Jojobobo
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I've refunded my Deadfire pledge for these reasons, therefore please ignore all my posts in this thread and elsewhere as I no longer have a say. Hope Deadfire works out for the best.
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If anyone was interested, I followed through here. As mentioned I won't be sticking around much longer, so hopefully there's enough info about for people to replicate my semi-finished builds.
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So I’ve inserted the email below as proof, editing my email address out. I realise I still have the forum badges indicating I’m a backer, I couldn’t see any way to remove them.
The reason I’ve refunded my pledge is that I’m still finding significant bugs in Pillars of Eternity 1 over two and half years after its release in a version of the game which was marketed as the “definitive edition”, and that has fundamentally undermined my confidence that Deadfire will be any different.
Pillars of Eternity itself was marketed as a difficult game with complex mechanical systems, and while modes like Story Time and the ability to re-spec characters were added after launch, I think it’s fair to say Pillars was designed in part to cater for not-so-casual players expecting a high level of challenge and granular difficulty. Any bug that therefore offers an unfair advantage or disadvantage that was unintended by you as developers compromises that selling point of a difficult RPG that personally piqued my interest in the first place.
The most recent bug I encountered was that Salty Mast prostitutes who you employ at Caed Nua (through a speech check requiring high Con and Dex) no longer offer grant their boon upon sleeping with them. Playing a build with high Dex, I was making frequent use of these Boons because they were free – and now because I can no longer access Lyrinia’s Boon I can no longer access the maximal Might and high Con I was hoping for (more or less a playing with a permanent stat penalty, like a permanent injury almost), which may very well compromise the ability of the build to complete the game as it was a solo Rogue and hungry for Con to stay alive. All my saves were after the bug occurred, as there was no reason at all this should have been a problem.
Even if I can still solo the game, as a player expecting a tough challenge I expect to be able to answer that challenge in the most effective way possible for that particular build, as designing and intricate build and watching it come to fruition is really why I play these games. This has now been fundamentally soured due to an unanticipated bug, with my only options being to wait for a new patch (which I don’t think you want to do given your Deadfire focus, but even if you did I now need to sit on my hands for a few weeks) or restart and play another 27 hours to get my build back to the state it was before encountering the bug, neither of which I’m willing to do.
As an isolated incident you may say this is a bit of an overreaction. However, here’s four other personal instances (for five total with the above bug) where I’ve given up on playthroughs, totalling a loss of more than 100 hours of my free time:
The DR stacking bug from Battle Forged offering permanent DR, granting an unfair advantage.
One separate instance of an annoying bug is forgivable, but five separate instances? Not so much. This is all the while ignoring other smaller bugs, such as paralysed figurine creatures appearing on every map when they die – ruining immersion in an otherwise tonally serious game, or enemies starting to attack you when they should be stunned or prone, or the pirate uniforms not looking right on male models still even though many people requested they be sorted before the latest hotfix, or tooltips for abilities being all over the place such that their directly misleading (Rogue abilities saying they’ll boost “damage” and actually boosting base damage), or a whole bunch of other bugs that I’m not in the mood to recount…
While I appreciate nearly all RPGs contain some bugs due to their large scope, and Obsidian isn’t the largest of games companies in the first place and therefore lacks AAA resources, Obsidian is also far from being an indie developer and with the game itself being crowd-funded in the first I expect the company to hold itself to a high standard. While some effort was made to sort these issues out slowly but surely, there really shouldn’t have been this many bugs present in the game on release, and no fan should be telling you they’ve lost 100 hours on bad playthroughs. Even if the current bug were to be fixed, I have no confidence now that I wouldn’t just blindly stumble into another one – and have this same problem all over again.
With all this in mind, I really wasn’t left with much of an alternative but to ask for a refund for Pillars’ sequel, Deadfire. As the kind of fan that did weird stuff like making a build which soloed the game on Expert PotD using only guns as weapons, I would have thought I would be the exact kind of fan you wouldn’t want to lose from the community. I hope this will push you to produce less buggy games in the future, but for the time being at least I’m not interested in buying any of your products.
I find it highly unlikely this post would get deleted by mods, however I will say that social media and games journalism doesn’t look kindly on censorship of criticism, so that’s something you should consider if you were thinking of taking that route.
Sincerely,
A disappointed former fan
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Boeroer mentioned it happens with quite a few spell-bindings. I've also seen it with Torrent of Flame on the same belt once or twice.
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Ok i understand that bugs are always irritating and you can be rigtly angered by them, but claiming that a build is "ruined" only because you can't apply again a prostitute bonus sounds like making it a way bigger deal than it actually is imho.
On the other side the game still contains a lot of issues that are still not solved after years from the release, and that should not be the case.
I think I've moved past being annoyed and I'm just happy to let it go, it's such a huge sink of time and it's not worth it for me to be so irritated by it constantly. This isn't the first time that this has happened to (100 hours or so of wasted gameplay, and having to delay certain builds until they fixed aspects of the game) so as a singular issue I would agree this is an overreaction, as a systemic pattern they're definitely coming up short for me now.
Here's another update on the Rogue build as someone asked about it in a different thread. Something I didn't mention is that you should definitely with the Rogue try and get Gauntlets of Accuracy from Raedric's Keep in the dungeon cell on day 18, it really helps out a lot.
With the Barb, I'm starting to think keeping the zero recovery focus, but maybe going for high Per and 10 or so Dex is a better idea - if you can graze or hit everyone with HoF then it will be incredibly damaging, and it's easy enough to hit something like 110ish accuracy with some Per investment (or at least that kind of ball park). I was going to call the build the Hit Man, which I thought was an okay play on words.
If anyone wants to test these builds more thoroughly and write up a Class Build for them, please do so. The Rogue, the Citzal's Martial Power spellbind Wizard and the Barb are all solid builds I would say, and through reading through some of the development in here are 95% complete. I hope someone has some fun with them.
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I think it's perfectly appropriate response for you to be frustrated by those bugs. Having played RPGs for 20 years, I just don't think you will ever be able to go and 'find another company' that can guarantee you'd never have this problem, not when we're talking about RPGs with a modicum of tactical and systems complexity. I don't even mean that it's physically impossible, I just mean that's how the lay of the land is.
Very true, but I'd say at least some AAA games manage it better, and yes they have much larger number of staff putting out their games so they can more effectively beta test - but that still doesn't excuse Obsidian, doubly so as it was a crowd-funded game.
I'll probably take a break from RPGs or sandbox games in general, and go for more story focussed games. I think we all know these games are a massive sink of anyone's free time, and for me the returns have become diminishing when you encounter a bug that sours your personal experience of what is such a heavy investiture in the first place.
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It may seem dramatic and ridiculous, but I'm just tired of it. No one wants to be playing a game for 27 hours only to have to restart or sit on their hands for several weeks while it's patched to get the character back to normal. This is addition to other bugged playthroughs (such as the one mentioned here) where I sunk 45 hours in the game, only to find out that Confident Aim was bugged and overpowered like crazy so my solo PotD fighter may as well have been playing on Easy mode (and in addition to the other playthroughs where I encounted something similar, Battle Forged giving permanent DR for example). Fool me once and at all that, but at this many times fooled I feel like an idiot for putting my trust in them. I want to play the Pillars that was advertised as having a fair yet difficult challenge, not be getting unfair advantages and disadvantages over two and half years down the line since release.
I think it's time to exercise my right to get a refund and chose a company who can competently make a game. To Obsidian's credit they've mostly been pro-active with patching these problems out (apart from Confident Aim, which I think the community pretty much bullied them into fixing - as the patched it out even after they'd announced a "final patch") - but the game should have never been so buggy in the first place. I'm bored of it.
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I've already done it, here - the one in the spoiler tags at the bottom. The only changes I would make are Blinding Strike -> Withering Strike, level 13 Sap, level 15 Fearsome Strike or Blinding Strike (keeping the Talents as they were, but I think I maybe have changed the order of them to 8 - Backstab, 10 - Two Weapon Fighting, 12 - Quick Switch, 14 - Wounding Binding). Finishing Blow still doesn't work with Backstab, and tbh you can get another +50% damage in Withering Strike, so I no longer think it's worth the effort.
The advantages of Fearsome Strike would be it's another source of Weakened (on top of Withering Stike and Sever the Soul) so your Overbearing Prone rolls (which should happen a lot, given you have 55% hit to crit after WM Pt. 1) are likely to crit from the Fortitude debuff. The advantage of Blinding Strike is that it's just a strong Deflection debuff, however to an extent you already have Sap for that, and Prone will also be a weaker semi-permanent Deflection debuff (Fearsome Strike is per rest, but with it's trolly durations that's not so much of a problem). I'm also pretty sure Twin Sting would allow for two rolls per Strike as it's two projectiles, so you can use it as an opener with Fearsome Strike and likely get a 30 second crit duration (if you graze with the affliction on the first roll, second roll is now rolling against Fortitude debuffed by -28, so the crit is likely).
There's no changes needing to be made to the equipment, I think the core equipment is solid but I would just suggest picking up also keeping Sanguine Plate (+2 Con, Exceptional) for enemies that shred you through Deflection hits (Skeletal Wizards, Slimes) or just when you feel there's a situational need. I was also probably going to have He Carries Many Scars on hand for additional healing for when I picked up Twin Sting (for another source of DAoM) - I hadn't decided whether to enchant it with +2 Dex and go for RIng of Thorns -> Iron Circle for tough fights, or just to leave it at the +2 Con (given that you have to wait a while to get the Iron Circle). Early game the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer gives you some absurd bonuses, so stick with that until you get the good stuff.
I was getting through some of Act III upscaled well enough (I took both Spirit Spiral and Munacra Arret, pre-buffing with food before a lot of encounters which I wouldn't normally do but this Rogue is frail, was waiting on getting some of the fun abilities before starting White March), but as I've widely moaned about the save is now bugged so I can't get Lyrinia's Boon (which I was getting very often as with 20 Dex it's free). With 2 points less of Con, I've lost confidence that the build will work in tough fights (Rogues really need all the Con you can get playing them like this), and even if the build is viable I would now need to have it poorly optimised for the rest of the game - which I'm not prepared to do.
So it seemed to be working well enough, feel free to write it up as a Class Build if you play test it to after some of the boss monsters, as with the bug I'm going to be uninstalling the game.
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You can still sleep with them, are you're literally paying them a wage. Did they become bad in bed upon employing them? I doubt it.
The devs might try and claim that it's not a bug, but given the high requirements to get them in the stronghold in the first place, and that +2 Prestige is an awful benefit for what you're losing, I'd say it's quite clear someone dropped the ball.
If you weren't paying them (i.e. they'd come to Caed Nua for a romance, in which case you could argue they would be no longer acting like a prostitute) or if the option to have sex with them wasn't there I'd say you had a point. But neither of those things are true, so I'm 95% sure it's a bug, and the other 5% of me would say if it's not a bug it's a terrible design choice which should come with a fore-warning - in which case I'm still annoyed.
Even if they offer to patch it (which I'd be amazed if they bothered to now, seeing as they only did the bare minimum in their last hotfix and didn't sort out the appearance of the pirate outfits) then I have to wait 3 weeks or so to get my character back to normal, either that or I put in another 27 hours of my time and this time don't pick the option for Lyrinia to go to Caed Nua. Neither of these things I'm prepared to do, and as a gamer trying to enjoy his free time I shouldn't have to.
I'm sick and tired of playing Pillars to stumble into some new game altering bug, as I'd say around 60% on my playthroughs have been marred by experiences like this. I no longer believe Obsidian are competent enough, at least for the time being, to produce a game where I wouldn't end up being frustrated, when I could just be playing any other game. As such I'm awaiting my Deadfire refund, which I think is the simplest way to show a vote of no confidence in a company, and then I'll be off.
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You can sleep with them, but no boon. And yes, trust me, I'm sure. 27 hours of my life truly down the drain for what standards I set when it comes to being entertained by media. Though I guess with Obsidian's track record, I shouldn't be surprised.
I'm going to look into refunding my Deadfire pledge today, and then I'll probably be departing from the forums. I'm not saying I'll never buy an Obsidian game again, but I have no confidence that they'll do any sort of better job with Deadfire, so if I were to play it I'd rather pay bargain bucket on-sale prices and lower my expectations right down that it's not going to be a buggy mess rather than me completing my pledge in full only for it to be the same kind of mess PoE 1 was. I'm not happy for them to use my money if the quality I'm going to get is that of PoE 1.
And even if they do hotfix this, which I find unlikely, it's only a matter of time before one of us finds another bug that irrevocably and unnecessarily strips a benefit out of the game for no good reason. Why should I, or anyone, put up with the frustration when there's plenty of other games companies who can competently make a game where this doesn't happen? Obsidian have sold themselves as a big boy in the games industry, with a dark storyline and difficult intricate gameplay, but over two years down the line there's still bugs that can ruin someone's 27 hour playthrough. It's an embarrassment for them, and it's simply not good enough.
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That is a crappy bug and I feel your pain especially on a solo character. If you had a group relying on bonuses isnt that big of a deal but it can be big solo. That being said you can still win your solo run. If it was a bug that was game stopping I would understand but you can still win a solo run with 17 DEX or whatever.
Personally, I'm not happy with any bug like this. Obsidian designed a challenging game, with a tight mechanical system underpinning the challenge.
For me to now experience an element of unfair challenge, because of their incompetency, entirely sours the experience for me as they've fundamentally undermined the difficult complex gameplay that they were shooting for. To put things in context I've already lost 100 hours of gameplay due to their previous laundry list of bugs that either gave me an unfair advantage or made the challenge unfair (Battle Forged granting permanent DR, Confident Aim adding loads of damage, Bash hitting several times through Carnage, etc.).
Additionally, I'm also experiencing other bugs that I haven't made a big deal of - for example when enemies are Prone and Stunned they often are still able to attack you while the affliction duration is running. I haven't bothered to report this, as it's fairly minor, but as I'm using an Overbearing weapon in at attempt to keep a single target constantly Prone its still a bug that's comes up as another unfair disadvantage every time I play the game.
I've mentioned in a different thread about this, that as I was using these boons more or less constantly (I have 20 Dex, so I could get them for free) I now have a permanent -2 Might -2 Con compared to what I should have. If a character was bugged so it was permanently injured with Bruised Ribs (-4 Con), there would be uproar, and yet mechanically that's also exactly what is happening here.
I'm also not so sure that I would be able to complete the game. I'm playing a Rogue, and because their base Endurance and Health are poor not having crummy Constitution is actually very important for the build. A whole two points less permanently, or if I choose to buff it through other resting bonuses now being unable to buff Might so high and do as much damage as a consequence, can easily make a once viable solo build now unviable.
Even if they do patch it, it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. There have been way too many bugs in this game from release until now for a supposedly reputable games developer for my liking.
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Yeah I never realised it was possible too, and thought, "Okay, this sounds fun to try," and then experienced a bug which I feel personally ruins my current playthrough (no longer hitting the Might and Constitution I should be able to, which is a problem as this was a damage/endurance focused build). While people normally don't use the prostitute boons often, I had been using them almost constantly as I could get them for free with a Dex of 20 - so they've been an integral part of my build since I reached Ondra's Gift.
I think I'm pretty much at my limit of frustration with Obsidian as a company now, and if nothing is done about this I will be getting a refund for Deadfire. I should be able to do something in the game without encountering an extremely inconveniencing bug. That's the bare minimum I expect from any game, and Obsidian consistently have failed in this regard, and they took some of my money to even have the opportunity to build the game in the first place. I'm tired of it.
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I see it as opportunistic to be honest, your character sees a weak group and wants to take their stuff. Bleak Walkers can be equally as greedy as any other class, it's befitting of any character who would kill others and rob their things to better survive.
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Now for something that really has crapped on the Rogue character, apparently with high enough Con and Dex you can convince Salty Mast prostitutes to work for you at Caed Nua as a hireling. However, doing so permanently removes their ability to give boons when you sleep with them.
This has permanently compromised the Might and Con of my build, as I didn't keep a save from when before I did this (and when I slept with her at Caed Nua the first time I already had her boon so I assumed it was being re-applied) and in a good game I shouldn't need to for fear of random bugs. I've now wasted 27+ hours on a character that permanently no longer works as well as it should do, and now very well may be unviable.
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See topic title. With a high enough Dex and Con you can convince the Salty Mast prostitutes to become hirelings at Caed Nua, causing them to disappear from the Salty Mast.
However, they permanently lose their ability to give you a boon when you sleep with them. I've now lost Lyrinia's Boon because of this on my Act III character, as I didn't see a need to save before this event as it shouldn't be a problem in the first place, and I lack any other previous saves now. This has permanently gimped my solo character, as I can now no longer achieve the Might or Con scores that I could have done before for boss fights.
Hats off to Obsidian for turning what should have been a fun easter egg into a nice crap sandwich.
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Another extremely annoying bug has cropped up. With Salty Mast prostitutes, if you have high Con and Dex (18 in each I've heard), you can convince them to come over to Caed Nua and hire them - whereupon they'll disappear from the Salty Mast and appear at your stronghold.
However, they no longer provide boons, robbing you of some of the best buffs in the game.
I now have Lyrinia at my Caed Nua, and lack a save before convincing her to come to Caed Nua, because heaven forbid I don't save before every minor decision in game in anticipation that it's going to provide some sort of bug (though I guess maybe I should do - maybe we should all keep around 30 saves on the off chance there's another extremely inconveniencing bug in the two and half year old game). This has now permanently gimped an Act III character I've put 27+ hours into, as the point of the build is high single target damage while maintaining some bulk and now I will never be able to achieve either the Might or Con scores that I could have done before.
You've turned what should have been a fun easter egg into a slap around the face for your fans. Please fix this, either a hotfix or you know fixing a load of the other issues - such as the male sprites for the new pirate outfits looking rubbish - that you've kindly neglected to bother with. If not I'll get a refund for Deadfire and encourage others to do so - I'm fundamentally sick and tired of sinking so much of my leisure time into something so half-assed.
EDIT: Just to put this another way, if a character had Bruised Ribs all the time (-4 Con) and you couldn't get rid of it people would be really annoyed about it ("WTF, a permanent injury??", etc.). I have a Dex of 20, so I was using these boons all the time, because they were free. As such, I now have a permanent -2 Might, -2 Con all the time. It's essentially made my character permanently injured, or close enough to that there's really a minimal difference.
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With high Dex and high Con you can convince a Salty Mast prostitute to go into your employ at Caed Nua, however then they stop providing their boons. This is a problem, as some of the best situational buffs in the game are granted by prostitute boons, and depending on how often you use them can be seem as a permanent negative modifier to your attributes (much like having a constant injury).
Please fix this.
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Yeah as mentioned putting it on a "neutral" stat, where taking it doesn't benefit either style of build so much, also works. I think my main reservation about adding it to Con is that it then makes your characters absurdly bulky if they take it, as characters get both healing and endurance from investiture - so it might become a balance issue itself. Still, Con definitely needs something.
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On the other hand, ties healing to Might will make melee dps build really powerful because they can not only do tons of damage, but also self sustain due to healing.
In PoE 1 you were a little hard pushed to entirely self-sustain without a big focus on healing (if your class lacked heal abilities, then you pretty much needed Veteran's Recovery, a +healing% item, using items with their own heals, and likely using the healing bonus from Survival too). This all comes at a cost of not taking other items, or having different Survival bonuses (+acc for example), and it ties up a Talent slot - making it a dedicated cost.
It seems like the PoE 2 makes casters super self-sustaining (Deflection and healing and damage), while melee builds classes get squat. I would say that by moving healing back to Strength, now both casters and melee classes are a little self-sustaining (one gets healing, while the other gets Deflection to tank and therefore needs less healing in the first place).
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You also get two Backstab attacks (if you didn't notice): the first hit AND the second hit will receive the backstab bonus. Recovery time doesn't matter and it also doesn't matter if you carry a two hander or a single weapon or if you are dual wielding. You will always do TWO backstabs - as long as those are auto attacks. When using an active ability you only get the backstab bonus for the first hit (also when doing a Full Attack).I think I will be keeping Backstab on this Rogue anyway (was wondering whether to cash it in for Vicious Fighting, but 55% hit to crit sounds like enough), so in which case the top end of the damage on a Deathblows Backstab crit will be 266-381 before DR, so I think that's pretty fun. I may well take Nightshroud instead of Tidefall for 3 Shadowing Beyonds per rest, so that'd give a lot of these punchy hits in a tricky encounter. Plus, it's using the Rogue as was advertised by the devs, even if the implementation of Rogues does make using them as advertised difficult.
You don't even need to be stealthed when striking. It's only important that you commend the attack from stealth. If you don't "recommand" while the rogue is running towards the target you get the bonus. This makes it possible to deliver backstab even with 0 stealth points. But it's way easier to pump stelath and just stand in the first or secoond row and let the enemy approach while you remain unseen - and then just simply attack once they are near. Also: Backstabs from the second row with a reach weapon are very comfy.
So... Backstab is worth it in my opinion. Especially if you also use Shadowing Beyond and the Cape of the Master Mystic.
I didn't know that, definitely makes it more worthwhile as an ability. I guess I might try and squeeze an extra Shadowing Beyond from somewhere, probably Nightshroud as it's a little more predictable.
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Have you got the Springberry? I don't think it triggers until then.
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As I said in the other thread: clearly some people (designers, writers) don't seem to know how the mechanics "really" work. Or they just can't be bothered with explaining them properly. I hope it's the first reason...
Both reasons are pretty poor to be honest. What I was expecting was that all the Rogue damage mods would add together and then multiply the "damage" listed, seeing as that would be the most literal interpretation of their tooltip. It's things like this that really get under my skin, accurate tooltip descriptions should be a given and imply laziness on the devs' behalf. I've seen people call them out for it on the Deadfire subforums, so hopefully they'll have learnt their lesson, we'll wait and see.
I think I will be keeping Backstab on this Rogue anyway (was wondering whether to cash it in for Vicious Fighting, but 55% hit to crit sounds like enough), so in which case the top end of the damage on a Deathblows Backstab crit will be 266-381 before DR, so I think that's pretty fun. I may well take Nightshroud instead of Tidefall for 3 Shadowing Beyonds per rest, so that'd give a lot of these punchy hits in a tricky encounter. Plus, it's using the Rogue as was advertised by the devs, even if the implementation of Rogues does make using them as advertised difficult.
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Lots of it got patched (auras for example) but some of those remain. They don't occur too frequently so I guess it's just not worth it to patch.
It seems like its attached to any spell-binding to be honest, I've noticed it with Torrent of Flames too. I wouldn't say it's necessarily worth patching, but someone could probably make a build out of it if they so desired.
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I thought Fallout 4 was really bottom of the barrel in terms of modern RPGs, and I hated the fixed story plus the yanking of core mechanical elements common to previous members of the franchise. Personally I usually play money-hungry pragmatic characters lacking strict morals, having to chase after your son and caring about him really sucked to me.
If Deadfire had a similar restrictive approach to its story, I really wouldn't want to be playing it. I know no one makes you chase Shawn in FO4, but the voice acting indicates a great level of care for him, so to not chase after him makes your character seem a little schizoid to say the least.
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Refunded my Deadfire pledge, here's why...
in Obsidian General
Posted
Thank you, good to know. As I mentioned, I highly doubt that would be your position as moderators or Obsidian's position as a company, but it never hurts to cover yourself so to speak.