FlintlockJazz

I'm sorry but just what are we supposed to be discussing here then? I asked for clarification on what you considered an RPG because you repeatedly stated it as counter-reasons, but now you pull the "There's no hard and fast definition!" card? One that I had already pointed out to you? I already explained why I considered it one, and was asking you why you didn't, and you evade the question. For someone who keeps throwing out claims that people are dogmatic or narrow-minded in their views you are certainly coming across as very dogmatic and narrow-minded yourself. I wasn't referring to GELFs when I asked you to start responding to questions, but you saying that you don't have an opinion and that they are plot elements also makes me question why you started making out that I was after some hard sci-fi if you consider them as such, since I explicitly stated that I didn't want it hard like 2001, I never mentioned being against FTL or many other things. Is it because I wanted the game to look into how things like genetic engineering would impact society? Pillars looks into how knowledge of the soul and reincarnation would affect society, it's not hard sci-fi is it? Is it because I said I wanted it harder than a lot of the sci-fi we have been getting? There is a degree of hardness and again I explicitly stated that I didn't want it hard like 2001, I just like there to be better worldbuilding and more thought into why they have certain conventions than the typical fare we get. I feel like you were strawmanning me, making it out that I am standing for some pet peeve of yours so that you can tear it apart. And are unwilling to consider that people may not like your pet idea of reskinning Pillars, rather preferring they build a system around the world rather than forcing the world to adhere to a system not designed for it. This is not an attack I am just genuinely confused as to what it is being debated here and what I feel is happening.

As far as I am concerned, most if not all reviews by magazines and game sites are worthless. You can still learn something from reading them by looking at the authors preferences. If they happen to coincide with your own and the review is positive, it's probably a game for you. Personally I rather look at reviews by the gamer community and actual ingame videos to make my own judgment. In most cases, this has proven to be the right approach for me, since working for a special interest magazine myself I know first hand how ad money influences stories. Um I was making a reference to how people were arguing about a review from the Codex before (one in which they slagged off PoE) and are now arguing about it again (this time one praising it) and how it all feels pretty much the same, just to be clear.

IT WORKS!!! MY TIME MACHINE WORKS!!!! BWAHAHAHAHA! FEAR ME MORTALS FOR I COME FROM THE FUTURE TO TELL YOU ALL TO DESPA- Wait, this isn't the past? People are just talking about yet another worthless review from the Codex? Oh, well, carry on then...

Psionics has been debated as space magic for years, suggest you do some further research yourself. It is considered a bigger sign of fantasy than FTL, as at least FTL could maybe be possible but is unlikely, psionics is considered magic especially when it goes beyond mind reading and into the capabilities such as those used by biotics. I am not going to further discuss your other points since not only do I not feel the need to defend my tastes for hard sci-fi from your apparent belief that it is BadWrongFun that I am starting to feel talking to you (all I did originally was express what I wanted in a sci-fi game, I never said what you wanted was invalid just not to my tastes), but I have noticed that you seem to ignore half my posts, such as my questions about why you consider Deus Ex not an RPG, a question I was genuinely asking you since I wanted to understand where you were coming from, indicating that you are just trying to 'beat' me rather than converse with me and are only responding to things that you can prove wrong and trying to avoid answering things yourself. Good night.

Have you actually played Mass Effect? Because from your comments it sounds like you haven't. Mass Effect includes magic from the get go (called Biotics), has giant cthulhu monsters (the Reapers), includes resurrection from complete death using magitech (Reaper-tech), has space-zombies (husks), etc. Space Opera actually does attempt to use "realistic" science in order to explain stuff, with the degree that it uses determining how far along the Space Fantasy - Hard Sci-fi axis it is. So what does a game need to be considered an RPG in your eyes? Because most people consider the first Deus Ex to be an RPG even if they don't classify the later ones as such, it has stats that influence all aspects of the game including shooting (you won't hit your target if you don't have enough points in the skill even if you are pointing right at them, so no it's not a first person shooter), choice and consequence (moreso than most other RPGs), does it need to be isometric for you to consider it a RPG?

I don't dismiss it. I like Space Fantasy, I love Star Wars, I just think it's important to distinguish the two because they are actually quite different and appeal to different tastes. I would classify Star Trek as Space Opera and Mass Effect (especially 2 onwards) as Space Fantasy, there's a scale between the two extremes of Space Fantasy and Hard 2001 Sci-Fi. But hey, if we are pointing out narrow definitions then I think your definition of RPGs is also very narrow and dismiss anything else as 'shooter with token RPG elements'. In fact, which Deus Ex are you classifying as shooter there? Just the last one? All of them?

Got mine ages ago. Maybe they have gotten lost?

If they are what you class as skirmish then so are all shooters you said they would have to be. The ranges in FPSes are about the same, you do not get snipers sat on mountains shooting people 10 klicks away (sniper rifles can shoot a lot further than a few hundred meters, and you can shoot things a few hundred meters away in X-Com). Yes there is a vast majority of fantasy, I was talking in regards to sci-fi products specifically, and how in the last few years we see more space fantasy than sci-fi in relation to each other, and by products I am talking about shows and books too. Seems that Space Fantasy is considered more the default, even Mass Effect was more Space Fantasy in my mind than sci-fi especially towards the end (and I don't just mean the ending). Off the top of my head, the last Deus Ex game was the last sci-fi RPG that wasn't space fantasy, and maybe X-Com though that wasn't an RPG and a bit iffy on it.

Stick with "Fighter" is you prefer it for the "guy in armour who stands at the front and takes the hits". As it's based on PoE background is separate anyway. It could be a pirate, a bounty hunter, or wealthy playboy weapons designer rather than regular military. The Scout/Ranger is intended to cover the guerilla fighting style. The advantage to using PoE rather than designing a new system (based on GURPS or otherwise) is fairly obvious. With a lot of the groundwork already done it would require far fewer development resources to make the game, which is pretty much essential if you are targeting a niche market. Added to that, Obsidian wouldn't have to pay anyone for a licence. Furthermore, connection to another successful game, all be it in an entirely different universe, aids marketing. The trouble with "Hard" SF is you open up all your convenient plot devices to scientific scrutiny. Why does that sniper rifle only have a range of 20m? Why is that hero duel wielding giant swords against guys with plasma cannons? How does FTL travel work? How does psionics work? Why don't those insectoid aliens collapse under the weight of their own exoskeleton? How come that armour fits a human and an orlan? However, if you make it clear that it isn't to be taken deadly serious, you can have your laser swords and plasma pistols with "it's fun" being the only justification needed. This approach worked perfectly well for Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. Besides, far to many games have caught the "dark and serious" disease (AKA Nolanitis). I want to play a game that isn't afraid to be fun. Eww, you just want a reskin of Fantasy! Ewwwwwwwww! Seriously though, a lot of the 'issues' you list there is because you are trying to fit sci-fi to the system used by Pillars, a game designed for Fantasy. Pillars is designed for close up skirmishes not gun battles, and that is precisely why it would not work. As for wanting hard, I specifically said I wasn't asking for hard like 2001, just harder than the Space Fantasy Magic we have been getting. There has barely been even Star Trek level of hardness in sci-fi shows these days. Oh, and just because it looks at how transhumanism would affect society wouldn't mean it would be dark and serious, on the contrary Transhumanism fiction tends to be optimistic and bright as compared to the future envisoned by Cyberpunk. And fantasy is just a reskinned Western. So what? I like stories of swashbuckling action and adventure, and I'm sick and tied of the same old generic-fantasyland scenery. Which is another problem with "hard" SF: it tends to be about issues, not adventure. Who am I? What is the nature of reality? It's all a time paradox! (see: Intersteller, Oblivion, etc). The adventure and fun gets squeezed out. If you are going to do a top down or isometric party based game it has to be about close up skirmishes. Which you can only really justify with "soft" SF. If you are going to do realistic gun battles you are talking about moving to a 3D 1st or 3rd person viewpoint, which immediately movies you into shooter territory and limits party size. I really, really don't want another Mass Effect* or CoD clone!!!! PoE is a lot less fantasy-flavoured than D20 for example, in terms of things like names for stats and skills and prevalence of firearms, rates of fire and reloading. *Okay, I would buy a Mass Effect game that didn't force you to play as a badass space marine, but it still wouldn't be a RPG. Hmm seemed to forget the emoticon at the end to show I was teasing about the eww. So you want space fantasy, that is fine, it can be fun but I would prefer sci-fi. You seem to presume a lot of things about hard sci-fi that isn't necessarily true, a lot of assumptions about what it must have. And again, I'm not saying it has to be hard sci-fi, just not space fantasy for once. Isometric does not mean it has to be close up skirmishes, the old X-Com games show it can be done, and if it does then it doesn't mean it has to be a first person or a shooter, that's quite the assumption there. Sounds like you are clinging to some dogma you mentioned upthread a bit yourself. We both have a preference for the type of game we want. I want a harder sci-fi to you, doesn't mean either of us is wrong.

I don't like classes to begin with, and prefer systems which don't use them regardless of setting. Classes just don't cause as much an issue for me in fantasy because they don't stand out so much against the world, whereas settings like sci-fi and modern day, being set closer to a real world setting, don't. Unless you are talking about Space Fantasy, in which case fine, but then we aren't talking sci-fi anymore.

Stick with "Fighter" is you prefer it for the "guy in armour who stands at the front and takes the hits". As it's based on PoE background is separate anyway. It could be a pirate, a bounty hunter, or wealthy playboy weapons designer rather than regular military. The Scout/Ranger is intended to cover the guerilla fighting style. The advantage to using PoE rather than designing a new system (based on GURPS or otherwise) is fairly obvious. With a lot of the groundwork already done it would require far fewer development resources to make the game, which is pretty much essential if you are targeting a niche market. Added to that, Obsidian wouldn't have to pay anyone for a licence. Furthermore, connection to another successful game, all be it in an entirely different universe, aids marketing. The trouble with "Hard" SF is you open up all your convenient plot devices to scientific scrutiny. Why does that sniper rifle only have a range of 20m? Why is that hero duel wielding giant swords against guys with plasma cannons? How does FTL travel work? How does psionics work? Why don't those insectoid aliens collapse under the weight of their own exoskeleton? How come that armour fits a human and an orlan? However, if you make it clear that it isn't to be taken deadly serious, you can have your laser swords and plasma pistols with "it's fun" being the only justification needed. This approach worked perfectly well for Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. Besides, far to many games have caught the "dark and serious" disease (AKA Nolanitis). I want to play a game that isn't afraid to be fun. Eww, you just want a reskin of Fantasy! Ewwwwwwwww! Seriously though, a lot of the 'issues' you list there is because you are trying to fit sci-fi to the system used by Pillars, a game designed for Fantasy. Pillars is designed for close up skirmishes not gun battles, and that is precisely why it would not work. As for wanting hard, I specifically said I wasn't asking for hard like 2001, just harder than the Space Fantasy Magic we have been getting. There has barely been even Star Trek level of hardness in sci-fi shows these days. Oh, and just because it looks at how transhumanism would affect society wouldn't mean it would be dark and serious, on the contrary Transhumanism fiction tends to be optimistic and bright as compared to the future envisoned by Cyberpunk.

A. I have no problem with anyone using stealth. To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively. To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all. It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car. Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!! It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty. For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth. After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character. B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen. But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines. Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous. Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive. Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent. Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores. And Survival? Not sure. Perhaps INT, or maybe CON. Yes, maybe CON. I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based. CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much. As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters. Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery? Hmmm? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. A. While wearing any armour will make stealth harder, plate armour is nowhere near as noisy as you make out. On the contrary, you know all the clanking you hear in films and TV from people wearing plate? Added in by special effects, because they find that people are so attached to the idea of noisy plate that they won't accept it unless they add in the noises. Stealthing in plate is possible, ambushes in plate was done all the time, and actually it's leather armour that makes a lot of noise, it squeaks. B. It might seem like that to you, but it's more modified by quick thinking and understanding. Pillars deliberately avoids basing skills on attributes because in real life your skill at something is modified by a collection of different attributes. Being dextrous is by no means a guarantee that you will be good at being stealthy and being someone who is patient, observant, methodical, and knowing what they are doing is more effective than being nimble at stealth. Pillars deliberately did not want to force people into specific builds to use certain skills, because there is always a different way of justifying it. And as for the 'fighters hogging al the skill in weapons", ahem no they don't and thanks for proving me right! Fighters may specialise in combat but if you read my post you'd have realised that I stated that all classes are traditionally expected to be able to fight to some degree: rogues can still usually wield weapons and even have special backstab and sneak attack skills, wizards can blow stuff up and fall back to knives when necessary, etc. If you had a system where only the Fighters could fight, you'd complain right? So why not the same for other skills? There are many systems where the rogue is the only one who can do these essential skills, but name a system where only the fighters can fight? EDIT: In fact, this brings me to another point: you say fighters hog all the combat skills but they don't. Not only do rogues get combat skills but if I don't want to bring a fighter along there is usually other options, I could take a Barbarian or Paladin for instance. If I don't want a mage I can take a sorcerer. But very rarely do you get an alternative to the rogue: in NWN 2 for instance I realised that I needed to have at least one character with a level in rogue in order to detect the traps, due to the Detect Traps talent only rogues got. In all honesty, Flint, I disagree with just about everything you say above right down the line. I will say that perhaps PoE made a decision to go a certain direction, but frankly I think that that direction was wrong. I think that certain mixes of attributes SHOULD impact skill effectiveness. I think that doing otherwise is silly and nothing more than trying to ram square pegs into round holes with a warhammer. I didn't say that fighters hog all the combat skills. Read more carefully please. I said that they hog the WEAPONS skills. They're not the same thing. I'm not talking about those fighter abilities like knockdown or stances, etc. Just weapons skills. And while I wouldn't be horribly bothered if non warrior classes couldn't reach higher levels of skill in weapons, it bugs me that classes like paladin, rangers, and barbarians can't gain higher levels of skill in weapons. Why shouldn't a paladin be just as skilled with a greatsword as a fighter? Why is it that a Ranger can't have mastery in ranged weapons when they've been constructed to be such supposedly highly skilled ranged combatants? And, OK, maybe barbarians might not be quite as highly skilled as more highly trained fighters. OTOH, couldn't they at least gain "specialization" in their weapons? (Darn, I hate that term "specialization". Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization sound so utterly dorky. Weapon Mastery is fine. But couldn't they have come up with less dorky terms for the first and second level of weapons group skill? Jeez.) You are free to disagree with me just as I am free to think everything you say is wrong and based on preconceptions. Think we have both made our points and there is nothing else to say, other than I'm glad Pillars did not go in the direction you wanted. And your issue with fighters is irrelevant to the point I was making then. Non-fighters can still be good with weapons, they can still fight in most systems, they have applicable abilities to use in fights, but unless you are a rogue you get cut out of evening attempting certain basic adventuring things in many systems. Want to disarm traps in AD&D 2nd ed as a fighter? Nope, sorry you can't, and if you wanted to do it in D&D 3rd ed you better have taken a level of rogue at least. Want to fight as a rogue in either of those editions? That's fine! Just grab your shortsword and dive in. Sure a fighter gets certain weapon skills you can't but you get a nice sneak attack skill!

I don't negotiate with psychopaths. Start begging for mercy NOW. How rude! All I did was provide a counter-proposal, and I ain't no psychopath! Demented, yes, some may consider me megalomanical (you express a desire to bring order to the world under your divine rule and people start throwing accusations of being power mad all around), but psychopathic? No, I generally do care for those I wish to subjugate! Now excuse me while I munch on some souls.

I don't get why people equate soldiers to straight up fighters. Today's soldiers fight guerrilla style, they don't stand there getting hit. They are part fighter, part rogue, part ranger, part medic, part technical specialist, etc. They need to have good personal skills, in order to deal with civilians, tactical awareness, driving skills, etc. Some soldiers are specialised engineers, others field medics, yet others are leaders of men. Personally I am leaning more towards a 'template' system than a full class system: you choose a base template such as soldier which gives you basic training skills, then take lenses like 'Office Lens' to give them the skills an officer would have, 'Medic lens' for a field medic, 'Power Armour lens' for the power suit wearing assault troops, etc. For those who recognise this, yes I am stealing the template system from GURPS here. As for the world itself, I'd actually like a more hard sci-fi approach, I'm not talking 2001 level hardness just harder than the space magic we have been getting as sci-fi lately. Would enable them to look into the impact of certain technologies, such as genetic engineering, AI, automation of daily life, and themes like Transhumanism, which I find interesting. Instead of aliens I would propose we should have human subspecies created with genetic engineering, bioroids (biological androids, essentially 'assembled people' but not clones), uplifted races etc, kind of like how Red Dwarf had GELFs (genetically engineered life forms) instead of aliens. This would both allow people to play 'humans with funny bits on their nose' like in Star Trek, more exotic things like uplifted squids, and still preserve aliens as something mysterious, either as a precursor race that you can investigate the ruins of or to keep them truly alien, essential space Cthulhus whom humanity cannot comprehend. This is of course my own perfect sci-fi setting, my own wishlist, but screw you guys I think it's awesome.

A. I have no problem with anyone using stealth. To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively. To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all. It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car. Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!! It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty. For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth. After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character. B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen. But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines. Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous. Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive. Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent. Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores. And Survival? Not sure. Perhaps INT, or maybe CON. Yes, maybe CON. I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based. CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much. As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters. Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery? Hmmm? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. A. While wearing any armour will make stealth harder, plate armour is nowhere near as noisy as you make out. On the contrary, you know all the clanking you hear in films and TV from people wearing plate? Added in by special effects, because they find that people are so attached to the idea of noisy plate that they won't accept it unless they add in the noises. Stealthing in plate is possible, ambushes in plate was done all the time, and actually it's leather armour that makes a lot of noise, it squeaks. B. It might seem like that to you, but it's more modified by quick thinking and understanding. Pillars deliberately avoids basing skills on attributes because in real life your skill at something is modified by a collection of different attributes. Being dextrous is by no means a guarantee that you will be good at being stealthy and being someone who is patient, observant, methodical, and knowing what they are doing is more effective than being nimble at stealth. Pillars deliberately did not want to force people into specific builds to use certain skills, because there is always a different way of justifying it. And as for the 'fighters hogging al the skill in weapons", ahem no they don't and thanks for proving me right! Fighters may specialise in combat but if you read my post you'd have realised that I stated that all classes are traditionally expected to be able to fight to some degree: rogues can still usually wield weapons and even have special backstab and sneak attack skills, wizards can blow stuff up and fall back to knives when necessary, etc. If you had a system where only the Fighters could fight, you'd complain right? So why not the same for other skills? There are many systems where the rogue is the only one who can do these essential skills, but name a system where only the fighters can fight? EDIT: In fact, this brings me to another point: you say fighters hog all the combat skills but they don't. Not only do rogues get combat skills but if I don't want to bring a fighter along there is usually other options, I could take a Barbarian or Paladin for instance. If I don't want a mage I can take a sorcerer. But very rarely do you get an alternative to the rogue: in NWN 2 for instance I realised that I needed to have at least one character with a level in rogue in order to detect the traps, due to the Detect Traps talent only rogues got.

Counter-proposal: We burn you at the stake while I feast upon your soul, yes? Dual-wielding stays the same (considering that I'm one of those people who thinks dual-wielding should be renamed "Flamboyant Idiot Style" that provides only the bonus "You look like a flashy twit" then you should consider that a compromise).

It always pissed me off how the rogue would basically ring-fence a bunch (if not all) the essential non-combat adventuring skills and sit there picking it's snotty little nose saying "But its MY niche!!!! WAAH WAHH!!" Stealth should be a skill considered essential for all adventurers, sure you may have people even better skilled at it, but when infiltrating ruins you can't afford someone who can't pull their weight in such an essential area. Even Conan the Barbarian film (the original Arnie one) had him (and the entire party) sneaking about and ninj-ing people, and the Rob E Howard books he does it even more. Everyone is happy to acknowledge that every class should have some degree of combat capability as essential adventuring skill, why not other skills too? Why can't I have a mage engineer who can go invisible and pick a lock while the rest of the party fights? Why can't the warriors sneak in and back up the rogue in case things go **** up or to get into position for an ambush? I believe the reason why people think combat is essential for all but not things the rogue hoards like a self-centred prick is because tabletop RPGs started off as pretty much wargaming through a sequence of rooms where the monsters in the next room sit picking their noses waiting for their turn. In many systems the rogue class should be smashed into the ground, grinded up as he squeals and his stuff divided amongst the rest of the party, and I say this as someone who is currently playing a rogue in Pillars, but then the rogues there are not defined by denying other classes things.

The style suits me just fine. I think they couldn't get it together with what they had to work with. I wasn't expecting AAA quality, but they could of at least assembled this old school thing properly and had it working ticky boo at launch. Again, I think the style is fine. It was not ready at launch. It still had bugs, patch after patch. I don't know if the current patch has fixed everything in it's current state because I haven't revisited it yet. Is it worthy of calling 1.0 now? I hope so. Maybe after I finish Witcher 3 I will find out. You know nothing McPartyson!

Good attempt at trying to twist the polls to fit your agenda, work in politics? The fact of the matter is that almost 70% disagree with you and think it was a final product and almost 10% don't give a ****. End of discussion.

Um, where's the option to not romance any of them? Not trying to make trouble or make a statement, it's just that none of the characters strike me as people I would want to romance. At best it would be like trying bang a family member, at worst... I won't go there. Suffice it to say I don't think any of the characters in their current incarnation would make good romance options, something I find rather refreshing in fact since they were clearly not made to give players hard ons like usual companions are.

I'm at work so can't check but if it's the song I think it is then it's actually the second half of another song, the end credits music just sounds like two separate pieces for some reason.

You must be really busy walking on streets.. Slashing requires a blade length to make slashes with and knifes lack one, in fact blade length is what differentiate daggers from sword. Actually if you have really small blade/knife its better to go slash on main veins than stab few centimeters in body. In fight its easier to slash your blade on main veins or throath than stab armbit and body multiple times to kill without enemy goin on you after with their long sword what has reach of 2 meters. But one slash on main vein and after that you wait little and he is dead. If we start speaking real life get your facts straigth. Actually you're the one who should get his facts straight. Slashing veins isn't easy nor is it effective (fun fact, slitting your wrists by going across isn't very effective, you want to go along the length of the arm not across it), and slashing a person's throat doesn't cause them to die like in the movies, as the arteries actually retract when you start cutting preventing you from cutting them and there is muscle in the way, it might get messy but it is not as effective as people think. As to your question as to whether you should slash or stab someone from behind, it's stab: you drive the point of the knife into the side of the neck and then lever it round 90 degrees until you are blocking the windpipe with the blade, preventing them from breathing and slicing in half the arteries in the neck while pushing them out at the same time. This was told to me by a friend who served in the British Army.

I say no, the game was fine for a release in this day and age. Hell, I believe Baldur's Gate had about the same number of bugs too at release, and balancing issues that were never resolved even whereas Obsidian are constantly trying to fix balancing issues at least. Too many games release as Early Access these days, it seems to just be another word for "We haven't finished this game yet and it's still in Alpha and in fact may never be finished but we still want your money!" The amount of games that are in early access on Steam and the number of them that seem to have been ditched by their developers is disgusting. This was not an Alpha at release so no it was not deserving of being an Early Access.

I view a sci-fi setting as a perfect chance to get away from those tropes personally. Perhaps even avoid classes altogether. If it's party based there must be classes, and if it's turn based there must be stats too, it can't be avoided If if remove the class choices in the begining, the player will end up set up classes anyway. It doesn't have to have classes just because it's party-based. If the player wants to build characters towards some pre-conceived class idea that's their choice just as they can choose not to. Players will gravitate towards building their characters according to what works with the system.

I view a sci-fi setting as a perfect chance to get away from those tropes personally. Perhaps even avoid classes altogether.