JerekKruger

Exactly. Unless you are a billionaire who could literally afford to finance Obsidian alone without any need to turn a profit then you're always going to have to accept compromise.

As long as the game isn't designed around story mode as the default then I don't really see the problem. Moreover I really don't see why it would be based around story mode. Story mode seems to be about making combat very easy (perhaps even trivial) in order to allow a player who either doesn't enjoy the combat or finds it too difficult to experience the story. As such story mode doesn't need to be particularly well balanced for play: if in doubt err on the side of easier and you're good. It makes a lot more sense to balance the game around normal and/or hard mode then scale from there. Add to that the fact that PoE is supposed to be a spiritual successor of the IE games and you've got a substantial portion PoE2's existing potential market being fans who want a game that isn't too easy. Unless Obsidian are incredibly confident they can gain enough new customers to at least offset any loss of existing customers they'd be foolish to make the change you suggest. But perhaps I am the wrong person to be talking to this about because I really enjoy PoE. Is it perfect? Definitely not. But to my mind it really is a worthy spiritual successor to the IE games. The environments are beautiful, if somewhat generically temperate fantasy at times; the story is solid (I really like it but I acknowledge some of the criticism of it, and let's not put SoA's story on too high a pedestal); perhaps most surprisingly, I really like the combat, and think it is better than that of the old IE games, though to be fair it has been a little over two years since I last played one.

Logic here simply means making conclusions about the world (Eora, not earth) given the rules of that world. It in no way relies on the rules of our reality. Another word you could use is consistency. We have no objection to the rules of reality in Eora being different to our own, but once those rules are set down we expect them to remain consistent. Given that it doesn't seem like the rules of physics governing weapons are fundamentally different in Eora, it is reasonable to make conclusions about the properties of weapons in Eora based on our own experiences. EDIT: alternatively, read Heijoushin's excellent post above explaining my point better than I do.

Some people, myself included, like RTwP very much, and whilst I have no particular desire to see very long combats, I would prefer them to be long enough and tough enough that I can actually make use of spells and abilities. There's already a problem with Chanters hardly being able to use their invocations on easier difficulties, faster combats would just extend that to harder difficulties and make other classes unable to use multiple in combat buffs.

Something worth noting about Raedric: according to the Wiki he is Thayn of Yenwood, and also according to the Wiki one of the two defunct erldoms is the Erldom of Yenwood. It makes me think that Raedric may have taken advantage of the power vacuum created by having no erl above him to make himself the de facto Erl of Yenwood. As such his power might not be representative of a typical thayn. Just a thought.

For me this aspect is one thing I look for in a game, but the story is at least as important, if not more so. I dare say the combat system could have been improved if less time was spent on the story, and perhaps some players would have preferred that, but I'm sure glad they didn't. Similarly whilst I almost certainly won't play story mode I don't begrudge Obsidian spending time on it for those players who will. I am exactly the same. I always enjoyed pause heavy play in the original IE games and much prefer microing my characters every move but I understand some people don't. If the argument is that Obsidian will make PoE2 easy by default then I understand your concern, though I don't share it. If on the other hand your concern is that having a story mode option available will result in more players choosing that option then I've got some bad news for you: a lot of people are going to disappoint you. Not everyone attaches the same importance to any given struggle that you do and as long as we live in a free world they simply won't bother with it. My guess is the main difference that having a story mode will make will be to open up PoE to people who otherwise simply wouldn't have played it at all rather than converting vast swathes of the current player base to the easier mode. This in turn means more profit for Obsidian, which means more money available for the development of PoE2, which hopefully means we get a better sequel. EDIT: I also doubt that a lot of the current "casual" players of games like Dragon Age: Inquisition would be tempted over to PoE even with a story mode. It's not just the difficulty that puts them off, I am sure they're put off by the graphical style. Thus unless Obsidian are going to make the full jump to AAA fully 3D RPGs and try to compete directly the majority of their market will remain the nostalgia crowd and the new converts to their style of game (a combination of people keen on the challenge and people keen for a deeper narrative). As such I can't see Obsidian changing things too much.

They're not taking it away though, they're giving the option to take it away but it's still very much there for those who don't enable the option. I really don't understand why adding in an option bothers people so much.

If story mode is optional I don't see the problem. I, probably, won't use it, but I don't begrudge people who want to experience the story of Pillars of Eternity but don't enjoy combat, or find combat too difficult even on easy. To address the "they should read books instead comment": (i) an RPG without combat (or with minimal combat) is not the same as a novel, it's a different experience; and (ii) as far as I am aware the Pillars of Eternity story is not available in novel form. As for the concern that introducing this mode will reduce development time from other aspects, I guess that's true to some extent by definition. That said, given the story mode is presumably meant to very easy it shouldn't take much effort to balance: if in doubt err on the side of easier rather than harder and you won't go far wrong. Of course there are other reasons this mode could detract from other aspects, for example if loot is redistributed in this mode to allow player to get access to hard to obtain items more easily. That said I am not overly worried about this, Obsidian have shown there willingness to push forward release dates to make sure their products are finished so I doubt they'll let this story mode stop them from releasing a good product.

Yeah, it's a weird one that doesn't make much sense to me beyond game balance reasons. I would have preferred hatchets to share the battle axe's bonus to critical damage, and for swords to have the bonus to deflection (although they might have to make swords slash only to balance this). Other weapons I would see changed are spears gaining reach instead of accuracy and some change to clubs (perhaps higher interrupt).

I hope they won't introduce a human female cipher in White March II. Not only do we already have one in Grieving Mother, but four of the ten companions are human. If we are going to get another Cipher, which I doubt, I'd like to see a female wild Orlan. As one of the two more original races in Pillars it'd be nice to see more of them and also since Hiravias is my least favourite companion it'd be nice to have a second Orlan option. They could even be a Glanfathan Brîshalgwin, though I'm not sure if Glanfathan Orlans are hearth or wild. That said, my guess is the only new character will be a Barbarian and a female Coastal Aumaua seems a likely option (especially given the portrait). Having a Barbarian companion will certainly be cool though, although I share the concerns about them being available only very late in the game.

One idea would be to revise the current weapon focus groups to have some overlap. It seems to me that soldiers, adventurers and knights would all be trained to use swords, not just knights, for example. I'm not sure how I'd assign the weapons off the top of my head, but this might make the choice of weapon focus a little less of a no-brainer. The weapon focus groups are a strange set of talents. On the one hand I like that they give more flexibility than choosing a single weapon to focus on, but on the other I dislike how sometimes the two weapons I actually want to use are in different groups.

Yeah, as long as there are several "non-armour" armours in the game I'm happy with the rag-like underwear. It's actually nicer than having a default unarmoured look, since I get to pick what that look actually is.

I'd love to see pencil style drawings for items, but it's not the end of the world if they aren't any (fingers crossed for future Pillars of Eternity games). What I do really want to see genuinely unique and memorable magic items. Baldur's Gate 2 did this well but in NWN2 you could craft as good, or better, items as you could find, and that's a shame to my mind.