Starwars

I can't get rid of screen-tearing no matter what I try with the graphics options. I've got Vsync on and framerate capped at 60 but there is still a lot of screentearing. Nothing seems to make a difference. Anyone else have a problem with this? I have a ATI r290x card, my screen's refresh rate is 60hz. EDIT: Actually, if I set the frame rate max 45 or 30 then the screentearing goes away. But seeing as how my monitor is 60hz I should be able to play with 60fps cap (or have VSYNC on) and not get screentearing, but that does not happen.

Anything that is not Heavy Rain.

When this comes out, I hope there will be some change made to slow down the experience points gain. But, knowing how these things tend to work, there probably won't be. Hopefully there will be a mod that does it... or maybe it's easy enough to tweak on one's own.

As far as I'm concerned, Heavy Rain was an interesting idea *horribly* executed. Detroit: Become Human is surprisingly entertaining though. It has its moments of complete idiocy but on the whole it was a fun ride nevertheless.

I'm playing it right now and I have no technical problems. Runs great as soon as I found the sweet spot for my computer. Still the odd "open world game" type of bugs but no problems so far.

Started up a replay of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. One of those games that I absolutely *love* for a period of time but then I just don't. I can get a real craving for it but it doesn't really last. Nevertheless I'm superglad that it did so well for them. It's a unique and ambitious game to be sure and that deserves recognition.

It feels a bit odd to me but most of the time I don't really notice it anymore so I guess that means it works. In terms of VA and all of that, the biggest problem I had was Serafen's accent which... just feels so very predictable for the funny and foul-mouthed pirate character. For some reason it really bothered me in this particular game.

Sounds like something the Expeditions: Conquistador/Viking would tackle. Would love to see it.

I've gotten all the DLCs to work fine but the process is very awkward and has not happened in any other games for me. 1. You go to the DLC's storepage and push the "download" button (or whatever it's called). This starts up the Deadfire game. 2. You exit the game, but the DLC is still not applied or downloaded. 3. You restart STEAM and *then* it downloads. It's just very strange and that's how it has been with all the free DLC's so far.

Fantastic game overall, looking forward to jumping in to replay it soon-ish. Time will tell on where it will fall on the good ol' "my favorite RPGs" list but it's definitely up there with Obsidian's best at least.

Tyranny is a weird game to me. I mean, I enjoy it but there are things that don't "fit" with me. 1) The combat system is a huge snore and maybe the biggest reason why I don't like the game more than I do. 2) The decision to have a companion system feels a bit like a mismatch to me somehow. To me, the whole Fatebinder thing would've fit better if it was more of a Fallout 1 thing, where the player character is really the star of it and any companions coming along are more on the light side. That or they should have enforced the consequences of your actions more. It's been pointed but it's just weird as hell to have Barik along if you go the rebel path, or Eb if you go against the rebels. And you can talk to them just fine, without any issue, despite the fact that you just went completely against their whole worldview and everything they believe in. And the whole Fatebinder thing makes it feel... weird at times. Like, the game gives you the opportunity to throw your weight around as Fatebinder (which I love and is one of my favorite things about the game), and you can be this intimidating figure. At the same time, you have this classic companion system where they're all like "buddy buddy" with you. The whole like/dislike system is cool but I don't think it feels like it has enough actual consequence in the game. 3) I think the presentation of the Chorus and Disfavoured, and certainly their leaders, was pretty poor. They feel completely like bickering children, completely unable to accomplish anything on their own. I remember reading about Ashe and Nerat before the game was released and thinking that they sounded like really cool characters. All that was shattered the first time you listen to them talking to each other. They literally sound like whiny children. I mean, especially Nerat who sounded like this horrible, twisted figure... and he sounds like a... well a voiceactor doing a really bad british "I'm a slippery evil guy" accent. Of course, part of their squabbling is just part of the characterization, and the Fatebinder is there to shape them up so to speak. But they go to far into "pathetic and annoying" territory. 4) Even in gameplay, the game is full of you leading the charge and your allies coming up behind you and saying "good work Fatebinder, we'll uuh, stay here and watch the rear, you go on ahead and do all the work!" As cool as it is being Fatebinder, you're still reduced to running errands left and right. 5) The writing is pretty good most of the time but it balances along the "grimdark" edge and sometimes it falls pretty heavily on the wrong side of it. And for me, a lot of the conversations feel far too... contemporary to sell the setting. I mean, it doesn't need to be "thou speak" but I think it goes too far into a modern way of talking at times and it feels weird, stylistically speaking. 6) Stuff like the Oldwalls section just feels shoehorned in because they were afraid of excluding classic dungeon areas or something. They feel completely uninspired and uninteresting to me. At the same time, there are a lot of things I do enjoy about the game. The world and lore is great, I loved that Kyros is just this entity looming over everything. The mystery of it is great I think, and it was fascinating to hear Sirin talk about her experiences with him/her, but I'm glad that nothing truly specific was revealed. Exploring a RPG from the "evil" lens is great, giving the player a role of importance from the start as a Fatebinder is great, obviously the replayability is fantastic and you can betray people left and right... but yeah, for all the people I greatly enjoy about Tyranny, there is also quite a lot of things that keep it from becoming what I would call a great game. It's a cool game and worth playing, but it is also quite a frustrating experience if you ask me.

Maybe he just doesn't want to romance the Watcher. Like... he just doesn't feel like it y'know? Just like my Watcher didn't want to romance Xoti, because she's kinda weird. Yes, Edér finds *you* weird. And you probably smell bad too. That conversation Edér has with you regarding him finding Xoti to be kind of a pain the butt? Edér probably has the same conversation with Serafen or somebody about you, you weirdo.

In my PoE playthrough, Pallegina went against the wishes of her masters, not sure how much that affects her personality in Deadfire but... For me her character made perfect sense. She's not fond of the gods in PoE1, especially if you bring her to see Hylea, I think the seed is there. Then 5 years later, when the gods are yet again up to trouble... I don't know, it makes perfect sense for her character to have grown even more bitter and disillusioned with them I think. Do I think she's obnoxious at times? Oh yes. Do I think she's justified in everything she says? Oh no. But that's her character. She's not that nice of a person and I think there were shades of that already in PoE. I'm pretty happy with how she turned out in Deadfire, as well as Aloth (who is the other companion under fire for being grumpy).

Number of encounters was just right for me, I thought that was a great improvement on Pillars 1. Now, the encounters themselves could've sometimes be a bit more interesting and certainly harder. But the overall quantity of them was near perfect for me.

If just looking at the main story, I prefer Pillars 1 quite a lot. I always thought PoE1 was a bit... rambling at times but on the whole I enjoyed the story a whole lot more than most people seem to. I thought Thaos was a cool villain, thought the gods were interesting, liked Iovara and thought the "your past life" bits were interesting. Deadfire's main story feels simpler, but also a bit more clumsy. Where in PoE I thought interacting with the gods was an absolut highlight, in Deadfire I think those sections drag. And partly it is because the whole "gods are children" angle is in full effect. And there's nothing wrong with that, I actually like in the overall sense of the setting, but it makes the bits where you interact with them less interesting and it's just way harder to like them in any way. And that's a bit of a shame since the whole "religion and animancy" are big roleplaying hooks. But I would actually struggle a bit to create a character who would actually feel that, hey, the gods are pretty alright! And this is coming from someone who had no problems coming up with characters who supported the Legion in New Vegas. So yeah... I'm fine with the "bumbling children" angle but I wish they had been a bit more likeable still. What I do love about Deadfire is that they did pull back the story and made the whole Archipelago the real story. The choices you make, the factions you choose to support, how you "weave" through the game. I really prefer this way of structuring the game as opposed to having a lengthy main story that the player gets led through. Choice in how to approach things is a huge deal for me and that is probably Deadfire's greatest advance when compared to the first game. So, just focusing on the actual main story, Pillars 1 is way better for me. But, looking at the whole package and how the story is woven into the entire game and gameplay, it's Deadfire all the way.

Ghost Wolf.

Fort Deadlight was a great area. I think it both served as a great throwback to PoE as it's kinda reminiscant to Raedric's Hold, but it also showcased the change in tone between the two games. It's just fun and well designed.

I am also replaying Tyranny at the moment. I'm not sure what the cost of the DLC stuff is nowadays but when I first played through it (and the little mini-DLC with the random encounters on the world map) I thought they were well done and added quite a lot to the game. Tyranny also represents what I feared Deadfire would become in terms of combat mechanics. I absolutely cannot stand the mechanics of this game and it *really* drags the game down a lot for me. Thankfully Deadfire ended up in a way better place even if I don't like the direction they're taking with the combat. But other than the combat stuff and parts of the writing, it's a cool game. An interesting world and an interesting premise with some great stuff to it. In particular, I loved the Conquest section that starts out the game and of course the very flexible way you can go through it (and replay it).

Neketaka is definitely one of the best things about Deadfire, it's awesome.

"Where every fight is a big fight" put another way "where every fight is the same". That does not sound like a good recipe for a lengthy, open-world RPG. I don't necessarily agree that "every fight would be the same" but I still agree with the overall sentiment. I like per-rest stuff because I find it makes the game... breathe a bit, things change overheard depending on what the player does and how well he does, when he decides to rest and what resources he uses etc. The notion that every battle can be balanced easier because of per-encounter mechanics sounds really... well, mechanical and controlled to me. I find a "strategy layer" that is in place above the combat encounters work really well to make RPGs like these feel a bit more... I don't know, interesting in the way they unfold. Which is why I'm extremely glad that we have the ship rations and all that. It's not that it's particularly difficult (just like managing rest resources in PoE1 wasn't difficult), but it just adds another level to the game so that it doesn't literally feel like you're just moving from one combat encounter to another. But yeah, different players will react differently I suppose. I have never been one to abuse rest mechanics in games, and I couldn't stand the idea of returning to town every 5 seconds in Pillars1 (like some people apparently did). But in this game, I cast the same broken spells over and over again, and completely break encounters because there is no reason not to. With Deadfire being so much about travel in a way I would've *loved* to see them push the per-rest stuff much further and I was disappointed to learn that they went the per-encounter route instead.

Why would you get flak ? Combat skills being per encounter really helped alot of the classes and playstyles to actually be viable. Take the rogue being able to go into stealth per encounter for "backstabbing" is now viable due to per encounter skills. He should take a lot of flak because it is WRONG! Hehe, just joking. Anyways, as far as I'm concerned, the most admirable thing is that they did the open-world thing where you can shortcut the story and go where you want, as well as the faction quests and how they interact with everything. Just opening the game up a lot more, how you explore as well as how you can solve encounters in different ways. I also think the relationship system is, while rather basic in Deadfire, a very nice idea and hopefully it will be expanded upon in future games. And also, I'm glad that they did Neketaka as a very densely packed city. Not everyone is a fan of all the talking (if you decide to comb through Neketaka in one go) but it's a real work of art I think. A fantastic hub location.

This a million times. It's such a bummer to me that you can barely survive an encounter but as soon as you kill that last enemy, poof, you're back to being at your very best. Losing *that* sense of attrition was a bigger hit to the game for me than the straight up mechanical ones. That said, for people who say that you can abuse per-rest camping, I mean... you can abuse per-encounter as well. I completely broke a lot of the high-level encounters (to the point where enemies didn't even get to touch my party) with Wizard spells over and over again, and there would've been no way to do that with a per-rest system except if I was insane enough to sail back to port go get more resting supplies every couple of battles. But yep, for me the biggest loss of per-rest stuff is just for the feels honestly. That my casters can unleash the holy fires of hell like it's nothing for each single battle, over and over again. Theoretically, knowing that a player should have a full arsenal for each encounter would make it all way easier to balance but... for me it sucks a lot of flavor out of the system, it feels boring.

Like someone said, playlength isn't a very reliable thing in RPGs and it never ceases to amaze me that people continue to bring it up. And what's more, I just can't understand how someone can look at a game and go... nyeeh, 50 hours just isn't enough. As far as dungeons go, I'm pretty happy with what we got. It would've been nice to have one or two more substantial dungeons in the game but I'm glad they didn't try to do something like the Endless Paths again (which I still liked well enough). That said, it's hard to argue that there are cool areas in the game where it would've been nice if they were just a bit bigger and deeper. At the same time, going through the Fort Deadlight quest was probably more enjoyable for me than any dungeon in Pillars, except maybe Durgan's Battery or the Abbey of the Fallen Moon. And Neketaka as a whole (with everything it entails, including the Old City) was just on a whole other level. You wn some and lose some.

You can break quite a few of the high level encounters with... whatever it's called, Wall of Many Colors?

This... is the best thing ever.