FlintlockJazz

I was under the impression they did the expansion like this because it was sort of intended as a tribute to how the expansion Tales of the Sword Coast was done in Baldur's Gate 1. As anameforobsidian has said, the base game needed some more meat and potato especially in regards to the stronghold and the extra character companions, and as Karkarov said the ending didn't really lend itself easily to an adventure straight afterwards due to world changing effects. I kinda get the impression that Deadfire will have a more open-ended story though that could just be me.

In the vids? I don't think those were live gameplays. There are like 3 instant transitions(upper deck, chieftain's house & one inside the ruins) seem legit but can't know for sure. Don't think it'll instantly transition from ship to settlement tho, like in the video. Yeah, I recall them saying before they had been working on improving in particular the transitions between inside and outside of houses and the suchlike. Those three transitions Quillion mentions are all transitions within an area, so fits with that. Looks to me like they may have sorted that at least, while the greater transitions are probably edits. Just my theorycrafting (and hope), so no doubt will be proven wrong shortly.

I thought that at first too regarding the party size, then I realised the sixth 'person' is Maia's animal companion.

Yeah, I like how they are implementing multi-classing. I have to say, I am not a fan of the 3rd edition method of multi-classing, so being restricted to two classes and the use of 'power sources' and such sounds good to me.

I hated the Dragon Age Origins system. Deadfire going a similar way makes Jazz a SadJazz.

Hidden files within files, puppetmasters working behind proxy games!

Burn this thread, burn it down.

Not really, I've had GPUs that died on me after 2-3 years and even if it stays alive for a span of 6 years I doubt it will be anything more than an ancient GPU by then. Imagine any GPU from 2011, can they run a game like Sniper Elite 4 or Prey(2017) with acceptable framerates? I think not. The ATI 6970 I got in my old computer still runs most things decently, its only just started having problems, and that was 2010 and also had its driver support discontinued.

Good to know, but what aspects of the narrative ARE you caring about? Sailing, exploration, Renaissance, animancy, gods, all sorts. I enjoyed most of the themes in Pillars 1, just didn't particularly care for the colonialism part really could take it or leave it.

I'm gonna be controversial: I didn't care for or against the 'colonial' themes much. I mean, ship sailing and actual setting up colonies I like, but the conflicts between natives and colonials, colonial independence etc I can take it or leave it to be honest.

Hello and welcome.

Bringing this thread to the real issue that has been discussed before: the idea that the larder door can be opened onto a pocket-plane larder and then occasionally during combat the door would spontaneously open as a cook from another world would lean through to shout at everyone to stop banging on his door. Because that would be awesome.

I totally agree with you. Don't find it controversial. Actually, that was my main suggestion for fixing the leveling system in my OP: This is actually my number 1 solution for PoE2, on top of level scaling (which people have already pointed out some fair arguments against, and I agree)... Whoops! Obviously my reading skills a bit of levelling up too. Yep, I agree, I think your description of the 'linear progression' of levelling and its power creep better explains what I was going for.

Levelling without level-scaling is something I have thought a fair bit about, and come up with what could be a rather controversial solution to it. As others have said, level-scaling is kinda a sucky work around for it that undoes the whole sensation of progression and in some systems even makes you feel like you are going backwards ( *cough* Oblivion *cough* ). I liked the sensation of getting more powerful while doing all the sidequests in Baldur's Gate 2, and I liked the freedom of doing all those sidequests in whatever order I chose, but I do realise they became irrelevant difficulty-wise after a while. The thing is, I don't think it was levelling up itself that is the problem, but rather what you get for levelling up. My controversial idea is based on the though that you gain too much at level up, and that not all of it is needed. In Pillars it is clear that you gain more talents, more class abilities, and more skills, these I think are not the issue. In Pillars, and most other class-based systems, you also gain extra hit points and extra accuracy in addition to what they gain via talents. A level 10 character is going to be tougher even without the skills and talents than a level 1 character simply because they have more hit points, more deflection, and more accuracy simply because they are a higher character. This means that when a level 1 creature fights them then they are not going to be able to hit, and are going to be constantly crit'd with every blow, and when they do manage to luck out and hit the level 10 character the damage they do is comparatively minor simply due to the enlarged hit pool. This is a constant power creep, a power creep that can only be matched by a power creep of the enemy too. My thought therefore is that maybe characters should not gain the automatic benefits of levelling up: that you gain the talent, skill, and ability but that's it. No automatic increase in hit dice unless they take a feat that increases it, no increase in accuracy unless they take a talent that increases it, etc. This would remove the need to do every increasing amounts of damage just to stay competitive, and would even keep certain talents such as Weapon Focus relevant as their increase to accuracy ceases to be lessened proportional to increases in accuracy in general, as they become one of the few ways to increase it! This way, a level 10 character still becomes significantly more powerful but a level 1 creature could still be a threat to them if they are not careful and don't use their abilities properly. It reduces the power creep. Now, before anyone points out the flaws in this, let me just say that I don't necessarily think it is a particularly good idea, I am sure there are many things I am overlooking that is wrong with this thought, and even I enjoy the feeling of increased power you get at level up (there is a reason why some theorise that MMOs use it as an addiction to keep their players paying). I just thought I would chuck it out there, as a thought to the general issue of levelling and keeping combat 'relevant' without just scaling content up.

Yeah having babies is overrated imho unless you are the baby being have'd. Biological impulses compelling us to dress up **** in pretty coloured nappies.

I feel Firefly has the perfect amount of jazz, actually. You can never have enough of me!

If you want a serious answer, I think its the idea that since all the groundwork has been set by the prior game and the developers are more experienced with it coupled with more support from their funders because they know the first one sold well means that the sequel should be an improvement on the last one. I think. I dunno really, just typed out a load of stuff there.

I trust you and yours were unaffected by the atrocity Mr Jazz? Personally I believe a little security in life and good governance before the fact might have done something to avert this, it is depressing to see what has become of some areas of our inner cities, virtual no go areas where industry has almost entirely disappeared. On a recent trip to Mrs Nonek's home city she was shocked by how various areas of her youth had withered away, trash gathered in the streets, children ran riot, business and homes were boarded up. A grim prospect indeed. Of course we have always had ghettoes, of our own people before immigration, but usually in the north that drove them to communism and socialism which made a nice balance against the mercantile interests of the south, and they were and are a somewhat different animal. Yes thank you, fortunately the people I know near there are not the sorts to attend such a concert. I hope none of yours were affected either? I agree totally that some security is a good thing, but as with all things in life moderation is the key. Its the concept that more security is always better that I take issue with, and the fear that we play into the very hands of those who commit these acts should we take this route. Of course, I am sure my perspective would be different if someone close to me had been affected but then I would not probably be able to think as rationally on the situation. Inner city areas do seem to withering away, not sure how much is due to a failing economy and how much is just businesses moving to more suburban areas and online. The North and South political divide did seem to work well in providing a counterbalance to one another, but since New Labour its all gotten a bit more confusing I think now. I think there's a lot of people who have been feeling a disconnect with all of the political powers, which probably doesn't help things. We have the highest levels of surveillance of most countries. Our ISPs are required by law to log all their customers online activity and have it available to the government if they want it without the need for a warrant. We have more CCTV than most other countries (I recall we had the most at one point and still may do but cannot find the source for this to confirm at the moment). Police are being given more and more discretionary powers to imprison people without reason because 'terrorism'. We have not had a terror attack since 2005, that's 12 years. That's pretty damn good all things considered. During that time there has no doubt been attempts at terror attacks that we have not heard about because they are constantly being stopped. This one getting through was most likely either luck on the behalf of the terrorist or a gap that our security services now know of and will plug. Security onsite would not have done anything, people were already leaving the concert so there would already have been people all over the place for him to mingle with and I doubt he was running around waving the explosives around in full view. The fact that he made it onsite without our police forces being aware of the threat meant he had already gotten through. When your country ends up with security checkpoints all over the place where to get anywhere you need to present your papers, it becomes harder to believe your country are still the good guys. Stop searches are already driving many to believe that they are being oppressed, which leads to them being easier to recruit by these fanatics. "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers."

In a sailory themed setting? - unlikely. Seahorses!

The extra weapon would probably be a lance, if there was mounted combat. Many of the extra weapons are a second ranged weapon, so I'm not sure the Knight is missing much. Mounted combat would be so awesome!

As someone actually from the UK, living 80 miles from where this happened, I can say strongly that more security would not have helped. "No such thing as too much security" is patently false, our country is already on its way to becoming a police state and not only wouldn't have stopped this but could quite possibly make things even worse. What is the point in defending our way of life if we sacrifice the very thing we are trying to protect? Driving the government to more extreme forms of control is the very thing they want.

No one has as yet. Attacker was killed activating the blast, total dead has gone up to 22 last time I checked. Most people are assuming it's a Daesh attack though it hasn't been announced as such yet.

Omigod it's like they reached inside my head and drew out my deepest darkest fantasies!! Wait, they best not been looting my head for ideas... nah I'm being paranoid if they gone inside my head there would be police here now, all good!

Is it me or does it appear like they changed their minds and reverted back to being able to have six characters in the party? Also, Aloth doing a bunch of collateral damage, and one of the 'misses' is in yellow for some odd reason, a bug maybe. Nice QoL addition though. Could it be that the six portraits at the top includes enemies? I can count five distinct characters including one called Player in the log itself, plus an enemy called "Neketeka Guard" who they are attacking and would make it six involved in the fight. So maybe it segregates the combat log into separate logs for each battle which are then identified by the participants involved? Or the first one is simply an "all text" button? Maybe though I noticed when actually playing it that it seemed to change the log between two different 'states' one of which was indeed an all text button but the other one happened too fast for me to see. It could be an "all enemy" button?