Elerond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VGPJhHHAM Parrying sword with dagger and one hand sword is quite similar because you can't/shouldn't use point end of sword to block because there is high change that your sword will give up (as your wrist needs to endure usually too much force which is why it you should try to block as near guard as you can) and you will get hit or at least your opponent has much easier time to bind your sword. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI-zSSoiWvk

Rapier is excellent in attacking but it isn't any more effective in defending oneself than any other one handed sword, although it long blade gives one edge over shorter edged swords in duel. But there is reason why rapier fencing schools teach used in their teaching also buckler or defensive dagger. Deflection bonus for hatchet isn't necessary most simulative gameplay bonus, but there are some merits that hatchets have that could be argued to give such benefits. Like for example like all axes they have heavy head so it is relatively easy to force more equally balanced weapons off from their course. Fighting hatchets most likely look more like combat tomahawks or boarding axes (which as we now know them are more military/combat oriented variants of typical hatchet [which is one handed axe with head that has cutting blade and hammer head, which actually covers quite broad variation of different kinds of axes]). And from that we get to fighting hatchets in Eora, that probably have long and narrow cutting blade that wides towards cutting edge like typical tomahawk or possible bearded axe and it also has longer hammer head to balance the head with possible sword breakers, which would make it excellent weapon to bind opponent's weapon, but same time giving some options to make counter attacks. So we could say that hatchets in Eora have such defensive design that isn't common in our world but don't make them less possible to exist than for example those small sword like rapiers that people insist to use instead of much more heavier variants that were common in our world. And so on.

I don't think that bringing immunities is very exiting thing to do, and I don't think that they are the answer that solves problem of monotone tactics, they may force some players to change tactics that they currently use to another, because if player is willing to use one monotone tactic they are willing to use another and it isn't like there is lack of choice when it comes to such tactics. I personally would had hoped to see more options in offered to characters so that players would be more inclined to test different tactics just because they can. But of course this route is much more cost-effective to take as it needs only additional flags and nothing else.

They themselves produced money, but they also drive declination of products made by Lucas Films and Lucas Arts and other companies that Lucas owned so much that said companies could not live without selling them to somebody else. So in short run they were good cash grabs, but in long run they have lessened value of Lucas's companies IPs. It should be also noted that during Disney time Star Wars merchandise revenue stream has rose to all time high and is still increasing. Also it is interesting to note that box office inflation corrected revenue from New Hope is only couple hundred million dollars less than revenue from whole prequel trilogy. So I don't say that Lucas wasn't able to make money from Star Wars, but that he didn't always made best choices (at least from perspective where one is able to look back see how things develop), in my estimate he is in this sense more like Trump who has been able to make money in his businesses, who has been able to grow his net worth 300% since 1987, but if he had invested his money in and index fund in 1988 his net worth would had grown over 1300%, than some actually financial genius. But of course when you have billions dollars worth of wealth it don't really matter if some other decision would have brought you more money if decision that you made were more to your liking. Source for Trump numbers http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/ Sources for Star Wars claims http://www.statisticbrain.com/star-wars-total-franchise-revenue/ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/star-wars-merchandise-sales-could-819004 US Inflation calculator that I used in my interesting to note segment http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ P.S. Point wasn't to say that Lucas don't know how to make money, but that he isn't some sort genius that didn't made bunch of bad calls. Meaning that when you look decision that he made/approved/allowed in time when Hasbro made Star Wars toys you probably should also take account that and possible also note that Disney currently seems to do better job with different decisions.

Lucas refused to sell his studios games in Steam or other digital stores because he was so hang up in the past or some other reason other than making money. Also Lucas seemed to be keen to do edits in his films that have made fans and other people less likely buy edited versions of his films than originals. And he also was responsible for prequels. So I am not as confident his money making abilities as you are. Because he has long history of not so great decisions.

There was that time when certain Bleak Walker build was able to do flames of devotion strikes that did over 600 points of damage and killed nearly everything with one hit. But that was not direction that Obsidian wanted to go.

Yeah, but "shoot the core themes of your source material in the foot" generally doesn't make a good adaptation. Like... in a D&D game, you kind of expect at least some dungeons and possibly a dragon or more. The expected core experience is centered around exploration of hostile territory and killing monsters to take their stuff. Conversely, in Vampire, you expect lots of scheming and backstabbing and desperate clinging to the remains of your Humanity, where combat is usually a fail state and the result of your ineptitude at the aforementioned activities. Desperately clinging and scheming? Yeah... try making a 30 hr game consisting of nothing but that. It's not happening, and if it did, it'd most likely be full of it's own set of issues, and be worse off, but hey, that's all good because it's true to source. Tabletop GMs have done campaigns spanning multiple years about vampire politics, so I'm not particularly worried that a 30 hr game by the top narrative designers of the industry would somehow fail to stay entertaining. I'm pretty sure PST had at least 30 hours' worth of content consisting of nothing but talking to people. Of course I'd rather have them shoot for a 10-20 hour long experience with a ton of reactivity and replayability. Yeah, because games like PST are just a dime a dozen, aren't they? I don't think it's just quite as simple as that. So it is wrong ask more them, from people that are know for their narrative talents? Or what is the problem?

Exactly my experience. Surely this doesn't mean that PoE has to stick to cliche's or norms. However, when I read the patch notes for Fighters (and the logic behind it) then it seems that suddenly cliche's and norms become a focal point. Inspiration for PoE's paladins is in D&D's warlords. Fighters were meant to be frontline crowd control super class, but that changed bit during development because people wanted that fighters should also be able to deal damage. Also paladins got flames of devotion because people wanted paladins to have smite like ability. So in other hand Obsidian wanted to make classes different from what they were in D&D and in other hand people wanted them to be similar to D&D classes so in end we ended with compromise classes that have bit of both. Paladins aren't protected by their devotion, but power of their soul that they control with their devotion. It is same power that wizards, priest, druids and ciphers use to cast their spells for example. Gods in Eora (world of PoE) use same soul power to work although they use power of millions of souls. Also it is soul power that gives "undead" their undead life in poe and there isn't (at least yet) demons in divine sense. There are quite much spirit creatures in Eora, as souls are able to channel so much power and it is possible to tie them to nearly everything, especially if there is bit of adra to help the process.

Bloodlines was good game outside of combat, but its combat wasn't great and there was quite lot of areas and quest (absolutely too much) that were mainly designed combat in the mind, especially in end game. Quests,lore, believable/interactive world part depends quite lot on peoples personal preferences. In my opinion it mostly excel on these parts but there are some quite poor choices also. Overall the game was good, even great, but not because of designers' choice to make combat play much bigger part than what it does in VtM itself.

That was most likely just oversight, as BAdler (or who ever writes the notes) writes patch notes from issue tracker that has much more change than they write in patch notes (because there is always lots of minor adjustments in code that leave their mark in issue tracker, but are meaningless for end user), so when they collect things that are interesting for end users it is quite easy to miss one value adjustment. especially if it such that it hasn't been talked in team meeting or such, because it is just adjusting value to what it should be according to design paper.

Blind faith interest: Torment: Tides of Numenera Xcom 2 Have peaked my interest but let see first if there is actually reason to be interested Fallout 4 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Mass Effect Andromeda Vampyr (Vampyr is set just after the First World War and follows the story of a doctor who returns home to find his homeland ravaged by the Spanish Flu. After treating one of his patients, the doctor gets bitten, thus transforming him into a vampyr... Game is made same studio that made Life is Strange, they say it will be RPG) Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Divinity: Original Sin II Cyberpunk 2077 Mordheim: City of the Damned Total War: Warhammer Battlefleet Gothic: Armada Elite: Dangerous - Horizons Ghostbusters Suicide Squad The Dark Tower Jessica Jones (not actually movie, but Netflix series) I have currently off year from books, so I don't know anything what happens on that front.

Obviously I'm not advocating for a complete adaptation of the rules, that would be stupid. But maybe saying "this discipline that about half the clans has doesn't actually do what it's supposed to do, unless you're a member of a very specific clan", or "**** it, figuring out ways for investigative/social/utility disciplines to be actually useful in the game is hard, let's change them so they let you kill people even faster" is equally stupid. Yup those weren't most exiting designing decision that they could have made. Also I kill tunnel map design in some quest was so lazy that it is too easy to see that they run out of time when they made them.

If you don't have an engine from a parent company or something, chances are you're gonna use cryengine for a tps action rpg game : p Don't know why so many devs are choosing cryengine, maybe it's cheaper than most? Why not license redengine from cdpr? : d CryEngine is easier to use than Unreal where you have to build lighting to see the changes; you just have to drop a light into the scene and that's it. I haven't worked much with CryEngine but I get the feeling that they just need to find their market, they're aimless and that's hurting them. Also, I don't get why so many gamers have a love for Onyx and an unfounded hatred of Unity. I literally could only find 2 games made on Onyx and both where made by Obsidian. Onyx is Obsidian's own in house engine, which they used in DSIII and South Park.

So you don't really want a Vampire RPG. What is the point of making a game with known IP if you just change everything? Just a money grab. You don't need to change anything to make the game balanced, you need to design your game around the diverging capabilities different clans bring to the table. Refraining from pointlessly changing how the system works in the name of maximized killing capacity for everybody like Bloodlines did would be a start. I don't think you would be a good game designer. I'm sorry, what? The changed disciplines in Bloodlines were a ****ing travesty, not to mention the gaping plothole it caused (namely that in-universe, pretty much every fledgling with Obfuscate 3 can replicate the "I am Nines Rodriguez" trick, thus making his appearance at the dead Primogen's estate an extremely flimsy casus belli). Bloodlines was a decent game (and more importantly, it worked as a horror rpg), but a good Vampire adaptation it ain't. I get that you're a fussy cat but you must understand that tabletop doesn't translate well to video game. Asking for it just shows a lack of understanding of game development and the limitations of production and the medium. *cough* InXile seems to think otherwise. Maybe you've heard of this cool new game called Torment: Tides of Numenera? But I'm sure your game designer experience and insight is much more valuable than theirs. You mean that game in which they changes how some of the core mechanics of P&P version work because they didn't find way to make them work in CRPG environment?

in a multiplayer game, balance is making all character types equaly combat proficient. in a single player rpg, balance is making all character builds able to reach the end of the game without hitting a wall that says "oh, you do not have X points on that skill? sorry, roll a new character and try again" Like for example Wasteland 2 that seems to suffer quite much from syndromes "Oh you have wrong build though luck to you" and "Oh you have right build there is no challenge for you" when you add fact that it is also quite buggy and suffers from performance and stability issues, I would not necessary take it as example how I want future RPGs to look. This is not to say that Obsidian's games don't have issues, but that there is no perfect game maker or game and that is strengths of the games that make them memorable and enjoyable not their weaknesses. Also I would not mind to see Vampire game from Obsidian, inXile, or both, because I think they both are great. Although if I had to choose I probably would choose Obsidian as their proven track record for heavily story focused games is much more impressive than inXile's. To clear the point: Balance matters, even in single player games, but how, where and why depends on fully on game, genre and personal preferences. There is no perfect game, no perfect developer, no game without weaknesses. Game's strengths play much bigger role in how enjoyable and memorable they are than their weaknesses. I want new Vampire game. I think both inXile and Obsidian are great studios, but I favor Obsidian bit more because of their history.

Most meaningful difference is that Saudi Arabia keeps their barbaric acts inside of their own country where ISIS constantly tries to/does conquer new areas which population they force to follow their laws or enslave/kill. Also they aren't willing to peacefully go exist with other nations but actively seek to get people do terrorist attacks in them and their citizens to join ranks of ISIS. Which are things that cause problems (like trade disrupts, refugees, rising opposition for their leaders, etc.) to other nations, which means that other nations can't just ignore them and do public theater of condemn their laws and actions in public speeches but actually doing nothing to stop them.

That isn't sound strategy it is better to be ally some of those that you don't like and enemy for some and make them fight each other. As it is much cheaper. And if your ally starts to become too strong and starts to behave so that negatives out weight positives then just change support from them to their enemies. Roman's already prove that dived and conquer is excellent strategy to control areas that you don't care.

When combat start enemy awareness seems to jump up which often means that if your rogue (or any other character you want to keep in stealth) is close to enemies and don't have high sneak (compared to enemy level), enemies will spot them nearly instantaneously after combat begins.

As there are at least three games that Obsidian is currently working on and every single one of them has different lead designer, so I would say that company size of Obsidian has at least three such people in their employment. EDIT: I would also say that people fear too much balancing especially when it comes to games that use existing system instead of one that is designed by Obsidian (Sawyer and co.). Because with existing systems time is not usually spent in balancing/designing system but designing game around that system.

That is system that Obsidian decided early on that they don't want to have in PoE, so I think that you may be out of luck.

Bloodlines' beginning is quite buggy without patches, which can hinder quite much how enjoyable one's experience to play the game is. I think that you meant VtM: Bloodlines, but to be on the safe side. VtM itself is system that needs good game master and hopefully character players that are into storytelling systems and whose humor and style you loe as otherwise gaming sessions can become bit boring as its mechanics aren't that exciting.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/27/inenglish/1445948093_804967.html

EU's cloud service providers probably sent their regards, as this probably means that new safe harbor deal becomes even harder.

Good thing I beat the Adra Dragon before this patch then, because I have no idea what kind of strategy I'd use with all those immunities. Chanter summon cheese will probably still work, if one looks easy tactic to win that fight, although it is quite time consuming.

In my understanding problem is actually in Unity 5, so it cannot be sorted before Unity fixes their engine. And Unity 5.3 that may fix it don't come out until 8 of December, so it is at least over month before there can even start to work patch that fixes it.