Elerond

Chanters have healing aura that constantly heals your party

Wasteland 2 Hookability: Very Hooking, I can play over 12 hours long sessions Lastability: offers over hundred hours of gameplay Entertainment value: I find game to be very entertaining Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft Hookability: I find this game very hooking as I find myself to return to play it day after day Lastability: I have clocked over 300 hours, so... Entertainment value: I find this to be more time spending game than entertaining. Godus (beta 2.x.x) Hookability: I find game to be quite hooking, but also good background game as it don't need constant watching Lastability: Currently I have clocked over 400 hours, but as I run it in background that isn't necessary that impressive Entertainment value: I find game to be surprisingly entertaining even though gameplay has lots of waiting build in it. Divinity: Original Sin Hookability: I find this game to be only mediocre hooking, as my average game sessions with it are only 1-2 hours long Lastability: Game has lots to do, but currently I don't feel that I will play more than one playthrough Entertainment value: At it best game is very entertaining, but it also has some low points that bring my enjoyment down. Watch_Dogs Hookability: At begging game is promising, but then it loses it appeal, so I would say that overall hookability isn't very high Lastability: I didn't finish the game and probably will not finish, so I would say not very high Entertainment value: At first very entertaining then it becomes chore and loses all it entertaining value Heroine’s Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok (release date 25.12.2013) Hookability: I find game to be interesting but its hooks don't bite very deep Lastability: I played game about 10 hours, so quite short Entertainment value: It brought up all Quest for Glory nostalgia that were buried in me, which made game very entertaining to play Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Hookability: Game wasn't for me Lastability: Can't say, because of previous point Entertainment value: I see why some would find game entertaining, but for me it was not Titanfall Hookability: Game wasn't for me Lastability: Can't say, because of previous point Entertainment value: I see why some would find game entertaining, but for me it was not

All classes were designed so that they have useful role in the combat. Priest were designed to be support characters, which is role they do quite well in my opinion, even though I feel that chanters and paladins are better choice for support character, because of their passive de/buffs, where priest is much bit too high maintenance support character for my taste. But I have find out that with my play style priest is most effective when I use them as debuffer that makes rest of my party much more deadlier. Healing spell I have find out to be somewhat useless, because I don't usually need restore endurance to any of my characters before fight has ended and then endurance regenerates in seconds to full.

Whiners be whining. EDIT: also, how is a post from the devs on the official forums NOT hearing from Obsidian directly? seriously guys... They are KS backers, so I would guess that they would like to get news about delay in KS update instead of this forum. And I can't fault them doing so as PoE is KS project and major information such as delays should be given for backers in KS updates. Although I believe that next KS update will include that information and forum message was to give backers that read this forum heads up about delay.

She is writer of those comics not the artist, although I don't think she has anything against art that were used in those comics, but my point is that she isn't one that decided how the characters look in those comics..

It is good news in that sense that they have more time to polish the game. Otherwise I feel that this is somewhat bad news, as their release window moves to less optimal place, although there is always possibility that silence of beginning of year will bring more customers for smaller tittle like PoE than what Christmas spending rush. And this also means that expansion will be delayed and is even more depended on sales of PoE. But there is always hope that everything happens for reason. With release pushed back so much, I hope that they add couple more areas in backer beta, so that it don't start to taste like ashes before we get final version in our hands.

It is bit simplistic to say that PoE is 2D game, as it uses pre-rendered 3D modeled backgrounds that are rendered in an axonometric projection, so that people see depth in the map, and game uses 3D rendered character models and effects. Tablet games are usually designed to different kind of playing than your typical big budget console and computer games. But some of popular games these days use similar isometric style gameplay that PoE uses so it's quite safe to say that such style should not hinder too much PoE's sales But anyway it is quite probable that PoE will sell quite well, because it release window is excellent (at least with current knowledge) , as it is following big AAA fantasy rpg, that will leave great hype wave smaller fantasy rpgs to surf on, and addition to that it is released about same time with very anticipated fantasy movie, which will also give strength to that fantasy hype wave. And Obsidian is well known and respected studio with games that have million sellers on it belt. So if PoE isn't absolute train wreck of a game I would predict it will sell relatively well. It probably will not achieve similar sales figures as AAA games with their millions of dollars worth of advertising, but will sell very good numbers for game with quite minimalistic marketing budget.

Freedom of speech is about protect people from governmental control and censor. So flooding companies with messages that ask/demand/whatever them to advertising certain web pages/services or magazines. Such campaigns are one of tools that society uses to moderate speech. Said moderation as such isn't against free speech, although such tools can be used to block unpopular opinions addition to keeping conversation polite, which can threaten some people's ability to express their opinions. Trying shut Gamasutra down seems to me somewhat counterproductive thing for gamers to do as it is portal that game developers use to exchange information and it's at least partially way how its parent company UBM pays Game Developers Conference and GDC Vault which both are currently major resources for many developers. But maybe getting revenge or whatever to one opinion piece (meaning that is article that don't necessary represent opinions or values of publication that published it) from one writer is more important than other consequence that such site shutdown would cause. Intel's decision to remove their advertisement from world largest game developer portal seem also bit counter productive in time when they try to get more developers to produce games for their platforms, especially when they are currently in such position in market that it is quite unlikely that they would lose PC gamers as customers even if they had continued the campaign. So maybe there is more behind Intel's decision this campaign, but then again ad campaigns are usually run by separate corporate entities or even companies and lots of customers complaints about their campaign may hurt them even if campaign isn't targeted for those who complain and there is no risk of lost business because of those complains.

Patch added "_CommonRedist" director and its content "installscript.vdf" "vcredist_x64.exe" and "vcredist_x86.exe". As they are only files that are modified in same day as patch come and director's size is 18.3 MB.

Player's party members accuracy may have dropped 10 points from previous build, but deflection values of enemy parties (at least Meredith and his party, because it was only one that I checked) seems to be about halved from previous build. As Meredith had in previous build deflection over 50 now he has 28 and cowled man in brigandine had deflection over 90 in previous build has now under 50, so hitting them is now much easier than what it was in previous build, even with smaller accuracy bonus from attributes.

Feargus has said in interviews that their overhead per month is roughly 1 million dollars.. This is I believe their whole company and not specifically the PoE team which only has a fraction of the developers on it.. But they have much higher overhead then say InXile.. Every day this game goes over budget it comes out of their pocket.. not a publisher who has much larger cushions. I'm not saying Obsidian wastes money.. They are a large company.. not a indie team. They can't afford to dev this game for the next 2 years to make it pefect like most indie devs from kickstarter can. Average salary for game developer in USA is $83,060 (according to 2013 survey) and Obsidian has 51-200 employees (according to LinkedIn), which means that their yearly employee salary expenses probably are somewhere between $4,236,060-$16,612,000 and with other expenses $1 million in month burn rate sound quite reasonable sum. Although this has little to do with PoE, which had long time team under ten members working on it and even now number is about 20, which all may not work with the game full-time. Which means that they haven't burned money that they got from kickstarter with very high speed. Where inXile has employees somewhere between 11-50 (according to LinkedIn), which mean that their yearly employee salary expenses are probably somewhere between $913,660-$4,153,000 with other expenses their monthly burn rate I would guess that their monthly burn rate is probably somewhere between $100k-$400k, which is any case significantly lower than what Obsidian has, but one has to take account that Obsidian has incoming money from multiple publisher funded projects, inXile currently lives only with money from their Kickstarter projects and money what they get sales of their catalog, so without knowing how much money each company has in store I would say that Obsidian is actually financially in much better place to over extend project size of PoE than what inXile is. Although currently it looks that both companies financial state is in good state.

Higher deflection and abilities that rise deflection and DT. So basically they should take less damage than other front liners.

Concentration bonus is still in attributes (resolve), but there isn't any more attribute that adds character's change to interrupt, but instead that changes is no wholly determined by weapon, spell or ability that character uses.

I think typical distribution is 5% misses 45% grazes 45% hits and 5% critical hits when accuracy and defense stat are same and there is no bonuses/minuses involved from other sources. They bring variety in by adding additional hit type. When hitting is determined by dice roll is always passive and out of player's control, which I have though to be one of such systems lures, as it adds luck factor in picture which some people find exciting. Player's active role in this type mechanics come in preparation where player tries to max their changes before dice roll, by buffing, selecting right tools and building right sort character, etc..

Armor systems are meant prolong combat, like for example AC from AD&D is there only to make people miss more. And there is usually counter mechanics that are meant to end combat sooner, like weapons that do more damage, bonuses to hit, abilities that make your characters hit faster. I would say that graze system isn't there to make combat faster, but add more variety in it and maybe be more pleasing for those that prefer more simultaneous systems.

I think that it Josh intent to do interesting system in this case instead of simple. Also in my opinion DT is easy to understand as basic system, as it is just - DT amount damage to all attacks and as player has at least some kind idea what kind damage ranges there are it is quite easy to judge how much protection armor offers. But PoE's T system becomes more difficult to follow because armors have DT reductions or increases depending on damage type and most of the armor in the game don't offer this information to player. DR is quite easy concept, but its overall effectivity can be bit harder to determine because of percent based reduction means that there is always damage that goes through so you need to take account how fast someone hits addition to how much damage one hit does to know how effective armor will be in combat. Combination of both systems and different values against different damage types plus speed reductions makes armor system quite complex and makes determining best armor choice bit harder than what you typically have in RPGs. But it is for everyone to determine themselves is such system good or bad thing for the game, but at least it's interesting. I myself don't find it too convoluted and I don't feel that it needs to be changed, although there maybe still need for some balancing when it comes to lower damage range weapons.

I would point out that from mathematical point of view it don't matter where that line between plus and minus goes as there is still same number of points that change effect by 2%. So difference between attribute value 1 and and 18 is same from mechanical point of view regardless how that information is represented to player. And this isn't AD&D even if some of it's aspect has gotten their inspiration from AD&D, but I would point out that AD&D isn't only source of inspiration that game uses and that game mechanics should serve mainly game that they are in, even if that means that it breaks or goes against some preconceptions that people have towards this sort of game, as it is much more important that game has ruleset that works than that all of its parts respond to players preconceptions, because players get over their preconceptions after playing game bit, but broken ruleset is much more difficult to fix, of course it probably would be optimal if game could do both, but that is easier to say than do when you create new ruleset that don't have any direct ties to one that is compared, especially when one has to take copyrights and such in account.

Ragdoll physics is procedural way to produce death animations for characters, which helps death animations look more realistic when character dies on uneven surface. As PoE has only flat surfaces (in sense how physic algorithms see things), as it uses pre-rendered backgrounds that is made look for human eye as 3d surface by using an axonometric projection. So using ragdoll physics instead of static death animations (that can have procedural variations in them to prevent all character's to die same way) would only be beneficial for the game if character's bodies are thrown air same way as they are for example in Titan Quest, as then ragdoll physics will make each body fly in different way, because otherwise other ways to produce death animations will produce better quality and more believable death animations.

Enemies seem to have much sensible defense values. New AI gives better feeling in combat. Single hand weapons are yet again viable options to use. Wizards spells feel powerful but not overpowered, which is nice. New stealth feels better than previous iteration because there is more excitement in it and you can try fool hardly bypass attempts. Chanter summons vanish after fight, which is good as previously they were the ultimate choice. Rogue seems to hit sneak attacks as they should hit them, which made them interesting choice for me. New talents are interesting and offer new build options. Lowered defenses made fighter feel quite powerful damage dealer. Poorer tactics don't seem to eat health in such speed as they did previously.

When I used map couple times this happened It also caused doors highlights to move bit off their place Glitches disappeared when map reloaded. Fog of war don't hide some items that characters carry. Here for example one of the backer characters with something in his hand Here same character when fog of war hides him, but you can still see item on his hand And here we see ogre's club even though he is hided by fog of war

This happens also with female elves.

Source? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64042-are-we-getting-the-pe-we-were-led-to-believe-was-on-the-horizon-during-the-ks/?p=1346861

Just to clarify: when I said "I keep finding flaming accusations to degenerative gameplay etc. etc." I meant in the forums, and that they are used by forumists, not by devs, to predictably shoot down any attempt of criticism to game design. But I stand on my position that should a dev complain about degenerative playing, he's shooting himself in the foot since it's exclusively his own resposibility to design/balance the game in order to encourage the kind of gaming he prefers.I mean, if I complain that people are not using my articles properly because they use them to make roll-ups instead of reading them, it's probably because my articles suck. But developers (at least PoE's) don't complain that people play their game wrongly, but instead they blame themselves doing bad job with game's design. It is forumists nature to use degenerative gameplay and any other term as they see fit best with their current argument. This goes especially for such terms like "spiritual successor", "combat xp", "objective xp", "quest xp" and "romance" in this forums.

It is hardly witch burning. If you actually ever played obsidian games, you'd automatically realize that their strong suit is Storytelling and not combat/game play design. I would have conceded to your point if there was SINGLE game where the combat was good. I am sorry to report, that there isn't. And I mean not just the design of the combat mechanics, I mean the encounters themselves which are practically very easy to get right even if you are working with a bad engine / some one else'e mechanics. Frankly, I am very surprised that they went for RTwP with Elves the first chance they got to go free for their own desires. I would think that if they haven't ever succeeded to design good combat there is even more need to them to emphasize their design efforts this time in that aspect of the game, so that they don't yet again reproduce their past mistakes, yes? I would guess that they went with their own sense of nostalgia .

According to Josh (by paraphrasing) degenerative gameplay is gameplay that against designers intent but using it benefits player in such degree that game encourages to use such gameplay is main way to play the game or not using such gameplay puts player unfavorable position compared to those that used such gameplay. And that degenerative is always designers fault and there is nothing wrong in that players play optimally in given ruleset even if it goes against designers intent and seem odd from game world perspective. Rest-spamming, save-scumming etc. behaviors that go against designers' intent and game world logic are symptoms that are caused flaws in game design. Which is why designers try not to create flaws in the rule set they are designing and not demanding players to use such behaviors if they are possible when they are playing games they have designed (at least usually this is the case) . I would guess that problem that some people have with term "degenerative gameplay" rises probably that they have absolute opposite view in game design than designers themselves, which makes them to associate term with themselves instead with designers like they do. Such terminological misassociating seems to happen time to time in projects with multidisciplinary approach, which makes defining terms even more important what they typically are in the projects. I also would guess that they don't use degenerative design instead of degenerative gameplay is that they describe how product works instead of how they work. But it seem somewhat malicious to attack designers time and time again because of this term, even though they have multiple times explained what they mean with it. But who I am to stop good witch burning.