Wormerine

Well, there are benefits to keeping the world open - for one, with bunch of unique items one can plan ahead for the future playthroughs, and not wait for chapter 4 to get weapon they want to use for their build. Opening Deadfire was a direct response to players complaining about content gating in PoE1 - though personally I feel Obs might have missed the point. While I disliked how content was gated in PoE1, I didn't per say have an issue with it being gated - while certain amount of freedom in exploration is desirable in an RPG, a I do recognise and welcome a need for direction and progression. My problem with PoE1 gating was how artificial it was. For example I loved White March, and it was a much more linear adventure then the base game.

Yeah sorry Outer Worlds. I will vote for Plague, as a better narrative, and Disco as a better RPG. Have a GOTY vote though, as I don't care much for the competition.

I played quite a bit of Hollow Knight, and I think I am done with it. I really enjoyed it until I reached the 1st (bad ending). Getting to the 2nd one was annoying, even though I already did bunch of extra stuff. With excessive backtracking it becomes a massive time waster. I didn't find wealth of extra content appealing, as combat was too basic for me to enjoy. The platforming section was infuriating - it's not build for this kind of precise movement, plus some design flaws - like not being able what's ahead of you, and poor signaling of danger zones (like how far saw blades go). Still, looking forward to the sequel - I hope they will expand on the combat and movement.

Yes, you can't agree with him at this moment. But you will receive the thought related to this conversation and you can internalize it, and become a Race-supremacist. I didn't follow that path, but joining the racist club is one of the ways to get to the switch, I believe.

I did like HF:2 Ep.2. Not so much others.

I don’t know about that. Sounds more like my experience with Wasteland2, which I liked much at the time, but couldn’t keep deep into when I tried it couple months ago. I found my first playthrough of PoE1 to be a slog, actually. I did like it mechanically - how they bounced from D&D, but created more flexible, easy to understand system, better suited for real time gameplay. After the good start, I stopped being engaged by it once I reached Defience Bay, with its static feel and the story went all over the place. I took a months long break. The thing which kept me returning to PoE was my friend saying that I should see it to the end, and I trust his judgement. Things picked up when I reached bottom of The Endless Slog of Caed Nua, started White March expansion, started interacting with Gods (which I think should have happened early in the game to give players context they so desperately needed). And then I reached the ending, which put everything in perspective: the odd companion quests left unresolved, seeing how faith in Gods positively and negatively influenced kith, all the plot builds up leading up to the reveal. What I really enjoyed are two subsequent playthroughs, when I gained certain competence in gameplay and with knowing where the story leads (and had a better understanding of the lore) I could better appreciate the story and characters. that’s why I oppose PoE1 vs PoE2 argument. PoE2 objectively does so many things better: quest design, storytelling, systems, encounters, pacing, art, setting, lore introduction - are all better. But PoE1 felt like it had a point, while PoE2... just ends? and there are those disappointments: like reactivity to PoE1 rarely felt right. I had better time playing through PoE2 though, but whenever it is because I already cared for the IP or not, I cannot really say.

To be honest some of the systems they talked about do some interesting.

So from all those, the only ones which require pendantic preperation are megabosses - as stated before, those are purely optional encounters designed for those who want to carefully prepare for those encounters and test their systems mastery. Nemnok nor DLC don't fall into this category. However, Nemnok is one of the few end game content encounters from the base game, and DLCs did raise the difficulty. However much of the base game suffers content being too easy to outlevel, meaning one might power through most of it. I am afraid that you simply hit level cap, and you got to the content with difficulty matched to that content (however, Beast of Winter, even upscaled you still should be at advantage,). None of those require super specialised equipement or builds on Veteran or PotD. However, if you are used to ignoring core mechanics (like interupt or pen, buffs, debuffs), it's time to start paying attention again. Decent healing will be required, as fights in DLCs tend last longer.

Joke all you want, but that might be the wisest thing anyone said in this post so far. Boob armor, or a grumpy male with a gun.

It's certainly a difficulty spike. I didn't think the difficulty itself was a problem, but combat in OW isn't very interesting. Making fight more demanding just makes it more annoying, without providing any mechanical/tactical depth.

Is BB as good as people say? I have been keeping an eye on it, since Josh endoresed it a while ago. Looks like something worth diving into, though I haven't found time for it just yet.

Some of the mechanics aren't explained as well as they could be. I got stuck at one point, as my only way to move forward was to initiate conversation which would cost me -1 health, resutling in my character dying. However, you can use "medpacks" in conversations, and you have a generous amount of time before the point if health drains. I do like skill checks - in the first part of the game there are always multiple ways of reaching an objective, and there are many leads you can pursue. Failing a check, isn't as simple as "try it again later" - you often get a chance to persue the objective in another way, or gain information to make the check easier next time. For the first half of the game, all checks were shaping my character, not blocking my progress. It very much a game about building your character, and it is skills which decide what your character thinks, and can/cannot do, not you directly. I like that approach very much. For the same reason, I don't mind the low chance of critical failure/success when doing rolls. With amount of stuff to do, I didn't feel the need to save scum, until I crossed the watergate. In latter part of the game, there are singular must-pass checks and they do make the game much worse. Aside from the content simply not being nearly that good, mechanical issues become apparent: There is no cost in changing clothing, so it is encourage to back out of the conversation, when player encounters a check, and put appropriate clothing to maximize chances of success. That becomes really tiresome, as amount of clothing available grows, and game doesn't discourage gaming the system in any way. The bigger issue, is that the game encourages not spending skill points on lvl up. When a white skillcheck is failed, one of main ways of unlocking it again, is putting the point into this skill. I found it more advantagious to hord my skill points and spend them only when I failed a skill check, that I wanted to succeed in. That gamestyle wasn't really fun, as rather then developing my character in a way I wanted to, I felt pressured to be molded by skill checks I would go against. In addition, it halted my character progression quite a bit. Still, I was glad I did that, as passing the mandatory SHIVERS check, which I wasn't build to do, took quite a few tries.

And I stole mine from a kind soul over at Snapshot forums

DLC info:

Well, I played Thief 1-3 for the first time right before the reboot came out so it's difficult for me to saparate those. Still, I can't see anything positive about things you mention as I found the setting, story, characters, limited movememnt ability, idiotic DASH, and the overworld to be all awful. It's like the devs saw Dishonored and decided to make a garbage knock off of that, instead of a proper stealth game. Ah, one of the last casulties of post-Nolan-Batman unnecessary gritty reboots.

What dispositions do you have? I am pretty sure she responds well to “passionate” and maybe “honest?”

But, no one recognises that my character is at level 5 and he struggles with Naga, not to mention a dragon.

I think you are on to something, though I don’t think the blame is purely on the audience not being able to accept what PoE truly is. While I love those games to death, to some degree they always rang false to me. While trying to fulfill expectations one might have from IE games I don’t think they are truly free to pursue their own goals. Brilliance of Baldur’s Gates was that the player progression and RPG systems where smartly tied to the overarching narrative: you are a son of Bhaal and death follows you. No matter if you want to be good or evil you kill a lot of stuff, fulfilling the prophecy and your role. You kill Sarevok because you are a better murderer then he. As you near to having a shot in claiming the throne, you become more powerful, killing more and more powerful stuff. While mostly a pulpy adventure, there is a subversive cleverness in the story, which simply makes it all work. All better Bioware game do this: KOTOR, Jade Empire, all manage to tie your growth with the story of the game. Obsidian also leaned into this one multiple occasions. PoE, unlike so many post-BG RPGs, doesn’t follow this arc, but still has the gameplay. We kill stuff in hundreds, grow in power and move from killing wolfs and boars to mythic creatures. Yet, little of it is acknowledged in the narrative. There is some stuff in the lore (souls growing stronger etc.) but none of it is related to the main game. I would say that character growth happens purely in game space, and isn’t really acknowledge by game’s world. I do like that mere mortal can’t challenge a God. But that expectation isn’t challenged by the game either. Expectations are there: both because of tradition and existing gameplay systems, but the game doesn’t even acknowledge such possibility. The problem isn’t that we can’t challenge Eothas, but that after 20 levels and major in-game growth, game refuses to respond to it.

I don’t see an issue with this one: there has been no sign of intelligent alien life, beside humans. In OW aliens meddling in human affairs is just as far fetched as it is currently in ours. The reason why the concept of alien is far fetched, isn’t that they are from outer space, but that there is no recorded evidence of other intelligent life forms.

The problem is that Swen seems to be making games he wanted to make, while Josh was making RPG using systems he wasn’t personally invented in. I doubt Obsidian will continue doing PoE in this way if it doesn’t sell, and developers would rather do something else.

Overall I agree, except thanks to following Outer Worlds pre-release more closely, and didn’t have such high hopes or expectations, as devs did state whenever given a chance that it is a smaller title. If anything, I was presently surprised in some aspects.

And a bit more critical thinking would reveal that there is no Microsoft logo around the game, as its developed via pre-acquisition deal with 2K’s Private Division. not that I want to join the crowd of doomsayers.

Some positives first: 1) I do like the theme. I loved “Honey, I shrunk the kinds” when I was a wee lad, somI see some appeal here. Even outside the nostalgia, the setting has a lot of potential to do cool and relatable stuff 2) I am not into typecasting devs. I don’t believe that if devs are good in making particular genre of games, this is the only genre they should ever do. Typecasting is a constant problem in any media: be it film, music, writing, gaming. Creatives should be allowed to be creative, and doing things outside the usual wheelhouse can be refreshing for both audiences and makers. How will we get interesting new ideas, if all everyone is allowed to do, is the thing they did well before? I mean one of my favourite studios is Klei, and they rarely do the same thing twice. I could use Invisible Inc2 at some point, though... that said: I can’t say I am thrilled, nor interested. The obvious problem of branching out is that your usual audience might simply not like the other thing you do. Not to say that I won’t become interested in this game. Supergiant’s Hades is a game in a genre I rarely care about, and it is in sub-genre of this genre which I dislike. Still, it is a Supergiant game through and through, and it convinced me to eventually buy it, and to be honest I enjoy it - there is enough Supergiant in there for me to enjoy. And it also game to me an early impression of “cash grab couple years late to the party”. Hopefully, it will be the same with this. For now, good luck to the dev team, and I am waiting for what’s next. though I must say: between speculation about future of POE series and this, Microsoft acquisition sounds like a difficult thing to shrug off as “things will continue unchanged.”

You do know those are different team? According to multiple sources there are three teams working at Obs at the moment. I didn't expect new announcement so soon, but I can't say I am not curious. EDIT:Not to mention that ToW is a game from beyond aquisition. It would make sense for Microsoft to reveal what we might expect from the studios they bought up, even if the projects aren't quite near completion.