Helz

Oh wow, I was fooled. His first 2-hander was WotEP, which like you said does have extra reach and I started thinking they all do... I'm glad you told me!

My 2 cents: My barbarian started out dual-wielding and switched to 2-handed halfway through, and the extra reach from 2-handed weapons made a big difference with how many enemies he can hit per swing. It also prevents him from whiffing when the enemy moves. I eventually settled on Willbreaker+Lord Darryn's Voulge.

You got all that from a single fight? Okay. Not really, I never used a cipher, chanter, druid, or paladin in my playthrough, but they're essential. I think the fact the PoE2 was a direct continuation of PoE's story probably hurt it. It almost makes it a requirement that you played through the first game.

Not to me, I think the ship combat is fun and wish there was more of it. I cleared most everything with the sloop, but then I bought the biggest ship available with all upgrades so I could fit more crew on board. You made your judgement based on 1 fight? And that's a lazy assumption. Pirates were popular long before Johnny Depp.

I like Dragon Age Origins too. I never touched another DA after Dragon Age 2. I recommend Wasteland 2. It's much uglier than PoE, but the writing isn't bad and the combat is good. I haven't played WL3 yet.

In Wasteland 2, for the first half of the game there's a quest to turn in scrap metal you get from breaking down weapons. For the second half of the game you're in another location and there isn't such a quest, but I figured I'd be a hero when I returned from my mission with 1000s of scrap metal pieces to supply the Rangers for years to come. To avoid spoilers, I brought home my mountain of metal, but there was a plot reason that this wasn't helpful. Completely related, I really like the unlimited weight limit in PoE2. Saves me crawling across the world map with 5 encumbered characters and stashing things where I'll never find them again.

Alpha Protocol was criminally underrated. Critics all played stealthy pistol builds and complained it was broken and boring. I played Shotgun Action Hero and it was so much fun. My favorite Obsidian game is Fallout:NV...the best Fallout since FO2. The PoE games are modern classics. They'll probably become my favorites over time.

No problem, I'm glad it helped

You can go into Preferences, Video or Graphics settings and increase the Gamma value. This might make the colors look a little washed out - if so, turn it down again for the brighter areas.

I do this too. I let every companion join the group, but I only use a fixed party. I don't really like switching teams in and out in RPGs. I think of gearing everyone up as payment for sticking around and guarding the ship. Also, I figure it reflects better on me as a leader if my followers are dressed to kill.

Well, people have unrealistic expectations. Breaking even in game development means you've paid off 50-100 highly skilled people working full time for 3 years to make art. That's a success.

Not me, I waited 2 years to buy it because I already knew it wouldn't be finished. Also, people were calling this a flop way too early. I doubt most people had even finished PoE when the sequel was released. These games are meant to be played for years, so what's the rush? I think that's the tail. If it broke even six months ago, it's a success now. I wish Obsidian would keep polishing it so that in 10 years it could be a classic.

It seems that the obvious challenge is not to steal. This too.

I just had the same bug happen again. I'm in the Beast of Winter DLC temple fighting some Pilgrim Hierophants when they cast Form of the Helpless Beast on my main character. After combat was over, my main character had no weapons, no armor, and combat only buffs/debuffs stayed active. Its clear that polymorph is bugged. Like last time, I'll restart. Now that Obsidian has Microsoft's backing, I wish you would think about supporting this game again.

I don't really agree. Looting a high level ship after boarding will get you at least 2k more gold. A top tier bounty reward is only worth 5k. Operating costs, upgrades, and repairs for ship combat cost money too. I've sunk every enemy ship in the sea, and it hasn't made the most impact for me. OTOH, selling loot is hugely profitable. Very early on, clothes are worth more than weapons. I tend to clear a few islands and dungeons before I turn anything in. My first big haul around level 8 included 10 exceptional greatswords, I made over 60k. My last big sale at level 17 netted over 170k, I bought a Junk with all upgrades. I haven't started any of the DLCs and my party doesn't steal, but I've still managed to get pretty rich. That said, there are many money sinks in this game, so it has paid off to be smart about how I spend my gold.

I don't know the exact amount, but you do get noticeably more loot from boarding. It's the difference between filling maybe 1/2 of the visible loot inventory and having to scroll down to see everything. Plus, you can get cannons - I've looted 3 Vailian Hullbreakers and a lot of lesser ones. But the way to become rich in PoE2 is to be a traveling greatsword salesman. They're everywhere. I've saturated the market so badly in Neketaka that I saw an old lady opening her mail with an exceptional greatsword.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of your points on crafting, but the section above deserves to be framed. Grinding 500 pairs of useless leather pants is poison. I don't care if boar leather is slightly pinker and dragon hide has that greenish tinge. I want Avowed to be mysterious, complex, and deeeeeeep. If it must be a TES game*, please make it Morrowind. * I don't particularly want a TES game, and it won't be one without thousands of mods.

Good questions, sorry I can't answer most of them. From observation, the pool of fighters who appear on deck is drawn from the active party, the non-party companions, and the active ship's crew. Early on, I'd see 2 or 3 ship's crew fight alongside my party, but after every companion was recruited, I rarely see any ship's crew anymore. I've only used the sloop, so I'd guess that more crew will fight on the bigger ships. I can confirm that the more enemy crew you injure before you board, the fewer you'll have to fight. If you get their active crew to zero, they'll be left with their captain and reserve fighters only, and a lot of corpses.

Yeah, the repetitive tilesets have a lot to do with it. It made everything so drab. But also to go from the hay day of 2d video game art, when it was really being mastered, to the eye sore that was early 3d was jarring. I sort of feel bad for dog piling on NWN; it wasn't any one game, it was the whole industry. But to go from BG2 to that? I was so disappointed

This is a pretty good review, I share a lot of the same gaming tastes and experiences. I'll start with how I disagree. I appreciate the quality of the writing in Deadfire, both the exposition and the dialogue. I vastly prefer a little voiceover to all voiceover. All voiceover severely limits the writers' abilities to add content throughout development. Also, I think the ship to ship combat is fantastic. It was cool that knowing my port from my starboard actually helped, and that moment when I thought, "Hey, I wonder if I can do a 180 (jibe) like in 'Master and Commander' and fire from the other side", and it worked was so good! The one thing that would seriously improve ship combat would be the ability to circle the other ship. Still, its so much fun to disable the enemy's ship, injure the entire crew, and THEN board and capture everything on board. I've found a kindred spirit regarding the visuals. PoE2 is the most beautiful game. The wholesale migration to 3D was such an ugly design decision. I know that people loved NWN for the MP and the custom content, but as a vanilla, SP game it was just horrid. I'm not optimistic about BG3. The full length trailer they released didn't help, it all seemed so brainless (and I don't mean the mindflayer victims). But I'll wait and see. Thanks for sharing!

Oh man, I loved Interplay. Such SPECIAL games. Eh, fair enough. I consider them all classics, but its probably in the Eye of the Beholder. I'll see myself out.

Fallout 1 & 2, Jagged Alliance, Planescape Torment, Arcanum, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Mount and Blade. Most of these flopped at release, none were big hits, and all of them became cult hits and have spawned sequels or franchises. Usually, too late to keep the developer from going under, but still...

I agree with you, and I'm sure this impacts early sales. I waited over a year to play PoE1 even though I was a backer and owned it at release. I don't want to deal with all of the bugs, missing features, and balancing pains. I'm sure this also killed Wasteland 2's reception. Major features were still being added for at least a year after release. The most dedicated fans end up becoming angry and cynical after months of playing the betas and initial releases, experiencing all of the bugs and nerfs. By the time the game is up to standards, half of them are actively working against it. The alternative is worse, though. Most studios don't have the option to release it "when its done". So I'm grateful these games weren't abandoned after release. I expect they'll eventually be outright successes, but its going to take years. Just like it did for most of the classics they're trying to emulate.

Oh yeah, good point. The range is short and its "snake arms" so I think of it as melee, but that makes it even better. You can tag several enemies with it before it goes away. My thief/illusionist hireling uses it, and she's also wielding the Eye of Wael, and wearing the Effigy's Husk and the Whitewitch Mask, which I think makes her terrifying. She's got a Scarecrow vibe, but with snakes.

I suggest the Snakeskin Grimoire for Nannasin's Cobra Strike. That is one powerful melee spell against anything susceptible to poison.