Bleak

Disagree about the writing and bugs are mostly gone now but that's irrelevant - I don't mind others telling their opinions. The reason I made that comment is the part where you talk about the "bg proximity effect" aka fanboyism being the reason for the game's sales.

So, are you hugging a cat right now?

I had read that quote yesterday, didn't want to mention it because I couldn't confirm the source. But if it's true, someone should give him a proverbial slap in the face and tell him to work on improving any shortcomings, because he still is one of the few good designers around. As a company, Obsidian wants to grow, become independent and create more projects and IPs with 100% creative freedom. Not just make up for the production of their previous game. I don't know their actual fiscal score but that disappointment probably stems from that. Edit: I am no expert, but FYI that forum doesn't seem to hash their passwords...

I merely point out that "being better" helps, like you did. The target audience is a factor - not a huge one though like the examples you mention because I think it is safe to assume that both games' target audiences have a lot in common, since we are talking about games of the same genre after all. That fact alone may have helped Pathfinder since it used a "traditional" system and the brand was surely a factor. The press or the terrible functional state of the game long after release didn't. Their budget was also quite lower - and tbh that shows in the quality of the art/world assets (DF beats P:K in that regard imho). And one could go on and list many more factors in favor of both of the games. In the end, it doesn't matter who "wins". But it's a fact that the financial result may hinder future PoE releases. And I don't think anyone wants that, so the question should always be how things could be improved. And this is better discussed when examining individual mechanics/features alone.

I definitely agree that you can't determine the quality of a game by that alone. But I don't agree it is not an indication or that there is no causality between good products and high sales. Good quality is a factor that definitely affects sales - however, as you say, it is easily possible for other factors to topple the result and that is how the examples you mentioned are created. Gist is... I think there is a way of knowing why - an "objective truth" if you will - if one deconstructs the differences between the two games and taking all major factors into account, making a good educated guess of why something works the way it does. Can't possibly be analyzed over a forum, but it's always a good thing to pit your opinion against others and discuss about it.

Making examples of underrated masterpieces to subtly correlate them to the P:K - DF analogy, only shows your personal prejudice that tries to justify the "injustice" that happened, nothing more. There are far more examples on average, of recognized good products which sold better than worse ones, than examples of bad products which sold better than good ones because of other variables. I am prejudiced in favor of P:K but at least I am pretty open about it. It met my taste in regards to having much richer RP, a wealth of skill checks and world interaction in general, impactful choices/consequences, a more interesting rule-set (hadn't even heard of Pathfinder before the actual game was released), which includes better character development, combat and the right dose of the RNG factor. Of course, all these are merely opinions.

And coke sells better than mountain dew. "Why, I will never understand, since mountain dew is so much better". These are random examples - what we know of, is that better products tend to sell better most of the time, with many other factors involved of course. It is fallacious to claim that "better products tend to sell worse" is the rule, because being "better" is one of the factors that factually helps its sales. No matter if other factors may topple that factor. To the point, I agree that sales are not the sole indication, but they are definitely an indication. One's perceived measure of quality is even less of an indication. And we can go on forever analyzing factors of quality and why P:K sold better than DF, each one of us justifying their own arguments with walls of text. And it's hard to be perfectly objective. Fact is, sales are the only cold hard statistic we have available. I made it clear that I think P:K is of a higher quality, so this validates my view in some degree, for my own person, simply because I expected this to happen. That doesn't mean that I don't believe DF isn't a great game on its own accord and I would *hate* if JS or the rest of the designers got discouraged by a statistic. Critique though is the only path to improvement, but it has to be objective and devoid of any shred of emotion, just like the statistics you have in your disposal.

Same. Also found attacks and spells using the same hit calculation, stats scaling and itemization, among others, rather bland. Thing is, P:K sold better than DF, even if it was released in a terribly buggy state, so...

Can you really blame us? The main thrust of your argument boils down to "yes wizards are powerful, but they aren't guaranteed to take off large chunks of enemy health bars with every cast of a damage spell." This game is built around needing to buff and debuff on the hardest difficulty, especially your accuracy. That doesn't mean your wizard has to be the one doing the buffs\debuffs. NPCs can do that job too. If you don't feel like that's the way things should work you're barking up the wrong tree here. Your desires would drastically change how the game plays, and I don't think cool explosions are worth that. I didn't say wizards are powerful in general though. To summarise, yes they are effective for their debuffs and they are powerful only with their latest spell levels and mostly because of their magic weapons in any long fight. I just don't enjoy playing them as debuff bots for the vast majority of the game (that need buffs themselves in order for the debuff to hit) and perhaps melee/crossbow dps with their summoned weapons near the end-game. In the traditional sense, of any game ever, you can't call that a wizard imo, you can call it a hexer perhaps. The weird thing is that they do have many pure damage spells (which I regret taking at every playthrough). I vastly prefer the DnD/DOS casters, since you can do so many more things with them. I don't know if they overshadow other classes in these systems, but personally, I found that every class was worth playing there. Anyway, tastes will be tastes.

I never claimed that many or even most people don't consider wizards a "benchmark class". I just find that they feel much worse to play than in pretty much all other crpgs I've experienced. And from what I am seeing the main argument when it comes to caster usefulness is them being debuff bots (or magic weapon damage dealers). Personally, that is just not to my liking. I don't think you are being fair to all these DnD crpgs since BG saying that most of their successes piggybacked on PnP but there's not point in arguing about that without hard evidence about this or the contrary. As you said though, DOS didn't have that advantage nor did it adhere to that, imo misguided, philosophy you are referring to, yet it was really successful. And to the rest: You can invoke "nostalgia" all you like but there is no weaker or more vague argument than that in a forum discussion, aimed at dismissing something with an arbitrary assumption - not to attack someone else, but mainly to blame something and satisfy the lack of better answers in your own mind. Also a very human thing to do. Is nostalgia the culprit for me finding (like I said before) DOS' magic enjoyable too? Perhaps, who knows. But, as I said before, I can't, nor want to change your mind. I can only give feedback about my gameplay experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

prob cos martial classes are subject to same rng, but when they pass roll against target, they remove one layer of stoneskin - or maybe do 2d6+14 damage Meanwhile, when casters pass roll they destroy entire village, open portal to baator, invoke divine intervention or trap someone in rocky prison several hundred feet underground forever. or as a party trick, make ur thief redundant. ROFL, good one Why do you look like you have come to some kind of realization? I said this before - perfect balance is for MMOs. Do you think the lack of it was one of DnD's flaws? It was actually one of the things that made it enjoyable. All these DnD games that have been released before and DOS:I & II worked fine - this is self-evident by their success. Your fears are unfounded. Other classes never felt like a waste of time, parties worked great, build guides were made for every kind of class. Every class was powerful in the end - did casters have an edge? Yes, but as long as the other classes were viable and powerful too and worked well in a party, why would you even want "MMO balance"? If you think these games didn't work fine and none picked other classes, I urge you to do a research and find out if that was the case. Also saying that these games fail at delivering good party play... is quite a strong statement, considering their success, their fanbase and all published guides about builds and tactics. Why don't you try playing P:K above the challenging difficulty while ignoring party roles? See what happens. These bloated systems in PK/DnD offer you a myriad of choices and traps are not as many as you think. It's not fair to compare it in that regard with Sawyer's system though, because the latter is still in its infancy. The opposite from what you claim happens imo - the wizard is pretty much restricted to being a debuff bot and the trap is every other spell (except martial ones). I think this is evident e.g. by everyone saying "do you use your wizard for debuffs?", when someone complains about damage spells. Of course, I can't help it if you disagree. Everyone has their opinion. Mine is that casters feel terrible to play throughout 90% of the game, since I don't even feel that they reach that MMO balance quota with their limited resources, huge casting times and weak defenses. A combination of them can be very useful in a party for debuffs - that's it.

Given my feedback about casters, you do understand that I think that this has not already been achieved, right? If you think otherwise, I can't really change your opinion. I just used armor as an example of differentiated defenses, in the sense that attack resolution can be differentiated as well for spells. Again, it doesn't have to be a new mechanic, it just has to be a differentiation than reflects all the actual differences a spell vs an attack has. Limit of uses, casting times etc.

i did a search for 'pathfinder tier list' and this was the first thing that came up. quoted below: like i dont know pathfinder as well as some folk, but ive got enough experience with ad&d and 3.x that this wasnt a surprise. primacy of casters in that system has been a meme for as long as i can remember. arguing against it is... well it aint a challenge id want to take up, and i aint short of contrary tendencies. there are plenty of high level spells in d&d that can be ignored on a successful save, and due to d&d crit mechanics u got a flat 5% chance of failure thanks to possibility of even weakest foe rolling natural 20, thats not even taking into account things like improved evasion, slippery mind, epic resilience, and whatever contingencies an enemy mage might have prepared. there are also plenty of resistances not readily telegraphed. u could chuck out wail of the banshee only to find out ur targets packing a ring of death ward. like ur saying poe's spell casting is too unreliable and should be shifted in line with a system that is... *more* random and unforgiving? i dont get it. part of the fun of d&d is that every attempt at something is anxiety-inducing, rather than a given, and u get to laugh at that one sucker who keeps rolling under 5 on a d20. So what about the tiers? Are you hung up on the "perfect balance" as well? This is not an mmo guys, but a game about RP. Why don't you check out the P:K builds and see that there are plenty of builds for every class - no class is overshadowed gameplay-wise. Most spells are only partially resisted - wotb is a instant killing spell and these spells have a trade off - they are pretty likely to be completely resisted. That's like one school of spells. In P:K most of these spells also have a damage which will happen even if it gets resisted. And what is your point that a rare piece of gear could negate it? If anything, PoE's spell casting is more reliably... useless, with greater casting times, expendable concetration and weak spells. A spell graze cripples a spell and on most occasions is worse than an enemy succeeding at a saving throw - not to mention that enemy saving throws are far more forgiving than defenses on high level enemies or that spells actually have meaningful damage numbers. Here are the forgiving and not-random-at-all PoE percentages... So you might want to decide what the case is about spell-casting classes. If they were so "unreliable and unforgiving" in DnD, why are they "tier 1"? not our hangup. however, if you have finally realized how silly were separate mechanic nonsense, am pleased. if you wanna talk only 'bout buffs or nerfs to already existing mechanics instead o' new and different mechanic, then am relieved you have seen the light. inching towards daylight? congrats. and yeah, automatic grazes will vast increase effectiveness o' debuffs and cc. durations is reduced 50% on a graze, which may still result in extreme debilitating debuffs lingering with a high int caster. poe were actual offering kinda the best example o' this wackiness. petrification were op. solo rogues were able to quick kill the adra dragon 'cause they only needed get a graze on their petrification traps to easily kill the beastie. a graze debuff is still a debuff, which then makes subsequent debuffs attacks more likely to hit and crit. inability to generate enough accuracy to overcome defenses is what current leads to a graze as 'posed to a hit. a graze occurs on an attack targeting appropriate defenses 'tween 25 and 50. so now graze occurs 0-50 for wizards spells? is your serious suggestion? will/fort/ref is simple three o' the defenses. change defense numbers how? to make hits and crits even more difficult? as for armour seasonal example: create jakob mantova's robe of chains as a new armour. a vallian merchant known for unscrupulous business practices used his entire accumulated family wealth to acquire the services o' an animancer who would extend his life beyond death. berath intervened and now jakob is cursed to an existence trapped between rymrgand's realm during the day and eora at night. during nighttime hours, mantova, appearing as a horrific fampyr dressed in a robe of rattling chains, haunts the living members o' his family, warning them o' the dangers o' unfettered acquisition o' wealth. "business?" cries the undead thing, wringing its hands. "mankind was my business. the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" if released from his torment, jakob will disappear leaving only his robe of chains as evidence of his passing. robe of rattling chains: excellent armour with base ar 12 and lightning ar 8. +55% recovery penalty. 1x per rest grants barring death's door. 1 per encounter it will cast chill fog centered on the wearer when hit by a crit. 10 penalty to any stealth checks made by the wearer as the robe's noise is not only physical but spiritual in nature and may be heard even by those who are deafened. call it a robe. give it a robe appearance. doesn't matter. armour has basic qualities removed from type. same basic maths. HA! Good Fun! You were the one hung up onto "new systems and mechanics" in the first place. I only said that there should be a differentiation in spells and attacks when it comes to attack resolution that will reflect all the disadvantages a caster has (huge casting times, limited resources, low defenses). I don't really care how that happens, but if you feel better by believing you somehow... uh... guided me into the daylight, as you say, I'll be happy to oblige. As I said before, it's not like I get paid for this to devote time to come up with a good and structured solution (aka it's not my job), so you might be able to tell if that is my "serious" suggestion. Telling a forum member that gives feedback "if you don't like it, you have to say how you would do it better" is silly at best in the first place. My feedback is that allowing limited resources on squishy characters that take so long to cast, just miss (and they do so pretty often on early mid game), makes for the most unenjoyable casters I've played in a crpg (even in their late game their best spells are the martial spells). How they handle this piece of feedback, if they choose to handle it or see it, is clearly the developers' job. I never said that other types of armor use different maths - I merely said that there are plenty of types of armor for different types of damage.

automatic graze is not a new mechanic. is silly and broken as it would magnify the usefulness o' ccs and debuffs, particular with high int casters, but is nothing new. and your armour comment makes no sense, if am understanding. deadfire armour types is nothing but labels. armour provides ar and recovery penalty. mechanics for armour is unified. HA! Good Fun! But you got hang up on a new mechanic, my point is that the attack resolution should be different. A new mechanic is not necessary for that. It doesn't have to magnify the usefulness of ccs and debuffs, as long as there are proper will/reflex/fortitude defenses in place. It will just guarantee that all that casting won't be for absolutely nothing. What do you mean that armor is nothing but labels? Doesn't my Effigy's husk for example increase my slash armor by extra 3 points specifically? Don't enemies have variable ratings of each type of armor? Nope, not talking about that. DOS2's system was great though overall.

You enjoyed D3 way more than Path...? Seriously? That doesn't quite compute even with tastes being subjective and all that xD Did you give it enough of a chance?

P:K did a good job with the resting system. Resting is a risk because enemies ambush you while you are sleeping, needs supplies which you can't carry in abundance even with multiple bags of holding because of the encumbrance system and is frequently when travelling on world map because of fatigue. I found myself having to plan the use of my spellcasting resources throughout a dungeon. The whole thing supports RP immensely. DF with woedica's challenge was much more preferable to me - still too easy to make infinite prepared meals though. Were casters in DnD or PF (which has the most solid version of DnD imo), inherently better than martial classes? Perhaps, in many situations. But there was never a problem of them overshadowing the rest of the classes. Perfect balance isn't needed in a single player game anyway, as long as all choices are viable+. And from my experience these games always compelled me to go with a full party with a variety of classes. Having multiple casters in a party can make things actually harder until the late game on potd. Yes there are a lot of combinations that can beat enemies, but they are so easily broken and most involve casters being just a support to the instant damage dealing abilities of martial classes that also can take a punch or involve wizards becoming melee killing machines themselves (which are their best spells tbh). The main reason I would go for a martial class is their damage dealing reliability in long fights (most fights are long in potd) - and it's not like martial classes don't have debuffs too. In the end, don't forget that spell accuracy (miss/graze) is only a problem combined with the abysmal casting times, minor defenses and limited resources a caster has. And yes potd defenses and hp are inflated but that doesn't excuse anything. I am not convinced that I am the only person who has this problem based on the anecdotal evidence you invoke. On this page alone, I am not. And there are plenty of threads of people complaining about casters - just google. But let's assume it is not a popular issue - I won't argue with that, there's no point anyway. First of all it's not my place to "invent" mechanics - neither do I get paid for it, to involve myself enough in it, nor do my potential solutions have much chance into being noticed, much less implemented. So not much point in devoting time for it. My optional job as a customer is to give feedback about my experience with the game though, which is what I am doing. But I'll humor you with a random example - say spells just couldn't miss. Spells grazing is enough of a penalty imo so perception will still be valuable because debuff durations are crippled and penetration is still a factor for the final damage roll. Will/reflex/fort can still control "broken" debuffs. PS: My example was just referring to having a lot of different types of armor in the game, as we do now, instead of an imaginary "global" armor that applies to all spells and attacks, like it happens with attack resolution. From my understanding (without having read the whole thread) the most common gripe about penetration is just how it scales vs armor.

a nonsense solution to an imaginary problem. am admitting there is a whole list o' poe/deadfire problems, but caster accuracy is not one o' 'em. early during the beta there were indeed a problem with spell penetration, but such were addressed. beta spells were consistent ineffective 'cause o' insufficient penetration. however, if you cannot generate caster accuracy, am curious what in the heck you are doing. aloth is typical one o' our high-damage companions regardless o' party composition and am only ever playing potd. the elf wizard is even more valuable with debuffs and cc.... effects which use same maths as damage spells. furthermore, the solution o' creating a complete separate mechanic for casters to address the s'posed paucity o' caster accuracy makes even less sense. if the problem were caster accuracy, then obvious solution would be a buff to caster accuracy. create seperate mechanic which would obvious cause more bug opportunities and make multiclassing more problematic, is... pointless. other than a slavish devotion to d&d norms, am seeing no reason for inserting a separate mechanic for spells. HA! Good Fun! You can dismiss any problem as nonsense or imaginary because it's not yours, it's the easiest thing to do. However I do not enjoy using casters only as limited utility bots (which are not even reliable or worth in most occasions). Maybe as you said, DnD has spoiled me since no matter how I see it, both theoretically and practically, "DnD norms" just seem to be more enjoyable for me and I can't help that I don't enjoy how casters work in this game. What is this hyperbole about a whole new different system? A small differentiation will suffice, like changing how attributes affect casters, or making spells just go through a different attack resolution, or even having accuracy affect spells in a different way for example, would all be simpler solutions. And don't tell me about streamlining, user-friendliness or "intuitiveness" - this is not a mobile game and I think we can handle some extra complexity. In the case where this system had only one kind of armor, would you again say, "why add more kinds of armor it doesn't make sense"? The answer is variety - the same applies for attack resolution. In the same way that a normal attack being reduced by armor, should not use the same mechanics as a fire attack being reduced by the same kind of armor, magical incorporeal aoe spells should not use the same accuracy that is used for mundane attacks. The fact that their completely unreliable, long-casting spells are limited only adds insult to the injury.

Make what work exactly? I am just saying they feel terrible to play. Buffing up with EA for example and debuffing enemies isn't even worth it on 99% of the fights on potd because after all that buffing/debuffing other classes will have dealt 10x of the damage of that fireball you will throw and will have tanked all the enemy hits. Spells feel like weak attacks, need positioning, they are limited and they take much longer to apply. "End-game" casters are in a good spot (mostly because of their magic weapons ironically). Casters in DnD feel great imo, they start off weak, but their power progression is impactful, taking the time to cast a spell almost never goes to waste (even if a ST succeds) and they are much different mechanically than other classes. I don't see why we can't have this here.

Early-mid casters suck, now that's new! Never has it happened before in any game ever! =P Nope, casters are not just weak early in the game like it happens in dnd games until they get some good spells. They are useless throughout most of the game because of accuracy. I haven't had a worse time using magic in any game so far - this one takes the cake. They can be powerful only late in the game, but even then the most popular wiz build for example, is the melee wizard. BG/ToEE/IWD/P:K/NWN - casters were a blast to play even if they were weak early on. After a few levels magic felt impactful, saving throws in dnd games are actually more forgiving than the miss/graze fest here and the spell effects were powerful enough to justify their limited use. Not to mention their meh defense buffs that are easily expended and don't stack, the possibility of a CC lasting for less than a round and their huge casting times (even with the talent). Spells shouldn't go through the same attack resolution in the first place. There should be a differentiation from normal attacks. Here, spells feel like cheap parlor tricks or colorful aoe attacks which are limited and when you expend them all you are left with is a squishy, useless character. And it's not like I haven't experienced the system fully. I've finished PoE 1 and 2 both with a full party and solo characters casters included and I've tested most spells.

What I despise most in the PoE system is that spells go through the same resolution as attacks do. Early-mid casters feel like crap to play, summons are terrible, damage spells feel like a weak aoe attack that casually misses even if they are limited per combat - only CCs are somewhat worth it but I found that it is better using a different setup in the first place.

If only someone gave me a ton of money so that I could get in the industry - it's impossible in my country and I'm stuck on working on boring-ass asp.net applications. :'( True - and there are so many things we plebs don't know, such as the details about how they used their resources and what they had available - for example one may complain about the ship battle system, but the alternative would be it not being implemented at all because of the lack (or mismanagement, who knows) of resources. I won't claim to know what is prudent, but design decisions to popularize and renovate a genre are tricky at best and at the same time there are a myriad of other factors which will affect how it sells. You have to make as many people happy as possible yes, but you can't be too hang up on making as many people happy as possible because that will compromise your vision eventually. problem is crpg fans enjoy nothing and are never happy. Ud spread more joy by manufacturing pharmaceuticals rather than games. That's the dichotomy of groups really, two extreme factions under one label. In this case, fans of RPGs looking for empowerment, and fans of narrative agency. The first group wants powerful builds, advancement systems with plenty of choice, and the ability to demonstrate mastery of the game's systems. The second group wants the freedom to build the story they want, the world to react to that story, and the feeling of something greater than the individual parts. Pleasing both of those groups in a single game is genuinely hard. I would never have one without the other. These go hand in hand in crpgs anyway. The gripe lies elsewhere. It's not that Deadfire hasn't done a good job doing both - it has, no matter what complaints we see in the forums about particular areas of the game. Abilities requiring rest and a meal changed the game for me. Too bad the game is not balanced around it - early/mid casters are genuinely terrible. I always found it annoying that there were some per encounter and some per rest abilities. I always also enjoyed the impactful DnD spells that don't miss, but you need some resource management to maintain. Solo challange improved the QOL of my solo playthroughs. I modded the xp in the solo challenge I currently play to ~50% and it feels good so far. It would important though that to be dictated by the game, because I don't know whether that reduction will get me to the cap in a completionist playthrough.

I used to just prefer the DnD system as I said in another post, but replaying PoE II recently has made me replay Pathfinder again instead and also made me even more nostalgic for the DnD mechanics, especially when it comes to casters they are just terrible in the PoE system. Anyway though, comparing Deadfire with BG2 is ridiculous, there is too large of a time gap. Story/writing-wise is the only aspect they could compete and personally I'd prefer BG, but it's still not fair because BG has only a margin of the content Deadfire has and could focus on it better.

I don't think I understand. DLCs add plenty of gameplay, including new items, new type of item, they expanded ranger's tree and now added new subclasses for each class. In addition DLC include new enemies, new encounter design and include the hardest content in the game apart of the megabosses which were added for every one for three. Adding unending (or expanded) leveling up system only damages gameplay, as one of the main issues of the game is (or at least was, didn't play the base game in a while, maybe it's much better one) that there is too much mid level content and you tend to outlevel most of the stuff there, providing poor gameplay experience. Adding unending power creep would only hurt gameplay, not improve it. Unless you are one of those people who like Diablo and such, were you do boring stuff to get better stuff, to be able repeat boring stuff but on higher level. This is not Diablo, and it never aimed to be Diablo. I hope it will never aim to be Diablo. If there is something the game could use, please suggest it. I can't think of anything, really. There seem to be a desire for endless leveling up, without an idea what current levels actually lack. They don't have to add infinite leveling but they could add some epic feats with large xp requirements (like 2 empowers/encounter, other passives etc) + fix the game's xp progression curve. Character progression in crpgs is one of their core elements and shouldn't become obsolete halfway through.

Starting values are 1.35 for quest multiplier, 1.25 for combat, 1 for exploration and 1 for traps I think. Got them to 0.7, 0.65, 0.7 and 0.2. Almost half for the first two but since I am playing solo it's more like -1/3 of the original xp a party would get. Hope these values would do. Decided to get 2house2fly's mod too on top of that.

Exactly. As long as the options are viable, that level of balancing is not needed.