makryu

I've been catching up with the comments on the latest version and I must say I'm a bit worried I'll be disappointed at the probable still significantly buggy state of the game at launch. I remember when the kickstarter was up and one of the frequent comments was that without a publisher's leash Obsidian would avoid past history of releasing very buggy games at launch. But right now I already see users pointing they merely expect "a bug free critical path" , no "*missing string* descriptions" and other stuff which should be taken for granted. I honestly hate to play excessively buggy games and my usual stance is to let RPGs "mature" for some months at least before playing, but I find it annoying and absurd to be forced to have such low standards for a commercial product and I had hopes for this game to change it at least to some degree. I haven't played the latest build yet, so my question for those who did is if they feel like Obsidian will be able to launch a significantly less buggy game than it usually does this time or if it will just prove publishers aren't deserving of all the blame after all?

I'm short on time (working overtime), maybe this was mentioned in some of the 13 pages, so sorry for asking again if that's the case: Have Obsidian and Paradox given any thought to the possibility that splitting the shipments could incur extra import taxes? My reasoning is that if I receive two shipments identified as a "collector's edition game" I could be doubly charged import taxes for the amount I donated, which would be particularly disastrous in my case (effectively doubling the amount I donated to the kickstarter, at least). I'd be all for #1 if that weren't the case.

I'll be the devil's advocate and say that I find metacritic useful. Whenever I gain access to a new console, I use it to search the game library. I learned through the years that I almost certainly won't like anything with a score below 60. Between 60 and 70 It's pretty much down to how much I like the genre, or if it has a strong story based on overly simplistic or broken gameplay. Above 70 it's probable I'll at least like the overall experience if the game's broad characterization (plot outline, basic gameplay mechanics) interests me. Outliers are games I read about that might attract me in a very particular way despite being "bad" and AAA hype trains which I'll have to discount. I'll usually read two or three reviews, both critics and user ones, with disparate scores, to get an overall feeling. I must say I was rarely disappointed with this method. I don't follow it blindly, and I very rarely decide amongst these previously selected games which I'll play based on some having higher scores than others. But metacritic is useful to me in that way. On topic, I think OE has experienced developers who have been through a lot. I'm sure none of them will pull a Phil Fish on us, and on the long run the feedback they receive of their games is probably much more positive than negative.

How has reputation no link to the respective character? It is built based on the character's actions, and if the character's actions aren't linked to whoever that character is supposed to be, then I don't know what would be. In the real world, people form an idea about who a person is based on his actions or the information obtained from other people about his supposed actions. I don't think it is so much of a stretch to assume that, on the background, information about the character's actions gets shared enough amongst different people via merchants, travelers, etc., to justify a relatively widely spread reputation.

I must say, it's been pure bliss seeing the same a**holes who derided so effusively promancers a while back acting like crybabies over combat xp. I can't say I expected the beta to be so much fun

If you had bother to read the thread at all you would have seen that combat xp proponents want both kill xp and quest xp... I did bother to read, and it wasn't easy, with supposedly old-school posers and people with multiple personality disorder making the bulk of the posts, and nothing I read changes anything related to my previous comment. There is absolutely no way in hell that deciding to award only quest xp (no matter how you accomplish a quest) is "enforcing a gameplay style" any more than also awarding combat xp, in fact quite possibly a lot less so.

So, awarding xp only for quests, no matter how you solve them, is actually enforcing a gameplay style, but awarding xp for kills isn't? Quite the logic there.

I think the xp system needs changes, yes. The gains need to be more apparent and frequent. I didn't get the feeling of a steady progression while playing. This may have something to do with the bugs. However, I can't say I felt any less compelled to fight. Not even once has the "but I'll get no xp" thought crossed my mind. In fact, after I ended a few encounters without fighting, I felt liberated, because in previous IE games I more than once opted out of a peaceful solution (or went to kill the NPC I had peacefully interacted with afterwards) because of the thought of losing xp. I think that is the design goal behind this decision and it seems to be reasonably successful even in the beta. That doesn't mean, however, that they can't improve. I agree that the lack of non-combat abilities, the amount of random combat encounters and a general lack of options to meaningfully avoid random combat does quite a bit to hurt the developers' intentions. I imagine how nice it would feel if you could, I dunno, use your survival skill to simulate some natural prey sounds, drawing attention of nearby creatures out of the party's path; or maybe use some scent-oriented creature ingredient on the party members to walk among creatures of that type undetected; or even use mechanics to activate some environment element which would get rid of some creatures for you. IMO, the lack of non-combat options for dealing with non-quest encounters is what hurts the most the no xp idea.

Was he ever involved with PoE? I remember him being a stretch goal. What happened?

I like the contrast/whatever change on the character models, as it tries to solve the ghost effect. The backdrop and additional shadows don't look good, IMO, and I hope the devs don't go that way.

I support steps xp entirely. The main reason is that with default player behavior (go to a hub, get all quests possible, go in the wilderness, solve the most you can before coming back to the hub), you end up with long intervals getting no xp just to get everything at once), It just doesn't seem adequate to distribute a reward like xp, that is maybe the main reason why many players feel the game as rewarding in the first place (sad but true), in such a way. I wouldn't worry with optional steps giving more xp, as long as the difference didn't go beyond 20-30% what the quest would normally offer. If in the long term this made progress difficult, I'd be also a defender of main quest combat difficulty adapting to the level of the player at those later levels. I know many hate the system, but it's probably because it's used uniformly in other games, making progress useless. This kind of situation is perfect for it, I believe, as it would also avoid making a final confrontation too easy and anticlimactic for players that did everything the game offers. Besides, giving steps xp would make the combat xp widows less angry by distracting them.

I'm talking about Dyrwood Ruins, You can get there from two different places, the closest entrance to the ritual chamber being using the entrance near the ogre cave. It's full of cultists. Is it the same place you're referring to?

Can't say I found it. You remember his location?

Anybody managed to get to the ritual/torture chamber in Dyrwood Ruins. I have two keys Skull Key and Old Dungeon Key but none opens any of the doors to that chamber. I'm pretty sure it's a bug, but I'm wondering if someone has managed to circumvent it somehow...

Ok, my thoughts then after 2-3 hours and having explored about 50% of what's in the beta. Pros: - Overall visuals are great, nailing the expected "updated IE" feeling. - Small touches such as the bestiary are great. - The dialogue framework, if adequately used in the full game, has the potential to influence future CRPGs. It is truly compelling. - I appreciated the importance of items such as the grappling hook in environment interaction. I think this is an area in which CRPGs were always lacking and the scripted interactions are a nice solution to that. Cons: - The environments feel a bit too static, and it contrasts significantly when water or other large moving element (I've seen only the watermill so far) is present. I don't know if there is any possible fix for this, but if I had to try I'd say there has to be more numerous small moving elements occurring at a more frequent rate. I'd also say that the outdoor tall grass adds negatively to this impression. I think you kind of expect tall grass to move, whereas short grass like in past IE games gets a free pass for being static. - Too many "pop-up dialogue" NPCs. Since the game isn't voiced for the most part, I sort of expected verbose random NPCs with useless but entertaining banter. If the beta town is any indication, I'd say the rate for fleshed out NPCs vs "pop-up dialogue" NPCs is pretty much on par with what I'd expect from a fully voiced Bioware game (that is, mostly only named characters directly related to quests have real dialogue) , which is a con to me in this game. - The lions don't fit in. Remove the lions, please . - I think every change, such as XP prizes or a new bestiary entry should be signaled with notifications such as the ones used for quest updates, or something similar. There should be more "fanfare" when the player progresses in some way. - I don't feel like the inventory interface is making it easy enough to know what's the better equipment for your character. A mouse over pop-up window with green and red stat alterations would work wonders here, especially since the system itself is original and foreign enough. - Lack of more varied portraits, especially ones matching the godlike heads. I assume this is planned to be present in the full release. - The attribute system felt odd to me: I can't pinpoint the reason why, maybe there are missing directions on to what will really be relevant to what in the game, or maybe it's because it doesn't feel like it matters so much where the points will go. - The skills felt lacking to me. I sort of expected a more varied selection, and more active uses for them, a la Fallout. The way it is, it feels underdeveloped as a system. - Dedicated abilities screen, please? Is it somewhere I was too dumb to find? - Combat doesn't feel as satisfying as in the IE games. I think there are a number of reasons for that. *The combat sounds aren't truly doing justice to what's happening in the combat. Maybe the fact that they're buggy and missing often has to o with it, but I also found the volumes misplaced at times. * The amount of combat info above the characters heads isn't helping. It detracts from the action severely, I think. It doesn't help that the hp meters look ugly, and that the recovery bars diminish instead of increase, which just felt counter-intuitive to me. I think this area could use a major overhaul, with the recovery bar and action circle info going to the portrait area, with hp remaining as an option, but with reworked art (a classic continuous bar would look better, I think). The status icons also feel too small. I would favor them being bigger. *The combatants feel grouped too closely together. I think this impression is in part due to the fact that their circles overlap. I think a much clearer way would be to go with the classical IE where the circles didn't overlap. Also, the circles could be used to indicate who's engaging and engaged with who, as that is a mechanic which I found myself ignoring mostly due to the difficulty in identifying what was going on. *Who's using which abilities on whom could also use some work. As subdued as I think the effects are intended to be, I think they still have to be more visible in some way. I guess that's it, I'll be sure to post other impressions when I get to play more. I think the devs shouldn't shy away from delaying the game to address these issues. The game is clearly promising, I'd hate to end up seeing its potential somewhat wasted.