Datass

Comparing themselves with Dragon Age seems retarded beyond belief; Bioware jumped the shark a long time ago and their bisexual romances and "open ended sandbox design" (the new neo hipster anthem) does not compete one iota with Pillars. They might share a 20% overlap in customers but since the "hardcore" fans already backed the game why worry? I mean a fairly impressive graphic intensive game channeling Skyrim AND the Witcher, with elves and threesome and bisexual companions? Aw gawd its hevan! What sort of retarded non hip geek would rather play a game that delivertly wants to look like games made 15 years ago....oh ok I say they will fix the UI, pathfinding, the combat AI and presto! Selling like hotcakes in Steam will buy the game a few more weeks of bugtesting

So the issue is dead and buried then? No xp fo show? So we are just rats banging our heads against the wall... Why didn't I know about the xp before upping my pledge a couple of weeks ago? Funny how Divinity Original Sin (a game I didn't back nor cared at all about before release) will turn out to be the true Kickstarter jewel and Larian will have the chance to be "the new Black Isle" while Obsidian (made up of quite a few Black Isle exes) simply will not

Fixing bugs and tuning basic gameplay systems are one thing, tailoring your whole experience to a design choice which affects everything is another. Think of it this way, since the game will be split in "acts or episodes" then there will be a limited number of quests per episode, meaning that once again for the sake of "balance" all parties will be at the same level for each "act" since I bet Mr Sawyer will make it so you get a set amount of XP per quest....but that will be set per character, not per global amount to be split between the group, thus making smaller parties or even single playing the game not a viable strategy. Remember doing the numbers (or reading them on the net) for having a 5 or even 4 member party in Icewind Dale 2 so you could have access to the Fireball spell to make things a lot more interesting for the bigger battles? Yep, all gone...all strategy is gone for the sake of "balance"

In the end, if you pitch a game as a "spiritual successor" it has to stick pretty close to the games and systems it was supposed to succeed. What most of the backers pitched their money for (besides nostalgia and a well done video which pulled all our strings) was basically an updated Infinity Engine game that had the encounter design of Icewind Dale, the class customization and abilities of Icewind Dale 2, the epic storyline of Baldur´s Gate 2 and the smart deep thinking and character arcs of Planescape Torment Instead we get a "meh I can do this better" design with ability cooldowns and xp only for questing...why mess up with something that has worked since CRPG started? Heck, if you don't like XP then dont use it, go full Darklands on us with a skill based system (where you get better by doing something; be it killing, casting or doing good deeds to get more Divine Favor) or even go full Wizardry where you get XP for killing stuff but skills have to be used to develop....but don't call it "IE spiritual successor" and decide to turn it on its head on some delusional tattooed lead designer hipster dreams I am thinking that not having an "evil publisher" is simply not working out for some Kickstarters, and the most damaged by this are the more experienced ones since they feel they don't have to "play it safe" or try to stick to what is proved, works and people actually put their money upfront 2 years ago.

Of course XP from killing mobs! Why does Mr Sawyer want to dictate how we are to play the game? If someone likes questing let them, if someone likes grinding for XP let them. The Goldbox games had it right; you got a little XP from combat and a bunch more from Questing but you had the choice on how to spend your time gaming and with which style you felt comfortable. Even the TES games have that right! You can spend a gaming session just looking for ingredients or crafting if you feel like it and your character will actually benefit from what you do. Combat is one of the main actions in CRPGs and getting benefits from it besides loot is one of its mainstreams... If Mr Sawyer doesn't like the IE D&D system that's fine, if he "loves" Darklands that is even better....but why come up with solutions that resemble neither? By removing any benefits from combat, since you still get the same XP whether you fought all the mobs or you ran straight to the boss, you are encouraging players to just avoid combat altogether! Brilliant design decision! So much for "spiritual successor to the IE games" guys; by putting a guy in charge who seems to hate everything about them for the sake of "balance" is losing the faith of the fanbase which funded this project under that premise.