Wormerine

It is a bit like Mass Effect but more of an RPG. It is the really good and really awful at the same time. I have fond memories of it, but at one point I raged and uninstalled it. It has some great ideas, unusual setting for an RPG but its really really really rough around the edges (and completely broken every once in a while). Play on your own responsibility.

Meh I want no cap at all. Every joinable PC should be able to be in my group at the same time if I want. Why do we still have to tolerate this artificial and arbitrary cap nonsense when technology makes it obsolete? But what can you do? Because it was never a technological limitation? “One of the responsibilities I think we have as designers is to protect the player from themselves” - Sid Meier I never liked the idea of people joining you, moving into your house and sitting on their asses waiting for you to take them along for a walk. I much preferred Baldur’s Gates’ “here are companions, build a team from them and this is what you get. Come back in next playthrough and try the others!”. I am pretty sure KOTOR was the first to do it but it worked due to your “base” being a ship. Should work the same for Deadfire.

Fan of Jim Sterling by any chance? Fan is a bit much. I dislike his persona, but he makes compelling arguments. While I found his stance on DLC and loot boxes a little bit too extreme I came to realisation that he just knows industry better than I do. I was fine with Overwatch but seeing Deus Ex, Shadow of War and Battlefront 2 really makes me dislike the system. And after a year of events, skins and loot boxes in Overwatch I am really getting tired of it all. And I am a person who isn’t really interested in cosmetics and doesn’t feel a pull to buy those things or grind. Of course, seeing promising games killed by Pay2Win (damn you Dice/EA. Battlefront2 looked just good enough to consider buying) is much worse.

Is this sarcasm? Not at all. I am simply a gambling addict, who gets bored with every game, which doesn’t remind of a pachinko machine. Think how exciting levelling would become. You never know what you get and if you get it. It would vary the builds up as you could reliably cheese with preplanned strategies. If done right the process of gathering loot required to,progress might expand length of the game drastically. Whenever you invest your time or money The value of each item is so much higher! It would be especially cool if weapons would degrade so even if you roll a a good item you would need to use it sporadically or hunt for another copy. And yes it is sarcasm, don’t loose all the faith in the humanity in spite of Blade Runner 2049 poor box office performance.

Yes, that is why overall I like the base principles of the system. When creating a character instead of diving into the systems or searching online for solid builds I create character I will want to be in this playthrough. However, it would be nice to see a more tangible impact in combat. Ideally you want character creating system which will interact with all aspects of the game (combat/scripted interactions/exploration/conversations etc.). It is possible that if scripted interaction will be expanded and your ability to interact with enviroment will be more complex than even a smaller inpact in combat won't matter that much.

Josh stated that it might be possible for some sidekicks (the question asked was. of course, regarding Ydwin) to be turned into full companions. Whenever it will happen at all remains to be seen. In one Q&A they said that they have no plans for DLCs yet and they will focus on base game first and see what they come up with later. In other words: it's all up in the air.

I just hope they add lootboxes to Deadfire. When leveling up instead of skills&buffs you get a small amount of ingame currency for which you can buy lootboxes. Lootboxes contain items and skills and cosmetics like idle animations, with which you later equip your characters with. High level loot (like Soulbound weapons) are only available through lootboxes. Of course there is no level cap. In all areas enemies get respawned and you will be able to fight bosses multiple times in order to farm XP. Of course, to be consumer friendly you will be given a choice to purchase lootboxes, if you don't have time and want to see the game through.

I much prefer if you stick with the starting attributes. Yeah, overall I like the design behind attributes but they do feel a bit like a smokescreen. I am not so sure if that really is the case but it feels that way. I have no idea what could be the solution. The mandatory attributes for certain classes aren’t fun as well. The problem is that all the fun stuff that could be driven by attributes are defined by class anyway. Your mage will never be tanky because his class defines him so no matter how high his constitution is. Maybe going classless is the way.

I am not so sure. It seem like a pretty big change from what we were told in the first place. The new system really gives no reason to restrict companions more. I would find it strange if they would just change it, but not say anything about it. I will write on Josh’s tumbler and see if he will say something.

Not really. Just like in most RPGs since KOTOR all party member join you. While you can travel with only 4 at any given time, you will still probably experience most of their arch’s and personal quests. If you mean you will experience less sof the smaller interactions, that is true. Is it really that much of an issue. It will still take two playthroughs to go through the game with all of the 7 companions. That’s not how game design works. Putting more or less character on a screen doesn’t make for a more/less engaging combat. I am sorry, but if you make a passive characters, or attach auto control in a tactics game that means there is an issue with the design. Tactics and strategy aren’t bound to amount of units you control but what they can do and what enemies can do - in other words decisions you make before and during combat. Having one exra tank and getting two extra enemies for him to keep busy while your DPS and supports kill and heal doesn’t make combat better. It just adds 3 units which don’t contribute to the engagement in an interesting way. All the games you mentioned had a pretty crappy combat but amount of units under your control wasn’t the key issue. You could expand DA party to 6 and it still would be dull mess (even more so).

I Again... not really. You meet Aloth, he has some troubles with locals. Situation in the town is pretty bad, ruler of the land is kinda crazy and possibly dangerous, none of you have where to stay. Considering you are both outsiders it makes sense to travel further together. It is a wild land, with dangerous creatures roaming around, traveling in a a pack seems safer (also now can come back and kill those motherf***ing bears). The same way Eder joining you seems sensible considering the situation. I did feel some people joining you later on were a bit dodgy (Pallegina, Harvaias) but Aloth seemed solid especially when he fully reveals his story. Considering that Aloth’s hidden agenda doesn’t come as a plot twist in a way Yoshimo’s did I think making him seem a bit dodgy is a good thing. I was suspicious of him, his personal soul problems did put me an ease only to later reveal that yeah, there was something more going on. Sometimes foreshadowing is more engaging than going “TADAA” with an unexciting reveal.

Whenever DLC is an expansion or a smaller add on what I want from it is to be worth owning. I prefer more meaty expansions even if they were to double the cost of the “full experience”. I am mostly frustrated with bad DLC. Things which you don’t really want in your game as either they ruin balance or are just boring. I remember being upset at Dragon Age for starting a quest and than telling you you have to buy it (like the guy at your camp standing with exclamation point over his head). But you know what’s worse? That this content was completely not worth getting or playing through. After many years I got complete edition on steam and gosh, all the side DLCs are garbage. You loose if you don’t have it, you loose if you do. Finally forcing myself to playthrough the bigger expansion, Awakening, and so far having ok time. Well, except one of my companions having invisible outfit... bugs, bugs, bugs.

True. In my first playthrough which I will use for Deadfire she is dead. All is nice and dandy but I do want to keep Concelhaults skull and see what will happen.

To add to that there will be couple pre-made safe states for a quick start & new players. You still create your character for them.

I didn’t find stat checks pulinshing at all however I never played with unavailable options visible. I found the game gave me enough chances to use my main stats and skills. It is possible that there are even more demanding skill checks, which simply didn’t show up for me but I can’t say I find it an issue. I think it is cool if game has a range of skill checks (you need to be kinda smart to say this but you need to be really really brilliant for this situation). That way you can spread your stats and still have access to cool interactions but the game also rewards you if you invest very hard in one particular skill. If you find a more useful item without increase to base stats than it is hardly necessary, right? If you want to increase duration of your abilities or their damage you boost intelligence or strength. If it is something you are not interested in for this character you don’t. Embrace your character’s flaws. You can’t get everything in one playthrough and that is good IMO.

This itself presumably no longer applies though, since it is no longer possible to choose a second class when levelling up. I suppose that means that if you multiclass him one of his classes will have to be a mage.

I will stick to my first playthrough even though it is not an ideal one. I regret suppressing Isilmir (I still stand by choice, but I would prefer to have her in Deadfire, and Pallegina’s fate wasn’t what I hoped for (she got kicked out). I would also prefer to let Audra Dragon live in case she reappears. Still, choices I have made and I will stick to them. I will see other outcomes on later playthroughs.

I am pretty sure it is confirmed that the game starts more or less with destruction of the Caed Nua at that the state of the keep is one of the things which transfer over (though I expect it to be more of a discriptions of what you did for the 5 years rather than huge map differences). We know you spent whatever is left from the keep to buy the ship and that you take a what’s left of the Steward and put her on the ship. Eder (if he lives) joins you in your pursuits of Eothas.

I really can’t figure out whenever you are sarcastic or not

I hear you, but if that was the case rarely anyone would find out about anything you do. Escaping enemies could be an interesting ideas, but I doubt Obs will reinvent the wheel that much. I imagine system will be fairly simple with bonuses/minuses to your reputation with the faction depending and what you do. I would like to see something similar to relationship system added - for each faction having their likes and dislikes and react to those choices (for example if you don’t support animancy, Valian Republic would dislike that and ask you to be more politically correct from now on).

I am sure a book is less cumbersome than a massive sword or an axe. And who said that a book can’t be an effective weapon. Haven’t you watched Bourne Ultimatum?

On the bit about people sticking to traditional DnD stuff and upsetting the experience, I suppose it's hard for people to break out of the DnD traditions since so many games follow that tradition. Considering that PoE revives series of D&D style games, it is not surprising that people familiar with this style of game approach it the way they are used to.

Oh right. Berath's Blessing thing. Completely forgot about that.

If i understand correctly what you talk about is an issue of overleveling game content - doing sidequests make you higher level making some of the core content to easy as it was designed so you can beat it while skipping content. The game will have two modes - unscaled and scaled. In unscaled all the areas have set lvl to them, if they are higher level, or are underlevel you might wreck the enemies or get wrecked. The scaled run will scale enemies so they pose challange to your level. I am not sure if they scale them down if you wonder to harder area but it will scale them up.

Maybe Josh could redo the talk... just for usssss.....