IndiraLightfoot

IIRC, Obsidian said somewhere that some mist overlay setting has gone wrong in this desert area. On the other hand, inside the Engwithan structure, I reckon that is one of the most beautiful areas I've seen in PoE1 and the Deadfire tidbits combined.

I know! I had that dream already in PoE1. Imagine a bear-infused druid that also gets to command a perma-bear (Hmm, sounds like Ranger).

I got this crazy idea of making a mountain dwarf druid/barbarian, just to check if I can Frenzy like hell, build her extremely strong and resilient, and then turn into a bear for 30s during combat. And I'm happy to report that you can do so. The bear looks like a frenzied shadow bear, strong as an ox, and simply cool overall. Even better, Druid has spells like Wood Skin and Nature's Mark, so a lot of stuff gets killed by this raging über-bear of mine. I opted for normal Barb with no subclass. Oh, the joy! And I really dig the scripted events in Deadfire, much better than the first. Seeing that my tiny female dwarf can lift the entire Engwithan temple gate was a highlight for me! Holla is one pumped dwarven lady! And also, playing Druid, you got to rest at a shrine, make some simple choices in the scripted dialogue, only to get a Nature's blessing to remember:

Hi! I cast Wood skin as a Druid on my party, myself included, in that Engwithan temple. Then I left, walked around on that island, visited a shrine, wandered a bit more on the island, took a boat back to Tikawara, and even rested, but the wood skin effect still lingers on my main character (mountain dwarf female):

I couldn't resist: I love you as well, Answermancer!

Yeah, that certainly will need some fine tuning, but having watched vids of level 6 parties in games like PoE1, BG, NWN1 & NWN 2, PoE2 is actually in some respects slow, if you've made your characters resilient and armory- enough. I can have fights in PoE2 that go on for minutes.

Given the state this early beta is in, and comparing to the PoE1 beta process up till release, I'd say mid April 2018 for Deadfire. I don't mind that at all.

Hmm, if casting in general will stay this slow, then the spell changes have to be gargantuan with huge impacts, I'm not sure I want that. All I ask for is that caster classes are on par with martial classes. And I found this gem in Backer Beta impressions (gem, as in, thinks like me... ): I love you, Hariwulf!

Today, I've watched videos of PoE1, as well as of BG1, plus NWN1 and NWN2, looking specifically at level 6 party combat (1), and also what happens if you bring undergeared level 6ers against level 7 and level 8 baddies (2). 1) For Deadfire, the game behaves more or less in line with these games when party and enemy group are of the same level AND you have built melee characters with high enough Armor Penetration. However, if your Deadfire party and the enemy group are of the same level, but you don't have such AP-crushing melee characters, it all get stuck in your party (if in decent armor) hitting training dummies. Combat takes ages and ages. Whack *Miss*. Khazam! *Fizzle*. 2) In these other games, when the enemy group is stronger than your party, the fight goes on for longer, and your skill and how your built your characters are very important. Still, no matter how you slice it, if the enemies get the upper hand, the fight is over quickly. You get crushed by the baddies pretty fast. But in Deadfire, your slightly weaker party level-wise, has an even harder time hitting anything in any way. Still, the enemies take good time killing you (if your party is well-armored). It becomes a slogfest of a death of dozens of semi-papercuts.

"Bear with me now, it's just so overbearing!"

There has been great feedback on Deadfire combat from lots of peeps. Penetration needs to be a forgiving, sliding scale vis-a-vis armour. One thing I and many others were struck by was the speed of the combat, and the lack of a real slow mode, which certainly helped making PoE1 a great game in some respects combatwise. Given some recent tweets, I think they'll adjust the slow mode feel in the game, for sure. In short, a slower combat mode, yes, please! Another thing has been the complaints of the slow spell casting, and the sentiment that casters can't keep up with melee classes (not even by a long shot.) And not only that, spells often miss - since casters seem to be Accuracy-deprived. I'd like to see faster spell casting, with much better accuracy, and perhaps even more spells per encounter. Also, there was a bug that snuck into the beta. The recovery time for 1H-weapons has an average of 1s, while twohanders and ranged weapons are considerably slower. IIRC, Josh said that the 1H-weapons should be 3s in average. Well, here's my contradictory wish. I would very much love to see that fast 1H-weapon speed kept. This is one of the few things in combat that feels right and fun right now. I'd argue that the best adjustment would be to speed up the recovery for everything else instead. I've seen posters say that they hate the recovery time in itself. Well, I'll settle with it being fast and not a drag. When it's slow, it also f**ks with the beautful animations Obsidian have made. Everything should have much faster recovery time, and the 1H-weapon bug of quick 1s should rather show the way. I'm very curious on how such a beta test would be received.

Wonderful news!, SKing! Now, I'll use my secret future scrying ability: Next expansion will be Archfiend Archipelagos, and we will get to sail our beloved ships into countless sunsets, complete with a ship monkey in the crow's nest, singing Engwithan drinking songs.

Yet another thing I haven't seen anybody mention is the six options of UI interfaces under options. I have only tried two of them, but they are great. The only ones missing are vertical ones on the left and the right side.

I had a feeling this might be the case, but truth be told; I wasn't sure.

Hehe, and then in UI-terms, please...

I have never ditched a party member in PoE1, so how do you tell your mercenaries to take a hike?

Thx! Perhaps change the thread title to Top 25 Games?

Yeah, this would be lovely if it worked the way you describe.

I really like your ideas. I'd like to add the idea that some spells get cast nearly instantly (like Priest heal spells), on top of being "auto-hittish", this way casters could make a difference as things stand now. I mean, the spells have been created most lovingly - the basic premise/goal should be that we get to see them work in game reasonably realibly, no? No more whiff and fizzle fest, please.

What the...? I just listed this game among my top 25 games of all time, and know I have an expansion to try out after all these years!

Heh, in Deadfire all healing is instant, and the 1st lvl Priest spell does wonder now as it is. Empower just makes +1 lvl.

What I absolutely adore about this list. I haven't played a single game listed here!

I love that you mention these - they were all contenders. I adored them and played them heaps and heaps.

I've pondered over this list of mine, and decided to make it more a list of the games that I obsessively played - so best equals my getting obsessed with playing them a lot and intensively or even modding them. So, for instance, one of my favourite games (Planescape Torment) don't even get to #25 here, since I only played it once. The list slightly surprised me as well. I tend to rank newer games on this list higher (fresh memories?). 25. Cauldron II (1) 24. Champions of Krynn (1) 23. Civilization 3 (1) 22. Titan Quest (1) 21. Skyrim (1) 20. Warlords 2 (the modding, playing against my friends) (1) 19. Lord of the Rings Online (2) 18. Genghis Khan (2) 17. Civilization 1 (2) 16. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (3) 15. Fallout New Vegas (3) 14. Ultima VII The Black Gate (3) 13. Sid Meier's Pirates (4) 12. Civilization 2 (4) 11. Hearthstone (4) 10. Civilization V (with all expansions) (5) 9. Diablo 3 (I never played the earlier editions much. This is like poison) (5) 8. Dishonored 2 (7) 7. BG2 (7) 6. Company of Heroes 2 (I never played CoH1) (9) 5. Dishonored 1 (9) 4. Civilization IV (with all expansions) (11) 3. NWN1 (the fun on persistent servers was nearly endless, which makes up for rather basic solo campaigns) (11) 2. BG1 (13) 1. NWN2 + expansions (modding, persistent servers, MotB, why I am on these forums - need I say more?) (15)