MortyTheGobbo

That's easy. How many party members there are is a creative decision. So it's not up to us and I find the discussions about it as pointless as the discussion here. If that decision affects gameplay, you can complain about that. Bad gameplay is not a creative decision. But it's up to the devs to decide how to solve that problem. Same for stealth. The stealth system hasn't much to do with creativity. Other than the writings of the characters. You could argue, that romances are just another subsystem, but even viewing it that way kills creativity instantly. See it more as a hypertext novel or something. You wouldn't want to interfere with the writing of a novel, wouldn't you? Like telling Mark Twain to not use the word ****, because it offends you? It wouldn't be the same book anymore. Of course are discussions and demands not the same. But statements like: If the game does not have this or that, I feel offended, are just stupid. Pointing out that Lovecraft was a racist **** is totally valid. But demanding that he should not write like that or discussing in a forum how nice it would be if he wouldn't is pointless (Even more since he is dead ). So why don't we concentrate on constructive things? In the case of romances: Instead of telling those people what to do with their creative content, why don't you make proposals on how to implement it. Or better: Don't make proposals. Discuss previous implementations of such a system and what went wrong there. I for one am more interested in how such a thing could be implemented in a way that does not feel like clicking through a lot of dialogue and triggering if-conditions than in the question if Pallegina would **** with me. Okay, so you're essentially moving the goalposts and drawing arbitrary lines in order to keep telling people what they're allowed to discuss and how. It doesn't matter if something is a "creative" decision. If Obsidian were to move towards stark good and evil lines in Deadfire, rather than murky morality, it'd be a creative decision. It's their story, their characters and their world, right? But I'd call it a bad decision and I would not hesitate to do it. Nor would a legion of other people. Saying that including romances, but not including any same-sex ones, sends a particular message is not being "offended". It's making an expectation of a game. You can disagree with it, but trying to paint it as silly people getting offended over nothing, and dredging up irrelevant controversial issues, is pretty low. We have been concentrating on constructive things for most of this thread already, discussing if and how same-sex romances should be included. Including using previous attempts at such systems as examples... which got people mad, because BioWare is bad. How is that not constructive?

Of course they can do what they want. It's their thing and your expectiations dont matter. You don't have to buy it. Seeing everything as a product is a sickness. Is Game of thrones a product? No, it's a book, it's Martins story and if he had no interest in finishing it, nobody has the right to force him. Do you think if James Joyce had written Ulysses in a way his potential "customers" would have liked, anyone would give a **** about that book today? If you want to see computer games as an art (which a lot of people claim they already are), than you have to trust the ****ing artist and dont interfere with his or her ideas. If you knew how to make a computer game you would do so, wouldn't you? But you dont. Going by this "reasoning", we might as well shut this whole forum down. Because who are we to talk about how we'd like (or not) to have a five-person party, a walk toggle or a better stealth system, just to pick a few examples from the front page? Or we can realize that saying how we'd like the game to have something, or even saying the game should have something, isn't the same as demanding anything.We're not sending them angry emails, we're discussing on their own, official message board.

Algroth, Beyond The Sea and I, among others, were discussing the inclusion, or lack thereof, of different kinds of romances. Romances from BW games were used as examples, mostly in terms of approach. If anything here is a personal attack, I'd say it's storming in and demanding everyone shut up. I haven't attacked anyone, nor have I felt attacked, until that point. I understand not liking games by a particular developer, but the degree to which BioWare seems to set people off is... odd, to say the least. As far as "demands" go... fandoms have certainly become teeth-shatteringly obnoxious and supremely entitled nowadays. But let's not swing the other way and act like developers can just do whatever they want and no one can judge them. They put forward a product, and people will have expectations of it. Fair or otherwise. Desiring that they handle inter-character relationships a certain way is no different than desiring that they don't reduce party size to 5.

I'm sorry that this surprisingly constructive discussion offends you so much.

This is one of those things I hope Deadfire is a lot more transparent about.

The setting is going to respond to it in a variety of ways. Maneha is clearly comfortable enough to be openly gay in the Dyrwood. Vailian Republics probably don't look as kindly on it. But either way, a same-sex romance doesn't need to involve homophobia, or other societal reactions to it, to justify its existence. It just needs to be well-written... which I feel goes without saying. Of course we want it to be well-written. No more and no less than a straight romance is. I mean, can you imagine people's reaction if we got a same-sex romance with the same level of "quality" Elanee's romance had in NWN2?

It never ceases to amaze me just how fragile some people's immersion is.

I also lean towards DA:I's approach, but I also understand the point of people who prefer to be able to romance anyone with any character. At the end of the day, you're not going to satisfy everyone, so you just need to make sure you properly handle whichever approach you choose. It's also a good point that romance isn't required for non-straight characters to exist in the game. I'm not sure why we're assuming Deadfire is a lock for having same-sex romances of some sort. Personally the approach of having enough variety to cover a diversity quota only goes so far, as while it's better to have it than not to it doesn't by itself guarantee the romance will be interesting, engaging or at all worth investing time to implement. To me, honestly, the question falls to whether they have an interesting idea or dynamic driving a relationship - if they don't, and want to write in a same-sex relationship just because "there needs to be one", I'd say not to bother. What difference is there between writing a straight romance and a non-straight romance? Either way, you decide that yes, this game is going to have romantic/sexual plots of some sort. Once you've decided that, what's the reason for not including non-straight plots? They don't need any more of a reason to be there than heterosexual ones, and that reason has already been satisfied.

Whinging about smaller party size aside, I'm definitely down for more customization of the ranger's pet. In Pillars, we just pick its type, and then there's a few abilities and talents.

For the specific "backstab" ability, fast weapons are indeed inferior, since you only get one hit this way. Not to mention how hard it is to actually trigger it without using another ability (Shadowing Beyond). I'd agree that it's an oversight. Minor, maybe, but it's still weird when a dagger or stiletto isn't a good weapon for this.

Stealth in Pillars was pretty poor, but it didn't really affect my rogue. I certainly don't want to have to use stealth to play the class. Mind you, I'm not very hyped up about stealth in Deadfire. I've never seen good stealth outside of dedicated stealth games.

That is true, unfortunately. Although, credit where it is due - Andromeda has since added Jaal as an option for a male Ryder. So they're at least willing to listen to feedback. Still, I was thinking more about Dragon Age: Inquisition, where Cullen and Josephine seem to be full-sized romance options, a straight man and bisexual woman respectively. I've never tried them, but they seem to have their share of content and be fairly popular.

As I've mentioned before, five of the classes will be getting more active abilities to use in combat. Three of them, the "classic" casters, will be more incentivized to use their abilities in every battle, instead of saving their daily spells for more important ones. This is going to increase the number of moving parts each battle. Baldur's Gate had six party members at a time, but warriors and thieves ran on automatic even more so than they do in Pillars. You picked their targets and forgot about them.

I've heard a rumour that Eder was originally meant to be a rogue, but he was changed to a fighter because the party lacked a durable frontliner in the early game, unless the Watcher was one. Both fit him, really.

Kinda off-topic: Karkarov's post made me think of something. In Baldur's Gate 1, the paired-up companions were fairly annoying. It made perfect sense in-character - Khalid and Jaheira are married, Minsc is sworn to protect Dynaheir, and so on. But it really limited party composition. in Pillars, this would be perfectly viable, due to the party roster model. You can recruit everyone, and swap them out at your home base or an inn. But... I can't remember any RPG with this kind of setup doing it. The only exception I can think of is Mission and Zaalbar, in KoToR 1.

ME3, DA:I and Andromeda all include romance with non-teammates. To varying degrees of success. But they're there. I kind of get the impression Deadfire won't do it, but who knows. As far as likes/dislikes of a given companion being kept track of... if someone wants to game the system, they will. Even if they don't have a journal entry for what makes a companion tick, they can keep track of it themselves. Or look up guides online. Conversely, if someone is dedicated to role-playing and picking what suits their character, they'll still do it. So I don't think obfuscating things to make it harder to game the system is worth it.

...did you play ME3? Couple "companions" only role in that game was to be romancable, Also did you read my post? My problem is not with romance itself, but how much it limits who your companions can be - they personal problems, history, age, status. If all/most of them are designed so you can choose to date them, it really limits who they can be. If you create only one or two romancable companions your are bound to disappoint some people. Whatever, it will be what it will be. I have played ME3, and I have read your post, thank you very much. And no, it's no less erroneous than it was before. You have no proof that someone like Durance or Sagani wouldn't be possible in a game with intra-party romances... perhaps because that's a completely groundless concern. Sagani is spoken for - just like Varric or Vivienne in DA:I. Durance is... well, he's Durance. I can't see him in a BioWare game, but that has nothing to do with romance, or lack thereof. I don't know which companions in ME3 are supposed to have been added just for the sake of romance. I suspect you mean Steve Cortez and Samantha Traynor. Which, again, you have no proof for. Besides, who cares? They're decent characters, and pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. And, once again, if "everyone wants to sleep with Shepard" was actually true, Vega, EDI and Javik would be romanceable. They're not. Which BW game might those "polyamorous pansexual romps" be found in, again? Since I'm kind of drawing a blank. Except for that one time with Isabela in Origins. BW romances have never been more than some extra dialogue and cutscenes. Whatever one thinks of that, the idea that whole games revolve around relationship drama is, once again, an overblown meme.

Bringing Maneha along was indeed what I needed. Just in case someone needs it later.

Right... except not everyone wants to bed Shepard (or the Warden, Hawke etc.), because there's more than a few of non-romanceable characters, and most of those who are prefer one gender. Fearing characters you can't romance won't be included is verifiably absurd. Furthermore, you can just... not romance anyone. I've done that in DA, ME and Jade Empire, with some characters. The non-romantic relationships with those characters remain compelling. Which, you know, they should be, since you can only romance one person at a time. BioWare's writing has its share of faults, but the "dating sim" meme is ridiculously overblown.

I had Eder, Pallegina, Aloth, Sagani and Durance with me this time around, and none of them had any input. Last time, I had Zahua with me, but he said he's proud to carry the memory of the Tacan with him, and thus undermined my point. I advised Maneha to let go of the memory, so that should work in my favour. I didn't let the Devil kill her quarry, and I've got no clue how that might work out here. The text file will be useful, though. Thanks. According to this, Devil's quest is relevant to the argument about history, where I was able to win without any input from companions.

I know, yes. What I'm specifically wondering about is the third argument line, about memories. I don't really have any options there. Nothing I've done previously seems to relate to that; just the MC's status as a Watcher. So bringing Maneha there might not be enough. Then again, when I make my argument, the Eyeless seem somewhat convinced, but then I have no follow-up. Having Maneha there might let me push through. I'll give it a shot.

Looked like they were just showing how it works, and she wasn't even in sneak mode. Plus, if she had moved to one corner, she'd be outside the hearing range. Oh... kay? They didn't show us much, but I am very much unconvinced by the very existence of shoplifting. Ye i think it seems like it could be fun but the extreme version of this was DOS for me where you can jack everything which was dumb. I felt like it ruined the economy and forced you into stealing even if you didnt want to roleplay a character like that so you could buy stuff. It seemed like the devs had to make everything really expensive in DOS to account for players that wanted to steal everything. Then if a player didnt want to steal stuff you were stuck not being able to make money to buy things. So as long as its doesnt seem necessary it could be fun. I'm assuming DOS means Divinity Original Sin. And yes, that's what the problem usually is. If shoplifting works, it can break the economy. If it doesn't, well, what's even the point? I will hold out hope they'll find a way to make it work. And that refraining from it won't punish us.

I am very sceptical of the shoplifting feature. I can't remember a game where it worked well. Either it's useless, or it can get you tons of items for free. And it encourages save-scumming.

So, it's the second time I face the Eyeless (and by proxy, Abydon), in an argument. Last time, I could only win one of the debate threads. This time, I managed it with two. The one about some knowledge being best forgotten, and about history being a burden. But I don't have many options in the one with memories not always being a boon. Has anyone managed to convince them on that front? Maybe reloading and bringing Maneha to the final battle might help me. I convinced her to rid herself of the memory of her past life.

I just really like the easy CC of Hours. But I've already used Durgan steel on Tidefall, so I guess I'll stick with it.