Hiro Protagonist II

There should be a poll added with who is buying this. No doubt 99% of people posting in this thread will be buying the game despite the complaints. Monte and myself, two confirmed non-purchasers of the game, standing by idly watching all this unfold. Actually, scrap the poll. We all know the vast majority of posters will play the game, regardless of what forum you're on and BioWare knows their games sell. I also note on RPG Codex, there's a lot of anticipation from quite a few posters over there to play this. And I'm being quite serious.

I think they did too. Not 100% sure. It's something I'm curious about with PoE. Will they tweak the end fight because you could potentially be one or two levels higher with the expansion installed? Will it be levelled scaled? Or will they keep the end fight static? Even with the expansion installed, not doing the expansion content and being at the same level as you would be with the base game, will the end fight be the same as one who has done all the expansion content? eg.BG1 with TotSC installed. The end fight with Sarevok with TotSC installed was the same even if you didn't do the TotSC content. AFAIK, with TotSC installed, the Sarevok fight didn't scale to your level. It remained static throughout the game.

Lephys, I already explained my example and gave reasons. Sensuki likes how you level in BG1. I like how you level in BG1. Maybe not everyone likes how you level in BG1, but for me personally I think it was good. PoE is a low level game (levels 1-12) and BG1 is a low level game (levels 1-10). The comparison to BG1 is justified, considering PoE is modelled after the IE games. And you do have people like Sensuki and myself who do like BG1's levelling throughout the game. You haven't explained why BG1 isn't a good model. Saying 'Not always' doesn't mean anything. And giving extreme examples like 10,000xp doesn't help your case. I know you want to talk in the abstract and go off on tangents and thus we are at an impasse. I talk about real life examples, you talk about hypotheticals. I can't really do more than what I've explained. So there's no point discussing it further.

To keep it in context, it's always good to go off a model or something previous that actually worked. eg. BG1.

As I said, it's about creating the illusion. And your constant extreme examples don't help. If the illusion is subtle, then a lot of gamers may not notice it and actually enjoy the level progression. How about 1000xp instead of 100xp for a quest. 1000xp still sounds like a lot but not too much when compared to the IE games. The main end chapterquests in BG1 were around 1000-2000xp. Some even got up to 4000xp. But if you're only getting 10xp for a small quest and 100xp for an end of chapter quest, it looks painful to do so much work for a measly 100xp. Whereas, 1000xp or 2000xp seems like a lot. 10,000xp is just extreme when compared to BG1 which is what we should be comparing it to. If the numbers of the xp look to low, it will feel like a grind. If you up the xp rewards but also up the Character xp table, it then presents an illusion of progressing even though it's the same. It's all about subtlety.

Thanks for agreeing with me. And as you've pointed out, it protects noobs. Especially those who don't read the manual. What is this manual thing you speak of? Seems to be a relic of the 90s. Today I want a game to tell me stuff. Why doesn't the game just tell me! And it stops creating characters that as you've said, aren't as viable in the latter part of the game. Lower the amount of skills and it's harder for the noob or inexperienced gamer to make a bad character. Every player, regardless of noob or elite and everywhere in between, regardless if you've read the manual or not, needs to have a viable character throughout the game. Otherwise it's bad game design. And the dev's don't want players making bad characters because you could put a 3 in a stat. It also tries to stop the min/maxing powergamer we saw in the IE games. None of that rubbish. Better to have a more streamlined game with viable characters. There's a good discussion in the Wasteland thread about this.

Tim Cain was one of the creators of Fallout. The followers of Tim Cain are apparently Cainists. Although I've always referred to them as Fallout Fanatics because if you call them Cainists, then you're discounting the other dev's who created Fallout (imo).

Josh has said in the past he doesn't want noobs to make a bad character. So when you cut down the skills into 5 main ones, it protects the noob from themselves. So a Mage will be able to put points into Athletics like a Fighter and it will be meaningful for the Mage. So you can make a bouncy, jumping from the rooftops, Mage which you couldn't do in the IE games. That's called choice! Cut down the skills to 5 and all of a sudden, it opens up all possibilities for different characters. I want a bouncy, athletic, jumping over rooftops, Mage.

^ Sensuki is correct. That's all the 4th ed skills and there's no speech skills in PoE. Looks like there's only 5 skills all up. Although I would've thought Dungeoneering would be in Survival. It doesn't make much sense for it to be mechanics.

I'm wondering how the expansion is going to affect the main game. TotSC added another one/two levels to different classes due to the different xp tables in 2nd ed. With a unified xp table in PoE, perhaps you'll also level up one or two levels? And how will this affect the end battle? Even with TotSC installed, and hitting the level cap of 161K, the fight was still challenging. I enjoyed BG1 levelling even when I did hit the cap. Maybe it'd be a good idea to have the illusion of progressing with a high xp table than a low xp table. If it's a low xp table, it will feel like a grind. If it's a high xp table, you'll feel like you're progressing even though it's exactly the same progress. Big numbers look nice even though it's an illusion.

Well I do find this thread humorous that a lot of these people will end up buying it anyway. And I'm not joking. I'm being serious about Obsidian taking pointers from BioWare. Like it or not, Bioware seems to have gone from strength to strength over the years with their games and that translates into more consumer sales and profits. BioWare seems to know that people will buy their games when they include things like romances. If the majority of the market wants it, give it to them. That why I said their next original IP can appeal to the mass market. If they choose to do an old fashioned hardcore rpg for a very small niche market, then they can do that too. It makes perfect business sense to do an rpg for the mass market too.

God no. None of that random Diablo type loot drops please.

You're still buying this aren't you Monte? Seems to be a big market for these games regardless of this content and a lot of people keep buying them. Case in point: Perhaps Obsidian should take some pointers from BioWare, by appealing to the mass market instead of a niche market with their next original IP.

respec just so you can optimise and create your idealised character while playing the game seems like bad design to me as well. I've seen this sort of stuff in pnp where a player realises they should have chosen X instead of Y. They're character is still playable but not as good as the Munchkin they could have created. Might as well follow a powergamers guide that will eventually hit the internet. It can also open up exploits and make the game easier. For instance, in Fallout, you only put so many points in STR because the Power Armour can get you up to 10. If you put more points in STR before you get that power armour, then the game can be easier up until that point than if you only put in a lower amount of STR. But the downside is you've now wasted points once you do get the Power Armour. If you respec, lower your STR, and get the Power Armour to get your 10 STR, you've now exploited the game. High STR at the start to make it easier and lowered it to an amount where the Power Armour gets you to 10 later in the game.

Yes, that's right. If you want the GOG version, you'll have to wait until the full game is released. If you want to beta test it, you'll be locked into Steam. Presumably, the keys will be on the PoE backer portal soon. Maybe there will be an option where you can select Steam or GOG. Something like select Steam including Beta access now or GOG coming soon (when the game is released).

I adjusted the brightness as the original screen shots were quite dark. Brighter. And even more brighter.

I just realised what those 6 crystal pillars are at the camp from the start of the game. The choices you make in the game leads to one of the endings where your party is transported back in time and you and your party members are locked in a crystal each, fully aware but can only watch as you see your party arrive at the start of the adventure.

I just noticed something about that review that I didn't notice before. Two of those pictures are actually one big picture taken at different times of the day.

I like the story concept of a post-human earth. Might be good for a movie. I don't know about the game. Looks like a MechWarrior shoot'em up type game. Not sure where the RPG comes into it. Not really my type of game tbh.

I see myself doing this too. Josh doesn't like the random die roll from the IE games and it appears if you don't meet a certain condition [Athletics] it's an instant fail. So in the below example, if you save, press option 1 [Athletics], Fail. You then can reload and press option 2 [Constitution]. Depending on your passing or failing will lead to reload and go with options 3 - 5. This could also give you some insight if you fail on one of those conditions [eg. Athletics] and the next encounter might have an Athletics or Intelligence check. You might go with Intelligence instead. You might pass with an Athletics check but if you fail again, then you know your Athletics probably isn't high enough. I know it all comes down to the encounter design but it could be a guide if your skills are too low or if they're okay and where you may need to allocate points on level up.

Some more screen shots. Dialogue options on a quest. Possible spoilers.

It's why I usually wait 2 years to buy the Ultimate Edition with everything included at a heavily discounted price. If it doesn't have everything, I don't buy it. I'm obviously not the target audience and corporations don't care about one lost sale (having worked for multi-nationals in the past). And it's probably why I haven't bought a BioWare games since DA:O, only because they billed it as a spiritual successor to the BG series. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Prior to DA:O was NWN. I think FO:NV Ultimate Edition was the last game I bought which had everything. I guess as you get older you realise you don't need to have the game on Day 1 as your priorities often change. Maybe not for everyone, but it has for me.

Yeah, if you don't like it, put me on ignore.

My mistake, there's 11 when you discount the duplicates. But we're only in June and still have another 6 months to go. And it looks like there's some great games coming out later this year on all platforms. Also, you wanting to discount iOs is funny. There were also low standard platforms 15 years ago. Some were good, some weren't. You're willing to accept other platforms 15 years ago to boost numbers, to accept all platforms back then. But today, you want to pick and choose what platforms are acceptable. Also, some of those platforms 15 years ago don't exist today. You can't have your cake and eat it too. No. Lets have a look at 2010. Excluding duplicates, I count 43 games. I may have missed one or two but that was the biggest year I can see with so many games hitting the 90% mark. http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/all?year_selected=2010 And you're going to discount games like Monkey Island 2 and Grand Theft Auto on the iOs because you don't like the platform? So Ipads are no longer valid according to you. You can also buy BG2:EE on the Ipad. Wasn't it you who said BG2:EE got a terrible score and now you're saying iOs give cake reviews? That should have boosted BG2:EE's score if that was the case. And Metacritic takes scores from various websites. Now you want to blame all those reviewers from various sites for giving 'cake reviews'? As I said, you can't pick and choose platforms today and then count them all 15 years ago. There's a lot of gamers who play on the Ipad today and you can't discount those gamers..

Make that 15 games that have hit the 90 mark and we still have the rest of the year to go. http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/all?year_selected=2014 And games do score differently on different platforms. So you can't discount one platform like iOs. You even said, "Also finding scores would help a lot if you look at something other than just pc games. Just saying consoles exist and have games too." Just like other platforms including iOs exist too. I wouldn't mind seeing a graph of games for each year that have scored over 90 for the past 15 or so years and actually see if games did score better in the past than they do now. It would be interesting to see.