Emc2

I think this is a really good idea. I prefer when classes abilities are defined in a more universal way. The most fun I've had with multiclassing has been with D&D 5E, where the class mechanics are defined around the base rules and you could find some really fun synergies. If you limit a subclass benefits to only that subclass, your character is more like someone with 2 different classes that he can switch between instead of being a character with 2 classes that complement each other. Also to clarify, Deadfire isn't bad when it comes to multiclassing synergies ATM but it wouldn't hurt to have more options.

My first session was last month, 5th edition D&D. I was just visiting a friend and they were in the middle of playing one of the starter campaings and convinced me to roll a character and join in. I've been playing BG, IWD etc. for a long time so I was pretty used to all the rolling and stuff, heck I might even be the most experienced of the bunch when it comes to D&D. Didn't take me long to get used to it, it was fun 9 hour session, and bunch of other sessions after that. Playing shapeshifting gnome druid who has a past as a construction worker of some sort, which has led to some amusing RP moments. Our DM is a first timer as well but damn good at it. I like the gact he's pulling some rules out of his arse on the fly to make things faster and more interesting/challenging. Following the rules too blindly wouldn't be half as fun. We actually finished the campaing last night. Overall it's...Good fun!

Ok, I don't know the point of your post but I just want to clarify a few things. Pixels and Vectors are two completely different rending methods, Vectors have the advantage of maintaining quality at any resolution and pixels can store more diverse color information. 2.5D uses 3D assets in a 2d manner, if they changed the perspective then it would full 3D. It's developed the same as 3D just with less detail as the camera is fixed on just one perspective (e.g: you don't make the back of a building because it will never be seen as it is an isometric game) Although the mode 7 is interesting (I didn't knew about it) It is not what is currently used. He was asking if anyone knew any terms for modern 2D game art, or that's how I understood the question. Vector art is modern-ish I guess, and I know it's completely different from pixels. He never really said he wanted pixel stuff, just the stuff they use in modern platformers or isometric games in general, that's why I mentioned the Vector thing, since some people don't know the difference. I just wanted to point out that 2.5D is frequently used "incorrectly". There are games that don't use any 3D rendering/assets, but use purely 2D assets with different algorithms and tricks to add the depth or 3D feel. I just mentioned mode 7 because it was the first example I could think of. Those games are not 2.5D, at least not by your definition. The pre-rendering is a valid thing in modern platformers and fighting games as well. For example Arc System's fighting games (BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena) use 3D renders as base for the sprites to get all the frames done faster (or so I've heard, don't quote me on that). They then draw the renders to flat sprites and put them in game.

There are stuff like pre-rendering (for example backgrounds are 3D render "screencaps" to get the lighting etc. right without having to be a professional artist), Vector art is used to make the graphics more scaleable. If you are looking for high pixel-density assets, it's either vector art or just HD sprites. Can't think of anything else. People usually use "hand drawn" as a selling point, so there's one term. Examples of vector art would be Angry Birds games and Dust: Elysian tail is example of game with HD assets. Generally 2.5D is used to describe games that are processed as 3D but have fixed camera and the movements happen only in 2 directions, or on rare occasions that means games that are essentially 2D but look 3D due to some perspective stuff. SNES had a thing called mode7 (it was used on FF6's airship sections for example, or terranigma's underworld) that was pseudo-3D. I'm not sure how that worked, but it had something to do with asset scaling and rotating, as far as I've understood. Not really a "modern" thing though.

As far as I know, CDPR have never apologized for the colour. They have stated the game will be based in the slavic environment and the game's weather and aesthetics will reflect that. Most of the explanations have come from "external sources" i believe.

I actually think nostalgia had very little effect on my part. I did enjoy Baldur's Gates a lot, I just didn't get the same vibe from PoE. It was very similar to BG's in many ways but I never found myself comparing any of the aspects to any IE game. When we look at the game as newest entry in isometric, party based RPG, it has some of the better quest design out there and the backgrounds are way better than most of the 3D stuff we've seen in the recent years. It raised the world design and role playing elements above the graphics or scale, which have been the plague of the recent RPGs (IMO). I think PoE exploits nostalgia a lot less than Starcraft 2 or Dota 2 for example. It can and should be presented as individual, good game without constantly getting compared to IE games. Of course I cannot judge objectively as I have played BG and I based my purchase mainly on the spiritual succession more than anything.

I've lost all the respect for polygon's articles already. These tolerant-nice-guy wannabes are driving me nuts. And it's not only polygon. I'm so glad I've never got into Twitter. On the other hand, some of these articles are good for a few laughs. I don't want to be judgemental myself, but I really feel a bit bad for the people who twist logic like that.

We really need an official definition of RPG. This has been an endless discussion in many places.

I feel like the developers who are worried about the exploitability of the system have very little faith on the audience and the quality of the game. I'd say 90% of people wouldn't bother to get a refund if they really liked the game and the price is right. As soon as you decide to buy a game, you generally have accepted that you are not going to use that money for anything else. If the game doesn't utterly disappoint you, I doubt you would bother to get a refund and find another game to buy or something. I think the system just encourages people to find the right price value for their games. I've been recently finding parallers between video games and "feminism" (as a general term describing the stereotype, not as name of any movement etc.). The whole "all types of women are beautiful"/"games of all length are equal" and "you should let women be what they want"/"you shouldn't put any rules to games"(looking at some of the text-flow thingies in steam marketed as games). It's really interesting how that can happen.

After watching the trailer a few thoughts popped up: - The graphics look to be around the same level as Portal 2 to me. That's odd considering Portal 2 was released years ago. It doesn't look too bad though. - A lot more colors this time. - "War never changes"...should've expected that. - Some of the scenes remind me of the first Bioshock. The other fallouts had similar style, so it's nothing to get worried about. I think the additional colors are what makes it more Bioshocky - Actual gameplay footage? Definitely looks like it. Huge plus. - I'm guessing those are flashbacks, but I also feel like you'll be able to explore the world before the bombing. Maybe the Beth-standard character creation thing will be done before the disaster. Just random speculation. - Some ironic details, hoping the game will have more funny details like that. - I like how this time the cities/settlements expand upwards and the environments look fairly natural to me. A lot better than vanilla FO:NV. - This looks like what Metro 2033 could've been. Not a surprise though. - No HairFX, some very ****ty textures. At least they are not promising too much.

The bug shaming has been encouraged and present in the gaming press recently, so I can see Beth doing their best to make the game as bug free as possible, even harder than in the Skyrim times. I doubt press will leave the bugs out, but I feel like all of them are already biased to like the game due to the lack of games from Bethesda. As for the paid mods thing I mentioned, I don't think it would be a good idea either. It would just be easier to kick off the paid mods with a new game, having to deal with less mixed content owning bull**** is always easier. That was one of the major reasons Skyrim's paywall mods didn't work out. Many of them used stuff like SKSE or SkyUi.

The pessimism is strong in this thread. The game could be good, it could be bad. Maybe we get paid mods for this one? Whatever happens, I've yet to get started on either of the open Fallouts so I doubt I'll be getting this on launch. Another potentially good game on the radar though. It will of course be massively hyped, most likely over.

I'm not sure why Paradox gets all the praise for that game. I mean I know they published it and funded a huge chunk of the development, but Paradox wasn't the one who made the game... Or maybe it's bothering me because I'm finn and the devs of Cities: Skylines happen to be finnish as well. Patriotism at its finest :L. As for the Dragon Age copypasta by Obsidian: I don't see why they, or anyone, should try to make anything in that universe. The world is not that bad (I like the fade and the mage - templar thing has some potential, dunno how they did it in Inquisition) and I bet Obsidian could make it even more interesting. For some reason I found the atmosphere in DA:O excellent, and I don't even have any nostalgia goggles to blur my opinion. It was probably the best part of the game. If you are asking for obsidian to try and recreate that, then I'm in. If you want them to take the lore/characters/system and make an RPG out of that, I'll pass.

A) Neverwinter has about as much to do with 4E as...well, I was going to say Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance has to do with 3.X, but BG:DA's rules implementation is several orders of magnitudes closer to 3.X than Neverwinter's is to 4E. Neverwinter is basically an action-MMO with a Forgotten Realms veneer.B) Sword Coast Legends is "using" 5E. From what we've seen so far, it looks like it's probably about as close to the actual rules of 5E as BG:DA is to 3.X. I figured they were going to base the game on the 5E, which I know nothing about. I was actually looking up some of the actual 4E stuff and most of the annoyances from Neverwinter were not present in the basic rules. Looking at the character building, 4E looks just as good as any other recent version. I think I have to mention that I've never actually played PnP D&D, I've only read through the manuals for 3.5. Anyway, I'm not too worried about the rule implementation. They will either make the system fun or dull, the faithful implementation is not really important.

That derro character kinda restored my interest in this game. I'm not too familiar with the recent edition of DnD and Forgotten Realms is one of those overused/bit-too-generic-at-places/just-plain-illogical worlds to me, at least after reading some of the R.A Salvatore stuff. It's nice to see some unusual races getting attention. Maybe we someone could make a module where you play as derro, and you have to live under the city and plan carefully the trips to surface (or you could just sleep till it's night i guess). It looks like a mix of DA:O (duh) and NWN 2 to me. I like the more precise visual feedback, now if they just get the performance right (NWN 2 still won't run properly on my PC and NWN 1 was a buggy mess, I've had no problems with DA:O though). From what I've learned from playing a couple of hours of Neverwinter, the character building is dull in the 4th edition. I won't judge the game just yet. I'll most likely wait for the price to drop and then maybe pick it up. Looks fun enough to me, and we might see some excellent modules too. As a side note: I noticed how the screen turned a bit darker when they paused the game in the video. It reminded me how PoE's combat looks like a unicorn poop whenever there is more than 3 spellcasters in the fight. Maybe Obsidian could add a feature where it removes/makes the effects more transparent whenever the game is paused. Would make the combat a lot easier to follow.

It took me 7 runs and 3 characters (~230 h) to get all the achievements in Dark Souls. They were very inefficient runs, but I've never really felt the need to get all the achievements in a game before. The best part is that I still boot up the game occasionally for PvP or random challenge runs. Definitely worth the price, I doubt Bloodborne is any different. Does the game still have those horribly long loading times?

It looks like Witcher 3 is the first (or at least one of the few) hyper-hyped AAA game in recent years that has had a successful launch and excellent reviews (along with GTA V). After the releases of AC:U, Watch_Doges etc. it's refreshing to see some positive launches. I've not heard of a single game-breaking bug and performance seems to be great on all platforms. Of course I've not followed the game that closely, but at least the complaints have not reached any major sites yet. The graphics look pretty great. Also hair and cloth physics. Technological revolution. Now that they got W3 out of the way they can start hyping up Cyberpunk 2077. That's one game to look forward to.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together PSP remake along with some casual Dota 2 matches (due to the new patch). It's been quiet lately on the gaming side for me. Waiting for the PoE expansion since I don't feel like starting a second run anytime soon.

The game is not made like your traditional RPGs. This game has no (or at least very little) global assets, and most of the locations are hand-crafted. Also, the process of making new assets is a lot more time consuming process than in Skyrim for example. Obsidian has said they would like to support modding as much as they can without spending too much resources on making the tools easier to use and licensing them. They are currently using many commercial programs to make the content, making them open to public will not be easy. It is still possible to make new content through mods, the problem is there is very few people willing to take on the task and who have the skills to make them with the limited tools. Someone can maybe provide sources to most of this information. I think it should make you feel better to know that they want to support modding (heck they even made a Nexus for it) and are doing what they can to provide some tools.

This contradicts with your original post, where you said 'casuals'* may find the game too hard because they have done less side-content, causing them to have worse equipment and levels. By making the main quest even more difficult would force the 'casuals'* to go do the side stuff more carefully, essentially making them 'hardcore'*. I think it's fair to reward the work 'hardcore'* players have done to get the equipment by making them feel more powerful than the people who are too lazy** to do the side content. I'd be (mildly) pissed if the game makes my party feel equally strong to those who have done less content. Of course it would be ideal if the game rewarded your sidequesting with more balanced rewards, but realistically it wouldn't make any sense to make the rewards even despite the difference in work. The easiest way to balance the game (design-wise) would be difficulty settings, which most devs use. Hardcore* players can pick harder difficulty, casuals* easier - simple. There is a video by Extra Credits explaining the "genius" behind Dark Souls 2's way of making the game more suited for casuals. In general, developers should avoid making too many compromises. Instead of marketing for casuals* and hardcore* players, making a game for only specific audience is a lot better way to please people, IMO. *The definitions are not that simple so using these words causes a lot of misunderstandings **'Maybe a bit too strong word, but you get the message.

I'm one of those people who set limits to their playstyles to make the games more interesting, usually after the first playthrough. I have ~7 challenge runs on different games going on ATM which I occasionally push a bit forward. I've played a few matches of DOTA 2 with mouse-only, teammates weren't really pleased but I had fun. I've not really set any rules for my PoE playthrough (yet) but I'm not even playing the game for the challenge anyway. I'll do it on my second run probably. In my opinion, balance is a thing even in single player games. It's not the same balance as in MMORPGs or PvP games, instead it's mostly about the feeling of progression you get by moving forward in the story. Once I got some spells in PoE, the combat has felt a lot easier. I rarely use my 5th level cipher spells, compared to my 2nd and 3rd level spell usage. While it's not really a problem for me (I can always decide to not use them), it feels a little weird. I don't see much of a difference between my 10 level PC and 6 level PC. It's like playing Skyrim with level scaling. Except Skyrim had a scaling loot as well. With some balancing they could make it a lot more enjoyable for some people. As some people have pointed out though, Obsidian is already trying to balance the game. It's nearly impossible to balance the game perfectly with short closed beta and fairly small QA team with limited time and funds. As I said, I don't find the balance a problem for me ATM, but there are many flaws that should be dealt with (most of them are pretty deep in the combat system but that's another discussion). In comparison, PoE is a lot more balanced than BG in many ways, at least when looking at the spell selection. BG had a lot of garbage spells and lot more trap builds. You could argue that it's part of the challenge to build your character efficiently (at least I found character building fun).

Of course there is no way to tell which one is ultimately better. We can still criticize some of the design choices that make the games less enjoyable, while discussing the possible solutions. While reading through this thread, I noticed how similar PoE's problems feel to original Baldur's Gate's problems. The combat is essentially just a mindless slashing once you've learned the basic tropes. Both have problems with encounter variety (though I think BG1 had less problems with that). The quest design is a lot better in PoE than in BG1, but neither have those long, epic quests BG2 had, at least not as far as I've played. Thankfully there is a possibility for PoE2, and I'm fairly sure the new expansion will try to fix some of the problems. In my opinion PoE is a good base for a sequel.

I can't say I disagree with Sensuki because it is essentially just a matter of preference. I agree that engagement system makes the combat too static (discussed in many threads) and currently the strategy options are very limited. There are some tricks you can use in some encounters but if I look back at the last 5 encounters I had, I used pretty much the same spells in the same order in each one with only one exception. The positioning was pretty much the same too. BG1 had the same problem, but that was mostly due to the limited options in the ability department. I can't say I'm not enjoying the game and combat. I am enjoying it a lot, I just see many flaws and no ways to fix them without heavy combat system rework. Most of them are listed here so I'm not going to bother saying them again. The AI is a problem, too heavy focus on pre-planning, discourages glass-cannons (which might not be a flaw for some). Most of these are caused by the engagement system and damage calculations. The overly simple DR system just doesn't work IMO. Judging from Sensuki's preferences, I'm pretty sure he plays either LoL or Dota(2) (nothing wrong with that). I'd like to see CRPG combat done in a similar way TBH.

I've been avoiding this discussion for a while, but I think I'll add some of my thoughts: 1. Read the article (If you haven't) 2. People who are getting offended by the fact that obsidian removed the limerick because of a few internet bullies are just observing the matter from their own perspective. Obsidian wants to give everyone the best possible experience, removing/changing the limerick most likely does not degrade your gaming experience, but it helps the offended trans-people to not feel like oppressed minority. You are only pushing your political views by bundling every minority-supporter-whatever with GG/SJW/whatever and using that as an excuse to bash their opinion without giving it a second thought. You are acting like those internet bullies yourself by taking the thing too far. You have lived too long in an echo chamber. 3. People who are getting offended by the limerick should think again if the thing is worth getting offended by. The limerick never specifically stated that the person was transsexual, you just interpret it in a way you can get offended by and so you can feel like you are entitled to a compensation. Even if you genuinely got offended by it, you are essentially getting offended by single person's joke that only makes fun of the guy who committed suicide (that't what I thought when i read it). I'm a part of certain minority that gets bashed on public media basically everywhere. I've not only learned to get over it but I've learned to make a jokes about it. Trust me, it makes life a lot easier. This discussion won't end until people stop bringing it up every once in a while. There are way too many people on both sides for any quick 'peaceful solution' to be possible. I personally despise people who stick with pointless arguments, essentially making everyone's lives worse, when it would be easier to let it just go. That's my personal opinion though, if you get offended, I might edit it out. Who knows.

There is always going to be people with different tastes, and you shouldn't expect game critics to be totally objective, as long as their opinion is their own. Personally I sometimes wonder how some writers get to the sites they are writing on. Many lack the basic information-checking skills, I've seen so many s***storms raised from very speculative articles. Some people here are stating their opinions as absolute truth, and they can't accept others. It just doesn't work like that. You shouldn't base your opinion on a game on the score the site gives it but instead on the negatives/positives they mention on the review. You should consider if the negatives are enough to kill the enjoyment of the positives in your opinion. Sometimes the negatives might even be positives on your book. Nearly every site has different rating standards. That is the reason why they should dump every single attempt to measure game's value compared to other games and focus on the single game (and possible sequels/prequels etc.). My personal rating would be maybe a bit higher than IE games. I consider it one of the best games I've played. This is the first game since Dark Souls when I've not looked forward to the ending and finally finishing the game.