Wormerine

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.

I think lore agrees with you.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire huh? Still, even if more people would back on kickstarter, rather then fig, how would that supposively translate to post release sales?

Or simply as a fairly simple, mainstream RPG this game was never supposed to be hard. Still I would find companion perma death annoying and save limitation annoying and food system pointless. None of those seem to be designed with the game in mind, as FPS doesn't lend itself well to team management, your options of controlling companions are rather basic. There is no mechanic which would spice things up without an ability to save at a whim, and I carried so much food and drink, and found beds everywhere, I doubt survival system would have any meaning.

Wow, it's weird to see Half Life game in HD.

Yup, all the things you mentioned make PoE IMO the best designed game of its kind. I don’t know what you mean by saving though. As far as I can remember you could save whenever, wherever you want. Outside combat, that is, but I don’t remember RPG ever allowing you to do that. BG certainly never did. I imagine issues are technical. Deadfire improved greatly on that front, but it is an issue inherent to a real-time game using stat&roll based system originally designed for turn based table top, no? I still found PoEs more transparent as any of the IE games, and probably that’s due to them being designed to be played that way. There is a reason why games designed for Real Time use fairly simple, reliable rules. I remember a friend of mine being happy about Deadfire releasing turn-based mode, saying: “no matter how much I try to pay attention, in the end it always comes down to me clicking on the enemy and waiting for my units to swing at him until either of us die”. I think, even looking at those forums, that there are very few people who can properly engage with such detailed system, in a Real-Time setting.

No clue. But even if we were to double or triple backer number that would still provide a respectable amount of additional sales. I remember there also being a report of people making multiple minor donations which would put grant rewards but would inflate backer number to unlock rewards. how it all translates to actual copies, I cannot say. Worth mentioning that Deadfire gathered more money then PoE1, with only 33614 backers, however half of that money came from fig investors (poor chaps). Whenever there is any actual useful data one could draw from it I have no clue. There are three conflicting conclusions I can think of, but I don’t think I have actual data to support any of them: 1) sequel got more money so interest was bigger? 2) less people backed overall, meaning that while investors hoped to make money based on PoE1 success, in actuality the customer interest was smaller 3) there was smaller but more passionate player base, and campaign while successful, most people interested in PoE2 jumped on the bandwagon during the campaign. I for one, moved from months after PoE1 release purchase, to day 1 backer.

Curious to see how Solasta will do. Not D&D setting, but D&D ruleset.

Aside from what you say, I think here is a lot of interesting stuff in there when it comes to RPG system, which others devs might want to look at. I don't think that adapting skill system would be a good idea: for one it requires a lot of dedicated writing, and talking skills work for Disco but most likely wouldn't work for most games. But I like that Disco skills don't only determine what our character can do or say, but what they see, hear, notice.

Well, there were less then 80k backers, while the game was supposively sell over 1,000,000 copies?

Well. major companies were too busy embarrasing themselves or releasing supposively good Battle Royale which I can't be bother with. Looking at the list Plague looks like the GOTY. There is still Phoenix Point coming out, so it has a chance to save the day, though it needs to be way way way better then what we have seen so far.

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.