anameforobsidian

I finished it and liked it. The writing and content density are better than Pillars, especially Pillars-base. There's tons of content everywhere, and it's quite fun. It might have been a bit too verbose, but that's just fine with me. The systems design just isn't great. Considering the inspiration, I know why they focused on content rather than design. However, PST already had most of it's lower level spells and abilities made. You still feel a murderous rush when you use Cloudkill for the first time even though it was made for other games. The combat system just doesn't have much to offer. PST had a great power ramp, and had better epic level spells than any other IE game. TToN has something like four spells you use the whole game. There are also a gazillion numenera, but most of the Numenera don't even have interesting effects. I like the effort system, but they undermine it by being too generous with stat pool items, level ups and edge. I don't know if I failed a skill check in the Bloom. The interesting side effects for failure also seemed to go away. I admire the ambition of what they tried to achieve, and loved the atmosphere. I just hope next time they remember that it's a game. And I had a thematic problem with the ending. PSTs punishment ending worked better than TToN's because it's the difference between and individual and a class of people.

I too thought the health / endurance system worked really well. I pushed my characters harder than I had in any other RPG.

I like what they're doing with buffs and debuffs a lot more in this one. That will give some of the spell / counter feeling without limiting it to wizards (or in PE, priests). Also, any character in the party should be able to fight in the single-character duels. Many party members are built as support characters and suddenly wind up facing a nasty solo tank.

I think it's reasonable to want animancers as a class. In most class based systems your class doesn't just determine powers, it also reflects jobs, philosophy or understandings, and daily practices. Animancy certainly comes close to many of those things.

Jobs (the free time killers).

I normally don't like this argument, but level-scaled loot breaks normally breaks immersion, creates ludonarrative dissonance, diminishes verisimilitude or whatever you want to call it. Leveled-loot nullifies inherent purpose of the leveling system (showing progression), which ends of setting the leveling system against the narrative. Game difficulty should be thematic to region, faction, and character. It doesn't make sense for Fallout's Enclave troopers to be using pipe rifles or for random tribals to be wielding laser weapons. The worst example is Oblivion, where an ancient Lich was a pushover while lategame bandits were hauling around daedric armor. Even if a weapon has a unique enchantment, it's frequently the case that average late-game mooks have better weapons than early leaders.

A talking arrow that can only be used once and broods on its mortality.

I liked the fishing for monsters and crew goals a lot more than many of the previous stretchgoals. Improved VO, portraits, intelligent weapons, and relationships all range from a meh to will actively make the game worse. I would not be surprised if the crew made it in anyways. It will obviously improve the game. Maybe monsterfishing can come as a dlc.

I know the game will get a big jump near the end. But right now it seems dead, even deader than normal for a campaign.

Sidekicks sound like a great idea. It buffs out the party, gives you more characters, and keeps them from writing unnecessary quests just because they feel each character should have a quest. There were plenty of characters in Baldur's Gate and BGII that didn't have sidequests, or their sidequests were really small. It would also be a great place to test out character ideas that would be hard to write as a full companion. One day I'll see a monster companion. One day.

Missing Godlike Types: Abydon is the easiest; his have iron skin. Rymrgand is just icy. Again not that hard. Wael's could be covered in mists, like Wael himself. Skaen and Woedica are where it gets cool. A Skaen-like would probably have scars all over his body. Woedica might have burned skin, or perhaps a minotaur type thing from the what her judges looked like.

Honestly, after PE2 is done, I wouldn't mind another game in the same engine that has more JRPGish sentiments. That means way more party members, romance that's not optional and frequently tragic, and a more linear story. It's the opposite of what Obsidian's used to, but it might be a good way to stretch themselves. I actually frequently like romance in jrpgs; it's wrpgs where it gets weird.

I always had the idea that the gods decayed like any other soul, they're just enormously massive which explains their powers and longevity. When a larger chunk of their soul falls off, it transforms their next host much in the way an animal form transforms a wicht. There's no direct support, but it strikes me as a fairly elegant theory. It could also create a category of nasty godlike intelligent beasts.

I think more kits sounds pretty fun. Level change, sure whatever. I wasn't hurting for levels in Pillars, I honestly wished they were slower. I hope the content matches the level pace. BTW, has anyone else noticed that the stretchgoals actually have an image behind them and not a weird pattern. I wonder if it will be Berath vs. Eothas given this and other hints.

How about priest + rogue = apostate? I still like snake-handler though.

DnD early level combat in BG was so awful that they put the Shank and Carbos encounter in BG2 to make fun of it.

A bunch of comments are pointing to the most noticeable problem. This will mean a lot more work for Obsidian. If you need to have multiple uniques per weapon type and level they have to make and place a ****-ton of special weapons. Weapon type has become more important given single-weapon proficiencies. There are around 28 weapon types right now. To maintain class diversity they should offer at least two per level stage (early-mid, late-mid, end). That'll mean six weapons. That's hard to place at a density that makes loot feel significant. I expect they might walk this back a bit during development.

Gothic 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment. My 4 - 10 would be: VtmB, Fallout 2, Kotor II, NWN2, Geneforge Series, Avernum, Arcanum. Honorary JRPGs: Super Mario RPG, Chronotrigger, Live-a-Live

Thanks! That's an awful stretchgoal. Half the fun of PE is making new characters because the system allows such a huge array of concepts. New game+ sounds easy to implement, but like a waste of development time. The only worse one was more VO, which may actively hurt the game. Come on, a different type of godlike would both be more exciting and easier to implement if you limited reactivity.

Source?

I'd say that the Endless path levels were more good than bad. - 1st floor: This is a great introduction and graphically shows how the castle transitions straight into the Endless Paths. - 2nd: The xaurip pit fight was really cool, and the poisoned xaurip was a great little story bit. It's a bit large. - 3rd: The third level was quite unique, had a good story quest (crazy ogres) and some unique fights. - 4th: A weak level. The introduction of the head was visually cool, but the ooze fights were lame and numerous. - 5th: The Drake, Bloodpit, and Hidden Treasure room are cool. Clear out the rest of the fights though. - 6th: Provides a very nice break in gameplay, story and structure. Lets you know that the first quarter was about monstrous humanoids and this quarter is going to be about the walking dead. It also ramps up the difficulty considerably from xaurips & slimes. -7th: Great concept, but under-designed. A steady stream of weaker elementals would send the message that no, you really need to go to the rooms. The addition of immunities and explosion on fire-elementals made this room stronger. - 8th: Way too big and samey, but a brilliant bit of reactivity from the fampyr boss. One of the better bits of writing and reactivity in the game. - 9th: A weaker level in general. The room with spikes was no Bodhi's lair. This also could have made a better transition. - 10th: Very weak level. Skippable in general. Gameplay lets you know that we're moving to mind control. Cean Gula are a clever transition between undead and the mind control quarter, but any writing would have helped this a lot. - 11th: This works as a gameplay change, and the scripted interaction is cool. However, the whole thing would have been better combined with the tenth. - 12th: Great level in terms of writing, atmosphere, and gameplay difference. This is the best level in the Endless Paths. I love what they did with the Vithrak. - 13th: This is a cool level. It's not great, but it's letting you know that we're finally homing in on Od Nua's secrets. The door magic is a cool bit of writing too. The gameplay definitely shifts with animats. - 14th: I love the imagery and dialogue of this place. The dialogue especially uses branching text trees as a neat way to demonstrate the ghost's single-minded obsession. The Od Nua fight is neat too. What I don't like is two boss fights in a row. - 15th: Great fight, it's nice that it's short and sweet. There should have been a better transition between Od Nua and this though. Maybe giving Od Nua the key to a master's door that the drake was guarding. To sum up, I only think that three levels should have been cut altogether. Four levels could have used a content reduction. The last 8 levels were pretty decent. That's way larger than the five level limit that some people are saying.

As more time passes I think there's a growing divide between people who loved PE's systems and people who were lost, confused, or dismayed. I count myself among the former. However, how many times have you heard the following complaints on the forums? Weapons are boring, none of them do anything special. Enchants make every weapon generic. Health is confusing / perverse incentives. I hate the rest system. I want to be a master blaster every fight. Engagement is destroying MURICA!!!!1! Elaborate & well-researched complaints that the speed system makes no sense and may in fact have gained sentience. You know as well as I that we see them all the goddamn time. Josh's reasoning in trying to fix this is hardly mysterious. Josh is perhaps over-reacting to criticism, at the expense of the few but devoted people who love the system. Here's been Josh's response to each: More soul-bounds. Limited Enchantments. Getting rid of health with (justified) trepidation. Minimizing per-rest abilities, while slyly including them in regenerating resources like grimoires and empower. Making engagement class and item specific. Slowing down the overall speed of combat and working on the interface. I would respond to the complaints with the following: The combination of soul-bound weapons made flashier weapons for more casual players to love and left unremarkable weapons for number crunchers (marking, prone on crit). Stormcaller vs. Borresaine is really interesting for grognards, and non-grogs already have Stormcaller. In essence the status quo works. Soul-bounds are the fix to this too. The flashiest weapons can't be enchanted, and the enchants now fill the gaps for non-grogs. The grey bar made the whole thing pretty plain. Perverse incentives don't exist with wounds; wounds do nasty stat damage. The rest system is excellent, providing both carrots and sticks, even if game-y. Also, some players like the strategic element. Chill codexian. That said, I think the engagement changes sound mostly reasonable. I think the speed system could be fixe.... THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE SPEED SYSTEM! NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LOVE OUR HUMAN ORGANS. THEY ARE NOT SLOW, WET, OR GROSS AT ALL.

Not in this game. It's pretty clear that the bulk of the systems work has gone into clarifying combat and the multi / kit class system. I don't even want them to add a new class right now. I'd rather wait until the system is relatively stable. A new class is going to need very different mechanics to keep up the strong differentiation Pillars has between classes.

The overwhelming evidence is that Xaurip are fairly intelligent, much more so than any animal. They have a hierarchical religion, manufacture a variety of tools, assign different functions to different rooms, paint and create art, and communicate with each other.

Priests gods and Paladin orders count as subclasses, so they can be removed from the list. It was actually Sawyer on SA who said it.