LordCrash

Actually there is one blessing I'd really like to get: being able to play with 5 companions...

I just think that there are better solutions to offer those optional features, without tying them to certain achievements. Don't worry, it won't harm my experience anyway. Although I still think that they could use the resources to include stuff that everybody is more easily able to enjoy. Question of preference. And jfyi, I'm a big fan of CRPGs but I almost never play any game more than once. I think it's boring because most of the stuff and especially the overall story stays the same. Even if there is 20 or 30% new stuff there is still 70 or 80% stuff that is still the same. So yeah, it's of course my fault that I don't want to invest time in multiple playthroughs. Another question of preference.

And you making it sound like some achievements are needed to enable content that would give every player more choice and freedom in the first place.

The first part of your quote is a feature that I don't really understand (what about story progression, choices, equipment, XP when you skip certain parts of the game??? to me that makes no sense and isn't really thought through) and the latter part is just typical NG+ stuff. But to be honest, I probably misread your point here because I thought you meant your fav weapon in general (like choosing it from a list), not just keeping the stuff you have at the end of the latest game.

Most of us won't finish the game even once. And a lot of those tho will won't ever start another playthrough. I know many people here don't believe that but that's the reality. Just have a look at the Steam statistics if you don't believe me... You really don't get the difference between choice&consequence within a single playthrough and certain stuff that is only available for a different playthrough if I make certain things in the first one? Apples and oranges, mate. Well, I don't.

I doubt that will ever be the case anyway. But if they do I have nothing against keeping your favorite weapon for another playthrough if you want to destroy your balance on purpose. Still no need to hide that behind achievements. Nobody is forced to use expert settings. Giving players options is still always better than establishing superficial blocks, even if it's a stupid feature like this one. Nobody said you could strip certain parts of the game. I think it's highly unlikely and it actually makes no sense at all. Actually the stretch goal mode is all about certain bonuses. I don't "crusade" against it in any way. I just don't like the way it will be implemented, locked behind certain achievements. Ahem, no. The completion rate of PoE on Steam by the way is less than 10%, just saying. People who play games like PoE multiple times are in the far minority. You hardcore guys must really leave your bubble from time to time. Almost nobody has the time and will to play a long RPG more than once, most people don't even finish it once.

All of which could be available for everybody right the start of the first(!) game, best in some "expert settings" menu for enhanced flexibitily and more choice for everybody right from the start...

No, it's not. It would be perfectly reasonable to give these options to all players right from the start. Just give people some "expert settings" for an individual experience, if they want so. Most people want their first playthrough to be the best (and many people don't have more time than for one) so why not giving everybdoy more options? There is absolutely no need to make these things dependent on superficial "achievements" and to only make this stuff available for a second or third or whatever playthrough. If anything this update punishes people who don't go for achievements and who don't want to be forced to do certain stuff in their games. And it punishes people for playing the game not long and good enough because that's what this strange NG+ mode is actually all about. It's a "reward" system for the best among us who want to play this games for hundreds or thousands of hours, but not for everybody and certainly not for the majority. If there ever was a stretch goal that was only made for a small fraction of "elite" players and that could be classified as pure fan service it's this one. So I don't have anything against these options and it's not an "offical forum response". I just have a big issue with hiding theses options behind superficial achievements.

Who is "we"? I'm already glad if I can find the time to play the game ONCE. It's not like PoE2 was some 5 hour long shooter. So I care much more about everything that can happen in my first (and likely only full) playthrough of the game.

For you maybe. I don't use it either. But big picture here. Alot of people like it. It's not just about you. I just stated my opinion, mate.

I think Edér should romance a pet. He's really into them.

NG+ is a horrible waste of money, even in it's light "Berath's Blessing" way. And it's abolutely nothing you'd need 200k for... The stretch goals for PoE2 sadly continue to disappoint.

Corrected that for you. As for Witcher's Yen the comparison is a bit unfair though since the character AND her relationship with Geralt were already pretty well established(in the novels). There is sadly no such luxury as a bunch of brilliant novels for Pillars to build upon.

I know, but you talked about the old IE games having a broader appeal than PoE and when it comes to measuring broad appeal I think sales figures are actually pretty relevant. Well, I don't think so, at least it's not that simple. And it's imo completely pointless to compare sales figures to those of a game that was released 16 years ago.

But it does! At Normal difficulty or below you don't need to understand the systems beyond the level of "debuffs make the enemies weaker," "buffs make you stronger," and "the immunity against Fear spell protects against dragon fear." When playing at Hard or PotD you do need to dig into them more, but if you're not keen to learn the systems, why would you play on Hard or PotD? I never played PoE on hard or PotD but on normal. And I know that I don't have to understand every system to its core in order to survive on normal but still PoE felt not very intuitive to me. For a possible (simple) reason you could read my post above if you like. Oh, I guess you misread my post here (or I didn't make it clear enough). I didn't speak about sales here at all.

I agree but the issue (for me at least and maybe to some degree for the OP as well) is that PoE does not really cater to people who don't think that learning all the deep bits about the complex systems is part of the fun - while the old games actually did. Like Ininitron correctly stated, the old games hid the complex systems pretty well for everybody who just didn't really care about them. You could easily play BG2 without knowing much about AD&D and the way it worked at the core. So I'm not for streamlining the mechanics of PoE in any way, it's good that they're complex at the core. But nevertheless PoE lacks the broad appeal the old IE games imo offered, including people who didn't primarily played the games for their combat mechanics. You might don't give a **** about that but for somebody like me that's an actual issue. It's a good question but actually a pretty hard one, primarily because it's more about how it "felt". Like I said, intuition isn't a part of rational thinking, it's about understanding something without rationally thinking about it. So telling you that system X was better explained in game A than system y in game B would totally miss the point. The only guess I have at the topic is the dice thing. When I think about dice rolls I don't think about calculations and math, I have an actual dice in my mind, seeing its result in a picture. When I compare two dice rolls I see a picture of two such dices in my mind. That's totally different to rational mathematical calculation or a simple comparison of two abstract numbers for me. It seems that my mind can grasp the concept of dice throws without the need to activate the rational mind - and therefore it's much more comfortable and less "enery-consuming" (if you read "Thinking fast and slow" you probably know that activating the rational mind is way more exhausting than just following your intuitive mind). And of course Pillars is a tactical game that is all about making rational decisions, nothing wrong with that. But there is a difference between making active rational decisions that you want to make (because they're fun) and rational decision you have to make (in order to understand and go along with the sytem without being overly confused). The weird thing about intuition is though that it can mean different things to different people. A math genius doesn't have to activate his rational mind to perform simple equations. He will simply "see" or "feel" them based on his intuition. And you don't even have to be a genius for that, many people can intuively think in numbers, at least in a limited range. But many people can't. For them every calculation is a rational act. And that's probably the reason why people of the former group can never fully understand how the latter group experiences such a game and vice versa. For two different people the same game could be very intuitive for one and very obtuse for the other. No apologies needed, mate, but thanks anyway. And I know what you mean, I'm (too) often guilty of the exact same behaviour.

I never really learnt AD&D which is actually exactly my point. I had a ton of fun with BG2 without ever learning its deeper system. I had a much harder time with PoE although I played it 14 years later with much more experience and learning on the way. It's just my personal experience I share with you, you don't have to agree with me, naturally. Edit: A well explained system doesn't automatically make an intuitive system. An intuitive system is one that is "working" for you without the need of fully understanding its concepts. The intuitive mind and the rational mind are two different parts of the human brain...

Ah, you were still talking about 6-sided. 'Cause JerekKruger was referring to 2 10 sided. Anyway, I see no reason why should we stick to 6 sides of a dice on PC. The percentile calculations was the smallest issue PoE had and it at least provided it with pretty great scalability. I mean sure, counting from 1 to 6 is simpler than counting from 1 to 100, but I might as well make an argument that the simplest solution is to just stick to '1' for everything - no need for counting whatsoever then. Come on, that's a "kill it with fire" argument. And you miss the point that throwing dices is more vidid (even with a ten sided dice or with throwing two 6-sided dices), simply because you have a physical expression for it and a picture of a dice in your mind. I know it's hard to explain it to people for whom calculation probabilities is "intuitive" but for many people it's not. Throwing a dice is much more intuitive (even if you only do so in your mind) for them than calculation numbers only based on abstract rules. That the percentile calculations were no big issue for you personally doesn't necessarily mean that it was the same for everybody else.

That... Didn't make any sense whatsoever. Have you ever played a board game calculating with actual percentile, i. e. 1-99? Dice are a terrible tool for that. Especially fun are the arguments about which die was representing tens... 6 is better than 5 and 4 is better than 2. I don't know how it can be hard to understand why this is much simpler than calculating in two digit numbers. And no, I never played such a board game but I agree that the idea to transform dice rolls in actual percentils sounds kind of stupid This. That's why I said that AD&D was way more intuitive on a BASIC level. For people who wanted to dive deep into the system, understanding the precise results of every skill, spell and action that wasn't really the case (relatively compared to PoE). Personally, I miss that simple basic level. It enabled people with only little interest in maths and complex RPG systems to have a lot of fun with the combat in BG2 and other IE games. The system covered a broader audience, not only the typical numbers-loving nerds.

To be honest, I don't want any additional superimposed content at all. Too many crowdfunded games already overstretched and too many developers found out later in development that not every goal was a blessing for the game. Too much money is usually wasted for stuff that isn't exactly part of the core vision and experience and might not be included anyway, no need to even deepen the issue.. Obsidian should just use every additional dollar to deliver the best polished and bug-free game possible. Pretty simple.

How is there any difference between the game giving you a randomized percentage value, and the game "rolling" a pair of d10s to generate a number between 1 and 100? Yes, and a pretty big one at that. Rolling dices is imo way more vivid and at the same time less mathematical. It's not only a question of difficulty. As I stated above, dices are both more vivid and less mathematical. I know that many CRPG fans are "nerds" with a special love for numbers and maths (which is the basis of every RPG system of course) but not everybody has this love for numbers and calculations. It's hard to explain that to somebody for whom it is indeed intuitive to do various calculations pretty much all the time anyway. But for some people, maths and calculations are more a necessary evil than something that they love and perform on an intuitive level. Don't get me wrong, I have a master degree in business and engineering myself and calculating two digit numbers isn't a big trouble for me personally. But it's still less comfortable and less intuitive for me to be forced to calculate at all than just comparing two (or more) simple dice rolls. That's a blessing, not an curse. This precision you like is also the precision which is imo too obtuse and needlessly complex. I don't think that you need such a fine-grained system to make a good tactical combat system.

My personal guess is a combination of both. And I also don't necessarily mean the guys who design the stuff but the guys who are in charge and who decide in the end which way to go. That's a top management issue as well, not just one on the design level. Depends on who you ask I guess. I know quite some people who liked the "streamlined" system... The overall encounter design with the inclusion of multi-classes probably won't be less complex than the one in PoE in terms of balance, even with only five party members. But Josh said himself that the reduction of party size allows them for enemy groups with less members in encounters. That naturally reduces the workload and the additional effort that would have gone into encounter design if the party size stayed the same. Yes and no. I highly doubt that they plan with a bigger core team, no matter the crowdfunding results. Most of the money will go to external stuff like localization and not in an increased internal staff size. So the budget for aspects like core design is pretty much alrady set in stone imo. Well, I guess we have to disagree here then. Imo BG2 was way more intuitive than PoE, at least on the basic level. I agree with you that the picture changed once you got to the core of every trait or spell but please take into account that not everybody is very interested in understanding every bit of the deep mechanics anyway. Imo the mechanics in AD&D were comparably easy to learn (the basics) while pretty hard to master (the depths). In PoE though the system was both hard to learn and hard to master.

You miss the good old days of simple, intuitive AD&D? Yeah, at least iits dice-rolling core. I'm very convinced that the concept of dice rolls is much easier to get than randomized percentage values. And it's much easier and faster to calculate in a range that goes from 1 to 6 than in a range that goes from 1 to 100...

Bloody hell, what is it with this thread and unfounded conspiracy theories. I don't think that this is a conspiracy theory. It's actually a absolutely normal and perfectly human behaviour that people want to make their work easier and to reduce the complexity of the tasks ahead. It's just a fact that multi-classes and sub-classes make the gameplay even more complex. And it's a fact as well that Obsidian implemented a gameplay concept in Tyranny that offered a pretty significant reduction in complexity. Add commercial considerations and the tight budget for such a project and you have a mixture in which my point isn't some kind of out-of-touch conspiracy theory but just a natural development. And of course the wish to reduce complexity could also be based on the simple consideration that many players might just be overwhelmed by the gameplay when multi- and sub-classes will be added to the already pretty obtuse systems in Pillars. That's a fair argument and the stuff stated above and this argument aren't mutually exklusive. I think that they reinforced each other. But personally, I think it's the wrong approch for the issue. If they had to reduce complexity they should revamp their core gameplay approach (and their GUI) instead of just cutting stuff from the formula. But sure, cutting a party member is much easier and simpler than changing core elements of the gameplay and systems. So again it's perfectly understandable - but sad nevertheless.

Yeah, but Kickstarter also offered Amazon payments which works like a dream.