Lephys

Well... I'll tellll youuuuuu *begins singing -- background singers rhythmically sing "He's GOING to tell, he's GOING to tell!"* *ahem*. You see, the entire thread is about Ydwin returning in the expansion as a full-blown companion. Thus, the idea of sidekicks becoming full-blown companions came into question. Then, the question of "wait, why are sidekicks with you the whole time, then, but still just much more silent and less tied into the story than companions?". And thusly did the ideas as to why a sidekick might be merely a sidekick in this game, then a full-blown companion in the expansion, come about. It's all actually deceptively relevant.

I'm gonna open a thread about whether or not Deadfire is a full sequel or a mobile companion app.

What if... the sidekicks were kind of "stickied" to certain areas? So, like, you go to one of the islands and you bump into Steve, the sidekick. He doesn't just go with you on your ship to wherever you need to go. He's got his own stuff going on, and it's not flexible enough to coincide with your agenda, except maybe in certain dungeons/areas. That way, they could have a much more focused story, for a reason. If you go into The Dungeon of Blah-Blah, they'll go with you. Otherwise, they're off doing their own thing while you go do your stuff, whenever it's not where they want to be at the time. But you keep bumping into them throughout the game, so they're a part of the "whole game." Then, later, in an expansion, they actually become a full companion, and now you get to have them in your party permanently and be that much closer to their now-much-more-elaborate story, which was really this elaborate the whole time, you just didn't see this much of it in the main game.

Any idea how those turned out, out of curiosity? Industry impact, etc.? I wonder if that affected this game when they went to find voice actors.

I don't know if this counts, but masks would be cool. I say that in this thread because I know you sometimes see those ornate, metal masks that cover the whole face, sometimes in conjunction with helmets (like the Janissaries in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood... and I say that because I don't know how historically accurate that design was in that game, even though Janissaries were real).

Well, seeing as how a large portion of animes feature largely human casts, any human character would be too close to anime, and we'd need a new poll to see who would replace that character. u_u

Good point. Fictional media should probably just stick to all the things we're likely to find together in one place. That something is a stereotype does not necessarily mean... anything useful. According to stereotypes, you're one of "those forumgoers," so all you do is argue all day to argue, about stuff that doesn't matter at all. So, I guess we'd better not discuss anything ever, or we might appear similar to a stereotype. *eye roll*. Last I checked, a stereotype is just an actual, legitimate collection of traits that is simply applied too liberally and arbitrarily to people with any kind of similarity. Again, "Oh, you use numbers to list things in forum posts... therefore, I've decided you are just like this other person I know who uses numbers to list things in forum posts... he likes unicorns too much. You probably like unicorns too much." Not finding a breadcrumb trail here to a point. Did you not just illustrate the meaning of what I just said? Also, Conan is just Conan. He's him because he's him. Just because all barbarians aren't like him does not mean that he cannot be like him because people might think that his design means that barbarians could be no other way. Just for what that's worth. That's not very helpful. People are arguing against her character because they do not think such a character design should be allowed into the game. We all know what I was asking. I can word it 73 different ways if you'd like to beat around the literal meanings of all of them. What about the general idea of a character being interested in death is, to any degree, bad? I mean, if you feel there should be MORE fleshing out there, then by all means say so. But, once again, people are arguing that the fact that she's interested in death somehow works as a component in her being somehow cliche. I haven't seen anyone argue merely that the devs didn't take her backstory far enough in the direction that it's going. That is was simply shallow. Stereotypes are quite directly born of subjectivity. If humans couldn't feel like This guy with glasses possessed a bunch of traits that another guy with glasses did, then a stereotype could not exist. We didn't dig stereotite ore out of the ground one day or something. I'm not even defending her, haha. I am observing the attitude towards her, and questioning it. Also, for what it's worth, thank you for enlightening me. I feel personally responsible for the existence of zealots, now, and their attitudes. If only I hadn't posted something about this after 1,000 posts about Ydwin had already been logged, those posts all would've taken a DeLorean back to 1985 and prevented themselves from ever having been posted in the first place. Darn me. I hope you do well without sleep, then, because even if that was correct, have fun getting anything to be clear to everyone. . Nothing in this universe requires humans to see reason.

One of the Rogue cross-ups should be called "SkullDugger." They would be practicioners of skullduggery, obviously.

@Arsene Lupin, Agreed. I was merely being silly. Except for the part about invisible armor spells. That was actually serious. I will say, however, that IF a game has, say, reactivity to what you're wearing, it kind of becomes a problem if your aesthetics don't match. If you're wearing kitty ears and a bikini and your character's actually wearing faction plate armor, and someone says "My god... where did you get that?! You're not one of us!", it starts getting silly. Now, even then, if you're fully aware of what's going on there, then it's still up to the player, I suppose. And while I don't think it's the developer's obligation to create extra stuff just to have fun fashion options (a la Xenoblade Chronicles X), I am a big fan of the "vanity" equipment. If the piece of equipment exists in the game, it's good to be able to choose that look while using the function of another piece you don't think looks as good. Anywho... helmets! I'm always a fan of designs that are largely based on actual/historical designs, but maybe take some creative license. I guess super-ultra crazy impractical helmets can be cool, too. But, honestly, I'd prefer that to be reserved for things like magical headpieces (i.e. "this circlet floats around your head and has glowy bits"). I like there to be SOME sort of reason for the design/explanation within the game world of why this thing is like it is. For example, I have no problem with a scantily clad character, IF they're actually some kind of berzerker who is completely against armor. If they're just scantily clad to be scantily clad, then I have a problem. But, go nuts with crazy helmets, I say, if you have any legitimate reasons for their existence in the game world. @PugPug, I LOVE cowls and hooded things!

Holy bajeebus. 28 pages?! This is like 24-hour news coverage... Haha. Or 24-hour sports coverage. "That's right, Phil. In the past few years, we've seen a lot of starters with concept art in the 70-points-per-game range, but Ydwin's definitely looking like a play-maker here today. I think she's going to go out there and really be explosive." "I dunno, Steve. We've also got folks like Aloth out there, who consistently leads the pack in both the passing game AND destructiveness. He's an elf as well. I'm just not sure Ydwin's gonna be able to carve out a slice of his kingdom out there on the court."

How has Ydwin infected 73% of the threads now? Haha. I think people's preconceptions of anime have made Ydwin seem FAR more anime-esque than people think. It's like when you see something like a kusarigama, and the public goes "OH WOW, A CRAZY ANIME WEAPON ON A CHAIN!", because they've seen it so much in anime they don't realize it's actually just a real weapon. Ydwin's attire is clearly based on historical, real attire. Glasses were a thing, despite being rare. And short hair existed as well, long before anime ever did. She's pale because she's a Pale Elf. And is someone not allowed to have a backstory that has them being super interested in death/"forensics" of a sort? The fixation on "Ydwin's so crazily anime!" boggles the mind. If you don't like her, just don't like her, and stop trying to find reasons why that's somehow uber justified. Your subjective tastes are already justified, as all humans have them. (To clarify, this was directed at the 73 billion posts, in general, about Ydwin and the "problems" with her design.)

I do find this to be the problem with sort of tenuously tying something so heavily to both the lore and a mechanic, especially when it seems to be not-all-that-necessary in anything other than to avoid a lack of a canonical explanation of the mechanic. Having said that, I would rather they did what they did and somewhat retconned it now, than for us to simply not have had a PoE in the first place for them to now better know how to tweak a Wizard casting mechanic.

See, if there's not a "Hide hide helmet/hat option" option, my immersion will be broken by the idea that my characters can wear head protection but somehow render it invisible. Although... "Armor Concealment" would be a pretty boss spell. Highwayman is all "Oh, I better go swing my sword at THIS stupid, unarmored guy, heh! *swing-CLANNNGGGG!*... WHAT the?!!!"

I don't see the need to restrict something as broad as summoning from all classes that would conceivably be able to do it. Why not let Wizards summon stuff in one distinctive way, and other classes summon things in other ways? Maybe Wizards only summon stationary things that do X Y or Z, and Chanters, for example, summon more mobile, miniony stuff, etc. To put it another way, I agree with MortyTheGobbo that "wizards shouldn't get to do everything," but they shouldn't NOT-get to do something that has plenty of room for distinction within a subset of it just because it's been arbitrarily decided that only some other class gets exclusive rights to this thing. It would be like saying "Only Paladins get protective/defensive abilities at all." There's plenty of room for distinctive defensive abilities between multiple classes.

No one other than Obsidian knows at this point. I'd guess direct damage powers but beyond that I have no idea. My guess, based on that name, would be powers that at least temporarily "shred" armor/deflection? *shrug*

Sorry. From now on, our focus shall be... razor sharp. 6_u

Is this publisher run by Tucker and Dale, perchance? 6_u

I'm missing something on the change from power sources to this. Firstly, what function did separate power sources provide that simply basing things off of aggregate level didn't provide? Secondly, the new system will have a LvL 20 Wizard/Fighter at the ability-tier progression of a LvL 10 Wizard and LvL 10 Fighter, correct? But are the abilities scaled according to aggregate level? Like... if Minoletta's Magic Missiles adds +1 missile per 2 levels or whatever (I'm sorry I can't remember the specifics... I desperately need to play PoE more, especially before Deadfire comes out -- just roll with the example, please ), then the LvL 20 SpellBlade would still be able to cast Minoletta's Magic Missiles with +10 missiles? I guess what I'm getting at is, you'll be at roughly half-tier in what abilities you have available, but you shouldn't be much weaker, per se, than a single-class person. If that's the case, then honestly, if there ends up being a problem with power viability of some multi-class combos, then Obsidian could actually just give them a wee ability power-scaling handicap. Like, 1.10 instead of 1.00, etc. Feel free to correct anything I'm wrong about. I'm genuinely wondering about this, and apologize for my noobishness.

Gonna speed through it, eh?

Maybe if you combine the correct Druid types, you become a Manticore Druid, or a Jackalope Druid.

Ehh... it exists, but sneaking is not the same thing as normal walking (and not just "RP" walking). That's like saying, in a driving game, that a lower gear is already provided for you. You can just drive around in reverse if you don't want to drive around in 5th gear all the time! But that obviously isn't the same thing. No one wants to creep around sneakily everywhere they go. But they also don't want to power-sprint every second of every day like it's just normal. If this weren't the type of RPG it is, I'd say don't even worry about it. And I know many are asking for the fluff toggle, but on-topic I'm asking for it to be slightly more substantial. Walking does not equal super-slow-speed. It's just slow-ER than running. And running/sprinting is a distinct thing from just getting around. There are essentially 3 intuitive speeds with which we move around: 1) at our normal pace. 2) in a hurry 3) cautiously So, it makes sense for walk to be the default, then run/sprint to be used when you need more speed and care less about noise/caution, and sneak to be used when you care much more about caution than speed. The fact that 2 different movement speeds already exist in the game is, in some ways, MORE reason to go ahead and put all 3 in. No one's asking for 17 movement speeds or anything. Being able to run as opposed to walking, and having it matter, would be useful and would serve a purpose, rather than just being something nice to have because roleplaying. EDIT: I had to change "slowe-ER" to "slow-ER"... it was bugging me furiously.

That's all just superficial stuff, though. Simulation for simulation's sake is silly. For what it's worth, I tend to favor the "everyone moves at the same speed until combat is entered" notion for party movement, as it's almost pointless for different characters to suffer different movement speeds in general travel. And I agree that having guards or people get mad and actually detriment you for trying to sprint all over the place is a bit pointless. The cons outweigh the pros. It's kind of like the weapons-sheathed thing. "Oh, hey, you can't have your weapons out in-town!". I get that it simulates a real reaction, but to what end? Now, if your party had to PEACE-TIE their weapons upon entering town... that would be a significant difference. Maybe with a good enough Sleight-of-Hand (or something similar) check, you could make the guards THINK your weapons were peace-tied, but when you got into trouble in town with ruffians who obviously wouldn't obey the law, you could draw them quickly. Otherwise, getting into trouble in a city/town would require time for your characters to cut the peace ties/untie them. Etc. Anywho, the point is, if it's not accomplishing something gameplay-wise or affecting the player's decision-making in an interesting way, it's not worth putting in. That's why I wouldn't be happy with just a walk-toggle slapped into the game. I mean, I guess that'd be 3% better than just-running everywhere, but it wouldn't provide much benefit for its own sake. I want there to be mechanical differences, but not just superficial stuff. Honestly, I think there should be a RUN-toggle, and running would use stamina. You can say that's a punishment, but it's no more a punishment than a limit on anything else in the game. Finite health isn't a punishment. Non-instant casting times aren't a punishment. So, basically, I'd be fine with your being ABLE to sprint all over the place, with very little down-time, but you'd make a lot more noise and draw a lot more attention to yourself. Not to mention that the sheer speed with which you move would make it much more likely for you to sprint straight into a dangerous situation. That's not even the game punishing anyone, that's just a natural consequence of moving faster. Not only are you not going to sneak up on anyone, but you're going to have nearby groups of bandits go "Hey, what's that? Sounds like people overtly clomping down the path nearby! Let's set up an ambush!". Of course, not every foe would react the same way, so it's not just a blanket "everything ambushes you" consequence. But, yeah, the reason you should want to move more slowly than you can is because there are actual reasons to do that. If there's no reason to ever move more slowly than you can, then there's never any reason to even have options. That's like asking "Why should you ever use a less-powerful ability than your most powerful ability?" Because it's limited, and you should probably use it when you need it, and don't use it when you don't. It's up to you, though. You can use it all the time if you want (as much as possible), then be without something when you need it (in the case of running, you'll be without stamina in this example). It's a trade-off, and not just one for its own sake. It's there to make your choices significant. If you had infinite powerful spells, then what would be the point in any other options? That's like having a puzzle in which doing ANYthing is the solution. It defeats the point of the puzzle. I mean, if you want a game in which nothing has to be managed or considered, that's not inherently a bad game. It could be enjoyable to some. But, in its own context, the game has reasons to limit certain things, and require consideration and management of these finite resources. Again, limits and resource management for their own sake do nothing for such a game. i.e. "survival" mechanics, in which you must have food and water, etc., simply to avoid penalties or death. If your only choice is between death or a chore, then there's no point. However, in that example, if different kinds of food and water could affect the rest of the gameplay, and there were more robust choices within that survival mechanic, then it could be pretty cool.

Ahhhh. I did not catch that reference. My apologies. . I have been missing for a while... haha. Not in the wilds of Africa, though.

I can't believe they didn't call the Fighter/Wizard a Sword-ceror. 6_u Missed opportunity.

Interesting, interesting... *places butt-end of pen against lips in deep thought*. I too have such desires. But I have naught the time for running, you see. It's so... primitive. I wish for my character to simply teleport instantly to any place on the map I'd like. And I also wish for a "reveal entire map and slay all creatures" button, so that I'm not bothered with time-consuming exploration at a finite speed like I would be in real life. If Run_Speed < infinity ++Run_Speed; Am I right?