Wormerine

I don't believe that at all. There is no way a mod can match DLC quality (unless it is a complete ripoff). Even phenomenal and extensive mods like long war for XCOMs are obviously not in house developed. I suppose mods for Bethesda games feel more professional than base products, but thats Bethesda for you. I wonder if they make shoddy games in purpose, so mods fit better in. Maybe i should elaborate more on what i meant. I normally download aesthetic/cosmetic mods, UI improvements, camera, and all sorts of interesting mods. One thing i found myself doing was.. i often buy story content DLCs from devs and i didn't really go for content related mods. That's me of course. But what i meant was, many devs/publishers discourage modding simply because of price DLCs as they too would like to do cosmetic/aesthetic DLCs (horse armor anyone?). At least that is what i believe. If Tyranny didn't teach you anything, did you see the portraits DLCs? I think I, more or less, understand what you mean. But after way PoE handled (two solid expansions and free base game improvements with each) I just assume Obsidian won't make people pay for silly stuff like proper UI, colour scheme change or a reskin. Sure, Tyranny is doing some really dodgy stuff right now, but until I am proven wrong I will blame Paradox for that - it fits their portfolio just too well. Of course, you are right devs do block modding to sell you overpriced new units or recolours (total wars, Dawn of War2) but I doubt it would be a deciding factor for Obsidian&PoE2.

Some additional work on quest journal would be welcome. Few remarks first: overall I kind of like, how fiddly the journal is. Quests tend to update once you enter the area, so I didn't miss quests too much. As journal wasn't very clear, I tent to rely on my memory and I followed quest threads, rather than cleaning up areas. Thanks to that It didn't feel like I am just cleaning up objectives, like I do in many other RPGs. That was the benefit of not following a checklist. However, I did miss couple things I wanted to do and had to backtrack. My solution would be - keep the current system but add a "highlight" and search for location functionality. When you go for certain area/areas you could find active quests, by searching said location and highlight them (create new category "highlighted" which would appear on the top of the journal). You might even go a step further and quick tag quests related to the current location through area map.

I don't believe that at all. There is no way a mod can match DLC quality (unless it is a complete ripoff). Even phenomenal and extensive mods like long war for XCOMs are obviously not in house developed. I suppose mods for Bethesda games feel more professional than base products, but thats Bethesda for you. I wonder if they make shoddy games in purpose, so mods fit better in.

Haha. Well, I wouldnt be surprised if Ubi spent more money on a ship, than obsidian on entirety of PoE2. It might be much nicer by the time it comes out, as if I remember well, it is 3D rendered space, not the usual 2d prerendered backgrounds. As it is your base it should look nice, but you won't be staring at it too much, so not a high priority for me. In black flag or skull&Bones staring at the ship is your main view of the game.

Same, but I do like the rest and food mechanic. I found food buffs a bit of a chore in PoE and I rarely used it. Longer passive buffs might work really well (does that mean survival won't give you passive rest bonuses now?)

I honestly can't believe how janky the whole Steam system has become. Not that it at some point wasn't. But reviews should be based on games, and should not be susceptible to publisher policy changes. I've never put huge stock into steam reviews, but I know that some people do... User reviews should always be ignored for the most part. Especially when they involve any IP or company that is known. If you have to read some you need to dig for the reviews that sound like they were written by someone objective, that focuses on the product, not a business policy, or how they feel about the companies involved, or one specific small part of a game.Let's not forget all the lovely examples out there proving user reviews are no more (probably less) useful or valid than professional reviews. Like Mass Effect 3, it still sits at a 5.9 user score on metacritic, which in video game terms means it is a steaming pile of cow poop supposedly. Despite the fact that it is actually a good game, just the ending upset some people. Well, Mass Effect 3 was a stinker. The ending was just a cherry on top of this mess. I mean it wasn't horribly broken, but that's only because it was building on top of pretty solid foundations. And scores are stupid.

The only problems with WM I had were 1) need for scaling later content 2) making base game's lack of content and design more visible by comparison. I don't think an expension is enough to make full "sequel" (I will take Tales of the Sword Coast over Throne of Bhaal) and an open world map, might make new content fit better. I believe you could load pre-sun in shadows save and do the expansions without playing the game again. I played PoE when it was all complete so I can't relate.

I thought that the very point of health vs stamina is that you can't regenerate it:-). I just would like to hear more imput on why the change is happening. So far the reason we heard was: "we liked it but some people got confused at first" which is an odd reason to move to a different system, which I see it as inferior. I might be wrong, but a good argumentation can go a long way. I didn't like the fact that they changed party size to 5 characters. But the reason for that sounds solid. As they didn't seem to be as confident about the change to health system I yell anytime I have a chance to let them know I like the old system.

There is an underlying theme in Deadfire and, if I am reading it right, it might be something to be really excited about: When I think of isometric RPGs I see two different categories. There are quite confined and heavily directed stories, told with a limited but polished gameplay mechanics. Very Bioware style. A good modern example of that would be Witcher3 - while a big game, it was also a game with a limited interaction with the world and its characters, but with good writing and well designed quests. Then there are more systemic driven RPGs. Games like Fallout and Fallout2 had interesting world and characters, but it was a very open experience and ways of solving quests, wouldn't come from heavily scripted missions, but from vast mechanics game had. While those games didn't have those immediately appealing setpieces and maybe pacing was a bit off, I found them so very much engaging and memorable. Mechanical depth Obsidian seems to be adding to the game (better stealth, world map, pickpocketing, backward pickpocketing, companion relationship system, freedom of exploration, better faction system?), gives me hope that Deadfire will move a bit towards being "a systemic" RPG. If that is true, to me it is very exciting.

I am yet to see a single change which would indicate that. I don't own a console (, but I have to wonder how playable PoE will be with a gamepad. With so many skills and spells It could be a nightmare.

It would be a nice touch. I hope that at least it will be referenced if you are from Deadfire.

The problem with those custom items, spells etc. Is that i am yet to see a system which works well. I found Tyranny's spell crafting system, while intriguing at first, quite fiddly and unengaging. Yes, when playing on PotD I did recraft my spells to better fit major encounters. But it wasn't a fun or creative process. He is weak to ice - use ice spells. Choose expression, which your enemy will be most likely to be hit by. No matter what combinations you do, the spells are generic. You can't create interesting or unique combinations. I found PoE system to be much more flexible. I don't remember Tyranny having spells with functionality which PoE didn't have and it was much easier to set up couple Grimoires with different spells, tailored for various enemy weaknesses. In Tyranny you just had to go through spell crafting routine before each harder engagement - Until, of course, game gets easy and you just roll with the same spells in every fight. The D:OS had really fun spells, but I feel the game has to be turn based for it to work. POE is already messy and things will get only mor unreadable the more things will be happening at the same time.

It is an interesting idea, but whenever it should be implimented depends on a design philosophy Obsidian has on those skill checks. From what Josh said they didn't want skill checks to be necessary better choices. Rather they were game's way to ackowledge who you are as a character. From what I remember it was true. I don't remember "winning" a conversation, rather you would have an ability to say things based on your stats, abiltities, class etc. It might work better in scripted interaction, depends how they handle them. As far as traps and other stuff goes... maybe, as long as you can bypass them. Balancing it might be weird though. I would rather have both soft, and extreme checks in default difficulty (or all difficulties) rather than average checks in default (which you can pass for the most part) and all extremely difficult checks in hard/PotD. What I am trying to say is no, I don't think those checks are difficulty related.

I hope they will figure out how to make spells like mindcontrol or paralyzis interesting. In PoE they are either a complete killer or you cast immunity spell and they simply don't work. A very hard encounter becomes trivial. I would like to see some middle ground. I do like an idea of those powerful spells but they are either too powerful, or completely useless.

Just out of curiosity, did you enjoy Tyranny but are frustrated by dodgy DLC, or didn't you enjoy Tyranny at all? No i didn't like the game.It is half-assed and the writing was terrible and the combat was meh.As for paradox well they are not much of publisher all they do is have a few twitch/youtube videos and then splash the game on GoG and Steam.PoE sell good mainly because of the kickstarter and the hype around.I haven't seen paradox do anything connected to marketing.Most third party games that they publish sale badly.Also i think that their dlc policy is the worst amongst the publishers.They put very little work in their dlcs while their games have a lot of bugs introduced by their patches.Even "Horse armor "have more work put in it.That is coming from a guy that have like 2000 hours in EU4 alone.Also i didn't get on the bandwagon,i didn't like them for a long time but they are the only people that make such games. I think that Paradox's DLC policies are an interesting subject. I am a very casual player of paradox games (played double digits of CK2, EU4 and Stellaris). I have quite mixed feelings about the DLC. The reason I don't play like them mostly comes down to the fact that they stop me from playing paradox games. With strategies I usually tend to wait for the complete edition before I jump in. Well, that is the reason I haven't play much of them. They never end. But, I do like an idea of expanding strategy games. While there are a lot of skippable DLC from what I hear the main ones are must have. I might be wrong, but I heard that this constant expansion is what makes those games so special. I am not sure if this approach works well for story driven RPG. Even if I love an RPG I might give it couple play through max. One on release, on when expansions come out, maybe one extra if I really really like it with some self imposed challenge, or role play experiment. Little improvements (like encounters!) sure would be nice, but I am not going back to the game just to see extra feature in an otherwise static game.

Agreed, I found the per-rest thing to be rather annoying, especially early on when you don't have all that many to begin with. I don't know. I am a bit worried combat will get very spammy. I know Josh said they would fix this with "action economy" but still. Even in Pillars 1 I felt like in the late game, every fight started with me casting many of the same spells, it does get a bit tedious after a while. Combat starts to feel very samey. Hopefully it's not the case. Except for that, Deadfire looks amazing. Maybe with a better custom AImyou will be able to automate some of that?

Well, I for one like when game recognises my strengths and weaknesses. Opening different paths, and dialogue options, based on who your are and what can you do does vary things up when replaying the game. If it is easy to fill all the skill slots, than what is really a point of choosing between them? It is better to have every choice, than limited choice. At this point skills become a busywork rather than a choice e.g. Torment TotN and Wasteland 2

Just out of curiosity, did you enjoy Tyranny but are frustrated by dodgy DLC, or didn't you enjoy Tyranny at all?

I actually remember Josh saying they will chime in conversation or comment on your actions which i think will be fun and useful. I was just referring specifically to when you click a specific dialogue option as if you were the one saying it but getting the benefit of one of your companions skills even though your are the one speaking. From what I understood from the interview, your companions score will add is some way with your score and thus improve your chances of passing the skill check. I don't believe they will say something instead of your character (that would be simply a lot of extra writing.) I guess it will work a bit like Crusader Kings with advisors. You will have your base stat and on top of that, you will get a bonus based on how high your companions' skill is and that will be the final ability stat which will go against check. We do know, the individual companions will interact in direct way during scripted interactions (like in White March) but I don't think it will happen in dialogue. I imagine it is a way to utilize your companions skills. Josh stated that gameplay and dialogue related skills will be seperated this time around so your roleplaying won't conflict with character builds. If your companions dialogue skills wouldn't add to regular dialogue than for them those would be useless stats.

What's your thought on inventory screen? I looked nice, with a big HD character model, but a small thing which bothers me, is that you can only see one party member inventory at a time. I liked how easy it was to swap items between characters. It will probably still be doable by dragging said item to party members portrait. That said, I do try to remember if swapping inventory items between characters was something I did much in PoE. It was certainly a thing in IE but with stash I am not so sure. Loving the portraits in the conversation screen. They look much better than I expected. As far as the pallegina, Eder portraits go, I will wait till I see them in full definition. To be honest the mini portraits has always looked odd to me.

That is true, sometimes scripted positioning would mess up your day. Personally DA approach didn't work for me. Tyranny did similar thing and I found it unengagin as well. Both games felt way to MMOish (watching healthpools slowely depleting, using abilities if they are off cool down and drinking healing potions). I am certainly against increasing health pools - it just makes everything last longer without adding to gameplay.

I thought health/stamina system was an elegant solution (especially once knockout injuries were added). I didn't think that Tyranny system worked all that well. Per-rest abilities were few, and for the most part levelling up was quick enoug that resting felt unnecessary until late game to me. To me health/stamina system was clear, while T injury system - was not confusing but more messy.

How big of a site is Hardcore Gamer? I just love those "awards" given to games no one has even seen yet. I give my award to StarCitizen. Because I hope really really hard it won't be a steaming pile of poop when/if it comes out.

Good idea. Every dead companion should come back as Fampyrs and attack us at random points in the game I recently finished the game again to put aside a save in case if there'll be reactivity for little choices which may not in the choices when we start Deadfire(hope all the relevant choices should be there tho) but I'm not happy with 2 ending states, I might not use it. One is Caroc's ending state, tho both ending's pretty bad I'm not sure which is worse, the other choice was about abydon restoration, I think I should have let them temper him... I will stick to my decisions made during first playthrough, though upon learning recently that Zahua got personal quest in WM2 I reloaded my old save, done quest, and went through Sun in Shadow again. He got much better ending this time around.

Yhh, it depends. If you enchant your own weapon starting from a scratch I like the idea of the weapon growing with you. Gaining fame, and special abilities. As far as cRPGs go, when you find "legendary" weapon I prefer for it to have story of its own and abilities connected to its origin. To me its way more interesting. But I am more of a story guy. Games based on loot (Diablo, Torchlight) I find very very boring. Weapons in PoE were very very boring until they introduced soulbound weapons.