Marceror

If rumors are to be believed about Obsidian and Microsoft, this is likely just one of many. Going from a small company feel to being part of a corporate juggernaught is not a transition everyone is going to want to make. This does make me sad to see though. I have very much come to enjoy and appreciate Justin's work. He also seems like a really good, humble guy too.

Thanks for the explanation. I have absolutely no idea how I was otherwise supposed to understand this based on the patch notes.

This is supposedly part of the live game? How does one get this "blessing"?

Game companies just should not develop any features/mode that relies on the assumption that their game is crash proof. Agreed. I learned this lesson long ago, and have a policy of never playing iron man in any game. But many do not know better, and they set themselves up for frustration and disappointment, not realizing that if something goes wrong with their single game save, all their progress may be lost. If you want ironman, just agree that you won't reload your game, and make plenty of saves for safety. Otherwise you're playing with fire.

I'm kind of sad that we all forgot to celebrate this thread's 4 year anniversary.

The game is autosaving for me. I'm not playing on ironman, nor do I ever because I hate being one crash away from losing all my progress.

I just had my first ship to ship battle (other than the opening of the game). It was a Principi Dhow, and it seemed to catch up to me quite easily. It had slightly stronger sails and hull but 10 crew to my 11. I got a bit battered closing the distance, but otherwise was able to win the manual ship combat with no issues. Not sure if I could have run away if I wanted to. I'll try that next, but felt I should give a battle a try first, to see what it's all about. I also need to try ship to ship combat at some point, but I'm just in such a wimpy ship!

Well, you can buy it for cosmetic purposes when you get rich (interiors and exteriors are different for different ships). And for achievements too. I may do this if I get filthy rich in the game. I'm definitely not there yet though.

I managed to get an upgraded sail and hull from completing quests. So hopefully I will have no problem outrunning ships when I want to, and catching up when I want to. I'm very curious as to whether I can repossess ships of those that I board. Now that would be something!

Not much. If you keep your eyes open while sailing you can avoid everyone. Your speed exceeds everyone else's speed by default. If you absolutely have to go into naval combat you can just berserk and board the ship immediately at the expense of ship damage and crew injuries. It seems Obsidian were not sure of their own mechanic, and were afraid to force any ship features on the player and they are all optional. The only exception is doing the final quest alone. If you don't want to ally with any major faction, you need a pro ship to reach the last destination. But you can buy it at the last moment. Thank you for these replies. As much as I don't want to spoil my game, I also don't want to waste 100k making a purchase for a supposedly foundational game feature only to find I didn't actually need to do so. From what I've read, the ship combat (i.e. the turn based, story book style part of it) isn't all that engaging or exciting. If I can just close in and take care of things with RTwP battles, than I'll probably just rely on that. Maybe just fix up the sloop with some upgrades when I'm nice and rich.

I've got close to 40 hours clocked in now, and am definitely enjoying PoE II. It's so nice not having to obsess about bugs like I was doing with Pathfinder:Kingmaker. It's definitely a good game. I haven't done much sailing yet. Once I landed in Neketaka I pretty much planted myself there and have been exploring the city. I think it's one of the best large cities I've ever encountered in a CRPG. I just now went ahead and purchased the season pass. Question: is it worth it to invest in a more expensive ship? I currently have just over 30k in the bank, but there are ships that cost over 100k. Should I make getting the best ship a long term goal? Is it really worth the cost?

I swore off MMOs many years back, so this would have no appeal for me. I need for my games to have pause buttons, so I can deal with real life concerns at a moment's notice. I used to play Everquest back in the early 2000's, and this game became a problem after I got married.

If you had 10 mechanics and tried to pick a lock with 11 difficulty and no lock picks, you would not be able to pick the lock. If you had 3 lock picks, you could pick that same lock. Therefore, the lockpicks increase your ability to pick locks. They would increase your ability from 10, to 11 in this scenario. Going from 10 to 11 is, by definition, an increase. Maybe you're trying to say that they don't provide a permanent increase? Not sure, but you're contradicting yourself on this point.

Thanks for the clarification. That said, based on your description, and what I witnessed in game, lockpicks DO increase your ability to pick locks by a maximum of one point.

I managed to level up again, and was able to burn 3 lockpicks to account for the 1 skill point I was missing. Do lockpicks only allow a single level skill boost, perhaps? I had thought more were possible.

I'm trying to pick a lock in Delver's Row. It requires Mechanics 12. I have mechanics 8, and party assist 2, bringing the total to 10. However, I have close to 30 lockpicks in my inventory, and the game isn't giving me an option to use them? Any idea why not? If it matters, the chest in question if Ernezzo's chest in the room to the east of his main operating space.

It's posts like this that caused me to put it on the shelf immediately after completing Act I. I do not have enough free time or patience at this point in my life to waste it in such a way. I'll come back to this game in a few months, if, and only if, they get it to an acceptably stable state. Even though I would rather be playing that version of PF:KM right now, I'm happy to be giving a much more stabled PoE II an initial playthrough. I did back the friggin' game after all, so I should absolutely play it. I just haven't been playing CRPGs for the last couple of years....

What about ships? Seems like you could spend a fortune on those.

Is it trolling if that's how you honestly feel (so far at least)?

I don't think this qualifies as Agile. This is just irresponsible. With Agile you have sprint cycles that include QA testing, with releases usually requiring at least 2 weeks to occur. I'm pretty sure Owlcat is just doing unit testing, bundling it all up, and kicking it out the door, letting their playerbase serve as the QA team. It's a really, really bad practice.

As much I can appreciate the devs working to get hotfixes out every 2 - 3 days, by their own admission they are not allowing themselves enough time to properly test. So you are about as likely to have a bug resolved as a new one crop up. That's why I went ahead and uninstalled it, and will maybe come back to it later. I don't see how anyone can expect to make it through the game when the already dangerous terrain is being shelled by landmines every few days. How they think doing this is a good idea, is beyond me.

Well, it took Deadfire several months to start looking like a game you'd want to play. I very much hope Pathfinder: Kingmaker gets to a stable place too, as I'm very interested in playing a version of that game that is playable. But until then, I have to stand by my previous statement.

MS rumor. And salt prohibition. Smashing!

I'm not certain I'm following this. It sounds like you're saying you prefer a game that immerses the player over a game that engages you through themes and directly makes you a participant. But you then claim that Pillars is the sort of game that you don't prefer, while proceeding to claim that you love such games because they are distinctly "Obsidian"? Either you're confusing your use of former and latter, or this is a heck of a backhanded compliment! Or, I just somehow missed your point. No, I'm saying that both games engaged me in different ways. Generally I reckon I prefer the latter case (being engaged by the themes and ideas) but mostly because it's rarer for games to engage that way with me, and why I like Obsidian and Pillars particularly. I reckon that in that sense I was expecting to be engaged in a different manner to how Deadfire ultimately engaged with me, if that makes any sense. After rereading what you said with the interpretation you just gave, yes, that makes total sense. I initially thought you were referencing your experience with Baldur's Gate as a baseline for how you enjoy these sorts of games.

Taco Bell has some good items on their menu, so that's not all bad. But I don't touch the trying-too-hard-to-different Doritos Locos or Insane-Gordita-Crunch type items. Their bean burrito has a wonderful simplicity and purity to it. Their chicken quesadillas are also quite fine. What are we talking about again?