Hormalakh

One of the feedbacks that I keep hearing is that the combat was way too easy. The response i hear sometimes is "it's just early-game. Early game always sucks." Or some sort of variation on that. One of the proposals i had for the beta was that it should include parties in the low-level, mid-level, and high-level gameplay as well as combat challenges respective to that (early, mid, and late game) just so players can give feedback on combat difficulty and how the game "feels" during those portions. Yes, players might get to play with all the abilities early, but you can't just tweak early-game.

Do they play football? Polo? Quidditch? Do they all go to the king's tournaments? Jousting? May fairs? Or are all the plebs/serfs busy trying to stay alive? It'll be nice to know a little about how the daily lives of nobles/plebs goes.

i want to play higher difficulties without having to lose out on the story by sitting through it twice. if its supposed to be tactical, i want the information that will allow me to play tactically.

it's a fallacy to think that any of this has to do with religion. Religion is just a tool used by politicians to further their own agenda. If you look at those who represent their churches, synagogues, and mosques in the area, you'd see that they aren't the ones who further the bloodshed. Jews Muslims and Christians were all living "peacefully" back when Britain was the big baddie in town.

Sensuki, you were actually part of the reason that I started this thread. You clearly have put in a lot of time and effort in analyzing the bits and pieces of information and have come up with your own analysis. But as you put it: what do the rest of us "filthy casuals" do when the game comes out? Wait until you've done the analysis and then play the game? Or should we suffice ourselves with "easy mode" until we do get a good understanding of the game. I say, give us a good understanding of the system at a higher-level, sort of how you have explained in your reply, so that we can make informed decisions. don't just get bogged down in the numbers.

http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/ The occupied territories are as much Jewish lands as they are Roman, Egyptian, Greek, and Persian lands.

you missed the point. actually, you didn't even read the post. seriously, wtf? did you not read the "a few points?"

This is long, so apologies for the rough draft of my thoughts. Having followed PoE's development throughout its course, I have seen many of the combat mechanics explained on this site and others by Josh Sawyer. Specifically, the way combat resolution works with armor and weapons and how the different weapon sets work has been explained several times over. However, in all of the discussions, I have always felt uneasy in grasping the "overall picture" with each weapon/armor/other complex system. Quite often, Josh describes a certain weapon based on its characteristics like DT negation, attack speed, damage, etc. but I feel, especially because I don't have the whole system in front of me, that I'm ill-equipped to make informed decisions. Others, probably have an easier time because, well they sit and do the number-crunching and analysis. The problem I have is that these numbers do not give me a quick understanding of how these weapons should be used. They only give me the details (the minutae that describe the parts, not the whole) and then - I assume - I am to sit and figure out the best scenario to use each of these weapons in. In short, I have to sit and do my own analysis of each weapon, and then utilize that analysis in playing the game, or at least that's my fear when the game comes out. This is the same feeling I got when playing Fallout: New Vegas. Yes, each weapon was "balanced" to some extent, but just playing the game without using guides (which I never did/do) and just shooting from the hip, so to say, you don't really get a feeling that you're making informed choices. Quite often, in most games, there exists a short period of time when the game comes out and where the "strategy" for each weapon is "solved" by a group of players who have the inclination to do so. Until that time, players are expected to "figure it out on their own." I argue that this sort of weapon analysis is 1) not worth my time to pursue, 2) not fun, and 3) not really where higher-level strategy and tactics comes in. First, as most of the backers (including me) are concerned, we play these games as a hobby and a past-time, not as a full-time job. Increasingly, I find myself pulled at all directions when trying to manage my time in my busy life. When I sit to play a game, I would rather sit and play the game instead of powering up excel to solve simple, but ultimately mind-numbingly boring, analyses of what weapons work best when and where. When playing PnP or other "multiplayer games" a lot of the analysis and first-order break-down of tactical choices are explained to me without my having to sit and analyse them myself. Once that analysis is done, can I truly begin to be "creative" with my solutions to the problems presented to me. The first-order analysis is really more like solving a math problem and lesser order-thinking than having that information and knowing what to do with it and then making tactical choices when situations present themselves. All this to say that I would hope Obsidian will take the time to explain the benefits and costs of each choice (in a general sense) in layman's terms to players. For example, I want to know that "hatchets, generally, work best against leather armor but are weak against shields" instead of "hatchets are 2+ DT, speed factor of 14, DPS of 56, etc. Yes, the second one is important, especially for that type of nerd who wants to reanalyze the conclusions that Obsidian came up with. But until that analysis is done and given to me, I can't make informed decisions about my choices and actually start to play the game. So my contention is this: please please please give us an analysis of the weapons and armors in the manual, game encyclopedia, whatever where it explains where it makes sense to use a weapon or armor or other fairly complex system with multiple inputs so that I can begin to make informed decisions. Just giving me numbers and equations, yes, I can figure out "the solutions." But I don't want to. I came to play a game, not do math. A few points: 1- I do believe there is value in players making those analyses themselves. I just don't want to do it because I don't think it's fun. 2- I don't expect to know everything and for complexity to be "dumbed down" - once a basic understanding of the system is obtained, adding +15 cold and - 10 attack speed on a basic sword makes more sense because I have a baseline to play from. 3- I believe players should be expected to read the manual to find these answers, not just "know" them.

The only way the physical DVD can be remedied is to ship a blank DVD, a DVD writer and the digital link so that we can burn it ourselves. There, problem solved. Or they can delay shipping the game until the DVD is done. So everyone gets the game later. Although if I remember correctly, the DVD and the whole documentary wasn't even in the initial offerings when the kickstarter was published. It just became a free add on near the end of the drive. So...I don't really understand outrage. I find it hard to believe that people increased their funding just to get a physical copy of the DVD. At the same time, I'm all for keeping businesses accountable. Let's just hope the physical reward makes up for this screw-up.

3d art looks very good. It would be nice to see the "faces" on the blights a la the fear spell from BG2 (http://youtu.be/E9XnOkA31Hg?t=8m49s) or the very cool terminator 2 t-1000 death scene. That was always cool. The other thing is that the rain blight really doesn't look like anything...it looks like a mirror. DO IT AGAIN!

it would be cool if there was an animation for taking off your helmet when talking to npcs.

Wow, advocacy for gay rights happening in video games too now. The world really is moving ahead. Good for you Katrar for bringing up this very important issue. I, too, think that gay rights and gay marriage should be part of this game or at least the next iteration because I believe that that gays have been oppressed too long. Katrar do you have any specific stories you'd like to share with us in this regard? Anyone else? I can see that some of us are interested in other species too and I also support that. I'm so glad that we are moving forward at a lightning pace in this modern world. It's the 21st century people, not the 12th century. Isn't it about time we let our lovers be free?

I know that you guys have heard Obsidian didn't put romances into this game, but I wanted to let you in on a little secret about why. They said officially that they didn't have enough time or resources to make "a proper" romance, but the reality was that they couldn't figure out the chemical compounds that made Orlan and Aumaua sweat erotic to their species. It might take a few more years of animancy, but I stand fully erect behind the Obsidian staff in their un-come-primising dedickation towards finding the chemical makeup of these sudoriferous glands one day.

another issue: when aloth is walking under the shadow, he becomes darker before he is even under the shadow; it can look a little jarring. will day/time change while players stand in a certain area? the reason i ask is because technically, when the sun/moon comes up shaodws move; this is in contrast to your static shadows (with the building for example).

you'd rather obsidian not try to sell their game? what world am i living in?

I think that "making a mistake" should be part of the game as it gives more weight to decisions made during the game. Donating to a church or any other organization should have positive and negative effects. also i'd rather good actions not suddenly outweigh your "bad" actions, so you're suddenly good, but rather they just make you "mixed."

ok, now that you've heard all this awesome stuff people are saying about you, it's time for some criticism. I think the dynamic cloth can get a little "heavier" so that it's not flying around everywhere the way that it is when aloth is running around. It looks great, but it's like what Josh said about the swords, sometimes it looks better a little "faker." anyway...less flooopy more heavy. k thx bai

it's very obvious that a lot of work has gone into this: good work. my one concern is whether these things things hold up in all situations - it seems that you guys are trying your best to make the 2d environs look amazing but you're adding all this tech on top of it. i worry about the bugs.

Did I miss something? Why is their credibility wavering in your eyes? i didn't say their credibility is destroyed; how they do on this game when all the chips are in their favor is how i'll judge them moving forward. no excuses accepted. not one to be a fanboy. if they pull off what they set out to do when they promised it in the kickstarter, then i'll continue to support them in future kickstarters. if they fail, they join the multitude others who already have done so.

Almost useless factual correction: Combination (6, 2, non-repetitive) = 15 (6! / (5! * 2!) = 6 * 5 / 2 = 15). Or intuitively, take the above list, and add 5 new entries with the Crafting skill + each of the existing skills, 10 + 5 = 15. 6!/(4!*2!) actually. *pedantic*

no. just no. a man is only worth his word. it might be publicity and money in this game. but it's a deathblow to their already-wavering credibility in my eyes. they go steam early access and i won't be pledging to the next kickstarter. i'll wait for the next early access or even wait till they go 70% off steam sale. i probably won't be the only one. they said winter 2014, they should deliver winter 2014. comparing this game with wasteland 2 is a bad idea.

Not very malleable at all, if you ask me. I thought Planescape: Torment did this a lot better when it came to the factions, just because you were a deader didn't mean the same thing to everyone. Similarly, I would suggest that the developers move away from this idea of limiting player's choice in this way. I would rather that players choose the path they wish and that consistency be rewarded and inconsistency not rewarded. This means that instead of bonuses/maluses as described to priest power, i would rather there be an adjustment to area/duration/power instead. Instead of +/-, it should be a blue/red/white choice, all equally viable, but different. I don't know the specific mechanics used in the priest class, but this should be seriously reconsidered. If anything, the paladins should have this sort of mechanic instead of the philosophical priests. Your lore just doesn't match your mechanics at this point, and I think that's poor form. My other criticism has to do with the animations. While I know that your animations are only alpha, from my understanding, Unity has great tools to allow transitions between animations. I don't know why it was the case with the second animation, but the transition from standing, facing south, to casting, facing north, was abrupt and jarring. 3D technology should be utilized to its maximum potential when possible, and this should have a relatively easy fix, from my understanding of Unity and basic animation software. Everything else looks fine. great job.

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... I don't even really know how to respond to this. you laugh at it. like tihs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xEfUh6dSpk i made sure he was white and male to not hurt the posters sensitive sensibilities.

It's as if you all forgot about green shirt girl. Also I was going to post "but what does this have to do with boob-armor?" but apparently someone beat me to it, and unironically at that. also Indira, you're a girl? *whistle* sooo.....what's your number? Can I have it? the world's been sexist long before we gamers came out from under our safety-blankets and into the sunlight.