Wormerine

Impressive quality. May I ask - what was the reason for replacing the original VO? EDIT. NVM, found explanation in the mod description. I might give it a go. 2nd NV playthrough is long overdue.

I don't. I never managed to play enough of a Bethesda game to really form an opinion (actually, I did play Fallout3 for a decent time, but F:NV completely overwritten whatever I might have remembered about it). I am not sure if I consider W3 an action RPG even. Gothic is an action RPG. Dark Souls is an action RPG. Witcher3... I don't know, it's close to being just action game with RPG elements. Or maybe it simply because I found W3 leveling system superficial. To be honest I can't recall much of Witcher3 system, except for having limited slots into which one could inserts passive buffs, and unlock extra abilities (like blocking arrows or new ways of applying signs). Drop numerical power creep, and we essencially have open world action game combat system. W3 is an odd one, as we play as Geralt, and there is only that much Geralt can do in-lore. I hope we will get a bit more freedom in Avowed, even if we get softlock into character class. I agree that level of DS depth is most likely out of reach, and possible not a good idea as player's attention will be split. I mentioned DS from a "big picture" perspective anyway - how different builds effect imputs players have at their disposal, rather then flat action combat experience with some damage bonuses. I am talking about combining an cRPG concept of "builds" with action gameplay, not individual mechanics (stamina, invincibility roll, poise etc.) nor difficulty.

On a less sarcastic note, how many attributes (or colours!) Avowed should have depends on who much depth there will be to the combat system. Personally, W3 was so shallow it might have been better if systems were removed entirely - though my issue lies less with minor customisation content, but with how trivial combat quickly becomes thanks to overload of XP - it took expansions to get the combat balance right again (PoE syndrome). Which is shame, as I thought W3 combat system was probably better then most moder mainstream action titles (aka Ass Creed or Batmanz). To me, Dark Souls is a gold standard in design of action RPG systems - with allowing a number of different builds while still being fully imput driven. In games like W3, Skyrim or tOW I think one could cut character development system and not really loose that much if anything when it comes to combat.

I agree. that said I think Dragon Dogma was a party RPG, while being an action RPG, no? (Never played it, just from what I can understand). However, if indeed party dynamic was a bigger focus in Av I would be surprised that they wouldn’t hint at it in the teaser, which has very solitary feel. “Different than Outer Worlds” might go the other way as well - That they role might be different then adventuring alongside us. or maybe that just means that we won’t meet Parvati or SAM in Avowed... which goes without saying.

You over complicate things. Picking colour should only determine what ending you get - red explosion, green explosion or blue explosion. Otherwise casuals will get confused. EDIT. Giving colours to UI is not system... it’s UI. Assigning colours to attributes in Deadfire via Enhanced Interface Mod didn’t change how the system actually works.

If Avowed will be FP only, as currently advertised, it is possible it will still allow to view your character model like in Outer Worlds.

So no XP what so ever?

What do you mean by violent path? Lure him away with the stolen ship and then kill him? Sneak all the way to the top to kill him? Kill everyone to kill him? Roleplaying game should encourage roleplaying. Unless your predefined role is to kill things that move, I don't see giving XP for kills to be particularly a good idea. While, game might not reward you for killing everyone in Raedric's hold or Fort Deadlight, it... well also doesn't encourage it. If killing everyone would give more XP, why wouldn't you want to kill eveyone? And if the game would be balanced that you would get more xp for being stealthy, and less for being violent, it encourages being stealthy and then killing everyone. Bad, bad, bad. That's more or less a problem modern Deus Exes have - why use a code you have, if hacking gives you stuff and XP? Why Ghost, if you can ghost and knock everyone out and get far more XP? Rather then picking a route that is fit for your characters you are encouraged to do everything, because that's what you get rewarded for. In Deus Ex1 it's not because doing things (be it shooting, hacking or lockpicking) cost resources. There for you are encourage to do as much as you can, and explore as much as you can with the most efficient tools at your disposal - good design. Not to say, that there isn't a potential values, in rewarding more certain choice - aka. get more gold for being greedy. But messing with XP can be problematic. PoEs have XP balance problem to start with, varying how much XP can one get per quest would only amplify the problem. Mostly removing XP for kills is one of those things I 100% am behind in PoE. And you say, that you feel discouraged from slaughtering everyone, because rigging the piano is the easiest to do and brings the same effect. Yes, that's an issue. And that's why Disco Elysium system comes to rescue again, because your choice on how you dealt with this quest could influence future checks in positive and negative ways, possibly closing and opening different door later down the line on subsequent playthroughs, without a need for developers to do manual reactivity. Bang!

That’s all I wanted to hear. I shall be waiting.

There is nothing in Avowed trailer which would indicate what game it really is true. Most specilation comes from earlier mentioned knowledge that Skyrim-like in Eora (and whatever that exactly might mean) was something thrown around for quite a while. Also leaks previous to Avowed announcement suggested a Skyrim-like fantasy project. But yes, it is not clear how much "Skyrim-like" will Avowed be.

Fallout in 4:56. Therefore OuterWorlds > Fallout1?

If Avengers life service coop thingy wasn’t suspicious enough, it will also not allow you to play as Spider-Man unles you play on PlayStation.

I remember it always being troublesome. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101348-how-to-make-mutiny-happen/ I didn't try it in 5.0 I think, but I remember it was annoyingly long before I managed to trigger one.

Baldur's Gate 3 early access won't come out in August.

I defenitely favour 3rd person for melee combat. Not that aiming is a problem, but space awareness. FPS is good at pointing at things (therefore shootign and casting), and I don't remember hitting things being difficult in Skyrim (that combat is bad in the first place though), but when enemy is in your face lack of peripheral vision is problematic I think. A FPCombat game I enjoyed a lot was Arcane's Messiah of Might and Magic - it was quite satisfying regardless of FP perspective. Dishonored melee combat is satisfying as well, though it's not a game that focuses on that. So I guess Arcane knows how to do melee combat. And people seemed to like Chivarly FP combat quite a lot. Still, I am surprised that for one camera medieval combat game, Obsidian went for FP. Unless, they just don't want to be compared to Dark Souls, which I think would be a quality expectation if they went for Third person only action RPG.

I have been wondering about it to. Theoretically, it could be really cool (maybe enable new sneaking options for orlans and dwarfs, give aumaua a chance to overpower enemy etc), but also very janky if they would do that at all. Also, if we are tied to Aedyr or Woedica, we might be limited to races that would make sense (like human or elf).

I personally, don't so that could be it as well. I didn't like Bloodlines either, even though it's, objectively, a great RPG.

I don't quite understand your argument, as the video OP mentioned, focuses purely on the speech checks. DE uses "speech checks" like mechanics for everything, but that doesn't mean that a game with more gameplay systems, couldn't learn something when implimenting its skill checks (and skill checks only, as DE, as you say don't have many other systems). I have only discussed DE in context of how it did conversations (and so did Josh - both examples he showed were speech checks). Though to be precise, what we really talk is reputation system influencing our chances to succeed in speech checks - and that can be tied to other branches of gameplay - killing someone, stealing from someone, even a global reputation system - they all could be used as triggers: -1 handed stone tablet to Huana, -1 killed X, +2 completed quest forZ, +1 you expressed support for faction Y, +1 have reputation of honest. I think biggest problem with reputation system in PoEs is that it tracks all kind of choices - both public and private. It's also a bit too easy to max it out I think. What if public reputation would only be tracked for big global choices, and smaller ones could be manually responded to via DE like system in smaller communities. EDIT. Yes, I am a threshhold guy as well. I think one needs a very specific structure to support Dice Rolls (or make failing entertaining like in DE). Kingmaker is one big savescum fest and so was wasteland 2. But again, my interest in the system which allows previous choices to influence skill checks, not how skill checks themselves are done. Aka, F:NV end problem is not that there is a flat 100 speech check, but that it would be far more satisfying if extra steps were needed. While those can be manually scripted (aka. Fallout1) Disco uses a simple abstracted system through which it achieves just that.

I actually like Heart of Stone far far more. B&W was solid, but I thought it was much weaker with choices leading up to the ending being rather forced and artificial (really? A random ribbon is key to a god ending?)

But Disco does all of those, and does them elegantly and efficently. The problem with giving character their own personality is that we would most likely run into Deadfire problem - things will work unnaturally. CK2 works well, because it has no written dialogues, nor hand crafter characters. DE takes that idea and impliments it well in an RPG with a lot of text and handcrafted characters. Adding modifiers to skill checks based on 1) things we know 2) previous interactions with the character is a simple, transparent and intuitive system that designers should be able to take a great advantage of. What ManyTrueNerd talks about at the end (with Crusade Kings2) is mixing reputations systems with a skill check to bring other actions into it. DE system is great because it's very specific, very effective and according to DE dev easy to implement, without a need for devs to create handcrafted reactivity for each interactions. It's also not "global" as reputation system in PoEs, which makes it feel more natural. I think it could work with flat number check as well - final speech check in Fallout New: Vegas could infact be only possible with high speech skill and some extra positive modifiers (but both positive and negative modifiers being able to be aquired throughout the game). Alternatively, max speech could be really difficult to aquire (require a very dedicated investment), but on a flipside one could boost chances by other actions. I think PoEs did speech checks quite well, but with that system it could be even better. Josh talked about it in: I agree with you on XP via objectives. Slogging my way through Pathfinder, and the way game encourages to munchkin through the game, instead of roleplaying.

Wait... not Tom Hardy?

Could be, or could be one of any of the other projects Obsidian is currently working on. Perhaps Grounded is getting expanded team after successful launch

Posting it in Grounded subforum, might be more productive.

According to RPS it's not complete ****. I am not 100% how it stands on scale of TV-shot tie in vs. actual game

I watched today morning. Good video. In the comments I mentioned my surprise that he didn't mention PoEs and Disco Elysium - PoE2 Relationship system is somewhat similar to what he suggest when mentioning number driven CK2 system, and oh boy it didn't work well. On the other hand, Disco Elysium has stuff that should be shamelessly copied - they way it allows previous interactions to modify difficulty of skill checks is quite brilliant. I know Josh liked it, I hope whoever is working on Avowed liked it as well. I think he sometimes mixes player reputation systems with skill checks - not that having those two interact isn't a great thing to have.