wahmann1

Agreed. I'd like to just wake up on the ship as an option.

I noticed a few bugs here and there, but overall, I am very happy with my purchase. Great game!

System that procedurally generates levels to play and enemies to fight needs to be handcrafted. PoE would need to change completely tech for it to happen. Prerendered backgrounds don’t lend themselves too well to being randomised as they need to be designed, rendered, have walkable/line of sight and goodness knows what else done by hand. For my taste there is enough procedural generation to get my fill. Obs strenght lies in careful world design and storytelling, and it’s wise of them to focus on that. EDIT. Typos, Thanks autocorrect. I only partially agree. I think a list of random encounters that are handcrafted and plotted onto a terrain appropriate for character location would work quite well. You can run into a random encounter any time on the world map or they can populate previously cleared areas. Add new "random encounters" to the random encounter table when the world changes, too. (Kind of like the assassins that would hunt you down in PoE 1.) I would create a random encounter table that has increasing difficulty depending upon the roll and has modifiers that depend upon location (no need to modify for level scaling because that happens automatically, but you certainly could). Throw in an algorithm to slightly modify encounter makeup and don't make the random encounters too common and you can have some great variety. (Extra monsters are already procedurally generated on higher difficulties, so modifying monster count is easy.)

The lagufeth/huana relationship reminded me of a historical account of Columbus' party. They encountered relatively peaceful islanders (like the lagufeth) who described some cannibals (like the huana) that lived nearby and had captured and eaten some of their kin. The colonists enslaved or killed everyone, and ate an islander boy when their rations ran out. There might not have been a great deal of slavery going on before the Europeans arrived, but the islanders were killing and eating each other. It always struck me that the non-cannibals of the story were the real victims in the tragedy that was colonization, the cannibals were both bad guys and victims, and the Europeans were the bad guys. If deadfire was attempting a clumsy analogy, which I have no doubt was unintentional, the lagufeth would be the victims and the huana would be both victims and bad guys.

You are both right. Definition of Animal (1 and 3 include humans, 2 does not): noun 1. any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes. 2. any such living thing other than a human being. 3. a mammal, as opposed to a fish, bird, etc.

I like a game with both sorcerer and wizard, so I can choose. I thought POE1 was smart to bring in Wizards/Priests and Ciphers/Chanters to give you a per-rest and per-encounter option. I would have preferred if they differentiated even further in POE2, rather than go all in on per-encounter. I like per-encounter sometimes, but I also like per-rest sometimes. If they left Wizards as per-rest and switched priests to the way they have it now, best of both worlds, IMO. I would throw in a per-rest spell switch-up for priests, too, even though some folks complain about rest-spamming, because I don't care if somebody rest-spams. Leave Druids like they are in POE2. All different! Some people measure success by difficulty, some by gold, some by level, some by efficiency... we all have different ways of giving ourselves the satisfaction of winning in our own ways. Feeling like you "won" by conserving resources and resting less frequently doesn't hurt anybody else. Just play a Cipher with lots of scrolls if you want a caster who can do everything and never needs to rest. Slightly off topic, but I'd bring back health in the expert mode. I liked it, too.

> Does it really matter to anyone that their straight or gay romance is gay or straight when someone else plays? I think there are two issues for people here (I say for people because I personally don't care). The first is that writers want to write characters as individuals principally, which can possibly run contrary to arbitrarily making them bisexual in order to 'fit' male, female, gay or straight main characters. In other words a writer wants to write a romance because it feels natural to the character, not because they have to in order to fulfil a quota. Josh has said this several times I believe. The second is that some people feel that making any and all possible romances bisexual erases the visibility of under-represented sexualities. In other words people want representation specifically for gay romanceable NPCs. I guess the feeling is that crow-barring in gay romances isn't true representation. Also, some might say that it's unrealistic. That said I don't claim to fully understand the complaints about this particular feature so take this with a grain of salt. Edit: here, I found something which can probably explain it better than I can: https://www.out.com/popnography/2015/7/13/dorian-dragon-age-inquisition-why-gamings-breakout-gay-character-matters > Prior to Bioware's Dragon Age, games had occasionally featured LGBT characters, but in almost all cases, they were only queer if the player specifically made the choice that they should be. Dorian was the first major example of a character who could only be gay, after decades of characters who could only be straight. > "I suppose this aspect of Dorian will make him controversial in some corners, but I was glad to include it," series creator David Gaider told IGN in 2014. "It made writing Dorian a very personal experience for me, and I'm hopeful that will make him seem like a fully realized character to fans in the end." So you can see several things in this article, firstly that Gaider made a big point of the character's homosexuality being integral to his character rather than something that was simply bolted on for the sake of representation. Secondly you can see that it's a big deal for some people to have representation that is specifically for gay people. Make what you will of the rest of the article but the first half at least is instructive. --- Personally I don't give a flying **** if the character is gay, bi, or whatever, I just care if the character is well-written and aesthetically interesting. You seem to have an awful lot to say about a topic in which you have no interest. I would vastly prefer an efficient use of characters for romance purposes. I think it is pretty rare for a character's sexuality to be so intrinsic that making them romanceable by the main character regardless of gender would have an impact on how well-written the character is. I actually have a strong preference for a game designer that is as inclusive as possible. Even a stereotypical manly man can be gay and a stereotypical fabulous man can be hetero (or maybe even a lesbian trapped in a man's body). You lose very little in the way of aesthetics by making it so, as long as you play your own game and don't look over someone's shoulder as they play theirs to determine whether your immersion has been broken.

I favor critical path scaling. Better balance design in a game where you advance levels feels like railroading. Sometimes the "feels like" railroading is worse than being railroaded, but not feeling like it. Better design is by definition better, though.

Honestly there shouldn't have been a middle of the road answer. I don't understand why 20 people without an opinion bothered to vote. I will say I made a video with some ship to ship combat on it and it felt like most folks that took the time to comment didn't really like it. But I hasten to add I did a terrible job showing it off because it was my first time seeing it and of course the beta doesn't explain anything, so it was a bad first impression for all of us. I've since seen streams where Josh explained how it works and have come to like it a lot more, and have high hopes that the next time we see it the system will be much improved and a lot more fun. And of course, skippable if desired (even if you like it, maybe going through the motions every single time will get old after awhile in such a lengthy game). I didn't vote, but would have been middle of the road because it is below the standards I am hoping for now, just barely (so I could vote it down), but is close to what I want and I expect it will make it there (so I could vote it up).

Gotcha. I'm cool with that. The only companions that are party locks for me right now are Aloth and Eder. A pity they did not try and do anything unique with them but finding out the unique of the new companions will be interesting. On a side note I ran a shifter last night, but as fun as the constant transformations were, it plays very boring. You don't even get to use one of the five unique abilities more than once in combat. And once you've picked the wild claws you're done in terms of upgrading your shifting abilities. It's a shame. Contrast that with say the Stalker. There are tons of talents available to make a melee ranger a viable and fun alternative to your stereotypical ranged ranger. I played Eder in different play-throughs as an "unbroken," a "devoted" and a generic fighter. Because all of our saves are probably a little different, generic is the only way you can match Eder pretty closely to what we expect. I think an option of Fighter + Rogue works pretty well, but I probably would have made the other option Fighter + Priest (Eothas) instead of straight rogue, though I know there are legit reasons why that was not considered a good story option. Also, I bet there were plenty of play-throughs that had Eder as rogue-like even though I never did. I also never played Aloth as a gish, so his options don't feel right to me, but I'm sure they do to other folks; I actually played him a little like a rogue because he was my mechanician (not sure how common that was). That said, cipher seemed like a better option than rogue because they are also rogue-like and Aloth has that split personality animancy issue. While cipher is ripe for a unique class option, if it is only a multi-class, it is only a partial class. Accordingly, while I think any of us could tweak it a little to our tastes, the choices made seem like a valid design choice and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somewhat based on how we were playing them.

I know this isn't coming back because they were intentionally excluded, but random encounters: I love them. For deadfire, assuming you don't turn off random encounters in expert mode, you are just walking along and suddenly a random encounter screen pops up. If you aren't stealthy, the monsters already know you are there (and if you aren't perceptive, FINALLY the monsters get an alpha strike from stealth--the poor things never get to do that), but if you are stealthy, you can fight, steal, or leave as you wish. Or a random monster takes up residence in an area you previously cleared.

Right on. I just like my glass half full.

A better quality game than what? I think it is no sign at all. Almost every game I have ever followed has been delayed at some point. When games are delayed so often I find correlations hard to prove. But everybody who is not drawing conclusions is delusional? Based on what? Or is this some kind of joke? I think the claim that is some kind of hyped title suggest it is, because no way PoE 2 is hyped. The press cares but not much, and most of us just want a game as good as to the first game. A better quality game than the game that was originally in poduction. I'm speaking about buggy games that are delayed for bugs to be ironed about. True we don't know why exactly Deadfire was delayed but it's not far off to think it would be bugs. No, my comment isn't a joke and my comment wasn't aimed at anyone except for the people here comstantly defending the game. We don't really know if the delay is fir good reason, or if the delay will benefit the game so with that I cannot put in good faith for the delay but it is what it is. As to what exactly I'm comparing it to, I'm comparing it to every game in the industry that has been delayed for the reason of a developer and publisher saying the game has been delyaed for polishing. History has only proved that it never worked. Delaying a game hasn't really ever benefited a game, so many examples come to mind on this. Like Witcher 3, Uncharted 4, GTA 5, The Last of Us, and Bloodborne?

Polytheism is still a religion. It isn't. No polytheistic (is it a word?) society had a name for it. They didn't say "we are X", as they say now "we are christians" for example. There just were some gods doing stuff. There was no dogma, no official church. From Wikipedia: There is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.[1][2] It may be defined as a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophesies, ethics, or organizations, that relate humanity to the supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual. Now, back to the game!

I think switching all casters to the same model is a bad idea. Ciphers are already damage to get mana. Chanters are wait to get mana. IMO, Druids, Clerics, and Wizards should be distinguished, not made more like Ciphers, but can start with high "mana" that is consumed over the course of the combat. You could give Clerics one spell set that increases in power with level, so they only cast from one set of spells, but always at the highest available power level. Wizards could retain a rest mechanic in the sense they have to choose a spell for each level when they rest, which could not be changed, and have a per-level number of spell castings available; you could spam rest to get more variation, but not more power. (Wizards should probably have many more spells to choose from than other classes.) Leave Druids as is. I'm not saying these are the "right" choices, but just they provide some variation. Different players will have different preferences.

You're right. I jumped the gun.

Hm. No ship-to-ship combat. I guess some people will be happy with ship combat becoming melee. I'm a little sad, but it still looks cool. Edit: Nevermind. Looks like it is just an option to skip ship-to-ship combat. Best of both worlds!

Wow! I was going to respond, but you basically said everything I would have said, but better. I favor wizards, with rogues as a second choice.

If most players (including me) keep Resolve at neutral 10, it becomes a constant "attribute". Which would be equivalent with a removed attribute, except for the major unforseen consequences If "empower" (in quotes to mean it could replenish powers, boost powers, whatever--not being specific here) results in an OP attribute if you are in a fight for 10 minutes (probably less, just picking a number) and an underpowered attribute if you are in a fight for 10 seconds (again, just picking a number), then resolve becomes the important attribute for those who go for an attrition win in combat and a dump stat for those how like to resolve combat with alpha strikes. That's a good result. It also gives resolve an identity as the stat you want if your fights go long.

Was that 5 6th level spell options? I'm not sure I'm reading that screen right.

Uh oh. That doesn't bode well for the Unbroken/Monk!

I was having a look at the afflictions and icons used in scripted encounters and had a thought: What if the attributes were the primary colors (e.g., Might = Violet, Constitution = Blue, Dexterity = Green, Perception = Yellow, Intellect = Orange, Resolve = Red). The muscle arm icon, symbolizing Might, in the scripted encounters could be in violet, letting us know it means Might and not intimidate or something. The affliction icons during combat could have similar color-coding (and maybe an intensity signifying the affliction tier). You would need some other icon color (e.g., brown) for skill-, race-, and class-based scripted encounter icons, of course.

"8 hours" was just intended to mean some amount of time. I wasn't trying to imply that everything takes 8 hours to implement.

Building more ship mechanics into Deadfire would have to come at a cost, i.e. less time spent on other things in the game. Pillars foremost is an RPG game, not a ship simulation game. Your suggestions have merit, but the developers clearly don't have the time to implement so many complex systems while simultaneously making the core game as good as it can possibly be. I don't think it is quite so stark. You always have low-hanging fruit. Making a non-essential part of the game a lot better with 8 hours of work might be superior to making an essential part of the game a tiny bit better with 8 hours of work. The key question would be how much work and how much better. Not everyone agrees the ship stuff should be easy to ignore. I know because I am one of those "not everyone." Not everyone agrees on what is essential, either. Is party banter essential? I would say it is not, but when Eder asks "Can I pet him anyway?" it was pretty awesome (for me). Party banter might not be worth as much time as storyline, graphics, and combat mechanics, but a little love went a long way (again, at least for me).

Most of these seem more suited to a game in which you spend most of your time on and interacting with the ship. In Pillars, theres a lot of other 'stuff' in the game to divide your attention. I feel like the simpler approach to ship mechanics is much better for a game like Pillars. Plus, theres always a limited amount of development resources so it doesn't make a lot of sense to put so much time into developing such intricate systems for a part of the game that is basically an optional mechanic for a lot of players. I don't know about that. Increasing elegance without substantially drawing attention away from what is the focus of the game is great. A more elegant morale component (not saying it is already at maximum elegance) would be welcome if it could be done without detracting from other elements. I personally hope to have the companions and crew more integrated. I mentioned in another post I would like a proficiency for ship crew that would allow you to forgo another weapon proficiency in favor of replacing a crew member with a companion. I could also see this handled as a skill, where each point gets you a rank, but skill points are too valuable right now to justify that, I think. You would be trading a thing of nominal value (a proficiency) for another thing of nominal value (no need to feed and pay another crew member), but it has other important effects, as well. For example, if you really hate the idea of mutiny, insanity, suicide, etc., spending that proficiency to make a companion into crew would ease your anxiety (assuming companions are not impacted by the morale mechanic). The only problem I have with adding crew duties is it is hard to think of them. I like the idea of a marine, who would get stars for boarding action ranks that would make them tougher than other crew and, if you keep an appropriately large squad of marines, perhaps would keep other crew from getting hurt. It's elegant because you only hire marines if you are going to fight other ships and can safely ignore it if you have no interest. I could see a steward, purser, or chaplain if there were mechanics that accompanied them, such as trading, but they seem a bit farther off than a marine, which would be easy to implement. I would enjoy a couple more combat options, so long as they could be added elegantly. I think the most obvious one is different cannon loads, which has been mentioned many times. I think using different cannons to accomplish a different effect is not as interesting (though a historical argument could be made for either side). If you decide you are closing to capture the ship, grapeshot (no damage to hull) or canister shot (even more damage to deck crew, less to sails); if you are trying to get away, chain shot (damage to hull or sails, but at close range); and if you are just trying to kill the other ship, cannon balls (or double shot at close range).