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Triple - A Foxy Lad

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Everything posted by Triple - A Foxy Lad

  1. Quite. I'm not sure why this notion is so difficult for some people. Obsidian aren't using description because they are obtuse or unwilling. i do get that, its why i try to consider limitations and efficient workarounds when critiquing such - rather than 'snarl gnash roar this should be better' and even if you know best practice, it can get swallowed by the vagaries of project management. i doubt i could raise anything a dev aint voiced at some point or other. ol' triples not one to claim any special insight.
  2. Ye, i dont have ur experience, but ive got some relative strings to my bow - most of deadfire is brisk enough that is clear the people involved know what theyre doing. and tbh, even the trippy sections arent *that* verbose when compared to prose in novels. deadfire will go off on one for a paragraph or two at most before settling back into dialogue. however, there at least two big problems i recall offhand. in trippy cutscenes, it sets itself task of describing five epic supernatural creatures one after another. even if u do each one fairly quick it adds up. Also in context of video game where you have visual element, any description can seem like a lot - and considering vast amount of game is well edited. it sticks out like a sore thumb. I agree with u re: kingmaker. the game has its appeal - and the writers express moments of real promise - but its in dire need of an editing pass. guess they didnt have the resources for one. The dialogues where the difference in experience really shows. deadfire conveys more about its characters in about half the word count. maias little missive quest establishes more about her past, present and future than any of km's extensive dialogue trees or multi-chapter companion arcs Most of km's writing feels like a first draft by an enthusiastic new team. it can be enjoyed as such - i deffo enjoyed it at such - but it suffers in direct comparison to much of deadfire.
  3. i think one of the issues here is trippy, fantastical nature of beyond. it encourages this. is fuel for my notion that the encounters with the gods should have been largely restricted to berath and executed in-engine using that little starting room. would have removed obligation/temptation to describe all that acid-trip stuff. sensation of being pulled away could have been conveyed with a little ten second jaunt along that inbetween path with chimes ringing in background.
  4. these points are all fair. ydwin taking over from pallegina pretty smart. rekkes almost a given if yezuhas a destination. TAYNE being a party member might be pushing it, but id like to see more of the archmages. i enjoy their antics. wed better get a third opportunity to kill concelhaut and keep his skull. i was really surprised at how much i liked having vatnir around. he, rekke and ydwin are all adrift, one way or another, and its easy to imagine them following the watcher for lack of anything else to do. i like the idea of the watcher being a place where the misfits of eora can find purpose and respite.
  5. for me, one of the great aspects of poe is that theres no 'magic' stat, and spellcasters can switch up their attributes like martial classes. an alpha strike nuke mage can emphasise might and perception, a control mage can run dex and intellect etc. its magic as an expression of the whole person, rather than of one discrete attribute/resource.
  6. +1 to this. at the very least, it would be nice if serafens wild magic was a toggle so peeps could choose whether or not to live dangerously. otherwise ydwins the only option for more challenging fights. dont get me wrong, debonair, vampiric elf bois are totally my jam - like 100% my jam - but serafens a bro and id like more reason to use him.
  7. elsewhere, someone suggested it was obsidians way of keeping their options open. feel its unlikely to be ondra as, iirc, she was the one who suggested abandoning the titans in the first place - unless shes getting her 'tricksome ngati' on. i guess if woedica went unwillingly, her titans remains could be anywhere. as an outside bet, galawain strikes me as the type to go into hiding instead. seeker, slayer, *survivor* after all, and his words at the end of the dlc suggest a willingness to keep his head down.
  8. i see might as a measure of the force one can project, whether thats via muscles, magic or sheer bloodymindedness it dont really matter. like in ad&d a tiny gnome can bench as much as a human, not like that makes any more sense. and dont get me started on CHA or health points or any other of the five million rpg abstractions that evaporate under the slightest scrutiny. its all nonsense. "might" as well roll with it, or devise ur own hyper-realistic system. either option seems like fun.
  9. reckon josh were just reacting to the article. speculating as to who fenstermakers on about wont lead anywhere good imo. could be anyone or no one.
  10. ashley johnson had been a voice actress for thirteen years prior to deadfire. shes three months older than i am. one of her more notable roles was ellie from the last of us. cant appeal to inexperience here. often issues with vo delivery have more to do with direction. great examples are the english versions of square enix games, where the scripting and direction make experienced voice actors sound godawful. dont think there was any need for her to be voicing dialogue tags during cutscenes. i guess somebody had the notion they were ensuring consistency, but not necessary imo. i quite like the idea that ydwins relating the story, from whatever distant perch her experiments led her to. quite like ydwins voice in general, icy hauteur stretched thin over raw terror. for all her laboured poise, she sounds a minute away from a panic attack when caught slightly off guard.
  11. like if my take on rangers is of any relevance. the ranger archetype consists of like three things. ranger helps party achieve non-combat related goals in wild envirionemnts (ie. eat, sleep, track etc) ranger has animal companion ranger does consistent physical deeps at er... range. (theres also the weird "ranger dual-wields" thing from d&d but im dismissing that as a quirk) the first part of the archetype is easier to implement in a tabletop game. in a crpg, u have to create set pieces where the ranger meaningfully contributes. issue is, u cant construct these set-pieces to make the ranger *mandatory* or u stifle player expression. so, at best, ranger might get small bonus to survival/stealth/whatever which aint enough to justify unique class. ranger has animal companion. in crpg, this must be a nightmare to balance. if companion is too stong, ranger is equivalent of two characters, if companion is too weak, what is purpose of companion? ghost heart got around this by making the companion a summon that can be balanced as such - and giving it a sad story to fulfil requirement of emotional bond with player. is quite ingenious imo, but i dunno if mechanically can be differentiated from other summoning classes. to me, it has enough of its own flavour, but ymmv. more dedicated ranger players would be better placed to comment on that. ranger does consistent ranged physical deeps - this is another problem. in a game where abilities and resources are popping left-right-and-centre, what do you with a role that - traditionally - defines itself through basic attacks? How do you give them impressive stuff to do without watering down their niche? obs had similar issue with rogue, which ended up as multiclass fodder more than its own thing. there are only so many backflips and empowered basics u can dish out. i dont want to go into too much detail, i aint enough of a ranger expert for that, but i think overwhelming picture is that of a tabletop archetype - popular enough to be a requirement - struggling to find a place in crpgs. like in d&d crpgs, they weren't worth rolling over a fighter or paladin, until u got to 3.x and they became the only practical means of hitting the ludicrous requirements for high-end dual-wielding - which still didnt make them worth it imo. still occasionally played ranger in such games, but only for strict rp reasons.
  12. Comments like this always make me think how Indiana Jones is a complete non-entity in Raiders of the Lost Ark: the story would have unfolded just the same without him. The nazis would have found the Ark and died just the same. Indy affects nothing. That's just lovely, priceless. Not like thats anything new or unique. The denouement from war of the worlds was that humans had no agency in their victory.
  13. Dont matter what it accomplishes, folk are gonna do it, even if u implore them otherwise. if my thoughts on something align with the codex (occasionally happens. they were great, early advocates of motb among other things) id just state them as my own. easier.
  14. They have telemetry now. comments on boards might flag up outliers but will have little impact on data coming in. also i doubt referring to the codex will achieve much of anything. Ur likely to smother whatever argument ur making with whatever someones opinion of the codex might be.
  15. i aint fully felt out tb, but in rtwp, knockdown/mule kick is an extremely effective way of interrupt spamming a low fortitude enemy caster into pointlessness. i got crazy mileage out of that ability, esp when partnered with the willbreaker and body blows. honestly, knockdown is one of the main reasons id take a fighter. Helps that fighters are built to survive an early deep dive into the enemy backline, so not only do they have reliable lockdown, they can get into a position to deliver it, then *stay* there. Other classes may have harder, longer cc (oo er missus) but they risk a lot more to land it. Even if the defered recovery element of knockdown remains crippled in tb, so long as it disables engagement, interrupts casting and provides an alternative to targeting deflection, it would be worth using i feel. EDIT: also ye, a % debuff to defenses would be bonkers. Accuracy and defenses increase roughly in lockstep so a % decrease would escalate in power with each level up to the point where the whole game would revolve around it. Imagine being able to debuff a mobs deflection to under 50 before wailing on them with an on crit weapon with 100+ accuracy. A fighter/skald taking advantage of that would be nightmarish.
  16. its cool, u can do like, 99.9999999% of the game and put off triggering the final faction quests until uve cleared everything. u wont need an optimal party by then. all the big challenges will be in the past. i find it really hard not to use pallegina extensively. i know none of the companions are optimised, but herald + avian godlike is just so effective without any need for specialised game knowledge. helps that shes one of my favourite companions. i love it when u get her to +2 reputation and she occasionally substitutes 'for the republics!' with 'for the watcher!' it feels like *such* an achievement, like uve reached across an ocean, or earned the devotion of a lion. i know we joke about her being sawyers wife, but i hope he finds an excuse to indulge that little vice further.
  17. Ye, suspect thats why aegis of loyalty is a thing. EDIT: was meant to be quoting ensign. stupid phone. I can barely operate this thing.
  18. Just want to give a +1 to the Final Fantasy X approach. im no game dev but it seems like most obvious solution to this cat. i feel it warrants serious consideration even if it gets thrown out for whatever reason.
  19. And tbh, I find most exhaustive AAA experiences cold af. ME3 and DA:I were both numbing, and ive never been slightly interested in assassins creed. most of these games marshall a surplus of skill, talent and gear so i feel theres something fundamentally crook about the approach. If a sculptor doesnt exclude anything, theyre just left with a big featureless rock. peeps might be able to see exactly what they want in it, but i suspect the experience wont be all that compelling.
  20. amusing as concept may be, game like that would have to be very linear or the amount of reactivity would shortern its length to that of a mayfly. u could play shadow of memories, life is strange, radiant historia or chrono trigger - hell, even FFXIII-2 or assassins creed - to see the different ways that idea pans out. I dont feel any of them would translate well to the western crpg framework, which already has too many moving parts to accommodate. If anyone were to have a crack, i think theyd be better off starting from the streamlined experience of something like dragonfall rather than poe.
  21. When i worked in a media warehouse, my colleagues from eastern europe did this all the time. i couldnt narrow it down to a precise spread of countries. we're talking hundreds of people here. women used to do it as well. werent just restricted to masc folk.
  22. let me fetch my oil of allure lads. its been too long. i aint as pliant as i once was.
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