SonicMage117

In reply to the comment which reads "You're born a ginger just like you'reborn a homosexual. You can't pretend" Nonsense. You're not "born" heterosexual or homosexual. It's a choice, always has been. You can literally switch anytime you so please (unless you do not believe in Free Will but that would just be silly). To the person making a switch, they may be confused about these "new" feelings but that doesn't make them any less real the ground they walk on.

Nice trailer! Though nothing really "New" for us who have followed the game closely. Thank God that romances are more quiet, they made the right decision. That said, hopefully this thread doesn't become all about disappointment in romance options. We all basically knew this was coming since Josh said he wasn't a fan of romances from the beginning.

Expect some surprises that will keep you and your crew on your toes. I can't talk about them yet (because I haven't played the game).

I wasn't saying that you guys pat yourselves on the back after finishing PoTD, it's not a negative thing so please don't take it as one. However, it's hard to believe that people here say they don't feel some sense of accomplishment and attachment any less than someone who enjoys lower difficulty of the game just for the story. There's really no such thing as seperation of players based on difficulty they play on. Since we're quoting, I'll quote myself: I like PotD much better than all the other gameplay modes in PE, because of the decline in difficulty around Defiance Bay. Even following an appropriate playthrough, you'll outlevel content pretty quickly, and levels really matter in PE. Not only that, but I enjoy the tactical difficulty of increased mobs more than the increased stats of mobs. When I started playing PotD, I really learned the value of hybrid characters. That mage in cloth armor is faster, but speed doesn't matter much to the dead. That pure-tank fighter can take on a dragon with relative ease, but the far more numerous xaurip swarms flow right around him because he can't deliver a real hit. Once you figured out the tactics, Pillars on normal was a faceroll until the ardra dragon. Get a mage, cast slicken, kill, repeat. Get a mage, cast confusion, repeat. Most of the people who had problems either don't pause the appropriate amount, or use master blaster wizards and pure tank fighters. With a ranger, mage and a druid, you had enough summons to achieve numerical superiority really easily. On PotD, the situation is always more dire. Your frontline will frequently be out-matched and overrun. It forces you to adapt. Maybe you give the mage boots of speed and leather armor, turning him into a hit and run character. Maybe your monk learns to harry kited enemies. Maybe your fighter ditches the shield for good. Maybe your cipher makes enemies tank themselves, or uses weird tricks to keep a ton of buffs up. Etc. On PotD, tactical decisions matter more, which makes the game more interesting. Thanks for the answer. I think your response answered my question best. You've basically listed all the major differences from other difficulties instead of just saying "It's a preference thing" you broke it down to explain how the enemies strategy and behavior is rethought (instead of the damage just being buffed). As for me, I played Pillars 1 in Classic and will likely play Deadfire in Classic, the difficulty and change if a.i revamp doesn't bother me, it's just the risk of time loss. Dying and dying to defeat a boss for me, personally like in say, a Final Fantasy game for a hundred times just doesn't seem rewarding, fun or challenging at the end but just annoying but that is just me.

"What's the purpose of defeating a greater challenge?" "It's fun and the feeling of victory is greater" "In other words: You are proud of yourself for that sense of accomplishment, I know the feels"

What is the point of playing any game on a harder difficulty? Some people find the extra challenge fun. First of all GoG has achievements if you use galaxy client. Odd question. Did you never play a game before? Most of them have scalable dificulty settings to best fit players preference. What is the reason that people created mods for Baldur's Gate2 to make it more challenging improving on AI and enemy composition? As I mentioned, a greater challenge makes for a more involving experience as it requires a more active involvement from the player and thus it urges him to invest more (which, in my experience at least, also translates to more empathetic/emotional investment). And again, people find the challenge fun. It's up to each person separately, some enjoy the greater challenge whereas others do not. It's the challenge of playing on the hardest difficulty. Surely you understand what's appealing about that. Also, once you get used to POTD, the other difficulties are a little too easy. Sure the Steam Achievement is nice, but it's not really the main thing. None. It is a fun thing. Besides it breaks my immersion when the Great Dragon of All Evil goes down without me at least sweating a bit. These games typically take me 100+ hours to finish. I won't do it if it is a boring cake walk. So... Basically it's like I said, I pride thing (I did it). I did not say there's anything wrong with it lmao Okay, so no real benifit at all then. Thanks for all the answers. I do not like cake walks either but I definitely don't want to spend 100 hours on a game. As said before, I have kids ao I don't have that luxury. I love a challenge but nothing absurdly difficult and my backLOG is HUGE. So that's something. Edit: Yes, I too, play games on the more extreme difficulties... Vanquish for example, got my achievement for that. This doesn't have anything to do with me having a problem with harder difficulties, not sure where that came from. I was just wondering what the benefit was for this game when it's so many hours - more of me asking if it's worth it than a "Why would you?" kinda thing. The difference for me is that the games I play on extrene difficulties are short so therefore, less time consuming. Thanks for all the answers

Besides achievements (which GoG will nt have), what are the real benefits of playing harder difficulties on a game like Pillars & Deadfire? Is it just a pride thing? Or is there an actual reward, like in game items or bonus content that is only unlocked through higher difficulty playthrough?

For me, never had a crash on mine but the game tended to currupt saves and quest-breaking bugs galore. I always saw Skyrim and Fallout 4 being touted as some of the buggiest games in recent years in reviews. Is this wrong?

It really isn't, because there aren't that many regulars that are actually active. We are just a small cult, if anything. So it's safe to say that we're like 2% of the Pillars playerbase, most don't even care about commenting on a forum. I've got 826. 300 hours here I have 800+ on Skyrim! How did you deal with the bugs? Even the mods that fix bugs create bugs according to the feedback. I have 50 hours in Skyrim and 30 in the Special Edition.

Hmmm.. well, let's break it down, shall we? -How long does it take to beat PoTD for a first time player? -How much knowledge does a veteran have to have to know what they're doing? -Is it benefitial in any way to play the harder difficulties? I'm a IE veteran and I love Pillars 1 but to me it's not worth the effort of putting in more time and effort. Too many other games on the list, when I beat one, I uninstall it and do not typically return for a 2nd playthrough. I'm also not the type to put in over 100 hours into a game, I've seen people with 400 hours for Pillars on record. That's a bit.... excessive for most, especially for a game like this.

Indeed. For GoG that must be like 85% lol but only since the user base there is so small (more casual rpg gamers here). PS4 must be around 2% even though only a very small amount of people bought and played it. I can't imagine that PS4 gamers took Pillars seriously when Divinity OS and Bloodbourne were calling their names.

Generally, people do not play games on the hardest difficulty - especially on the first time around. It's usually very time consuming so for those, like myself who have jobs, spouses and kids, this is a big No. Of course there are some games which Hard Mode isn't really that hard and they are an exception but for the most part, the short answer is a simple "No." I, personally, play games usually on the normal difficulty, beat the game and just uninstall it and move on. I have alot to choose from so I shouldn't get bored of switching off.

Same general thought here, PS4 and Xbox Obe really aren't that weak, I mean, they seemed bad when they first released but now we have better dev tools and when you see stuff like Horizon Dawn or Uncharted 4, I realize just how good the optimization can be and trick my eyes into it being just as good as a more powerful pc.

Second playthrough of Hollow Knight is going well, I've come to realize that even though my first playthrough was around 25 hours, I seem to have missed alot or maybe I just don't remember? There's alot of places that seem or feel new to me. Thus, seems like my second playthrough is completely different than my first playthrough. Worse thing is when you travel so far into a zone, lose your soul and currency, then you find the map salesman, who is asking for 70 for a map but you have a long way to go to get where soul is. Contemplating whether I should continue or move on to something else. I love the game, but I've fotgotten how tiring the backtracking is!

It's not that simple as some people tend to want to think, just because some people want to believe it, doesn't make it real. Without results, there is nothing. More importantly, just because a developer promises something and delivers it, doesn't mean they were right about what they meant or the term and how they used it. There's always the easy excuse of "Who cares? They accomplished what they said so why does anything else matters?" And yes, the game devs usually do deliver in their promises but that's not the argument here. We're talking about how developers see and use the word Spiritual Successor. It's actually more important that the majority of gamers believe. For me, I may have missed something, you see, I'm not too sure why people are trying to argue that artists have the right to make up a definition for a term which existed long before the industry of their field did. If we're being 100% transparent and honest here, there's no such thing as an artist or game dev being "right" about changing a definition based on their project. It doesn't make sense, even if we like/enjoy those devs or their project more than others. Hmmmm.... Let's see just how much damage I can do here. In csse anyone is interested, here is what Spiritual - The term "Spiritual Successor" actually means - for future reference: spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, yet features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material, thereby resulting in it being related or similar "in spirit" to its predecessor. - One example of a spiritual sequel resulting from legal issues is Dark Souls by From Software, inspired by Demon's Souls by the same studio. The rights for Demon's Souls, an exclusive title for the PlayStation 3, was held by Sony Computer Entertainment, preventing From Software from making a successor on other platforms, leading them to create a new property with similar gameplay mechanics for the Xbox 360 and other platforms.[ Another example is Perfect Dark, developed by Rare as a spiritual sequel to their licensed title GoldenEye 007. Rare had planned to develop a sequel to GoldenEye but lost the license as they were outbid by Electronic Arts. The developers still wanted to complete another spy-based title and developed Perfect Dark with a new story but with similar mechanics to GoldenEye. BioShock is one such example as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. System Shock 2 was the first title developed by Irrational Games, a studio founded by Ken Levine, and while the game was met with critical acclaim, it was considered a commercial failure. Levine attempted to pitch a sequel to System Shock 2 but their publisher Electronic Arts declined due to poor sales of System Shock 2. After several years and other projects at Irrational, as well as being acquired by a new publisher 2K Games, Levine wanted to develop a game with the free-form narrative of System Shock 2, which ultimately became the game BioShock. -Shadow of the Colossus was considered a spiritual successor to Ico by the lead director of both games Fumito Ueda; Ueda did not want to necessarily make the connection between the games one of a canonical narrative, but that both had similar narrative themes and elements that he wanted players to interpret on their own. -A more recent example of a video game spiritual successor is the 2017 game Yooka-Laylee, which is considered a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series. Yooka-Laylee was developed by Playtonic Games, which consists of former employees of Rare; the company that developed the games in the Banjo-Kazooie series. From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_successor From a definition standpoint, I feel that Pillars 1 was a spiritual successor to IR/IE games but I can see how some people wouldn't have (they already listed some valid points throughout the thread). Me thinks it's a ridiculous argument but then, I'm here so. Yes, now we are complete. Let freedom ring... As always, this is just ny opinion. Take it as a dot of saltiness and not a cup of hot boiling pepper. My opinion is to be trusted as it's clearly borrowed some mess of text from Wikipedia (whom is written by various forum uses so it's always right).

I don't need any croutons in my salad pal but I think it will be more exciting to some to find the worst bug in the game than the best thing about the game. Thats going to become an E-sport one day "Find the bugs". Obsidian, EA and Bethesda will be the top sponsors, of course.

Replaying Hollow Knight, this time going after the sub-sub quests and getting all items. If I remember correctly, the new expansion is around the corner and it's going to add more than what's already in the game.... And I thought the game was already open enough

Agreed. I do get the IE games experience from Pillars myself, at least more than any other game in recent years. My lame wall of text was just about game devs in general.

You're right, it's not a game-designing term. Authors of novels were using the term far before game devs and movie directors and producers. Realistically, the term "Spiritual Successor" only means exactly how it's displayed,there's no way to justify straying away from or manipulating such a simple easy to understand term. A game/movie/music/book/toyline albumn which captures or continues the very feeling of the project/product which inspired it. There is no plagiarizing in that, but plagiarizing is dependent only on how the consumer looks at the product they buy anyway. Is it not? For example, if a game in the future has a bald man with facial tattoos and a pet hamster, at least one person would undoubtedly claim "That's a total rip-off of Minsc and Boo" while most BG players will not care abd say "Clearly this character was inspired by Minsc and Boo but his story has subtle differences which makes for a completely different character" Who's really the more logical party? You guessed it, the second one. As far as how developer's percieve the term "Spititual Successor", well, let's be real here... Every developer has their own ideal of what the term means. Much like a barber who argues "My inch is different from your inch", it doesn't make the developer/artist right but it's not like we, as the consumers could ever convince them otherwise. Our wallets mean nothing against the pride. It really boils down to what or exactly how much we (as the consumers/players) are willing to accept of how loose a term is accepted. The subjectivity of any one such term could be argued into eternity but shouldn't. It's a bit different from arguing something like "2D sprites are as beautiful as 3D photorealism" because the ideas are set in stone and people cannot argue with such as it's visibly apparent while the term Spiritual Successor is accepted as merely an ideal of the inspiration and staff of which it stems. To end, the term seems to mean something different to game devs than it does to the rest of the world. Why is this? Maybe it's excused by Artistical freedom but again, straying away from the one true meaning as a means to justify "YOUR" outlook on what it is defined as does not make it right. This is no different than someone saying "The sky is pink because I believe it to be" when everyone else in the world sees it as blue. So never trust a game dev who says "Our game will be a spiritual successor..." because nobody knows what that will be exactly until you actually play the game for yourself. This is just my opinion, as always take it as a butterfly stroke and not a bee sting. I just wanted to point out the basics of progressive marketing in the modern industry. Admittedly, I've explained it very well if I do say so myself.

So catering to idiots for more money, even though the game got 3.3 mill more than what they needed. Don't defend them man, we are funding them so they can make video games for a living, they are living the dream, they could have least have kept the dream pure for more than one game. Greetings new member of our gracious cult! Do say, young pup, I admittedly do like your style. Hearken what I must say now... There is another variable to consider in which you may not enjoy but I shalt attempt to explain anyway to answer your question. You see, if we are being completely honest, most members here are actually casual rpg players. So with their input, one could rightfully and reasonably assume that they have manipulated Obsidian into doing this with the mindset of "It doesn'tmatter if you guys wanted to make a hardcore game, we paid and we want an easier game than Pillars 1. Our money, our say!" Which is, realistically, never a good thing. So, with that explained, I guess it's not so much defending Obsidian but shedding light on which the backers (excluding me of course) are to blame for shaping the game into being more and more different from ithe dev's original vision. If the game gets too dumbed down, it may be because Obsidian realizes that the majority of player base asked for it or... needed it - more likely the second one. Either way, the signs are not good. That is my official response on the matter, however, this is just a humble opinion based on the evidence seen and heard. Take it with a grain of saltiness and not a dose of toxic pepper-spray that you will no doubtly take it for anyway. Curious to see your next response... https://youtu.be/_WiwOojDTrs

Quite simple. Monkey see, monkey do syndrome. Deadfire: Monkey Island 2.0

Aliens and anal probes being integrated into the game, sadly wasn't a joke from the team. Also, expect Megaladons in the ocean too, as if we weren't facing enigh horrors in the ocean.

so we can empathise with the poachers when the mountain lions attack us on sight and we're forced to make them extinct digitally too? Also I just heard that the only way to get the Paladin Greatsword of Dragon Slaying +10 is to complete the in-game romance (though it's not too difficult if you win the dancing mini-game and buy Pallegina enough trinkets). No. It will be a pet. Who said anything about it being an enemy or hostile to the player?

This will be Obsidian's first bug-less on-time game. It will be marketed correctly at launch and sell more than Witcher 3, mark my words! Additionally, Obsidian may give each backer an in-game waifu to make up for their delay. This was brought upon by the romance threads, Obsidian hears our cries... Although they think it's a but middle school, they want to make fans happy. What? Not sold on Deadfire yet? Let me speak from the heart friends. Deadfire has none subliminal messages hidden in the game and politics has been removed completely because if what's going on in the world today. The point of the game is to bring gamers together, not separate them so the story change: Politics has been banned by Kyros. Lastly, to honor the Eastern Puma (which has officially been filed for extinction), pretty sure Obsidian will l integrate Mountain Lions or a creature resembling such into Deadfire. Now, I've learned so much on this forum these last couple weeks, and now respect worms who burrow under the ground from hungry birds. Anxious to hear everyone's adventures and experiences when the game launches on Christmas day.