Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

The Sharmat

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    847

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Posts posted by The Sharmat

    Your perfect world state for PoE2 (NEW QUESTIONS UPDATE!)

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

    And Gods can intervene to make sure someone awakens. I'd imagine they can do the opposite. Iovara probably has a better success rate sitting in a giant hole than she would in the outside world. Plus, she tried the evangelical angle. It didn't work then, when there were actual people that created the Gods still walking around leaking stuff. It's even less likely to work now.

    • Like 1

    My hope for being a careful pirate in the Archipelago.

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

     

     

    So in a game about Dragons and giant mushrooms IRL means we cant have stealth piracy? Gotcha.

     

    Why not just have marshmallows rain from the sky? It's fantasy after all. Who cares what tone or feel the devs are going for?

     

    PoE has been aiming for something more grounded from the start, despite the magical elements. Not sure why you're surprised now. Or why so many people think "it's fantasy" is an excuse to abandon all internal consistency or representation of basic logic and human nature.

    • Like 2

    Do most people really play the hardest difficulty level?

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    I agree with that. I loved PST and Morrowind, but not because of good game mechanics or combat ( its terrible in both games ) but for the atmospere, characters and story.

    On the other side I never finished IWD1 although combat was great but I got bored by the absence of story.

     

    I admit that it can be boring for some players if they win every fight without problems, but for me it would be more frustrating if I have to try the same fight again and again when I want to see how the story continues. I have tried to solo a few RPGs, but usually I quit after a short time because the interaction between characters is more importent to me than creating a self imposed challenge.

     

    It's just a shame that so many RPG devs have pretty much embraced the story vs. combat false dichotomy. Video games are an interactive medium. They should each inform the other.

    • Like 1

    Your perfect world state for PoE2 (NEW QUESTIONS UPDATE!)

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

     

    Awakenings seem to vary greatly in intensity and just what is awakened. They're also extremely rare. It's a hell of a gambit to make.

    As opposed to sitting in a soul prison for an eternity?

     

    She knew exactly what she was getting there. Sit around in Breith Eaman being smug at the Gods for petty satisfaction. Given the Gods are kind of proud selfish ****, it probably even worked a bit.

    Do most people really play the hardest difficulty level?

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Isn't the real difficulty is from deciding whoever which of your companions and other npc's lives and who out of these dies? Yo decide if who or what you will become im the world? The point of the game was never the combat, the point was to role play and to make story decisions which affect the game in HUGE ways. Which Tyranny and Pillars excel at.

    The only game I've found to have genuinely difficult choices is The Witcher 2, so no.

    Do most people really play the hardest difficulty level?

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by The Sharmat

    That would depend entirely on the player. Lots of people love Planescape: Torment because they like the story despite the fact that the game itself is terribly designed. On a similar note, as you might guess, I love Morrowind because of its fantastic atmosphere and setting despite the fact that, again, it's not a very well designed or difficult game. But that's hardly universally true. Given that video game writing is, on the whole, rather terrible, I have to assume that most players are not like this, however.

     

    Pillars has a decent story but I enjoy the problem solving aspects of the higher difficulties and for me that's what puts it above many other RPGs. This difficulty is much more than simply memorizing a formula unless you go out of your way to seek out overpowered cookie cutter builds on the internet, in which case you have only yourself to blame.

    EDIT: Also I hate this segregation of gameplay and story in games and only use that language myself because everyone else is so dedicated to it. A story is meant to evoke emotions and gameplay can aid in that by making a desperate fight actually feel desperate. But story driven games often neglect this to their detriment, with things that are supposed to be threatening simply seeming pathetic due to the ease of their defeat; all playing in to the plague of overpowered Mary Sue style player characters in modern RPGs.

    • Like 2

    My hope for being a careful pirate in the Archipelago.

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Are we talking about romantic pirates from novels or about actual pirates of real dimension?  :no:

    Well, historically there were 3 main factors against "stealth" pirates, in a fantasy world they may work and may not

     

    a) each ship entering a government port was recorded, including cargo on board (cargo was also taxed), number of crew hired in that port to replenish losses, repairs done to the ship, and sometimes even the distinguishing features of a captain. This registries survived till nowdays.

    b) meeting a ship in 17-18 century was way more rare than in 19 century-nowadays. If you could show a chart of Atlantic navigation of Titanic days to a sailor of Tortuga era he will say you are insane and it can't be, the same for modern container routes. So each ship in a certain sector was a RARE occasion and attracted attention. Being a resident of a port, you could name all ships that will enter this port in a year. 

    с) Sorry to disappoint you, but IRL your chances to meet a SINGLE galleon and get safely to 1 km distance to him were extremely low. Anything of any value was escorted. Ships almost never went alone. To attack a group of trade cargos + military or hired escort you need your own little flotilia. Even if this galleon was cut off by storm, is damaged and lost in space, it is still a tough target. Real pirates attacked small lonely ships, usually unarmed at all, took soap, bricks, wood, grain - anything of value. Their ships were usually in extremely poor condition, and their crew was rabble and panicked at any smallest threat, surrendered and was hanged.

     

    Of course, there were corsairs (capeers) but they are rare elite guys, usually acting openly, with huge flotilias, well-known across the seas and getting full support of their gov. ports (usually with military ship status, it means that the port repairs and refills you for free).

    Such guys didn't hide, in opposite - sometimes they used their name to make opponent panic. They are not even pirates, they are more like mercenaries.

     

    It was a VERY VERY unfortunate fate to be a pirate. They lived for several years, they were poor, they were trackable, they were hunted, and when european governments started to hire sailors massively, in mere century they all went to serve under the roof of law and piracy was ended.

     

    So no stealth raiders, sorry.

    Very informative, good stuff. Reminds me of watching Black Sails then reading up on the people the fiction was based on. Charles Vane was considered a great success as a pirate because his career lasted multiple years before he died.

×
×
  • Create New...