Sedrefilos

https://twitter.com/WorldofEternity/status/935995110990290947 Dev livestream to morrow with meatshield Brian Heins Only joking Looking forward to hear from other system developers too.

It's something of a go to argument by some people. The reduction in party size to five was a ploy to make Deadfire into a console game as well apparently. Josh's response is appreciated and if it so happens that he's reading this he should know no ill will was intended towards him. If he's refering to this forums here, then he's an exaggerating drama queen of hyperbole and took it personally But I think not - I remember the "in the IE games" team comments back then and I imagine something like this in these other communities he's participating.

That's what I said too back in Pillars 1 beta era when I saw the comments of many former fans then :D

What are you talking about? I was arguing with the "in the IE games" side all the time :D

Maybe it is better this way. And maybe Obs should do the unnouncements of the beta changes just when the update is out to avoid all this drama.

Apparently other communities where way more aggressive than us.

"Here are things that are not motivations for the shift: to dumb the game down (?), to make the game console friendly (??), to make ciphers bad because I hate ciphers and hate you and want the worst things in life to happen to only you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)." lol other communities took it way more personally than we did here :D

Only Obsidian folks can speak for themselves, but I would imagine they would be toughest critics of their own game. As a studio, which never did a sequel just yet, copy pasting same systems into sequels might not be in their bloodstream. I am to surprised by how much the system is being altered, but I for one am more excited for sequel than disappointed. I am planning to play through with the same single class orlan cipher, and all those changes mean that the experience will be quite different. For better or for worse - we will see. Why do a sequel if you are afraid to change things? The sequel already changes a lot of things in comparison to the first game. Things that needed change or boost. From dialogue interactivity, to graphics, to scripted interactions to world travel. But the systems, I feel, was not a thing that needed that much of a change. I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve with many of the new mechanics that wasn't achieved in Pillars 1. And we can see this by the conversations in the beta forums. Almost every topic has to do with mechanics. I think we agree all the other aspects I mentioned are treated right. Mechanics though have divided the community. I know it's early and many things might change. Even this new changes might be for the better of the gameplay of Deadfire as it is now, true, but, I cannot mention this enough, the design philosophy is watered down with this move. That's how I feel right now and, although I might not play the game more than once in normal mode and have lots of fun, my faith in pushing the genre forward has shattered.

There is something weird with Obsidian I have noticed. On one hand they're rpg lovers, like they want to make complex niche rpgs and they show it. On the other, they try to appeal to the mass market. These two come in conflict often and leave their games with bumps here and there. Their games feel they don't have a clear view (with the exception of New Vegas maybe - which might had the same problem if they didn't work on Bethesda's engine) albeit their interesting and innovative ideas. I thought Deadfire would break this circle but I fear it won't...

Here's the funny thing. though. Precisely nobody over at the backer beta forums had said anything about it, at all. One backer among dozens came with a similar suggestion once in one of the discussion threads, that is all. So, this change has absolutely nada to do with any whining detractors. In fact, all the whining started after it was announced, from peeps displeased with the alteration. Still, Sawyer's post starts like this: "all of your wildest dreams are coming true: might is being replaced with strength..." so I guess there was a whining after all. I don't care much about the name change. At all in fact. And the change may indeed make the gameplay better for Deadfire. What I still don't understand is why there had to be all these changes - do they do something dramatically better than Pillars 1? - and the change of design philosophy.

Agreed, and the solution isn't to put a plaster on each of the new problems as they raise their head, the solution is to keep Might as it is and find a different way of buffing Resolve. Sawyer answered to me in twitter regarding this and he was adamant that there was no other way and, when I mentioned that there are several interesting proposals in these forums, he said he didn't see any that looked workable for him. That's why I said that dump stats is a reality - it seems that this is the way the design team feels at the moment and it won't change before the next beta update, unfortunately.

I don't think anyone has regrets about the the change of the name; more about the change of design approach. I don't have regrets perosonally, I just think it is a backwards move. I'm sure I'll still enjoy the game a lot, but, for me, going back to D&D mentality takes away the "this design will take crpgs, roleplay-wise, to the next level" I was raving about in Pillars 1. EDIT: from my observation so far, I'm given the idea that, for some reason, Obsidian is determined to fix things that weren't broken.

I contributed to this

For me might was always a physical stat. I don't know why people were confused about it. Maybe it's my english? I thought might = strength.

Stat-restricted weapons is not only old-school and annoying, is also nonsensical. A two-handed sword weights around 3 kilos. Come on, even my supermarket shopping weights more! And I'm not even strong :D

And rename them "might" :D

Especially for rp reasons, intellect is more mandate for a capable fighter than bare muscle. You fight with your mind, your body follows. Strength makes you hit harder not be more efficient. Intellect = magic has nothing to do with rp, since the use of magic is defined by the worldbuilder him/herself. There is no magic in real world to make comparisons. D&D tropes must die yesterday.

You're right. Don't know how much of kickback power those old guns had though.

Beside guns, everything else is affected by might (or strength) tbh.

Same. I'm not so much disappointed in Josh as I'm realising that, fundamentally, I really liked Pillars' mechanics so the more things change substantially in Deadfire the less I'm looking forward to it. I was hoping Obsidian would spend time tweaking the old ruleset but ultimately leaving it essentially the same, but they seem keen to change parts of it significantly. To be fair, if they make more drastic changes in roleplay (which they do as I see in beta pleythroughs) I won't care much about the mechanics changes. It's mostly that the conversation is around mechanics now that the beta is out and the fact that I don't like the changes makes the atmosphere a bit sad for me. Still, Pillars 1 mechanics where the best till now regarding party-based rpgs and it was a feature that made me talk about with friends, inspired me in board game design and felt that made the game stand out from the rest. This change pretty much dump the entire design philosophy they had and follow the oldies way. Hopefully the end result will be the game I expected it to be, not only in roleplay but in mechanics design as well, but at this time I'm a bit dissapointed.

It did; Sawyer semi-admitted it early on. Still, as he says in the conversation, they cannot just remove a stat altogether at this point in production. My concern, though, is of another matter, besides mechanics (from my post in a different thread): I don't know how importatnt it feels for the rest but this change affected something more than the mechanics themselves for me: it introduced the "dump stat" reality thus putting Pillars in the bulk of generic rpgs of the olde - a move that could hurt the reputation of the game's uniqueness, the "no dump stats, no bad builds" motto. Sawyer defends it saying that "no bad builds" was always over "no dump stats" but still one phrase is removed from the motto. I don't know how to feel about it... :/

I don't know how importatnt it feels for the rest but this change affected something more than the mechanics themselves for me: it introduced the "dump stat" reality thus putting Pillars in the bulk of generic rpgs of the olde - a move that could hurt the reputation of the game's uniqueness, the "no dump stats, no bad builds" motto. Sawyer defends it saying that "no bad builds" was always over "no dump stats" but still one phrase ir removed from the motto. I don't know how to feel about it... :/

It's official: dump stats are in https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/935600930300469248 I don't know how to feel about it; I hope Sawyer's reasoning makes the game better. I for one would want no dump stats + no bad builds but, apparently, this cannot be accomplished.

Why do I feel the new systems are way more complicated than the old ones?

That was my concern too. Here's what he said about it when I mentioned: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/935582874450804736