Sedrefilos

At least give us the alpha!

This reminds me of the second boss of Altered Beast (arcade) game.

Scale up only is confirmed long ago.

Although I don't like level scaling in games, I don't like easy critical paths either. So my take will be Scaling the critical path only. The rest of the game I want to be as difficult as the reward it's gonna give me so I don't mind if I go to level 2 area as a level 10 party if the loot doesen't scale as well. It'll be just a waste of time. Also, I second Tigranes for better design over scaling.

Yes, like in Icewind Dale II. The ghost in Targos can be banished by a priest. The ruse with the witch and children can be exposed by a paladin. Yes like that. Wasteland 2 was somewhat like that. It's good to have once in a while a rpg of that kind. Removes the burden of creating a ton of deep companions and helps spread the main protagonist reactivity with npcs and the world among an entire party and can give you the feel of having a self-defined party AND roleplaying as one at the same time. Of course I usually prefer the main protagonist with the deep companions approach but I'd love if these pop up at a ratio of, say, 3 to 1.

The deep voiced narrator should start talking "you should change your strategy before venturing forth"

I tried to do so in Pillars as a second playthrough. I made a team of fantasy all-star heroes but it just didn't do it for me. There was always a main protagonist and the rest were just there watching in apathy. In a game like Icewind Dale or Temple of Elemental Evil it could be better if dialogues options are shared among the party. So one time the guy with high persuation will talk, next time you can choose your paladin to talk because a special paladin dialogue option pops out etc. It can work (if the devs want to make it work ) and I'd like to see that (in a different game than Deadfire).

I never do it in games with main protagonist. I'd like to see some day (soon), though, a dungeon crawler a-la Icewind Dale with custom party.

Color-coded flying damage numbers could do the trick in recognizing if you're effective or not. Red=crit, white=hit, green=graze. Just a quick idea that poped in my head reading your post. You see one makes many greens, something's not going well.

Well, it is board-gamey, because PoE is inspired by IE games, which were a computer adaptaion of tabletop system. PoE and even more so Deadfire, tends to adapt this system to computer-friendly setting, but it is still abstract, number oriented tabletop. You mentioned the "other games". Anything specific in mind? The only game I can think of, which attempted IE experience was Dragon Age: Origins, which to me was a boring slog of shallow mechanics. While it did a good job in cutting convoluted stuff out, it failed to introduce new mechanics to make up for it. I had Dragon Age and almost every other non-turn-based rpg and action rpgs in mind. Yes Dragon Age (and the other games) might not be as fun as Pillars was but gameplay-wise they did it right. The rest is encounter tuning/variety etc (a section in which Dragon Age games suck). Never have I played (or watched being played) another pc rpg game and be confused by mechanics and how they work as I am now with Deadfire (even in Pillars I though DR system was good - though vancian casting etc I believe were outdated). The things one can adapt from tabletop gameing is core mechanic ideas (classes, spells etc) and story presentation (scripted interactions is a great example for instance). How they work in a video game should be worked having in mind this is a video game, not a board game. I have seen board games use some video game adaptations too, either to mechanics or aesthetics and I can't say I like them there much either. I do design board games in my spare time (I'll even have my first publication later this year) and I always try to respect that dichotomy. Else you end up messing functionality. One should know what the medium can offer and where are its strengths and weaknesses and use them accordingly. This is how I see it. I know many just can't detatch their mind from years long DnDing and love just to see a copy-paste of mechanics in their video games, but personally I think these kinds of designs make pcrpgs weaker.

DnD is mediocre as a boardgame (mechanics-wise) and is bad when traslated to pc games. Pillars system is way way better but still some mechanics are irrationally complicated when they could have been simpler and more straight-forward (avoiding DnD systems though).

When you put board-gamey systems in your video game, things might turn up weird and complicated. Other games that used video-gamey systems had no problems with these basic things at all. You have a resource that you use to activate your abilities and when you put on heavier armor it either makes them more expansive or it reserves part of your resource. Deadfire went the board game way even in resources. Points etc. Why? Computers are good in managing these things; it's not a board game where you need to have small point by point resource systems. I said it before, but it still buffles me why Obsidian does so: I don't think mixing board game mechanics to video games (and vice versa) when there is no need to is a good idea. Take advantage of the medium, let calculations to the computer and design your systems accordingly. When someone plays your game, they should know that lighter armour ofers less protection but more flexibility. That's it. Other calculations shouldn't bother anyone. Now you have to compare this with that and see how much you can strike over armor etc. Too board-gamey! There is a reason why Pillars (and Deadfire) are the only games the play real-time and use these complicated systems instead of more straight-forward mana/fatigue and cooldowns; and it isn't that other designers are dumb and make boring games.

Come on! Deadfire is not open world! It's just that the maps are scattered instead of grid linked and you must "discover" them before you enter. It has an open world "feeling" but that's it.

I don't bite it that they delayed the game for polish. Thay can add polish translation later. We're talking about the language polish right? 'cause I don't get how they can polish a digital game. If it was on a dvd, yes but still one month for polishing dvds sounds too long. There must be something else, some greater scheme some... CONSPIRACY!!!!???? daaaaaayam!

Maybe the world is closing to an end!

This isn't a movement, it's a commercial campaign

Three weeks before release they realised they had bugs that hard to fix that needed another month? whatevah. Hope it's worth the delay. April's goona be a loose month for me. May's gonna be harder. Unless these are different "bugs" that need fixing, I don't know...

Katrina was a producer for the fig campaign not the game itself. Anyhow, hope she's better where she goes; she'll be missed

Sad to say but all verions suck compared to English

How can we remember? We're not all Americans you know These early comics never came here (Greece) and most probably not in many other places outside the US. I only learned about them recently. Also they are very old. Many here may be younger than the TV series itself Also:

Ninjas = spies/stealthy killers = villains. So, UK did right. For some reason in the US thought ninjas were good people UK tv is less ignorant that US it seems

I usually stay away from forums when the game launches. I play it, I finish it, then I might come back in the forums for a month or so and then I dissappear until next game or expansion is announced

Why narrow minded? Either something has a place in systems/story/world or it doesn't. Its like autoresolve for battle in Total War games. They are there because... well, beyond spectacle, they are not great. For me the idea of "play like you want to play" was always odd. I am not a game designer. It is not up to me to craft the best experience. Just to be clear I was defending a statement made previously made on this thread, not say that Deadfire shouldn't have skippable ship content. I would be all for creating a seperate difficult slider for the ship stuff. The more customizable experience, the better. But I never see it as a good sign when a mechanic has a "skip" button. Why was it put there? When a designer sees a need to put "skip" button that's always a warning sign to me. Good point. To be fare, though, "auto-resolve combat" in Total War games is there because there are many insignificant battles that you might not want to waste time on since the result is obvious, not because they are not good Same might apply to Deadfire.

Polytheism is still a religion. It isn't. No polytheistic (is it a word?) society had a name for it. They didn't say "we are X", as they say now "we are christians" for example. There just were some gods doing stuff. There was no dogma, no official church.

Forgotten Realms doesen't have proper religion. It has gods that are real and churches with faithful ones. When one aligns with a god's aspect they become worshipers. This is different from religion. Religion is a dogma that dictates a universal truth about everything (as revealed by a supposed higher beign or beigns) and denies other worldviews. FR is closer to ancient civilizations' view of deities where they were interfiering with mortal deeds and they fight amongst themselves. There were no dogmas just beliefs that one god behaves like this and another behaves like that and what you do might attract their attention etc. Big big difference from how religion works. EDIT: Pillars stands somewhere inbetween but gives nice twist to them. I like.