Wormerine

From what was told, you will be able either to import your save file from PoE1, and it will transfer relevant choices from there, or you will be able to "create" one yourself before starting the game. I imagine the choices which will matter in PoE2 are major ones (what happened with companions, relationship with gods, state of keep and dyrwood.) It would be odd, if when creating system they would forbid you from making all relevant choices. We sill see.

To add to that they already fixed the EI game problems of starting fight you are not prepared for. You always notice enemies before they notice you, so as long as you have the autopause set up to pause game as soon as you encounter an enemy (which you absolutely should have), you can easly spot what is coming.

But but but... fallout's UI was horrible. It's clunky as hell, convoluted, managing inventory is a pain. They are not clear on what they do. Th game would only benefit from better UI design. It's not about "dumbing" down - it's about elegance and clarity. Steep learning curve is rarely a good thing. It just means the design isn't good enough. Yeah, there are games where messing up, and figuring how the game works is the point "dark souls" but in most cases it just means the game doesn't explain itself well. Now I am not encouraging handholding, as it is boring, but a well implemented tutorial benefits a game.

And did you ever use whatever you learned in Witcher3? I do agree that PoE is focused on reloading, but it didn't bother me much. I find the weapon load out system enough flexible, to have various weapons prepared for different situations. You cast buffs in combat anyway, so you make the desition on what to cast during the combat anyway. The first time you encounter new enemy, and therefore don't know his weaknesses and strengths are generally forgiving enough you can just push through them.

Baldurs Gate2 worked quite well, and as Josh pointed out many of those characters had limited interactions and no story archs. I do appreciate the choice with companions (not a fan of creating custom party). I think it is a great idea, giving you a solid amount if companions, with relationship system, side quest and a story arch, and a couple additional characters with personality and cool background. If it's written well, it might work very well. After all, not everyone you meet and work with becomes your good buddy. They might just be interesting characters who ally with you for the quest

Because all the kids think that "deeper companion relationships" = Japanese dating sim and therefore assume that she will be their waifu. That is the only reason. This. I just can't stretch enough how much Obsidian dropped the ball with that character art. The moment I saw that 'is Ydwin yandere or tsundere?' thread pop up on this forum it was obvious that certain people had gotten way too enthusiastic about the anime like qualities of the character. (And its potential dateability.) I really wished that they wouldn't have crossed over to an anime style when designing the concept art of this character, or the overall character's description: so uninspiring and bland. I feel it was really out of place as I can't see animé tropes, especially of the simplistic 'is Ydwin yandere or tsundere?' kind mix well with PoE's bleak and grim setting. Rather, I hope that Obsidian will keep developing more complex, human like characters as they did in PoE 1. In the end, I trust Obsidian to do a good job in character development, but actually hope that this character doesn't get developed into a full companion and someone else takes her place instead. It is just a character concept and Obsidian are really good in making those "boring/I have seen it before" characters more than they seemed. I do agree that the character did seem to stand out from the crowd. That said, nothing wrong with a sexy character, and I having an animancer in a team might bring an interesting perspective. Hopefully, sidekicks will still have plenty to say.

I think I agree, but it depends. The "inside" expansions can work well (Heart of Stone for Witcher 3) but it has to do several things to work properly - don't distrupt main game balance, give the player reason to leave the main story for multiple hours to pursue sidequest, and feel like a part of the main story rather than its own complete thing. I like White Match a lot, but it was weird to return back to Dyrwood after doing it (wait, what was I doing again?) However, the open world nature of PoE2 and supposed openes of exploration might create a nice for extra content (like monster hunting ;-) ;-)

Whoot?! How did I missed that? They put it in high reward but never talked about it at Q&A/updates? There was a $20 early bird DLC addon added later on in the campain due to popular demand. They don't know what it is, but you will get all the post launch expansions.

Also what groundwork? So far we have seen one artwork, and a vague background:-). Poor Ydwin, never hated a character so much before knowing anything about them.

From Josh' Frog Helms Fan Club (https://twitter.com/jesawyer): "Olá. If we don’t hit the stretch goal by 5pm PDT today, she will be a sidekick in Deadfire. It would be possible for her (or Rekke, etc.) to become a companion in an expansion, but not in the core game. The new features we’re adding for companions increase the amount of work we need to do per companion by about 50%. We’re fully scheduled for companion writing through the rest of the project just with the core 7."

If you look in the Fig updates, the ship will be really customizeable. I don't know if this is the unofficial suggestions thread, but here goes: You know the gesturing portraits that you have during conversations (with companions and most NPCs) in Tyranny? That might be something cool to add in. Most, if not all, interactible NPCs are planned to have unique water colour portraits displayed in conversations.

You want a mod to run around with all 11 buddies?

Mark 25:00

I thought that the use of 3D models in Tyranny was creative, but it did seem like a good use of limited recourses. I am happy to have simpler but unique portraits for NPCs. Makes me very curious how the UI will look. I imagine it will be a departure from dark-wood design of PoE.

Pointy hats for wizards are impractical and not historically accurate.

I liked the most how could you define your memories. You could define your past choices and relationship with Iovara. I thought it was really neat. What I could use are less obvious tropes. While I liked how clever the game was, giving a twist to traditional D&D quests and ideas I did roll my eyes a couple times. While some quests had nice subversion of expectations I, for example, didn't like the Heritage Hill area. Maybe because it reminded me of Neverwinter Nights (not a fan of this one.)

Considering multiclassing I have no idea what I will do. I will play as my first character, orlan range cypher. I will probably continue tradition of Eder for tanking, and Aloth for spellcasting. Fellow orlan might be welcome to balance Eder's rasism. Pallegina was part time in my first playthrough so we will see. It all probably depends on whom I will find first, with whom I will get along with (hopefully the companion system will actively support roleplaying rather than a fluff mechanic.)

Interesting that you say that. I enjoyed TWM story more than the original too, but I'm having trouble working out why. Better pacing? A lighter touch? It certainly wasn't because I like dungeon crawling. I don't rate Durlag's Tower very highly, and the Endless Paths was tedium incarnate. The pacing was better and the questing more consistent. There was no text wall screens to advance the plot - everything was done with scripted interactions. Scripted interactions were more advanced (you could cast spells/use abilities!) which made dungeon crawling far more interesting also. It had more interesting loot and a great story (as good as the base game imo) that was advancing with better pacing (pacing again). Combat encounters were designed better too. All of that. For me the biggest change was the complexity of the quests. Even a simple quest (like stealing a bottle for the drunk guy), had more to it, with some unexpected twists. The monk monastry is easily my favourite part of the entire game. Excellent visual storytelling, quest with multiple ways of approaching it (getting in, solving, decision making.) A great balance between combat, talking and exploring.

Devs already mentioned that the default combat speed is going to be as Slow Mode is in PoE1. Plus some spells will take longer to cast, but will deal more damage. That's...unfortunate. Slow mode is unbearably slow indeed. I imagine you will be able to tweak it in options. I personally rarely switched to normal speed anyway. I am a control freak though.

Well, her wiki page says she is from Naasitaq, which is part of the Deadfire Archipelago. Although a very southern part of the archipelago. She even says that she is from the Deadfire Archipelago when you ask her about her homeland. So, she could still return, just not as a companion. I think in one of the streams when asked about interesting locations for DLC Josh mentioned that Naasitaq would be cool. To me that would indicate that as for now we will not visit Naasitaq in Deadfire. She might still be an NPC but it wouldn't make much sense for her to leave her tribe again (at least with the ending I got). I expect to see characters closer tied to the story.

Oh, it is such a tough topic. Since I became fluent with english I have trouble dealing even with good translations. I am sorry to hear that the translations of PoE aren't great. My mother tongue is polish and I tried playing through recent Tides of Numenera in polish but switched back to english quite quickly. It wasn't bad, but it felt wrong somehow. Translation is a tricky thing, especially for such text heavy games. Literal translation is simply a wrong approach, but I feel with PoE it is especially hard. It is very language focused game (flavour of the names) and it is tough to translate it to different language. It is possible. Lord of the Rings has two translatins in Polish. I feel the first one is somewhat more accurate but sounds really stupid. The second one took much more liberty with the source material. Some of the names where completely changed to convey their original meaning better. The same word might draw different connections in different languages. I do hope the translators weren't lazy, but with such amount of text, I imagine the time constrains were an issue.

I just tried working an example. In D&D v3.5, a +2 Con adds a +1 to hp total. For a fighter, a 1d10 hp/level gives an average of 5.5 hp/level. So the +1 hp increases the total for the fighter by about 18% for a +2 Con. In PoE, a +2 Con gives a +10% health and endurance. It's similar for Str and damage: +2 Str increases long sword 1d8 (~4.5) by +1, for a 22% damage bonus. In PoE a +2 Mig gives a +6% damage bonus. To me it looks like PoE has scaled attribute impacts back by roughly half or more. But that may be to balance out lack of level scaling for spell damage, as well as other factors. I think we would need to look at the entire picture. Now that's a discussion well beyond my knowledge of D&D and game design overall, but now I wonder how much impact attributes should have. Sure, in a classless RPG (like fallout1&2) the attributed define your characters and decide on how you will interact with the world. In a class based RPG how much should they really impact your character? The class already more or less defines your role. The PoE system allows to shift towards certain play styles of said class (focus on DPS, AOE, buffs/debuffs, status effects) but not completely redefine the class.

I would love to see a redesign of the system for PoE2 but I do like underlying ideals. I do like that every class benefits from every stat. I feel like there is more choice now, and when creating new character I think about what I want to be, not what this class needs. Sadly, due to the lower impact of the stats it might be a bit smoke and mirrors. I like how the skills work, but I would like to see more tangible impact from each skill.

Twin Elsm certainly felt empty, but gods' quests were a high point of the vanilla game to me. Story wise certainly. The finale did change how I perceived the game as well.

and what exactly do you think that means? It means that they deliberatly marketed the game based on nostalgia for Baldur's Gate. They knew *damn* well what they were doing. It was Bernaysian marketing--make the people *feel* like they'll get their old sense of fun back even if they logically know it's not the same game.It's like a beer commercial where they show a guy drinking this brand of beer and then suddenly surround by sexy women taking off their clothes. They don't *say* that drinking their beer will make you get laid, but you, me, and they all know what they're saying. This isn't secret ****. This is Marketing 101. all of which makes the "spiritual successor" bit meaningless. is not a promise o'... anything. obsidian were guilty o' attempting to use nostalgia for bg to sell poe? *feigned shock* review: obsidian never said "spiritual successor" and 'ccording to you, the bg magic bit is akin to using hot chicks to sell beer? ... in parlance you might be familiar with, you is doing a terrible job o' selling us on the notion o' "spiritual successor" being more than shibboleth. HA! Good Fun! Ehh.... not the most distunguished and trustworthy source but it will do. Googling a term is more than you can be bothered to do apparently. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_successor