Bleak

Two mechanics that make me hate posters: 1. Blatantly untrue information relayed in a whiney, entitled tone. 2. The use of 'cancer' to describe anything but a terrible, life-destroying disease. Only can agree about the second because even if metaphorical, it is not something to dwell on when talking about games. I played both solo and in party, finished the game, multiple playthroughs. It's not like I played it now and started to whine about something out of the blue. Missing a spell, unlike missing an attack, can make a whole battle go to waste. Certain enemies resisting spells is another matter and forces the player use different spells or different tactics but missing vital spells that could have hit, just makes you reload and do the whole thing all over again. Perma-stun happens mainly at the starting levels but can easily happen later as well and can happen in such a way where a single first stun has to equal reloading because the character is as good as dead no matter his hp.

-Spells missing more often than attacks, even with good perception. -Getting perma-stunned by normal attacks without any diminishing returns. I have played almost every crpg out there, Dark souls, X-Com, DMC on hardest, hell even was patient enough to finish all super mario. Never got frustrated that much. These 2 mechanics are the reason I haven't enjoyed this game looking at the loading screen most of the time because a crucial spell has missed or a monster with 1hp that perma-stuns has survived and perma-stuns my hero. Pure cancer. If PoE2 retains them count me out. Simple as that.

Just my 2 cents, for PoE2, spells should not be balanced around spell accuracy and should not miss - only get resisted, as the case was in every other crpg. Currently with a mediocre score of accuracy spell casters are just too random and encounters that are based on certain spells hitting are a reload fest. Just my 2 cents on this.

Hope you guys keep these in mind now that PoE 2 has been announced.

*cough cough* http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/117191-vampire-bloodlines-trademark-application-spotted.html

I have to say that I find historical rpgs pretty boring, but that's just me.

What do you mean by "killed vampires"? If I make a spin off of P:T and replace the Transcendent One with Honey boo boo will I have killed P:T? No, I will just be some degenerate with no taste. As was said, these Twilight teenage drama abominations are meant for specific groups of people and it doesn't concern fans of the original lore.

Personally I would prefer a mix of people and different creatures. But a fantasy world with humans only, can work - not saying it won't. I just like a more "varied" mythology. I like open spaces and realistic travel distances in my open world games as well, but if that means cutting content and POIs because of them, then I wouldn't prefer them. Politics was merely a supplementary story on Skyrim. I used that mod too and would also have liked they expanded the story more and did enjoy it. Politics as a main theme might still work, but again, personally, I would choose a fantasy themed story any day over politics. The most important part though in my quote is not the politics it's the "multiple story narrative" . I am not sure if having a protagonist in GOT would actually work. One of the fundamental things in GOT is that it doesn't have one protagonist. What would be your role in the game? Roam the land, being a diplomat among the kingdoms and clear bandits or fight other factions in-between?

Why Feargus WHY? and that reason... Would actually have to agree with this reason. Well perhaps it is poorly put in that quote, but even if GOT is a great book and tv series I don't really think GOT would have made for a good rpg. First of all what makes GOT "tick", is that it's a multiple story narrative mostly focused on politics. Secondly its world is too dull as a fantasy world imo. It hardly has any mythological creatures. What would the 99% of Westeros' or Essos' land be populated from? Bandits? Meh. Elric of Melnibone on the other hand would make for an excellent rpg. An extremely rich fantasy world, lore, gods, artifacts, monsters and many unique and admirable points of interest (unlike GOT). Story-wise - intrigue, with twists and turns like a greek tragedy. GOT would still sell better for obvious reasons though -.-

Ye Gods... please no. SCL was an obvious cashgrab preying upon the forgotten realms/dnd fans. Did not even waste time reading its reviews. Team based isometric crpgs surely bring different things to the table. A flavor of strategy/tactics for example. But I think that a first/third person open world rpg has more potential for roleplaying, immersion and pretty much more of everything else an isometric would have. Even dnd ruleset can be adjusted. We have the technology nowadays - back then we did not. Also budgets were tight, audience was limited. If Obsidian earns enough money now I don't see why they shouldn't do it. As long as they do not go out of their way to have voiced protagonists "to keep up with the era" and limit choices and roleplay and as long as they keep the complexity the original has, they may even produce something as authentic as the classics.

I hated certain things about combat when I started playing it. I felt (and still feel) that some mechanics are just aimed at annoying you and could have been more intuitive. For example the very frequent spell misses on early stages, or the status locking. As for the story I managed to get into it, but it wasn't easy. I feel it tries to unload a bunch of lore on you for quite a while into the game and I felt npcs rambled on about complicated events I had no idea of, thing which kind of alienated me. Now I am used to it, but I didn't like it early on. Didn't feel the same with many other such crpgs.

Even with my problems with FO4, I thought it worth the money I paid for it. Well technically, as a game with a certain amount of content, it does deserve its price especially if you compare it other games in the market nowadays... But I am happy I didn't give them my money. F4 feels like a "hoax" for me. It just can't keep me playing, like the previous ones did. Is it the terrible writing? The horrible dialog system? The lack of choices, roleplaying, quest branching or skill checks? Farcry couldn't keep me playing either.

From my experience the closest thing to a "sandbox stronghold" (not game), if there is such a thing, is actually the stronghold in PoE. Being "sandbox" is a positive characteristic as long as it is not a "litter tray" as HawkSoft mentioned earlier, which, in my book, is essentially an assortment of meaningless micromanaging with recurring bland events that have no impact, meaning or consequences. This is mostly what PoE's stronghold is imo, that's why I made this thread. If the stronghold had the most basic of elements, on which the game is also built on, roleplaying and good writing, it would be ten times more enjoyable for me. If your decisions and skills actually affected its own events or the main story's events, even better.

A little decorating and writing would make it x10 times better than what it is right now. I remember being more attached with D'arnise hold for instance and it was a much more simple stronghold to maintain with far less features. I love complexity, but instead of impersonal systems and magically built structures in a couple of days by pressing buttons on an interface etc, they should have set roleplaying as a priority. I hope they keep this in mind for 2.

I just hope they will keep these things in mind for PoE 2, because it worries me how they didn't pay much attention to them in 1. Because for the simplest of additions in this thread, some attention for rp was all that was needed, rather than additional resources.

@why As far as I know everything I mentioned is simple and easy to implement and as Abel said, they are mostly for the sake of flavor and RP which, after all, is everything to this game. "Throne sessions" in BG involved a couple of npcs asking you to just decide about something, giving the player to shape his personality. For example judging a small time criminal or giving your blessings to a marriage in your lands etc. One could say that bulk of the work would be writing the npcs' stories. And at the very least, part of the micro-management should be the possibility to set taxes. The settings could be generous, normal and cruel helping you to further affect your personality and things people say to you and at most they could synergize with events. For example cruel taxes could affect the rate of visitors, another kind of event or a throne session. As for the apprentices, in BG, they were just 3 npcs - yes each one had a lot of dialog - but besides that their only function would be to stand around a lab and depending on your choices, they would just have a % to die or craft random magical items for you. Still, above all these, I would prioritize something much easier - just placing npcs all over the place and giving them a simple greeting line, maybe a couple more, to reflect reputation/personality.

Impersonal is the word for the stronghold indeed. I agree with all of these in general, especially the last. It would be even better to tie the stronghold to the main story more like in NWN2. Considering this topic is about simple solutions to make the Stronghold better, trying it with main story is opposite of that.In ideal world/game, yea it should be. That's why I don't mention it in the OP. But that depends on how you tie it too. Adding a small quest with a few waves of attacks as an event shouldn't be that difficult. Still my main gripe with it is the one I mention in the OP.

Impersonal is the word for the stronghold indeed. I agree with all of these in general, especially the last. It would be even better to tie the stronghold to the main story more like in NWN2.

Delighted to see WOD/Bloodlines on top. I think it's been too long since the last real vampire rpg and I think that WOD's vampires have unlimited potential and can make for some excellent atmospheric horror rpgs rich in both world/lore immersion and interesting rpg mechanics. As I said earlier my wet dream is an open urban world rpg or at least a bloodlines-style world but bigger. At least same quality of character development, even more character customization, tribes and complexity for ridiculous amounts of replayability. Bloodlines was a relatively small game if you think about it... but it had an interesting amount of replayability - almost every fan says so. Its dialog system + tribes and their different interaction with the game world + various ways you can handle certain quests. Atmosphere-wise, if they can capture the same eerieness, the downtown night atmosphere and world believability, we would have another masterpiece in our hands.

Anything as long as it is RP friendly, polished and actually offers something to the game. If the stronghold had the things I mentioned in the OP is would be very enjoyable for me as opposed to now that I am completely indifferent about it because all it is, is just a remote micromanagement interface.

This game is lacking in terms of overall polish, its not just the stronghold. The whole experience with the game would have been so much better if they gave it a little more time instead of rushing it out. I won't even mention horrible buggy release which was a slap in the face. Well in general I agree and I have some things I could comment on about every aspect of the game, even the story. I haven't finished the game yet though, but, excluding some certain things, until now only the stronghold has left me baffled from how unpolished it was. I am no expert or game developer but I am confident they have the tools to add half of the things I mentioned in the OP in less than a day. What would it cost them to pick already existing NPC models to "populate" the stronghold and have them appear as you build more and more things? Perhaps the hardest part would be the few lines of comments they would have to write for them. Errr...that may be going a little to far...

What strikes me as weird is that they could have easily added some NPCs to liven up the place but they didn't. Just place already existing npc models from the rest of the world. At the very least, construction workers. But yes I agree with what is said here. Great news that they said that they will do it like BG, can't go wrong if they do. It would also be better if it was a part of the main plot like in NWN. I haven't played DA:I to see its stronghold.

Personally I enjoy a player stronghold with a little of micromanagement in such a game. It certainly wasn't a "coffee dock" idea since it existed in older games such as BG or NWN. In these games, strongholds were less complex and they offered a lot to the game. I don't know if you appreciated them in those games but I did, a great deal. So even if more complexity is welcomed, it is not needed. What is done is done in PoE 1. You may be disappointed by it (I am too in some aspects) but I guess you are able to understand there is no point in "scrapping" it or removing it now. Even if you are not a developer you can understand that adding a few npcs, using already existing models in the game and writing a couple of lines of dialog takes minimal resources, so it has virtually no side-effects.

Good points. I would also like to see some more interaction from the world, besides Caed Nua. The most basic of things though is some population in it, it still kind of feels like a ruin even if you fully upgrade it.

The stronghold system, is a brilliant one in general. Surely it can be improved but it's the best "stronghold system" I've ever played in a crpg. Yet, it feels soulless and impersonal at the same time, at least for me. With a few decorative npcs and a few lines of dialog, according to what you build, you could easily change that. -Guards standing at the gate, greeting their lord when you enter the stronghold (maybe differentiate greeting by reputation). -Soldiers training at the training grounds with possibility to upgrade their armor and weapons (leather, chain, plate/staves, swords, halberts/sw&sh). -Philosophers arguing at the forum. Peasants/Nobles watching them. -Nobles in the throne room, decoration on the tables of the throne room and maybe a carpet. -Gardeners attending the gardens. -Priests and acolytes coming to study or pray at the temple from other lands. -Rangers, druids visiting the warden's lodge. -Peasants at the Brighthollow. Extra nobles when you build the pool for example, librarians and scholars when you build the library. -Construction workers, especially when something is being contstructed. I would also rather speak to an actual construction master npc rather than do it from an Impersonal interface. This simple thing, just placing npcs with a name, even if they don't have dialog (but it would be nice if they made a comment), would go a HUGE way towards making the stronghold more realistic, RP friendly and enjoyable, at least for me. For example, I don't care if my soldiers can't kill a xaurip, their presence only would suffice. -A secondary thing that I feel is not quite right with the stronghold is that it feels like a field with a random assortment of buildings. I would prefer a road leading to some stairs to a decent castle entrance with the secondary buildings branching from it (like a condensed realistic stronghold for example the one in NWN) and a pit on the other side of the gate as well. -Also I really miss "throne sessions" and taxes regulation now that I remember D'Arnise keep in BG or NWN keep. Sessions with nobles/peasants coming to their lord for simple, everyday things and you decide over their fate as well as decide about the amount of taxes (forgiving/normal/cruel), shaping your character's personality and the way people treat you. Also the Lavok's Sphere's apprentice system in BG was extremely enjoyable - made you actually feel like an archmage.