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Showing results for tags 'criticism'.
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First of all: I hope this won't be seen as a hate thread. I'll try to abstain from my emotions and talk about what bothers me in the way Edér is written in Deadfire, because I need to talk about it. 1. Friendship with the Watcher. As much as friendship with Edér was satisfying in the first game, as much it's disappointing now. Edér doesn’t feel like your old buddy who've been through all sorts of things with you, like dragons, gods, jumping into the endless pit, etc. He feels very distant. So few friendly interactions. No inside jokes. Before he won me over by being very caring and attentive to my character, but now his friend shares the soul with his god, and he's so indifferent to it. I miss him waking my Watcher up and promising a bucket of water. 2. Personal development. In Pillars 1 Edér ended up a mayor in my game. The epilogue noted his optimism and strong desire to help people. He seemed determined and empowered, but in Deadfire he seems depressed all of a sudden. Maybe it's a bug, because it doesn't make any sense to me. His personal quest seems rather odd too. It seems more logical for him to have a quest to find Eothas and finally get the answers about Woden and Saint's War, but instead he's chasing his dead ex girlfriend, who dumped him twice, told him to move on and find someone who will appreciate his soft heart, and clearly moved on herself, married someone and had a son. So instead of going forward with personal development, Edér apparently goes 20 years back. Is this a midlife crisis? It feels so dissatisfying, especially comparing to Aloth, who strides forward boldly. Edér feels stuck and depressed for some reason, and it's never explained why is he like this, or why does he act like an old man whose life will end tomorrow? (He's only 37 years old, if it's true he was 32 in the first game). 3. Romance. After Elafa told Edér (in the short story) to find someone who would love him, giving him a romantic arc seemed like a logical choice, especially after everything he's been through with the Watcher. And his actions say he does care about the Watcher, but he says he never thought about it? I just find it hard to believe. Indeed, like Tekehu noted, Ngati weeps for such wasted potential. His sudden fixation on Elafa after 20 years seems rather artificial and forced. For some reason she's suddenly the only person he could talk about things that worry him, but not the Watcher, who he never had problems sharing his thoughts with before. So it's the dead girlfriend and he will never love again. Seriously? TL/DR (and personal feelings ): I feel like this is not Edér. Like maybe Leaden Key kidnapped him and replaced with a depressing clone. It's definitely not the Edér I was so excited to meet before the Deadfire release, and the change is so drastic and so inexplicable, that almost feels like the most beloved character was deliberately sabotaged as some kind of a cruel joke. I don't expect to get the answer "why", but I talked to other fans about this, and we agreed that it feels extremely disappointing, what was done with Edér, and perhaps if we provide feedback, then it will help Obsidian somehow in the future. Or please, for the love of god, patch him if this is a bug! Give us our friend back.
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First off, just to make it clear: I love P:E. It's a fantastic game. It's the cRPG I've had the most fun with since the Golden Age, no question, and stands proudly among the games that inspired it. 10/10 GOTY and all that commotion. There are three mechanical systems in it however that I thought were weak enough to detract from the experience, and I hope Obsidian addresses these in the expansion and sequels: crafting, the stronghold, and stealth. Stealth needs a complete overhaul in my opinion. It is way overpowered. Being able to sneak with even 0 points in it means you always get the drop on your enemies. With detection circles rather than sight cones there's no real gameplay involved in it, beyond switching it on and off, and with the possibility of double-speed, there's no disincentive to exploring maps stealthed. I believe it would be a lot more fun if: It is individual, not party. Characters with 0 ranks in stealth cannot sneak. (Or, rather, they can try, but there's no advantage to it.) Higher ranks do not change the detection radius, but only the time at which detection trips. Detection is based on a cone + circle rather than a circle. Different types of enemies could have different size cones and circles; oozes for exmaple could have circles only. Rogues get a per-encounter special ability that lets them re-stealth in combat, to replace Shadowing Beyond. Casters get Invisibility spells with the same effect. My problem with the crafting mechanics is that it's too easy. It takes much of the interest out of itemization, and it feels wrong to be able to apply enchantments while dungeon-delving. I've just started Witcher 3, and it has a much more interesting crafting system, and it's more interesting because it's more restrictive. I believe the following changes would make crafting more enjoyable: Require a recipe and an NPC specialist to craft. These specialists could be stronghold hirelings also. Remove the "Fine/Exceptional/Superb" property from "enchantments." Instead, make it a base property of the item, and make it determine the number of enchantment slots the item has. However, also make it possible to craft fine/exceptional/superb items from scratch. Have different NPC specialists have different skill levels (maybe only one legendary swordsmith can craft Superb swords?) know different crafting recipes, and also let us discover recipes as we adventure. As to the stronghold... as it currently stands, it just feels tacked-on and superficial. Sending Kana on a Major Adventure to get 10% XP and a Medium Magic Item just feels dumb. A bit of writing would've gone a long way to fix that -- a descriptive title and a short paragraph. There aren't an unlimited number of these adventures available anyway as the Turn clock is based on quests which are a finite resource. The same applies to most everything else in it: the mechanics themselves are serviceable-enough, but there's just no flesh around those bones. Ideally, all those stronghold events -- the Major Adventures and visiting dignitaries -- need to be grounded in the main narrative. So: Flesh out stronghold events with better descriptions. No more Minor Adventures! Ground them in the narrative. Stage events relevant to the narrative in the stronghold maps. As it is, there really was no motivation to visit at all; even the Brighthollow bonuses were anaemic compared to inn bonuses. I realize that this -- more so than the others even -- is very much a resource issue. However, as it is, the game would IMO have been better off without the stronghold altogether.
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Hello everyone, I dont want to be somehow negative and I really love most things presented to us so far. But there are few things which were announced in updates and I am dissapointed by them. I am curios if someone else have similiar feelings about some features which were uncovered. Ofcourse not all is set in stone and maybe there will be changes to these, so lets talk about it and see if we can decide Obs guys to consider rework/polishing of these. Enough blabling, my 3 issues so far: 1) Character attributes - I really not like 'Power' stat etc. I would like more real physical/psychical stats. Not going to explain it as there were a lot of posts around this: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64157-josh-sawyer-reveals-some-information-about-project-eternitys-attribute-scores/?p=1354290 here is link where you can see what they are actualy aiming for: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute 2) World map - In one of latest updates was confirmed that there will be travel system as in BG. It was ok system but after playing NWN2 SoZ, Fallout 1,2 and Arcanum I really like explorable world map, especially because I love ranger class and it always seems gimped when core advantages of this class are not usefull in game 3) I dont like pink/purple concept arts for magic - dont hate me for this As I already state, I love P:E so far and really looking forward to it. But these are forums for discussion, not fansite of Justing Bieber so lets talk a little constructive. Also share with us your own concerns if you got any. Cheers, Chiloutman
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The latest Aumaua concept art in Update #34 provoked a strong reaction in me and finally convinced me to register on the forum and voice my opinion. I've had a problem with most of the concept art shown so far, so I wanted to write up a big post with comprehensive, hopefully constructive feedback instead of freaking out (like NeoGAF is doing lol). And yeah, I'm aware that this is early art that will be revised and improved, but here's some criticism anyway: First, the Aumaua. The first thing that came to mind when looking at the Aumaua wizard was the scene from The Venture Bros. where Henchman 21 is LARPing. In other words, it brings to mind a fat, ugly human trying and failing to look badass. I think this is due to two things: costume and race design. The costume looks slightly goofy and mismatched, but not enough to imply a character who was deliberately designed to indicate he doesn't pay the least bit of attention to looking good. The costume needs to either be sloppier, in a characterful and memorable way, or more flattering. The racial design of the Aumaua is also problematic, mainly because they don't look distinctive and unique enough. I originally thought the wizard was an ugly human because he looks too human; in an Uncanny Valley sort of way it makes me notice all the subtle differences and chalk it up to the character getting beaten with an ugly stick. It may just be me, but I've always found most Star Trek aliens to be gross looking because they're clearly humans with disfiguring makeup plastered on their faces. Whereas, say, Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars is deliberately supposed to come across as disgusting, but he's so removed from humans that it's less unsettling. For all we know he's a gorgeous specimen of a Hutt and there's no need to apply human standards of beauty to him. Play up the amphibious nature of the Aumaua. As it stands, they look like web-fingered half-orcs at best, weird humans at worst. Maybe make their heads and torsos shorter and fatter and their legs longer and thinner, like frogs. I realize this might cause problems with animation as well as clothing/armor creation, since you would have to do everything seperately for the Aumaua instead of just recycling the other races' stuff. If that's a problem, there are still other ways to make them unique. Give them more/fewer fingers and toes. Make their eyes larger with frog-like irises and pupils. Maybe instead of hair, they can have hair- like spines, crests, or tentacles. You haven't shown the Orlans yet, but I hope they're less human-like to begin with. It was mentioned that they have two-toned skin. Maybe they could have short, fine, two-toned fur instead? Give them claws instead of fingernails and slitted pupils instead of round ones. Hopefully they're not just halflings with the barest minimum of changes. I wanted to give some feedback on the earlier concept art too while I'm at it. I really liked the original Sagani painting. The design was aesthetically pleasing while not being "hot" or pandering, the proportions clearly indicated a separate race rather than just a short human, and the costume gave a lot of information about a believable culture that isn't usually associated with dwarfs. I've been less thrilled with the other designs, including Sagani's later art. Edair's main problem is that he looks rather bland and directionless. I remember someone from Obsidian saying that this was deliberate since he's a character who wants to avoid drawing attention, but simply making the design bland is one of the worst ways to accomplish this. His design needs to be the visual equivalent of a stage whisper; implying that he's trying to stay out of the spotlight while still telling the player, "Pay attention! This is an interesting, important character." I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish this, but then again I'm not very good at doing a real stage whisper either. Aloth looks pretty good/interesting. His design isn't perfect, but I'm not really sure why (perhaps too many clashing directions for his character? I dunno) and I'm reasonably satisfied with him. I don't like Forton's art much, but this is the one design that plenty of people have already complained about, so I don't really need to expand on it. I will say that I like the idea that some people suggested of adding more elements of European flagellants to Project Eternity monks in addition to the Shaolin monk inspiration. Cadegund is a character whose design is close to being good/great, but it's not quite there yet. It certainly helps that a female battle priest with heavy armor and a gun isn't something that you see every day in western RPGs. But her armor as it currently stands is too bland once again. It doesn't tell us enough about her. Is she someone who does a lot of fighting and adventuring, often far away from the help of her religious organization? If so, her armor could maybe be more scuffed and dented, or even show makeshift repairs. On the other hand, is she someone who enjoys the full and near-constant support of a powerful religion? In that case, maybe her armor should be more ornate. Or even combine the two ideas so that her church gives her beautiful, expensive equipment which she inevitably ruins from all the fighting and adventuring she gets into! Well that was a lot of criticism. Hopefully it was useful and constructive. Thank you Obsidian for making this game and thank you for the frequent updates, warts and all. I'm sure everything will turn out great in the end. Edit: Fixed the formatting.
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