Wormerine

That’s a very neat idea!

I am all for giving player a choice - if you don’t want to deal with combat you turn difficulty down. If you want to try going solo, you go solo. However, these are all self imposed limitations to make the game harder/easier consciously breaking the rules. Job of game designer is to give you a game with an entertaining set of rules. What is entertaining is subjective so it is beneficial if the game is flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of players. But it is not up to player to make up rules or not use existing features to make the game fun. Most gamers have a natural drive to play optimally. If one option is strictly better than the other why would you use the weaker one? It’s like putting an overpowered unit in chess but expecting you to figure out to not use it. Giving you ability to run with all companions at once is bad. Sure, they could balance it around 5 characters and than expect people to figure out that most fun they have is by playing with 5, while giving a wider option to people who just want to run around with everyone. But how do you communicate this? How do you stop people who want to have balance combat by not taking with them too many units? Why do you even waste time creating UI for an amount of companions which actively hurt the experience. It’s like giving a sos to a meal which doesn’t fit just in case someone one day might want it. You Are a Chef, and it is your job to compose a good meal. Whenever someone likes it or not it’s up to them and they can decide whenever they want to eat your stuff or not. Or they give feedback and you adjust or stick to your guts. Coupled companions in BG1 are a good example. They were limiting and people were abusing game systems to bypass them. That’s why they are not present in BG2. Obsidian did 6 man party and decided it was too much. If the change to 5 won’t be a good decision thy will probably adjust for the next installement.

Agreed, If I wanted to indulge in Andrzej Sapkowski's masturbatory fantasies, I would read one of his hacky novels. huh? I think the Witcher games are terrible, and the books are even worse. Yeah, I got that impression. Just surprised by what seems to be a personal grudge against the author. Hey, he dislikes the game series as well.

Agreed, If I wanted to indulge in Andrzej Sapkowski's masturbatory fantasies, I would read one of his hacky novels. huh?

Did you ask? He hasn't answered... I did...

I didn't mean to attack you by any means. As far as I know no one has attempted to compile all those information just yet. What I wanted to point out that what you will hear from us might not be accurate as we interpret a lot of what we hear. I will try to mention couple things I think are interesting. I will post links to relevant videos. They are not long and they will really better explain (and in less time). It is by no means a complete list: Before I start. Here is a gameplay demo from E3. It is te biggest chunk of the game which we have seen so far. It shows many of the features I will be writing about: party limit is downsized to 5 - Obsidian stated they felt encounters in PoE got crowded and game would benefit from a smaller encounters. Response from community has been mixed. It seems less like a gameplay issue and more "I want more companions in my party all the time" issue. No more health/stamina - health system will be similar to Tyranny. You have one health pool this time around, if you fell in battle you gain injury, which gain penelty. Too many injuries and character dies. You can heal injuries by resting. No per rest abilities - it seems Deadfire will move away from per rest abilities and spells. They don't want you to avoid using abilities. In case of casters now they will be able to cast 2 spells per spell level per encounter. To balance that it seems caster will be more limited with how much spells they can have at any given time. You will no longer learn spells and write them in Grimoires. Instead when leveling up you choose a spell you want to learn. Grimoires cannot be edited and expand the list of spells you can cast. There is per rest resource though. Those "power point" can be spent to empower an ability (raise it to a higher level - more damage, longer effect etc.) or spend the same recource to use already depleted abilities. Multiclassing and subclasses! - you don't have to choose only one class anymore. At the character creation you can choose whenever your character will be single class, or multiclass. Multiclass characters should be more flexible but individual skills won't be as effective as pure class characters. On top of that each class has subclasses allowing you to further customize your class. The most recent update no. 40 has the most fresh info about all this stuff: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=480#updates Ships! Yes, you get your own ship this time around. Ship will be your stronghold. You will be able to get access to various types of ships. There will be crew management mechanic. It ties to a more open world design of Deadfire. While the game still consist of closed maps Infinity Engine style, the whole thing is connected via Fallout1&2 like overworld. There you can travel freely, discover new areas, have some random encounters. Here is the ship reveal video: Relationship system! Deadfire attempts to deepen interactions with your companions. Each of them will have likes and dislikes and will observe you and react to your decisions/actions. They will also react to each other - they might like each other very much or some conflicts may appear. It is not entirely system driven content but rather preplanned, pre-written scenarios which will happen or not depending on game systems and your input. It might be possible to romance some of the companions if they like you very very much. While we are at it - we have 7 companions with full story arch and relationship system implimented. three of them are returning companions: Eder, Aloth and Pallegina. In addition to that we get 4 sidekicks. Less reactive version of companions. They will have their own backstory, quips etc. but they won't have story arch (including personal quest) nor relationship system. More people to take with you but not as much work for writers. Neketaka - Deadfire will feature one big city, Neketaka. It will house main factions of the game. Your interactions with them will be more complex than in PoE and it will take time before they "lock you" with one. It will also be made clear for the player when they get to the point with no return with the faction: That's the main stuff off the top of my head. There are many more bits and pieces of information but it should give you the overall idea.

Than at least check obsidians YouTube channel. All major updates are there and Q&A provide plenty of info. Those are main sources of our knowledge. We know the broad strokes, but none of us have details of how each system will work.

Seems like Josh absorbed quite a bit of Polish culture in the last few days: https://mobile.twitter.com/jesawyer/status/918569195633176576

@Lephys You might like AP then. There are quite a few ways the story can playout and game responds even to an order in which you decide to take on the missions. Conversation system is an intruiging one - it has time limit so you have to choose your responses under pressure and they describe your attitude - suave, aggressive etc. Not a perfect system but worked pretty well and easily my fav part of AP. Give it a shot, especially if you can catch it one on of the sales. It could have been a true an RPG gem if it was less broken.

... this is how the game defines it. Might determines how hard you hit (with physical weapons), it is a check for all physique connected rolls (intimidate someone with your posture, lift an object, push the wall etc), while also reflecting spellcaster’s spell power. It IS strength and more.

Here is the issue: “Might represents a character's physical and spiritual strength, brute force as well as their ability to channel powerful magic. During interactions, it can be useful for intimidating displays and acts of brute force. In combat, it contributes to both Damage and Healing as well as the Fortitude defence.” Might represent both physical strength of your character and magic/spiritual strength. While Constitution: “Constitution is a combination of the character's overall health and endurance. Although it is not used much in interactions, it is sometimes checked to withstand pain or endure a physically taxing ordeal.” So while a character with low might but high constitution could do Captain America’s “I can do this all day!” routine, or sustain environmental dangers (like escaping from burning house in white march) he is unlikely to threaten someone or lift heavy stuff. For me It would be enough if they would explain lorewise how physical strength correlates with powerful spell casting.

Absolutely. As much as we perceive small DLC as predatory they do seem to keep the game in people’s mind. Dedicated fans have a reason to return to the game and new people can be brought in as new DLCs a release and the game is mentioned by an outlet. This way by the time you release the big DLC or expansion you still have an audience for it. If your DLC is gonna be very small though and if you want it just to keep players attention... why not be like a CD Project Red and release small DLC for free? XCOM2 is a fun example and shows why I dislike smaller DLC. Their content was solid, but I didn’t feel like it implemented well with the base game. However, I love it now when the big expansion was released, game is rebalanced and smaller DLC integrated into the core experience. The issue is that either you tack something to a complete title or you leave some aspect of the base game lacking (like weird in the air Liara story quest in Mass Effect 2) so you can patch it in later for a price. With bigger DLC they have more space and money to tie it with the core experience.

That is an interesting question. I assumed it work “in proximity” rather than through genealogy.

There are A LOT of subclasses already especially for spellcasters. Deadfire’s philosophy seems to be: similar amount of content but more depth. I prefer that they focus on expanding on existing mechanics rather then “sequelizing” PoE2 by adding shallow additions for numbers sake (more maps, more classes, more races MORE MORE MORE) without fixing any issues the game had. Especially in case of the Five-Suns order it makes little sense to make it available to the player. It is for males (and godlikes if you have a good lawyer) only and it ties your character to Valian Republic. It makes no sense with the story, would force you to ally with one faction only in Deadfire etc.

Hey, I doubt they produce new condoms and children are difficult to raise after WW3. You use what you find.

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).