Wormerine

Makes a bit of sense. OW reminded me a lot of early Bioware titles (more so, then Obsidian’s previous games). Not Mass Effect, as by that point presentation and RPG elements where greatly reduced in favour of presentation, which OW doesn’t have, but some similarities are there. the question is, whenever a sequel with bigger budget means deeper game, or shinier presentation.

I am pretty sure that, no, you didn’t, if I remember the ending correctly.

Pretty much this. I love my Civ, but the “genre” has potential for more designs. For one humankind seems to go classless - as if no Civs. Either way, humankind goes against a juggernaut, so they better to something interesting really really well.

It’s certainly tackling the same theme as CIv, but there is inherent way Civ games progress. It’s all about positive feedback loop. What I am most interested to see is, if it is something they will try to tackle. Civ6 tried to fix some of Civ inherent problems, especially with Rising Storm expansion but I didn’t feel like they quite succeeded. RPShas written a nice article about it a while back. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/15/all-rise-and-no-fall-how-civilization-reinforces-a-dangerous-myth/

Wow, I actually disagree with quite a few of them: 1) setting - Deadfire all the way. A more unique, better realised place. 6) companions - I didn’t care about a single companion in Deadfire as much as I did about majority of companions in PoE1. While they probably got more content, a more linear and focused quest progression meant more coherent story arcs. 8) world map - I am torn on that - on one hand I feel that Deadfire’s map is simply more engaging then POE1 one. At the same time it hints at potential that was never quite realised. If it were more interactive with some procedural stuff it would be excellent. As it is it can feel more dead then abstract PoE1 map. 9) cities in PoE1 sucked. Gilded Vale had barely any content in it. Major cities were under developed. Stelwart was great but that’s White March. Neketaka on the other hand is a phenomenal, deep city. Even smaller areas, are better developed then most PoE1 content. 12) dungeons - before DLCs I agree that the game lacked a deep dungeon. However, PoE1 didn’t do great in that regard either, and Caed Nua sucked. Sorry. 15 levels doesn’t mean much, if they are boring, copy/pasted Enemies which I just fought on the surface. 13) I wouldn’t agree that side content of PoE1 is better then PoE2 but if we purely count things listed - sure. Bounties in Deadfire only worked when fought on land, and even so, it’s far to easy to outlevel enemies. 14) VO - Actually, I don’t have stand outs in Deadfire, in the way I had in PoE1. Perhaps it is a result of less engaging narrative and writing IMO. Actor can do far more with coherent story arc, then a small encounter. In addition, I don’t remember bad performances in PoE1, and while PoE2 is good for the most part, there are occasional bad apples. 18) I felt that one thing that suffered from per-encounter system was boss battles. I never found big battles in PoE2 enjoyable, and while megabosses and DLCs did a decent job in raising the stakes, I never quite enjoyed them as rapid, lethal encounters in PoE1 (and IE games)

xD I did that with ADOM. Frankly had to whip up dictionary again for Pillars1 as some of the descriptions went beyond my repertoire.

A really thorough, on point deep-dive into Disco.

Excellent. An incentive to purchase and dive back into OW.

Ever since I played Dark Souls I started to wish for a Gothic game using something similar to DS system - in many ways DS combat reminded me of what Gothic tried to achieve, but was quite horrible at. Still G1&2 are probably the best open world RPGs I have ever played.

Uuuu... Ex-Arcane people https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/12/13/arkane-veterans-announce-weird-west/ so like Hard West, but hopefully good.

Hellblade 2 https://youtu.be/qJWI4bkD9ZM I would be excited, if I only thought that Hellblade needed a sequel - there are franchises, and there are one shot creative projects. Here is hoping they will have a story to tell

I, for one, am somewhat happy that such direct interactions between factions exist at all. Still they seem to be in an awkward spot, where they are not abstracted enough to be a sidecontent, but aren't nuanced and fleshed out enough, to be insteresting or not weird - by that meaning the previous post about genocide, and system doesn't support anything beyond removing the haven entirely. My hope is that Gollop's early references to PP being Paradox-like strategy game, is that with DLCs they plan to work on, and expand the base game as well. However, considering that previously fix bugs reappeared for 1.0 release, because of lack of time to refix them, doesn't inspire confidence in Snapshot team gaving enough man power to support and expand the game. Still, as a backer, there is nothing for me, but wait and hope for the best. The air-combat DLC is something that could tie to faction map movement. We will see. I have been thinking about the game, ever since I stopped playing, and I think my singular biggest design complain is lack of system interaction - any good systemic game needs systems to interact with each other, creating predictable but interesing results and allowing for player expression. That is part of UFO that Firaxis remake ditched almost entirely, in favour of more gamey/controlled experience. What most disappointed me with PP, is that in spite of core complicated mechanics (inventory system, ballistic system) I can't say I have seen the game provide more depth then FiraXCOM. Ballistic system alone, is something the entire game should be built around, and I don't think that is the case. Sure, bullets are traced, but I didn't see much when it comes to interesting decisions to make or interactions. There are nice things about this system, like individual bullets being accounted for, but other then that, the game seems to be designed with the same depth of interaction as FiraXCOM. The individual part system didn't impress me either, and I found FiraXCOMs (or at least LongWar) implimentation of skills like suppression, flashbangs etc. to be a more effective decisionmaking process, then what body part to shoot. What I have been also missing, is a choice of items that would allow us to expand our strategies. Where are shields or deployable covers? Smoke granades? Items to allow traversal, beyond jetpack (you could have stuff like grappling hook, to allow characters to create their own climbing spots, as building are limited when it comes to enterances)? Breaching charges, mines. With flexible inventory system, there is so much once could do, to take full advantage of game's systems.

It’s unlikely, as it didn’t do very well. It is also Paradox’s game, so it might make more sense to ask them about such possibility. Obsidian doesn’t own rights to the IP.

That explains lack of videos

I have been using it for a while now, and I found it useful to keep a track of all the games I want to play on all the launchers I am using. I don’t use social features so can’t comment on that - it does seem to have an ability to see friends from other platforms as far as I can tell. achievemnts from other platforms I use important nicely, and since the most recent updates multiple copies of the same platform combine into one - unless there is a difference in release: like gog and steams XCOM:EU copies.

New Bioshock in production: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/12/09/new-bioshock-announced/

Sure. When it comes to cover, I find it frustrating how inconsistent it is, regarding what you can do, and see from it, or even what is treated as cover. Plenty of assets, which I would expect crouch behind, aren't crouchable, some cover you can crouch behind, but it will cover your sight-line, from some full cover you can't step sideways. You will be able to side step from one side of the door, but not from the other. Sometimes I will be told I will have LoS of the enemy from certain position, but then the character will crouch, and he doesn't have a sight line. And unfortunately, you have to rely on UI, as unless you move to the position and free aim, you don't really know if you get a good shot. It happened to me that I got line of sight indicator, and moved to cover, then activated Quick Aim, only to find out, that all I can see if a rock in front of me, because LoS lied to me (it didn't take crouch into account?) and couldn't preview line of sight, because without spending will manual aim view was unavailable. There isn't even a way to tilt a camera to previewiew it manual, and even so, it would be incredibly tedious to do. It seems like I have to learn individual interaction with each individual asset, but even so, I found some assets behave differently. For example, there is white, thin, two full cover piece on Synedrion's map, that provied two cover spots, but then on another map, it seemed to not generate alligned with the grid, giving one full cover, without an ability to step sideways - and it wasn't a clearly visible change - and not intentional either, I don't think. I learned to simply not rely on being able to shoot from cover, and use flexible AP system to shoot before hunkering down, but that's not always possible, especially when trying to overwatch. But that's bypassing game's pretty major problems - if cover system wasn't implimented what so ever, and player had a manual control over stance (ala. 96UFO) it would make sense. But PP clearly wants to ape 2012XCOM, but didn't deisgn assets to provide clear and undestandable information. There is stuff I can accept as semi-intentional - like trees and rocks, providing good defensive position, but horrible offensive position due to being tall, and treated as half-cover - but so many assets behave differently dending on which side of it you are, or how it spawned on the map. Overall, I find the process of playing PP similar to early 3D platformers, where most of the difficulty was revolving around fighting the camera, not the actual game. Then, Synedrion maps, in general, with curvey design, in a grid based game, making it full of useless small obstacles, and windows which you can see through, but characters can't. Doors are just incredibly fiddely - sometimes if you move to a cover to the side of the doors, the door will open, but sometimes you have to move in front of them. Why they didn't just steal XCOM's way of doing doors is beyond me. Also sometimes closed door wouldn't be visible when free-aiming, making me shoot them, instead of the enemy I was aiming at.

I don’t believe they can. Cover and line of sight would require ground up redesign with assets created with gameplay in mind, rather then creating assets and then trying to implement it into gameplay. Synedrion maps are horrific. that’s my main reason for postponing playthrough. If I thought in the end it could be the game it would keep playing, I would stick around and provide feedback. But I believe I will give it only one full playthrough, so I prefer for it to be as complete and patched as possible. Maybe it will turn around, most likely it will not.

Okey. I am done with it for now. Spend a solid 10 hours reporting bugs, and complaining about Line of sight, cover problems and door problems. I am putting PP on hold. I can’t see it being able to bypass design issues it is struggling with, and I don’t expect to give it more then one playthrough, so I will wait for the game to be more complete and functioning.

I am not aware of a possibility of moving games inbetween accounts once they have been redeemed. There is family sharing, where you can share library between computers, as long as you don’t use it at the same time. there was also a french ruling that digital games should be allowed to be resold: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/09/19/steam-should-let-users-resell-games-french-court-rules/

You can absolutely get a PC which will run games better (60+ FPS) in a higher resolution, with higher quality graphics. However, there will be a drastic difference in price. Whenever I am eyeing a new PC, an estimated price seems to hang around £1000, not including accessories, and that’s aiming at 1080p. Outside performance I like PC for its flexibility: my personal favourite genres play best with mouse and keyboard, which easily makes it the best pick for myself. But you can plug into it whatever you want - joystick, fighting sticks, driving wheels, etc. And you have a massive backlog of games to play. Add to that modding. in addition, even with weaker machines you have an option to tweak graphic settings, which is a blessing. Frame rate is important to me, and I am happy to sacrifice resolution, postprocessing or effects for smooth 60FPS.

Oh, I thought I removed the signature... it doesn’t show on my screen anymore. Yeah, recently I cleaned my imgur’s Deadfire backlog, and accidentally erased the imagine I was using for for the signature.

I like spending more time in one place in a game. A good city is the one which has you coming back to it. It should be a fairly save, populated space, with a dark underbelly. Quests should weave through it. A decent choice of companions recruitable for adventures. On a most basic level it can be just a hub you come back to: shops, companions, NPC to talk to, stuff to store. Ankathla is great, as unlike PoEs don't have a mobile keep - you are likely to have a keep there, and companions will return to tavern. Cities are also a convenient way of delivering multiple quests - be it by giving a wide choice to start with, or setting scripted encounters as Devs know you will come back to it. I prefer if we get to the city early on, with stuff we can't afford, and possibly not all districts welcoming the newcomer. A city can be a nice reflection of our progress throught the game as we move from doing jobs for randoms in the tavern, to dealing with kings.

I rarely find snap aim useful. I tend to free-aim everyshot, and I found it fairly reliable. Not really. First load is a bit longer but afterwards it seems within reason. I am yet to get ambushed. I don't know what determines that. Now when you mention that - no.

Yes. Overall, be it inventory or base management, it feels rough, and as if it were not final. As originally after Backer Betas Phoenix Point was to be Early Access title, I do wonder if this release is an Epic funded EA. I do hope so, as it needs some work. True, especially XCOM1 got away with murder, with switching elevations not working properly, enemy teleportation etc. However, in a short time I spent with Phoenix Point I enountered enemies stuck within a cover, some inconsistancies with cover, a seethrough glass not being see through, and a game hung up on me on enemy turn and had to restart a mission.