Wormerine

Oh, I am saving this one.

Uh, I think this is “let’s agree to disagree” situation, as I found Tyranny injury system to be awful, unenjoyable and intuitive. Giving you health-pool and then punishing when you utilise it, was just annoying. Endurance, on the other hand, have damage through multiple encounters some meaning (not deep meaning, but similar to per-rest casting - in PotD I found I run out of spells about at the same time my tanks were running low on health), and it elegantly made it impossibly to infinitely heal my tanks during tricky encounters. Never run into issues you mentioned, though it might be due to me comprehending the idea quite quickly - I found it to be a clever middle ground between BG2 and respawning-after-knockout KOTOR. Deadfire injuries are just kinda pointless. It’s rare to gain one (unless one runs into a trap) and removing them is just a matter of a button press. Though that’s a problem those game struggle with. Yhh, now thanks to @Boeroer I will dream of PoE/DarkSoul hybrid.

Sure. Though working hard to shake off Obsidian's notorious tag of releasing broken games is a sensible one. I enjoyed playing NV years after release, and with community patch, but I hear it wasn't all smooth sailing. I wouldn't discount such areas as PoEs dungeons though - Fort Deadlight, Roderick's Keep etc. Though, those are areas which are reactive to what wants to do, rather then our character builds, which is slightly less impressive. It might be that Robert Space Industries is sucking dry all the yearly quota of design irresponsibility.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/11/25/no-cyberpunk-2077-hasnt-confirmed-microtransactions-in-multiplayer/

Meh, so far I feel about Multiplayer for C77, same way I feel about Gwent. Not a good news, but I wonder what that means about nature of C77 multiplayer. If it will be like GTA5 multiplayer (aka, addition to single player experience) that I do take issue with it. If they release it as a stand alone, Free to play thing - then sure, whatever. Do we know what the multiplayer is? PvP? Cooperative campaign of single player?

25H-40H game. I can't say if you should/shouldn't. Those are two different types of game. I for one, didn't manage to get 5h of fun out of Borderlands2, before getting bored with it, so maybe it would work for you.

That's Cyperpunk Multiplayer though, right? Not Cyperpunk2077 single player? I am not following the C77 news closely, but mutliplayer was supposed to be released sometime later, no? Still, not a happy news.

I like having a home, or a HUB. Neketaka, or Athkatla are a brilliant thing to have. Think you return to, shop, hand in, and get new quests. A busy, living metropoly. Cities in PoE1 were pretty bad overall - to make a big city work one needs to have a lot of things going on there, and a reason to return there. Perhaps we simply prefer our games differently. I thought a lot of PoE1 locations were problematic. Guilded Vale, for example, had little to no content. It was for the most part an empty map, which we would leave behind with no reason to return to. On a side note, Roderick's Caste is not a city - it's a dungeon. Dyrford Village was probably my favourite in PoE1 - with a nice vilalge feel (everyone knows about everything), and at least couple loops through the village (initial visit, trip and likely return from ruins, and loop, when searching for the missing daughter of the noble). I loved coming in and out of Neketaka, and finding something new to do with every visit. I never tried to "clear it" though. Get enough quests to warrant a trip out, do that stuff, return, explore more, do some stuff in the city and venture out again. I saw many people complaining that they are stuck in Neketaka, but I think it is misunderstanding how this game is to be played. I don't think Cities have to be big though. My favourite HUB in PoEs is still Stalwart, which is small and detailed. I love the feel of it, and how interconnected everything is. Being able to see it develop in WM2 was pretty great as well - that's something many games aspire to, but usually don't reach. A small scale of Stalwart was probably a good thing in that respect. EDIT: A good city is what Outer Worlds is missing for me. The Groundbreaker is nice, but again, it's a nice single trip and afterwards it's a static, dead place. Fine for a dungeon, but not for a place where people live. Byzantium was just empty.

Do you though? Perhaps, we disagree on what those difficulty settings means to us, personally. Here are my expectations: STORY MODE - I don't want to learn combat, I want to maw my way through encounters with little to no coherent imput from me EASY - I want to engage with combat, but don't want to be punished too hard for my mistake. Make me feel when I am playing wrong, but don't stop my progress NORMAL - I will have to learn how to play the game to succeed. There will be encounters which will be a challenge, and I will have to learn how the game works to proceed. Building a well optimised party is encourage but not required. VETERAN - I am experience player in this genre and in this series. I know the mechanics. I build competent parties, and characters with decend synergy. I know how to customise my equipment. In this setting a well build party will be put to the challenge. PATH OF THE DAMNED - I know very well how this game works. I beat and analysed the systems, I know how to exploit systems and like doing it. I know enemies I will be facing. I want to build the most OP builds I can think of, and I want those builds to be challenged. EDIT: None of those, of course, assume playing solo, or controlling only one character. As this is a party based game, I assume them to be tuned with a party of 5 in mind, with levels NORMAL-PotD assuming I do pay attention to what my characters are doing - either by micromanaging it, or setting up detailed AI systems.

Does Obsidian play it safe, though, outside perhaps Outer Worlds? I wouldn’t call PoEs safe.

Yeah, I am pretty sure you can’t access that screen outside world map. Hey, a real RPG, even in patched content. PS. Glad to see you too use the font ligatures. Josh would be happy.

Meh, RPG is only as good as it's city. Hubs are great.

Nothin. I was a nice guy. Well, aside from killing people myself.

Yessssssssssssss!!!!!!! Please.

A bit over a week to go.

Not meaningless, as you won the battle and can move forward. I do get what you mean though. I just don't feel this is a design, which fits the strcture of the game. P:K has time passing buy, which means resting from skill drain isn't without consequence - which is potentially good, though I didn't venture deep into the game to know if it's done well. From what I have seen it was already a problem (played opening chapter only, till gaining your own land) as I would spend time traveling into the area only to discover that I didn't have required items or it was too high for my level: which meant reloading. So far I did find P:K tedious and not respectful to my time. I am glad to read that there was a spell to protect myself from draining. Sounds like very IE mechanic, in a bad way. It's a pain in the ass, until you cast this one particular spell, which makes it a none issue. That is not a good, interesting or indepth design to me. Fighting vampires in IE doesn't have depth or consequences. You just need one spell to make their ability not take an effect. Fighting mindcontrolling vampires in PoE2 on the other hand, did provide tactical challenge which can be counter in multiple different ways, and doesn't require foreknowledge. I love my roguelites and roguelikes (ADOM2 in production!), but I don't believe that IE structure supports that type of "consequence". Spend too many spells in a battle? Go to sleep without a consequence. Get your levels drained? Cast restoration. Don't have it memorized? Go to sleep and cast it. Can't memorize it? Use scroll. Don't have a scroll? Treck back to the temple and get healed. None of those are consequences to me - just annoyances, which either will make me waste gaming time, or reload. PoE to me cut the unnecessary fat, appropriate to the game's overall structure. Darkest Dungeon or XCOMs? Sure, characters getting handicapped or killed fits the game. PoEs? Not very much.

Oh, man you missed a whole lot of first rate memes.

I am not aware of such possibility, but it doesn’t mean it does not exist. I don’t quite remember what the message is when you try to use the book on-land, though is am pretty sure it didn’t include the scripted interaction screen. You might have managed to piss Woedica off. Congratulations, Sir ;-) Too bad the book still responds after usual trigger points.

Well, it is called Path of the Damned. It was slightly too much for my personal enjoyment, but I see it as indication that it was finally tuned right - I would consider myself a Veteran player, and I found DLCs on Vet to be just right. As to HP bloats, I am afraid it comes with new per-encounter system: you want to make players in late game think about what they cast? Well, you have to send them against waves of enemies, or give enemies enough HP to let them burn through their spell casts. But then there is also Ancestor’s Memory/Salvation of Time to break it anyway.

Ha! Sorry for that. I just had this idea while playing Elite (new tutorial is the most fun I had in this game to date. Voice acting!), and felt a need to write something, so I searched for a topic which would do ;-), as I didn’t want to start a new one just for my wishmaking.

I agree, though I think IE Games by their very nature are rather game-y and artificial. Many issues those games struggle with come from adapting system build for an entirely different experience. In PoEs one thing that does bother me, and it sort of feeds into buff/not to buff discussion, is how little gameplay overlap/interacts between three gameplay planes: exploration, conversation, combat. Even in character building systems combat skills and social skills are separated (with some little overlap: some abilities scaling with social skills, class unlocking new conversations). I think Deadfire improved in that regard but it is far from being elegant, or consistent. I generally find that if systems feed into each other (strategic&tactical layers of 96X-COM) or use same mechanics on different gameplay planes (think how Arkham Games gadgets are all used for exploration/combat/stealth) games feel more natural and unified, even if they are heavily abstracted. That is I think what Divinities do much better, with skills and abilities being used for both exploration and combat. this is also were BG had an advantage - spells could be used for both exploration (find traps) and combat, making rules consistent throughout the experience (even if rules didn’t lead to great gameplay IMO).

Did you open it on sea? Due to technical limitation it only works on the world map.

I must buy a new joystick one of these days. I gave away my old one when I moved after University. I played kinda backwards: (X-Wing: Alliance>Freespace1&2>Wing Commander4>3>1). There was something special about the WG1. I am quite bummed out that Space Citizen ended up as this massive MMOish pipe dream. I would happily settle for a single player campaign. As it is, I doubt anything of it will end up being great.

Well, considering Outer Worlds is Fallout in space, comparing the two isn't a silly things to do. OW is exactly a budget, less mechanicaly and content rich but more stable Fallout: New Vegas. [shrug]

I have returned, most likely for a very brief time, to Elite Dangerous. And you know what I would like to play? A space RPG. Just flying around in a compelling universe, upgrading and tinkering with my ship, talking to fellow pilots, people on stations, doing quests, adventuring. those sandboxy flight sims always intrigue me, but I find full space sims either dull, or incredibly over complicated. I do love my combat sims like Wing Commmander, Tie/X-Wing, and most of all Freespaces. But an RPG approach to the subject could fulfill the fantasy in a manageable way. No on ground stuff: you an on ground exploration, you get much more areas to produce, new control and gameplay systems to make. Maybe something like in a Freelancer would do, to allow us to talk face to face. It could also be a space for unkillable NPCs - everything in the space is your territory, up landing on station or planet is a neutral ground. Mostly just us, a ship we care for, factions fighting for control, and some dark alien intrigue to uncover.