Karkarov

My 15-year old rebel deserves a kick in the balls. And most diplomats are probably pretty accepting. Part of the job to be flexible. The people I still talk to and network with from university who went into politics or foreign diplomacy are pretty adaptable. That said I'm a bureaucrat and we're known to be small and rigid people. :D You should both join me in the private sector where you can get away with a sweater vest, jeans, and any shoes you want. As long as you understand every meeting is critical, at least until the next meeting happens, and you need to know your audience unless you are highly ranked then you can be a jerk and an absolute neophyte at any given subject and it is okay. Also 15 year old Karkarov's reaction to that guy and his clothing would have been way worse than modern Karkarov. I can be a (non profanity based comment indicating not always a nice person that gets censored for some reason) these days, but by comparison to teenager me I am a saint.

Lol said it before, will say it again. There is a big difference between a legitimate journalist, and some dudes writing reviews for a gaming blog/review site.

So despite this being a very..... rough opening post let me dignify it. Go read the actual updates, Sawyer's tweets, etc. Everything about this games screams it has more freedom for the player on all levels. You have a map you can sail around however you want. You are not required to visit gilded vale before raedrics hold if you get the comparison. You have multiple factions with actual impact to the story itself, not just one chapter of it, they are also much larger, and there are more of them. Unlike the first game, the sequel also has the option to let you stay independent of the factions by choice instead of by accident/mistake. It has a larger world over all, more class development options, an actual relationship system, etc etc etc. None of the things your op suggests have any chance of actually happening. Eternity 2 will clearly have more freedom for the player than Eternity 1, that was even one of their design goals from day one.

That is a hold over from eternity 1. Like you noticed you can use portraits of any size, but using anything other than the exact size is a bad idea. Basically what happens if your size is off is the engine tries to smart scale it, and frankly, the engine sucks at image scaling. This results in a blurry pic in game. It sucks so bad at it you get better results using a pic that is too small than you do one that is large. Yeah..... :/ I did an actual test and comparison back in Eternity 1 in my original portraits thread, not sure those images are still around however. Don't use the same image hosting site anymore, old one I used to use stopped being reliable.

I wouldn't read too much into it, this "beta" has been almost point for point identical to the Eternity 1 beta. Obsidian likes to release things in beta intentionally overturned just to get a reaction, see where it needs to go, etc. I remember at one point in Eternity 1 beta they released this patch and everyone complained about something with the melee, maybe the swing time changed or everyone was glancing don't recall. After a weak of whine festa of the year one of the devs admitted on the forum the beta was like 3-4 versions behind the current build and they were using the beta reactions to see if the changes they had already made address what players were complaining about. Just saying. It's a beta, put no stock in it, and ignore the blowhards who live on steam that think beta = full retail product. Sorry this isn't an "early access" game that is just never getting more development, it is an actual beta.

I don't know, seems like a weak excuse. You can leave the republics, she could have actually been born a man, she could have been born a man to dirt farmers in Aedyr. That is no less "the gods fault" than her being an avian godlike. Don't need feathers for hair to be reviled by society, or treated like a freak. In all honesty, in eternity 1, no one really treated her "badly" other than durance, and he didn't exactly restrict that to her.

Sonic, portraits work exactly how they did in eternity 1. They even follow the same naming convention and folder path. Just now, there is a third water color variant you see in conversations and scripted encounters. So anything you could do in Eternity 1 portrait wise, you can do in 2. As far as the water color portrait goes, you can post and ask for help here, or you could also look up some tutorial videos online. I find it is a lot less about the method of making the water color picture, and a lot more about the initial picture you use. Some Aramintai have posted I think look horrid in the screenshots, simply because those pictures clearly don't belong and are in a different art style. There isn't a ton you can do to fix that short of redoing the entire picture. That said, don't assume this is a simple filter process. It is not, I spent over an hour and a half making mine for the game.

Not sure how this turned into a question of removing death. Of course it should not be removed, absolutely silly. This is a game where you can save any time you want as long as you are not in combat, if you are really torn up over a death you can just reload. For those who want to play with their mistakes, they just accept the death and the consequences.

That's a load of crap Junta. How about that fight where I was sneaking, move my tank forward to the enemy caster, no traps (that I can see, god knows no one is going to perception spot them), enemy spots me as I almost reach melee, WOOPS Mercenary Fighter steps on a magic trap one step after being spotted! Here have two injuries for your trouble, 50% hp loss, -30 accuracy, and be locked in combat. Yeah, "get good" sure would do a lot to change that scenario. Here is the problem. Because resting isn't restricted, traps are overpowered. Also the Eternity 1 comparisons are laughable. Springing a trap in Eternity 1 could not give me two stat debuffs and take 50% of my hp. Springing a trap in Deadfire can, and WILL. In Eternity you probably got a save if nothing else, in Deadfire? What save, what are you talking about? I played Eternity with multiple characters at two or even three injuries over a long stretch of a couple dungeon floors, holding people back, playing conservative, it could work. Deadfire? F no, I am tempted to rest at one injury, at two it is basically required if it is your tank character with the injuries. "Playing badly" has nothing to do with it as you CAN get two injuries from one trap, that you can't see yourself, and requires insane perception to spot. The fact that you have one less character doesn't help, it was far easier to play around two injured characters in Eternity than it is Deadfire. One of multiple things needs to happen. 1: They need to make it easier to spot (maybe disarm, don't know never spotted one so far as I didn't roll with 16+ perception) traps. If I could actually spot them I could at least try to disarm them, many of them I can't see to walk around, I can't see any to actually disarm. 2: They need to drastically lower the trap penalties, while also doing something to limit rests. 3: They need to leave rests alone, but lower the trap penalties at least slightly. 4: If nothing else at least give characters a save to avoid the injury.

That's what I don't understand about this change. It was made so resolve wouldn't be such a huge dump stat and be more useful to more characters. So we turn might/strength into an even bigger dump stat than resolve was for anyone who relies on spells or healing? This is what was so annoying about the original Eternity Beta and why I didn't play it much. There were no subtle fixes, everything was the shotgun overcompensate approach, then slowly step it back, sometimes it never got stepped back enough. What's most hilarious about this, is now Con is actually more desirable for a caster than might/strength.

Awesome, another feature less than 5% of players will use. Let me know when the "run" speed isn't a lazy jog so I can stop using fast mode.

The traps as they stand now are broken, you should not need 15 perception to see a simple dart trap, especially in a so called "early mid game" area based on player level. Especially when you consider that springing a trap = 1 wound at minimum, possibly more, and taking even 1 wound seriously impairs a character. Trap detection should also not be tied to perception when the mechanics description in game says it is tied to mechanics. It is a beta but jesus, if you knew this wasn't true update it before release. That said if the original backer beta for Eternity 1 taught me anything, Obsidian intentionally releases the beta overtuned and far too challenging at first then scales down. The bad builds of your included party members, and the fact that you have way less gear than you would in the real game doesn't help either. So likely they intentionally made the whole initial release more deadly than it really needs to be.

Yeap. it is quite strange.

Fair point, just bear in mind the Deadfire Backer Beta has a numerical value stat sheet showing you what numbers mean on the "normal" scale. A 13 in a stat is by their own definition "legendary". So a check requiring a 19 in a stat is pretty insane by that standard. Just for reference straight from the Deadfire character creation screen:

So some of you may know/remember I sort of know my portrait game. Few months ago in preparation for all this Deadfire nonsense I cut together a new custom portrait for my planned Cipher/Fighter multi class watcher. It is basically a mashup of the old Heodan portrait and one of Jason Seow's armor wearing dude portraits, with a very healthy bit of editing and enhancements. Particularly to make Heodan look a bit more rough and tumble. Today I decided to sit down with the backer beta for Deadfire, and get this portrait Deadfire ready. Feel free to give feedback, use if you want to, whatever. In Game: Portraits:

Personally I am fine with all that. I like that he made it clear not all companions will be down for a romance with you, and left the door open to companions having their own romances.

Too true, but the backer beta update should come sometime this week hopefully. Then we will have a clear release day for that, and at least a beta product to play around with. It really won't be too long now.

Dude I don't have 150 hours between both of my playthroughs combined and I play fairly completionist. Eternity can easily be beaten within 50-60 hours.

This may motivate me to do a third playthrough as well. But we will see.

That would be a very bad choice because it is counter intuitive design. You bring a guy into a room with five boxes and tell him this is designed for him to only take four boxes, but he can take all five if he wants. He asks is there an advantage in not taking all five? Not really, you just get less stuff, and it is really designed around you taking four, even though you can have all five. Guess how many boxes the guy takes? The point is people will normally take what they are allowed unless there is a clear advantage to not doing so. There is no clear advantage to not taking five party members when the game lets you have five. The people who take less are doing it for some epeen challenge nonsense, which is good for them, but the vast majority of players will take as many people as they can. If people want an easier challenge that be done with difficulty settings, without being counter intuitive at the same time.

Are we still comparing Eternity to D&D? Okay, get over it, the ship sailed, bye bye. This is not a new IP anymore, this is not a "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate". It is Pillars of Eternity 2, it is a sequel of Pillars of Eternity (not the spiritual kind), and it is going to use the Pillars of Eternity mechanics. AKA: No god awful prebuffing. No BS tic tac toe caster "counter the spell" fights. No more "save or die". If you didn't like the mechanics of Eternity 1, get ready to not like the mechanics of Eternity 2, because they are the same mechanics just with enhancements and tweaks. This game is not, and will never be, D&D. Thank god for that.

Well dude by that token elves are just skinny humans with long ears and light skin tone.

Uh there are no games where dwarves are just a human subrace, hence why they are treated like their own race, with their own culture.

I legit laughed at this comment. You have to admit, the irony of the thread is strong at this point. Absolutely. She is the artist and has the artistic license. Totally within her rights to make whatever change she deems needed, I was just sharing my view on it. I think it would be really cool if maybe they released the moodier version of the portrait as well in the portrait files. That way if we want we can swap it out.

Yeah gotta say, liked the original one more. Had better mood to it, she seems a little too .... "cheeky" now.