injurai

Ignoring any lapse in forum civilities if any. I agree with Achilles' and JerekKruger's interpretations of Josh's statement. It's the same impression I got on the first go-around of listening, the second, and reading the transcript. Single-class and sub-classes are all about min/maxing, multi-classes are all about synergies and breadth. The recent single-classes changes have seemed to pull single-classes into alignment better with their original intent, while multi-class options remain as potent as ever with the small caveat that certain pairings may end up as outliers. But it's not like a single character build is all you consider, certain synergies lie within party design so further issues relating to imbalances are going to be amortized out over you're whole party anyways.

Almost no concern as long as feedback is being considered, which will continue to happen post launch. There will always be discrepancies between possible builds. I've been feeling better about single-class builds lately and that was where my real concern was.

I could be that Berath, Rymrgand etc. were gods that were previously believed in before their creation and the Engwithian's decided to instantiate them, while Skaen, Abydon, Woedica and the "newer" aspects of the pantheon were created whole cloth by the Engwithians at the time of the creation of the gods. Whether the case or not, I really like the thought of this.

I very much agree with your examples, the memory of lesser lore-drops has been plastered over as a result of with my increased understanding of the Eora. While the monologues still stick out awkwardly and feel as if not enough game content had been prepared to appropriately advanced the narrative prior to the resulting encounter. Of course I don't mine the occasional loquacious npc, just not when they are the deus ex of an arc like Lady Webb. Of course then there is Maerwald whose purpose was really only to deliver the weight of a potential demise that a watcher might suffer, which only resulted in a laborious slog of spirit-moaning and weeding through the details of past-lives that had no bearing on the story. The point had been made within seconds of that encounter. When it comes to lore drops, I actually appreciate the content, just perhaps not the artificial nature that can be jarring to tone and immersion.

Likewise the bloated nature of Pillars' text I find to be non-existent. Dense and vast writing is different than unprimed-references and lore dropping which in Pillars case was not non-existent. I very much defend the read heavy nature of games, and the potential the written form has within the sphere of games.

There are meaningful differences between things that came to be via the same process. I am namely quite different from you and we from a clam. I suppose some around here might believe they were created in the image of God with a purpose, but to take the world of Eora where before the gods the landscape was presumably strictly naturalist. I do think a being shaped with specific a priori duties and limits by proxy of unique reach in ability is quite different from a being whose inner daemons have been refined to necessitate the instinct to live but make no refinements on higher-order behavior that could take up one's remaining free time. What do the gods do all day if not carry out their duty and play out pre-defined drama envisaged by the Engwithans? If not meant as tools or guiding forcing, then how have they come to be as they are? It would seem to me that if the gods possess free will as an artifact of being created from souls, then that will is left as a form of intelligence to figure out and act out the pre-determined will that they have been given.

Humans evolved to procreate like any other organism, doesn't mean they don't genuinely fall in love with the people they're doing that sort of thing with. Just because he was designed to want to protect people doesn't mean it's no longer moral for him to do so. I'm not sure it's a meaningful distinction at all. I'm not sure if talking about wants and morals is necessarily the right framework. Maybe it is, it's not clear. The gods seem to have free-will and some interaction between each-other. They seem to be essentially powerful soul constructs that live in the same spiritual plane as everything else, but can bind to vessel or aspect. They certainly seem limited in their reach, disposition, function. They may do some things out of their own sense of morals, wanting to see their morals reflected in the world. But the god's actions and roles are ever shrouded by the fact they were purpose built.

I'm starting to think that simply some mediums rise to being anomalies of success, where people have to partake in it to see what all the fuss is about. Maybe it was a strong early fan following that snowballed, maybe it was kids being marketed to and parents were encouraged to engage their kids with the medium. Maybe RPO was a failed book and a strong marketing campaign accidentally launched it further than intended. Of course anything that gets too much momentum will have to be fully capitalized on. Parents purchasing on behalf of kids is probably the most lucrative market, and if any leverage can be obtained over the parents to participate in that transaction the better for the backing entities.

Property rights, a novel idea I'm glad the US gov defends. (Typically)

Well I certainly don't claim I'm not ignorant of the Chinese dev scene, but that game is a far cry from what I imagine a Wuxia game to be. I guess I'm imagining a game more with martial based combat, but with a rich amount of dialogue and dialogue choice. Basically Jade Empire but with another decade+ of game design to draw from. Maybe the new Total War will spark enough interest in Wuxia that a western dev would take a crack at it.

It was my understanding that Woedica was in someways the higher-order god, or at least was so to start. Perhaps that doesn't translate to oldest though. I can see how Ondra might be given an anthropic lore that tells of the creation of the seas, even when that is not the actual case. Berath does in many ways seem to almost pre-date all else, but that may largely be an anthropological artifact as well.

I'd like to see Arkane try their hand at an rpg. Having not done any, it's hard to predict how that would fair. I want them to stick to their guns, as it's my favorite genre and very few people venture into it. Bethesda I can't see deviating from their guns, I just hope they retool idTech into BethTech and that's asking a lot. Though I think they could manage the rpg aspects of such a game. Yeah, I would agree a Chinese developer would probably be the best option. I really don't know much about that scene, none of their games seem to make it to the west. Most of their games seem to MMOs, Multi-player focuses, micro-transaction based. I've seen a few 3D hack-n-slashes starting to take off over there. But nothing like the rich-rpg systems that it seems only the west produces as this time. Not even Japan really ventures there. Maybe Bioware could take their best lessons from DA:I and do a fresh take on the Jade Empire IP. Feels like long shot. The only reason I think CDPR has the best shot is largely to do with the Red Engine being primed to tackle such a game, and they've got the production infrastructure to do so.

Nobody tell him.

I'll add the caveat if they hire some better combat designers.

I would like to see a strong attempt at a Wuxia-esque rpg though. CDPR is about the only company that I can think of that might pull that off. Maybe Bethesda if they spend time creating a different gameplay paradigm other than their 1st person one.

Is that not the case with Endless Space 2? Or even Pillars? In Civ there are many scenarios and in any particular scenario there is an optimal way to progress to a goal.

How is Civilization a spreadsheet?

If the Engwithans created the gods, what were the indigenous beliefs and philosophies are the extant people in a pre-colonial world? Particularly early or pre-Aedyrans.

Abydon is basically Prometheus, but his designed intent by the Engwithans was to protect progress. So it's not clear if he aids humans out of goodness, or duty.

Exemplar living

In one sense he's not strictly evil, but one could suggest all the gods are inherently malevolent and none are particularly good. Well Eothas might be the exception but that remains to be seen.

Resource constraints mainly, but I'm a bit miffed because I think Wael and Skaen are in not that interesting. Wael is too obscurantist to be interesting to me. It's almost like a novelty cult than anything else. I guess Skaen makes for a good evil priest, but It's evil in a way I don't find compelling. It's fun to run into a Skaen worshiper because they are bat-**** about revenge. I want something less rabid and more dispassioned. I'd replace Skaen by Rymrgand and Wael by Woedica probably. Also I thought they should have at least added Ondra for Deadfire...

I have it on good record that people who didn't like PoE1's soundtrack suffer from nostrils for ears. Terrible terrible affliction.

I don't think we'd bite the hands that feed us that hard... why doesn't Josh love us?