DCParry

Except he backtracked immediately. Just scroll ONE tweet down. Well, I wouldn't say he completely backtracked, but agreed that the actual devs (not the management) shouldn't be blamed.

Well Chris Avellone says that this sort of behaviour is exactly what he would have expected from Obs. CEO. Obviously, there is some bad blood here, but he says the devs are the last to know, and that the upper management would have most likely been part of this decision, so it probably wasn't a publisher surprise. https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/1108967939451940866

The thing is that it doesnt matter who made the decision. In this purpose the developer and publisher are one and the same. It may suck for the developer but they are inseparable in guilt because either they are not able to separate or they do not separate and for us, the consumer, the end result is the same. Everything else is just shooting ourselves in the foot and making excuses for greed. This is logic. Your arguments is logic cut in a third and presented as the full result. It is faulty and it is misleading, it is borderline lying. Spoken like someone who has no idea how contract law and publishing deals work. I suppose developers should divorce from the constraints of reality for us consumers too? Obsidian should have been prescient when the signed the deal to know Epic years later would rocket onto the multiplayer game as a service scene, and launch a store with a salacious deal to wag in publisher's faces. On one level I would love to agree with you. Obsidian, however, is no babe in the woods. They are an experienced company and they have been screwed over (more than once) by publishers. They should be better at this. The fact that they aren't is troubling to say the least. The don't have to be prescient to know that a publisher will try to be scummy. They just have to be ****ing conscious.

The amount of revenue GOG is going to get from TOW over the next year is exactly the same now as it was yesterday- zero dollars. As a game published by a 2k subsidiary it was never a day 1 release on GOG. The amount of money GOG would have got from the Quantic Dreams games announced would also have been zero since they wouldn't have been day 1 releases there either. If anything it's good for GOG since their main competitor is Steam, and this decision raises the chance of them getting titles at the same time as steam from 0% to more than 0%. So, you are saying that NONE of the recent Epic exclusive would have been sold on GoG? I don't think it was unreasonable, given Obsidian's history, as well as the fact it was being fully advertised as a AA game (and I read somewhere - I actually forgot where) that it was being published by the indie arm of 2k, that is would have been released on GoG at launch? What about all those Phoenix Point GoG keys? That doesn't count? Epic (or its controlling company) is specifically targeting smaller studios and buying them out with guaranteed sales return, which is super attractive if your studio is on tenuous financial grounds. These are the same studios, that traditionally, provide GoG versions for the group of PC gamers who are strongly anti-DRM. I mean, there is a specific history of a game BEING TAKEN OFF OF GOG due to an exclusivity deal with Epic. I think it is HOPELESSLY naive to think that the "little guy" in any of these scenarios is going to come out better in the end.

Nope. Epic is basically paying to keep it off of Steam. This hurts consumers. Period. Obsidian made a poor choice.

Thought I would drop in and add my completely irrelevant and most likely useless opinion. I will not be buying this game. I have been a supporter of Obsidian, and I even forgave them the unfinished half-assed ending of NWN 2 when it first came out. Many of people have pointed how these business practices are bad, and if you are not consciousness to see why, there is not point arguing with you. This has nothing to do with Steam really. You think this is going to hurt Steam? Let us be honest here, and even if the Epic store takes 20% of the PC market from Steam (and I SEVERELY DOUBT it will get that close) it still somehow stick it to the Steam man and usher in a golden age of competitive store fronts for use to buy our PC games are full price with no sales? There are two loser in this scenario. First, the player. Artificially limiting choice is always a bad thing, and all you hyper-capitalist Randian cheerleaders should be crowing about how Steam proves the natural process of the market. But no, instead, you think it is somehow a good thing to use sheer purchasing power to claim a stake in the market, a stake not supported by past performance, future promise, technical innovation, or anything else. The other loser is going to GoG. Steam is not going to be destroyed. They can handle the MINOR hit in revenue and sales that these exclusives will cause. You know who can't? GoG. They will be ****ing decimated. So all you super competition supporters will have one less store front to buy from. from which to buy. As an aside, I teach a few courses that focus on Orientalist and Techno-Orientalist discourse, and with that said, even I find the Epic's practices shady as **** even recognizing the Orientalist overtones to much of the criticism. So, there is my completely irrelevant opinion. I don't think this is going away, I mean, the entire reddit page is bitching about this.

I agree the ship combat is terrible. As to the other complaints from the OP, they are silly. I also just noticed that Enemy weapons in ship combat don't seem to follow range restrictions. I got some long range guns and was sitting at 561 m and a couple of my crew members got crippled from the enemies 400m range guns.

To answer a previous question, I was attacked right away, and so it was a luck option. I only played the BB's before ships were introduced. I have won a ship battle. It was so not worth it. In terms of time invested and pay off. In the end, I decided that eating the raking shots and charging ahead is the least annoying way to deal with the issue. I see myself doing all the bounties once for the achievements/blessings, and then avoiding them like the hollowborn plague. You know, I am going to date myself, but I was really hoping something like the old SSI Buck Rogers game. The spaceship battles were so engrossing I think I played that game until the 5 1/4's melted.

Yaa, a tuff guy . Anyways, I have cooled down a bit about the problem and spent some time looking at some videos, but let me explain why I think this is a bad design, or at least a bad introduction to the design. First, I die all the time, and that is fine. The whole Steel Paladin person ate my lunch without a problem (although I did appreciate the enthusiasm Aloth showed by trying to punch him to death). What I didn't die doing: Fighting the pirates in the first battle or fighting the mobs in the first area. Why? Because it seems the game's intro design, even though it is a sequel, is effective in introducing the player slowly to the mechanics. The rest of my deaths had to do with me doing things I knew probably wouldn't work but I wanted to play around with the mechanics and these choices led to the untimely demise of my poor character. Enter ship combat: You get an extremely vague 3 page tutorial pop up, and then you are thrown into combat. Combat which is not short, combat most likely with a superior foe (in terms of ship size and condition, despite the fact I had crewed up and topped up all supplies). The worst part is that a death wastes like 45 minutes of pressing buttons, and the combat is so divorced from the normal flow of character/player interaction it is jarring and I dare say not unusual to feel a certain amount of frustration. I know we are all super cool dudes (and dudettes) here who don't need to be told how to play video games and understand every opaque mechanic immediately, but at least there should have a been short (OPTIONAL as in skippable) ship battle to get you ready.

And I died. In the first ship battle. Not to borrow a nautical pun, but way to pull the ****ing wind out of my sail for the game on the first night of play. My other deaths were fine because they were results of choices and such I made, but man, I am getting a bit of backer's regret here. I am feeling about as salty as my dead crew right now.

Why are they, first of all, so poorly explained, and second of all, so terrible? I have been charging at an opposing ship for like 20 minutes getting no closer then 491m, while to all indications we are heading at each other with no discernible distance change. I had been having a great starting with poe2 but now I feel like I have just wasted a half hour of my limited playing time with this nonsense.

This entire thread is set up to establish particular view points as equivalent by calling out "SJW", a great strawman. As of there is some "SJW" rubric that was written by someone who wasn't feeling offended by women getting their vaginas all over their games/films/insert whatever. For ****'s sake, I wish there was a SJW conspiracy so we could have actual, non incrementally grinding progress forward. It has been a while since I had a warning, so the moderators should be embarrassed that they allow this nonsense to go forward. Hiding behind the facade of civil discourse does not mitigate the problematic basis of claiming that anything is SJW. And I leave this here (this is my observational opinion, based on my experience with their games as well their other media presence), the vast majority of Obsidian, the people who make this game, would be categorized as having SJW opinions. But, it is really about ethics in gaming journalism, right?

Description: When equipping armour the character avatar/doll disappears. Behind the inventory screen there seems to be a LARGE portrait of the character. Steps to reproduce: Character was a Berserker/Shifter. Was wearing clothing. Equipped scale armour. Avatar disappeared. Later on, opened up the inventory and the avatar was back. Replaced scale armour with fine scale armour, same thing happened. Avatar returns after closing inventory screen. Switching between characters, avatar is gone from other characters as well.

This was really interesting, thanks. That's exactly why I'd never completed a melee cipher run in PoE -- I could never figure out a way to build them where they weren't crazy squishy. Somewhere in the early part of this thread I expressed a similar concern (as I had begun to replay my original Cypher as a melee character). Resting was EQ dependent, and not really choice in POE. Despite the basically LTP responses, I still think this new system will be kinder to non-traditional melee builds in the long run.

All I have to say is WOWSER. The editor looks GREAT. This is a HUGE addition to the game. Colour me impressed. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/209325992?t=29m31s Questions: Can AI scripts be saved globally and used between characters? Can AI scripts be shared in a file format? - ANSWERED: You can INDEED share AI scripts!

Maybe we can consider a special weapon style, 1h and pistol, but instead of the modal there is a single shot with extra crit chance and damage in melee.

Then put one of your points in stealth. Viola, you have exactly what you want. Mechanics should endeavor not to interfere with role playing, but they should focus on making the game technically sound and consistent. Give players the room to role play, and in my opinion (which is very possibly wrong), the outcome will satisfy both the players and the objectives and the design documents.

While no doubt simpler than modern firearms, and made of sturdy material, you couldn't pay me to try to shoot a muzzle loaded firearm after beating someone about the head and shoulder with it. But that is exactly what they did. Many pistols had a large brass knob on the bottom of the hand grip. This both served as a counterweight to balance the weight of the pistol and to serve as a striking surface. Aye, you are right. However, I would argue the reliability of firearms in POE sort of obviates the use of them as clubs. The lack of misfiring, both minor and catastrophic, would make using them as clubs sort of a win win situation.

Yes, but I don't think we need game systems for this. Recent discussions have railed about how changes have reduced "role playing". Game systems are not needed for this. You have the options to put your skills where you want them, I don't think there should be any bonus skills so you could pick which ever skills you wanted that fit your character, but I am just weird that way.

I don't think the backgrounds are specific enough for this. I mean, what about the mercenary? You can be a soldier, a bodyguard, or a constable. What about the merchant? You can be a craftsman or some other things as well. Some might be focused enough (say Scholar with lore) but for most the specifics you can pick in dialogue options are too different.

While no doubt simpler than modern firearms, and made of sturdy material, you couldn't pay me to try to shoot a muzzle loaded firearm after beating someone about the head and shoulder with it.

Yes, giving one shot in melee is reasonable. It has been 20 years since I reloaded a flint-lock style pistol, and I doubt I could do it one handed while a crazy fish person was screaming and drooling on me.

To misquote: For Every Complex Problem, There Is an Answer That Is Clear, Simple, and Wrong.

I think you might be over-emphasizing the actual dilemma of this apparent "choice". The amount of time you are going to be doing damage with your weapon, regardless of class, makes taking a talent/ability that increases as close to a no brainer as possible.

The arrival of the beta inspired me to go back and finish my final definitive replay of PoE, and I am finding the very thing you like to be a huge annoyance to me. I am playing a non-min-maxed melee type cipher build, and the limiting factor on everything is my health. Not Aloth's spells, not kana getting knocked out every other fight, but watching the bar turn to yellow and red without my character getting knocked out or even losing large chunks of health. I know it helps simulate an attrition sort of process, but I find this apparent nod towards realism annoying, and successful combat management does not pay off. Why should I struggle to keep everyone conscious and time my skill and spell usage when I am going to have to rest after the same interval with no benefit or penalty?