Wormerine

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.

But that is exactly what PoE did! They had soft scaling. Areas and bosses had a min-max level and would scale according to you. If you came before min level you would be underpowered, while if you came much later you would be overpowered. The problem is that the bigger RPG is the more difficult it is to balance it. After all later areas theoretically can be visited with a variety of levels. So either min-max level should be very wide, or you just have to accept that you will be either underpowered or overpowered depending on your level. I think there is a good idea with enemies learning as well, but it will only work in a game which supports it with its mechanics and story. In a traditional RPG it makes little sense as usually you are the active party acting against static environment. Thaos has no reason to become more powerful than he is. He is old, experience and has other things on his mind. To have opponents who would level up with you, they would have to mirror your story/growth as well. And in order for it to work, the system would need to be more interesting than it is. Bumping up stats is boring. I liked how in Xcom long war enemies would evolve and learn new perks. But I can't see it working in realtime RPG. What I am saying is: it's a neat idea but for a different genre.

Well, Josh said that what they are thinking about is creating different tiers of weapons. You won't be able to enchant a low tier weapon to the level of high tier - so eventually you will have to swap. This could work but it also creates couple problems. If you won't be able to use your enchanted weapon for long, you might now want to enchant until you have a higher tier weapon. It all depends on how economy will be handled. I didn't enjoy enchantment too much, as I found weapons to be not very memorable (it got better in White March with addition of soulbound weapons). The system does certainly have potential but I would like to see it more fleshed out. Maybe discovering enchantments like spell system in Tyranny would be good. Mixing vaious elements creating unique effects limited by weapon's quality (working like lore in Tyranny.)

Assuming by "pot lid" helmet you mean a kettle hat then no. Those were so called because they resembled kettles, not because they literally used to be kettles. This isn't to say that common items weren't used as improvised military equipment when needed. For example archaeological finds from mass graves at the Battle of Visby turn up all sorts of crude pieces of armour that appear to have be hurriedly modified pieces of metal rather than bespoke armour. We are given a false impression of armour from what remains, but of course only the best pieces were actually kept rather than being recycled. That said, it's important to note that even the crude armour of Visby was modified from its original source. I dare say someone, somewhere in history has tried wearing an actual pot as a helmet, but I doubt it was at all common since pots would make poor helmets due to being fundamentally different. The vast majority of men who couldn't afford to buy an actual metal helmet (or have something modified into one) would have settled for some sort of padded hood (think a mail coif made from multiple layers of linen), and by the age of bascinets those men were rare: almost all English longbowmen in the hundred years war would have had at least a metal skullcap, and those that didn't would have tried to loot one after a battle (many longbowmen who had served for a while wear surprisingly well armoured infact). As for using a door as a shield, even ignoring the weight problem (even cut down to the size of a shield it would be far too heavy) it would make a poor shield since shields consist of more than just wooden planks. They also have coverings of raw hide, linen etc. which were actually vital to their function. A door would have been effective against arrows but would have come apart very quickly against blows from melee weapons. An improvised weapon which comes to my mind is war scythes used by polish peasants during the Deluge. They simply moved scythes blade 90 degrees and created a sort of pole arm out of it. Turned out surprisingly effective against better equipped enemies.

Personally I agree with posters here, this is not how to ask for a release date update, and this is too early to even be asking. It is unreasonable to expect they have reached a point in development now where they can do anything more than make a guess. That said, I hate it when people post "it's ready when it's ready". This give them all the time in the universe attitude some people have toward game development is just plain bad. 1: Game companies are businesses, businesses need to make money, and if you aren't releasing a game you aren't bringing in any money. 2: People tend to deliver better results when they are under a reasonable amount of pressure, because employees who know they can take all the time in the world often do just that. 3: There is no real evidence to indicate that longer dev cycles lead to better games, and there is evidence that indicates the opposite might be true. 4: Longer dev cycles do lead to higher costs, higher costs are harder to recuperate, and that means you are going to make less profit. So no, Obsidian, please don't take all the time in the world. Work hard to get it done in a reasonable time frame. Now, what is that time frame? I would guess it is probably first, or second quarter 2018. I don't think Obsidian needs time constrains as they have budget constrain. They got set amount of money and they can work as long as the budget lasts. They sounded pretty confident they will be releasing it Q1 2018. Maybe it will change. Maybe with more money they wiil push it back a bit, who knows. So many other things to do meantime anyway

wow. Everyone is so nice. And I was about to write something really mean...

Yes, for me it is a but problem with "in game" expansions. You can scale up things but why shades in Sun in Shadows are so much stronget than those I fought before. I just made a big post on this topic so I won't repeat myself but just like you I am anti-scaling. That said, I don't mind critical path being a bit easier as long as there are good high level fights to have. Dragons, bounties and wizards in PoE where lots of fun and Thaos was never build up as a godly fighter. So he put up some resistance, but I felt no need for it to be THE fight of the game.

Leveling is always a can of worms. In one of the streams Josh said they what they plan to do is give you a choice at the beginning of the game if you want to scale content or not. If yes, then all encounters should be scaled according to your level. Of not, the difficulty is set and therefore you can find yourself outclassed or overpowered depending where you go. Now: my personal thoughts. I don't like scaling. For me it completely counters the idea of leveling up. I am playing through Tyranny now in PotD. I heard it gets easy in 2nd half and I think I am getting to the point but up to this point it was very frustrating. You see I thought the same enemies 10 hours ago. They are the same enemies but they have more health, better defences and they hit harder to counter my higher level. So what was the point of me leveling up? If I would stay on lvl 1 and enemies wouldn't scale the game wouldn't change much. This is the problem I have with skyrim as well. At the start of the game I could use magic, swords, bows, whatever I liked. Now I can use bows and one handed swords because this is what I chose. I feels completely the same as it did on lvl. 1, but instead of developing my character, I limited my options. Another bad example was Witcher 3. There was no point for Witcher 3 to have leveling system. Your combat didn't improve much, or get more interested. It only allowed devs to space out content (no you want do all Witcher contracts in one go, because those are lvl. 43. Sure they are same monsters, and they will work exactly the same way as they do on lvl. 10, but you wont be able to face them until you spent 50 hours in the game). Now I think, W3 benefited from this pacing but the downside was that the main story became way to easy after lvl 15 if you did side content. I like the most as difficulty and leveling is used for storytelling. Look at Gothic 1&2. Characters and monsters had set difficulty BUT you could encounter them from the very beginning. On a low level, when you saw Shadowbeast you only could run and hope it won't follow you. On lvl 15 you could face it. And it was so much more satisfying knowing how it could kill you in one hit hours before. Considering an openess of Deadfire I hope this is the route the "unscaled" game will go for: factions and monsters have certain strenght and you will need be powerful enough to face them. Or be really smart with the game. I think this way of approaching lvl system opens quite a potential for interaction with the world and storytelling. If you just create linear experience, where you shouldn't encounter something weaker/stronger than you, then why to include lvl system at all?

Hmmm.... I must have missed that. Where was it stated? Does that mean that grimoires role has changed, or do they just free up mages hands so he can be more flexible?There you go: - source 1- source 2 Oh oh oh! Class specific trinkets? Like Instruments for chanters? Or Religious relics for priests? I like it, like it, like it

As someone who never play tabletop D&D game, I can agree with Josh. I remember having to restart games after couple hours as I would find out that my character just wouldn't work. It happened even in Baldur's Gate 2 (1st one I played) which all things considering was quite a cakewalk.

Hmmm.... I must have missed that. Where was it stated? Does that mean that grimoires role has changed, or do they just free up mages hands so he can be more flexible? I am not sure about changing pistols much, though I did find them most effective when used at the start of the combat (one shot) and never reloading them in combat.

Most of the info we have is from the fig campaign. If you havent go to the fig deadfire page and look through the updates. We haven't heard much since the campaign ended. There is a pinned thread here on the forums compiling all the teasers from Josh - nothing groundbreaking but it's showcasing some fancy new features and graphical I provements. We can also expect some presence at E3. We might learn something new, or maybe see some gameplay footage advertising what we already know. Mechanics are still in progress and while there are some hints about the changes coming I am still not sure how they work exactly.

They wouldn't give it without a licensing fee or royalty checks. Obsidian wants out from under publisher insecurity. PoE is all about them owning their first IP, and they want more. I'm not opposed to them licensing, but not when it conflicts with their own IPs. Kotor III however would be welcome, but surely that would go to Bioware first... I am actually more interested in new settings. Obsidian has some really cool ideas, and allowing them to do things without restrictions of existing franchise. I would love Obsidian SF or real world setting: noir, historical, war story anything. Alpha Protocol was broken but showed how well RPG set in unusual setting can work.

It would if the rider could dismount (or be dismounted) and fight separately. Didn't we have mounted units in Icewind Dale2? I remember goblins were riding some kind of wolves, and if you killed wolf the goblin would still fight as regular goblin unit. I don't see much reason for a horse, when you already have ship, but it might be an interesting idea for future.

I do like the idea, though I would take a wider range of personalities, over less personalities, but more different accents. Unlike something like XCOM all those nationalities are fictional, and therefore it is not something I think about when choosing the voice. A handy way of adding/modding in the voice lines would be welcome (BG style, if it is not already there)

Ha! Looking forward to both. That said Obsidian has already made a great pillars game. I am a little bit less trustful towards PP. not that I gallop doesn't have chops, but it seems like a very ambitious project.

Or at least tintable portraits, with multiple color channels. Neat idea, but I can't see it happening without dropping portrait quality by quite a bit. I don't think that hand drawn shaders would translate well unless they would hand every single item. I suppose, this is where 3d models shine. It is not something I have a big problem personally though.

I do like the idea of the engagement as long as it is not too weak/powerful. The problem with infinity engine games was than a melee fighter was weaker than a range/spellcaster as they had to chase their enemies. What's more as it is real time I feel like engagement gives the combat a bit of "structure" with the engagement zone. The mechanice of blocking specific targets is interesting. I do "enjoy" having my spellcasters locked and having to either tank extra hit, or quickly find a way to disengage quickly.

What do you mean when you say that Paradox thew Obsidian under the bus with Tyranny? Something happened? Well, that does need contextualized and curtailed a bit. It's not like a business agreement was violated. But Paradox went on record saying that everyone at Paradox expected it to do better. Ergo, something went amiss in the market and Obsidian product. For context see this article: Why didn't Tyranny sell? Paradox on Obsidian's RPG (PCGamesN). So the game simply didn't sell all that well. I don't find it surprising. If I were to blame some I would blame marketing. Not that they focused on the "evil" part, but that they kept talking about choices which you have to do with limited time, that you won't be able to do all quests etc etc. I remember initial reception being quite negative because of it and it did put me off from buying it until quite recently. While entertaining I didn't find it that intriguing or bold, and while I would buy a sequel I am much more excited for PoE2 than this. Maybe if classless system was more flexible and fleshed out... sequel could certainly be great.

Did you do Zahuas quest while taking Hiravias with you? That should be humor enough, even for you. All banters were full of fanboy-pleasing-sillyness. What else do you want? For me it was the maximum amount of humor I can take to consider a game serious. OMG!!! And because of you I have just discovered that Zahua had a quest. The question now is: do I reinstal PoE, reload my save and do the quest, or do I make another full playthough...

Waves his hand in front of your face: "This is not a game you are looking for"

Being able to ACTUALLY TANK would be really appreciated. Like...not having the front line be entirely ignored and having characters just straight merc the squishies instantly and without hesitation? Yeah, not doing that. That would be *great*. As much as everyone complains about it I never felt like my tanks were ignored. Barbarian and monks had a thing for jimping behon my lines or distrupting front line but thats about it. Josh did mention though that the engagement mechanic will be more rare (not every class will have engagement) but it will be much more powerful.

My guess would be that they will still be handcrafted areas, but you will have to find the by yourself by exploring. Certainly the levels themselves won't be generated as prerendered backgrounds just don't allow for that. And I don't think procedural generation meshes too well with Obsidian's RPGs.

What do you mean when you say that Paradox thew Obsidian under the bus with Tyranny? Something happened?

Expensive CGI trailer misrepresenting the game.