the option to either woo NPC, or opposite-of-woo NPC. I wish people would just accept that if you're going to write a world full of characters, many of them are going to seek romantic involvements/emotional bonds. Doesn't mean we need to code in a "doin' it" minigame. It just means that it's a thing that's in the game world, just like basically any other motivations or character personality factor ever. Romance is a classic case of a "it's for some reason been accepted to just approach it incorrectly from the get-go, so most games do it wrong, so let's just shun the very idea of it because no one wants to bother actually taking the time to consider how it would be better handled in general" feature. It's not unlike the dreaded "DLC." Lots of it has been dumbly designed money grabs, so now "DLC" in general is just this evil entity. As if anything you could digitally download to expand a game is now bad. Obviously it isn't, but it's commonly shunned as some kind of overly specific thing. That's what I hope "relationship" of Deadfire system will do - create believable and natural interactions and bonds/conflicts between&with NPCs. I think you really nail the issue with "romances" in RPGs. They more often than not feel like "erotica" DLC rather than integral part of interactions. And so often it purely depends on player choosing the branch of dialogue with heart icon, making it feel like "choose your sex toy" rather than genuine interaction with the character. Probably the reason I still like romance in BG2 the most is because it was initiated by companions, not the player.

What if summoning weapons was a form of “prebuffing” we could do? I really don’t see a reason for such a long cast time. After all it is kinda of a spell you need to spent time using to make it effective. Maybe they become really effective later on, but right now I really don’t see a reason to use summoned weapons over regular weapons.

Hopefully, final map will be more interactable but I dont mind limited landing spots. Not very “realistic” but it allows devs to “structure” islands locking certain areas behind scripted interactions, etc. Could be still achieved with more open landing system, but seems to be easier to do that way.

The problem is that often the choice is “romance” or “be a ****”. And no, romance itself isn’t game breaker. The only game which really bothered me were Dragon Ages (1+2) and Mass Effect 3. That said those games bothered me beyond romances. However, especially in ME3 I felt as if “space boat of love” overtook character interaction, including characters gotting plastic surgery and all becoming supermodels between sequels. That said moments I remember to be super uncomfortable weren’t even intended. Like making “don’t die” speech in hospital over half naked, super ripped Kaiden body.

No, I agree, dungeon itself was really neat, but I did feel they run out of content after a while and were creating short levels just to reach the depth number promised during crowdfunding. That last 5 levels or so before meeting the Od Nua felt really shallow.

https://forums.obsidian.net/forum/129-backer-beta-bugs-and-support/ Then I would strongly encourage going to bug report sub forum of the beta discussion, and posting bug report together with an attached save. There must be something unique about your playthrough that constantly causes it to happen.

Hold LMB to move will make things much better once it is fixed. Clicking on fog of war might be useful but I also see plenty of problems with it, once random encounters and supplies are implimented - you encounter island on your way, what does a ship do? Stop? (Probably the best option), try to find way around (possible going a wrong way), knowing ahead of you how to most efficiently go around the island?

So do I. I don’t think that even completely removing XP from sidequests would bother me personally too much. But maybe it would. It would interrupt logic and consistency of the game further. Let’s not forget that many games manage to keep player engaged with grind and filling meters. Lvl up IS rewarding. Removing, or highly diminishing that part from a big chunk of content will have a big negative response. Maybe not from everyone, but from a reasonable chunk of audience, my guess would be. Getting a massive XP boost after defeating touh optional enemy or competing lengthy sidequests is par of the course.

I encountered similar issue twice, but it worked in my favour - my companions refused to die and continued to fight even though I couldn’t control them. I am curious, are you doing something out of ordinary? Something must cause that to happen. If it’s happening to you regularly a detailed bug report might be helpful in figuring out what is causing this issue.

That is why I liked that Deadfire used stretchgoals as a quality of polish meter not feature meter. They focused on orchestral music, more vo, more languages more companions, with couple thinks they wanted to do (like relationship system) but could do without. Clearly, couple stretchgoals during PoE were a bad idea - like two large cities, hold or ridicusly lengthy dungeon. Still, I am tipping my hat to them for fulfilling all promises.

I think it was better than in NWN2, but in NWN2 it was an integral part of the story. In PoE it certainly felt like a kickstarter promise, which they had to fulfill but would do better to scrap it during development and focus on something else. Making ship your keep worked for AssCreed, hopefully will work for Deadfire.

In the E3 demo showed back in summer the map had a, well, actual map quality to it, with physical figures as a representation of your ship&party. I liked that style, tough I don't mind the new one. Seems more consistant with the overall feel of the game. It need some work. Josh had that to say on that matter: "JS: The world map has changed quite a lot. We heard a lot of feedback from folks that really didn't like the art style that we initially went with, and to be honest, it didn't really turn out the way that we expected it to, either. So we had Kaz Aruga, who's our lead artist, devote a lot of time and attention to improving the art in the world map and we're much, much happier with where it is now. There are still a lot of other elements we want to add to the world map to make it feel more dynamic, but the base art is a big improvement. We're also adding things like more unique icons on the maps and things like that. It's coming along."

For my sake, Josh post something (and not romace related.) We are getting another dating thread.

Religious pigeon - Religeon

Josh also mentioned “weather” system they are working on. I can’t remember, but I am pretty sure it was cosmetic (just like weather on land). We know there is this whole crew management thing, which is not in the beta yet. + encounters, ship to ship combat and boarding. Not much to do one the map right now, beyond getting from one point to the next and clicking on crates. Also, there was a request to have “hold LMB to move” (like in diablo) and it was confirmed that it was implimented, it broke, and it is fixed for the next beta release.

Interesting. I never payed to those much attention beyond sending someone I didn’t use to do them. There is no stronghold in Deadfire, rather your ship is your stronghold. We know there is crew management, different ships to acquire and ship upgrades and ship combat system but we haven’t seen yet, so we don’t really know how it works. There are “repair tools”,and “cannon ammo” to be found in the beta plus one character can be hired as a ship cook.

I wouldn’t. I am a regular in Philharmonic concert, but movie or game music doesn’t have enough focus or depth on its own to reward trip to the orchestra even if it were happening in my city. I will happily put PoE or StarWars ost while I am doing my chores, but dedicated concert? Nah.

I agree, it seems that different aspects of your character interact with different parts of gameplay, with limited overlap. I am worried it might lead to even more disjointed experience. Idealy, all aspects of your character should interact with all branches of gameplay to unify the experience.

Its invalid because Deadfire solved the problem by doing dialogue checks mostly based on skills, rather than attributes. Issue wasn't how might influenced combat, but that a game recognized my wizard as a beefcake against my wishes. Previous system, made defining role of your character easy and elegant, while right now you have to dive deeper to see what your class will really benefit from. The change was not made to make resolve important to casters only, but to make it valuable to everyone. It doesn't only apply to spells but all abilities, which aren't directly tied to weapon attack. Wizards have plenty of spells which don't utilize "resolve" and rolling with low resolve wizard is completely valid. Naturally, it is easier to move existing bonuses from one attribute to another, rather than coming up with new system. I think strenght/resolve works pretty well even right now, but I am always up for a better solution.

I just did my runthrough with a high-strenght-low resolve wizard and it worked quite fine. I would like to see cast time on conjured weapons shortened or completely removed. It's not a gamebreaker but it takes time before you can get to actual fighting and unlike other spells you need to spend time attacking to get anything out of them. Just rolling with a weapon seem like a more efficient way right now.

Well, all those complaigns are completely valid. Thats why you should never do direct sequels. If Obsidian would go with different protaginist, continuity wouldn't be much of a concern. Still, I believe majority for the changes are for the better and if they manage to nail the system before release not many people will care that much in the end.

Yeah, no, I get all that. Mostly joking. But gosh, those feathers <3

While we are at it, one of the enemies (the monk) seems to be still incomplete being invisible (character model, clothes are foating) with his name being "Missing String 888" or something like that.

Two companions died, and while I couldn't select them or give them orders they kept on fighting. After remaining companions fell fail screen appeared. It happened once before in the same playthrough with the rogue character. Can't figure out what is the cause for it, didn't give them special orders, it didn't happen on conequent attempts.