Lexx

I'm trying to play through PoE1 right now, but... I think this game is just so boring. It has become much better since its release years ago. Combat plays better and putting it on a SSD dramatically decreases the loading times and all that, but despite these two big issues that caused me to cease playing back in the days, the game still just can't keep me motivated. Started with the White March now, but again... I just don't have the drive to go on, primarily - I guess - because of the setting. Yoga Fire is a whole different beast. Despite its plenty flaws, I'm really digging it a lot. The setting, the visuals, the way everything works... I seem to be able to relate much better to it. I'm thinking, maybe it's because "generic" fantasy setting isn't much my cup of tea, which is what PoE2 makes different. There is more guns, more fancy clothes, ships, cannons, etc... as I've already wrote a while ago, it somehow gives me that Arcanum vibe, while PoE1 does not at all. I'm guessing this has a huge influence on me and how I perceive the franchise.

Maybe you should post some every-day-town-photos, to show the evil west that iranians don't live in caves or something.

Instead of consuming, start creating.

Can't even count the numbers of school shootings in the USA anymore.

lel they didn't even fixed the quotation bugs and **** in years, so don't expect anything like that.

I bet the queen will survive even Morrissey. Would be funny.

Don't worry, they'll be back next week. At this point - across all tv shows - I kinda feel like everything becomes same-y in a way. It's like that same story progression mechanic is shared by every bigger tv show now. Don't think I had noticed that one or two years ago. The way the cast is rotating per episode, at which point they are using a flashback episode, etc...

Nah, it cleans up the scene. Especially with how the combat works now, I'm pretty happy about the changes.

As "sidekick" I'm guess she will be as silent as the ones already in the game? Kinda sad they never say a word at all.

Looks like generic Diablo clone.

Oh no. I want to replay the game, but this kind of stuff makes me just delay everything and then I will lose motivation.

Are the mods working "on the fly"? E.g. what happens if I already visit that trader from your mod, will the item still appear? I've done a quick look and couldn't find it, despite putting the overwrite folder, etc. into xxx_Data folder.

Not saying it's a bad thing, just saying that it doesn't look like Rage to me... at all. :>

Well that trailer looks completely different to what Rage was, so I wouldn't expect there to be much connection, except for a couple weapons and enemy types maybe. It's probably going to be like old Prey and new Prey, or old Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the new ones, etc. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a Mad Max, Borderlands and Fallout mix, set in the Rage universe.

Oi, did you chose your item ID randomly or is there some reason behind it? Just trying to understand how crap works right now.

Huh, never ever would I have expected to see a new Rage game. But looks like they are turning it into some sort of Borderlands. Eh..

Just finished Yoga Fire. Took me 46 hours according to Steam.... Played Battletech for 74 hours and Hunt: Showdown for 85 hours... in the past 1 1/2 months? I really should get back to doing something useful.... Liked PoE2 quite a lot because of the setting, etc. It does have a lot of unused potential, though. I'm recognizing all the usual modern-day rpg quest mechanics in it as well, especially Obsidians footprint. No matter the writing, in its core it does somehow always feel kinda same-y, but "normal people" (unfamiliar with at least a bit of game quest design) probably wouldn't notice it, I guess. It's waaaay too easy. Thing is, just cranking up the difficulty wouldn't be the right thing to do either. It'll just make all combat tedious again... it's a really though topic, to be honest. I want some challenges... sometimes... and other times I just want to steamroll stuff. Anyway, I'm too tired to write more right now. Gotta hit the bed.

I think I'm about to wrap up my PoE2 playthrough. 42 hours in and most bounties and quests done + it feels like the endgame is nigh. The game does have some quests that seem quite complicated and allow for multiple choices, but here is the thing: It's not just the combat that is easy, but also all dialog checks? Maybe I'm min-maxing too hard, no idea... but due to this, my choices don't really feel as if I've managed something big. Here is an example: To put that in perspective with Vault City and Gecko in Fallout 2... making this work is actually hard. You can't just go to the bosses, power through some tiny dialog checks and done. You need hard facts, you need the appropriately skilled character for it, you can easily **** it up. But once done, you feel like you did something meaningful.

PoE2 combat is a lot better than PoE1 combat, imo. But yes, it gets pretty easy rather quickly. I've already upped the difficulty a notch, which I really didn't thought I'd do. Thinking about increasing it one more. Thing is, on lower difficulty levels you can just keep the party ai on and it'll wreck the mobs easily. On higher difficulty levels you'll have to micro-manage more, but due to this also wreck the mobs easily. PS: I found out that I can just sink enemy ships and still get loot out of it, which means the boarding mechanic can be skipped entirely (then what exactly is the point of it?). Now I'm just spamming my cannons and then collect the scraps.

I don't think it is necessary to replay PoE1 before Yoga Fire. You're just burning yourself out. If you made it to your castle before, that's enough to understand the story.

The game was meant to be turn-based, but remember: Back in these days, real time was THE THING and every such game required it. Turn-based was dead to the mainstream. Heck, makes me remember the early days of not yet released Fallout 3. The internet was exploding in a warfare about turn-based combat. So, so, so many people thought turn-based system existed only due to technical limitations. Some of the articles and youtube videos that spawned about it still infuriate me today when just thinking about them... ... anyway, that's why Fallout: Tactics, Arcanum, etc. got that ugly and ****ty real-time combat and a botched (optional) turn-based combat. You just can't make a game that features both mechanics. This never worked out so far. Gotta thank the new X-Com games for bringing back turn-based combat, I guess.

Don't forget about the PMCs. Tried to google some raw numbers, but it's kinda hard to find out how many are stationed in Iraq.

Huh, what the hell happened to Fear the Walking Dead? It is... dare I say it... it is actually good right now. The last couple episodes of season 3 suddenly have been really good, and season 4 started out really good as well?! ... Did a quick trip to google and it turns out the writers have changed. Well, that explains some things. Now they should change the writers for The Walking Dead as well, I guess.

I, too, am at a point now where I just steamroll stuff. Started on relaxed with no level scaling except for the critical story path. The game had its hard moments, but they become much more rare now. Ship battles are sometimes really though. Doesn't help that I'm not very hot on the ship battles anyway due to the bug that makes the boarding minigame obsolete. Doesn't matter how many people you kill in it, once you start the boarding, the enemy ship is full with critters.

Gotta say it, I kinda like that most dialog in Yoga Fire has been voiced. I'd wish some folks to have a different actor (narrator could be older, for example), but other than that... Playing it for longer than PoE1 now and I'm still not tired of it. Really digging the setting and all that jazz. To think that I would have passed over it if it weren't for MCA and the drama bringing it closer into my field of view...