Pillars of Eternity II - The World of Deadfire

TomRon said:

It would be really weird (and a proof of good imagination) if anyone remebered romances from PoE, since as far as I'm aware of the game doesn't have any.

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PoE1 didnt have any romance but PoE 2 has a new relationship system.

“Our companions have had a ton more work put into them in Pillars II, and they are much more part of the story and the world that you’re living in,” Britch says. “They’ll actually react to the quests you’re going on and help you out in a lot of circumstances. They’ll have much more of an opinion and voice in the game.”

That new voice has led to significantly deeper intra-party relationships. Your companions will rub up against each other, depending on the views they hear each other espousing, and potentially develop rifts. Serafen, for instance, has no patience for racism. What he does enjoy are acts of passion and worldliness - and if you show your companions enough of what they enjoy, your own relationships can lead to romance.

“It’s not gonna be a bunch of Mass Effect sex scenes,” Britch clarifies. “It should be a pretty natural mechanic. If you do things that the companions like, then relationship options will open up. There’s a lot more feeling that this is a party of people, and not just that you are the god hero conquering all that you see.”

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So looking forward to this. Sadly I had planned on finally finishing POE1 this weekend and was 2/3 done. Then wind storm hit and during night a power surge fried my PSU. At the repair shot till Friday.

I have POE2 now and so want to try it out ... but don't want all the spoilers from picking past POE things ... want to import my save game as I love that in games - one of my favorite things is carrying things over.

First world decisions

Couchpotato said:

“Our companions have had a ton more work put into them in Pillars II, and they are much more part of the story and the world that you’re living in,” Britch says. “They’ll actually react to the quests you’re going on and help you out in a lot of circumstances. They’ll have much more of an opinion and voice in the game.”

That new voice has led to significantly deeper intra-party relationships. Your companions will rub up against each other, depending on the views they hear each other espousing, and potentially develop rifts. Serafen, for instance, has no patience for racism. What he does enjoy are acts of passion and worldliness - and if you show your companions enough of what they enjoy, your own relationships can lead to romance.

“It’s not gonna be a bunch of Mass Effect sex scenes,” Britch clarifies. “It should be a pretty natural mechanic. If you do things that the companions like, then relationship options will open up. There’s a lot more feeling that this is a party of people, and not just that you are the god hero conquering all that you see.”

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That's great news!

TomRon said:

Just different RTwP. I'm impressed by the people who can play without pausing, but I've never seen a developer state that's the point of RTwP in their game.

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Nothing like a different RTwP. PwRT is not RTwP.
It has never been about never pausing, it has been about pausing to cover for a lack of skills.

Players are not challenged by fights, they are challenged by their inability to handle any sequence in RT. By this standard, any fight is challenging. Been watching streams played on story mode, players are challenged as other players playing path of the damned. Because both of them display the same lack of skills: inability to handle a sequence in RT.

As to the remark on devs, once again, on this site, some time ago, a vid was posted showcasing a fight played RTwP (inputs were placed in RT) The remark was made in the thread.
Devs might have not said but they played in such a way.

I can respect that's the way you think they should be played though, especially since you enjoy watching streams where constant pausing must get boring fast.

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Streams are informational. They deliver the information that players are unable to play RTwP. It is a lack of respect for devs work as they have provided so many tools to play RTwP.

Second thing: watching products that are designed for streaming being streamed is the way to go.
Those products are better played when streaming or watched when streaming.

When a gamer, that is a player interested into gameplay, nothing is missed. For players who associate closely to their avatar to the point they resent the avatar being a woman, a black person, an homosexual, it sure is a problem as they can not bear non mattering decisions being taken by someone else.

ChienAboyeur said:

Those products are better played when streaming or watched when streaming.

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Streaming is bigger cancer in gaming industry than microtransactions.

ChienAboyeur said:

Nothing like a different RTwP. PwRT is not RTwP.
It has never been about never pausing, it has been about pausing to cover for a lack of skills.

Players are not challenged by fights, they are challenged by their inability to handle any sequence in RT. By this standard, any fight is challenging. Been watching streams played on story mode, players are challenged as other players playing path of the damned. Because both of them display the same lack of skills: inability to handle a sequence in RT.

As to the remark on devs, once again, on this site, some time ago, a vid was posted showcasing a fight played RTwP (inputs were placed in RT) The remark was made in the thread.

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So basically you are not allowed to pause ever or you are instantly bad. Seem to be so salty about this. Must be some god tier player here who has no difficulty playing diamond+ in starcraft 2 who scoffs at the idea of a pause button.

Zerth said:

So basically you are not allowed to pause ever or you are instantly bad. Seem to be so salty about this. Must be some god tier player here who has no difficulty playing diamond+ in starcraft 2 who scoffs at the idea of a pause button.

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Welcome to RPGWatch. Chien's some sort of weirdo agenda-pusher who repeats the same few themes in every thread he posts in, using different cryptic language each time. People being not good enough to play RTwP lol is one of his favorite themes, as is throwing around his personal made-up term for turn-based combat, "UgoIgo". Another of his favorite topics is streamers, which nobody else cares about because we play games instead of watching them. You struck gold and got 2 of his favorite themes in 1 post.

For the sake of your sanity, I'd recommend not paying much, if any, attention to his posts. I can't imagine many others do.

Stingray nailed it. The guy, Chien, most of the time, always says the same things. But I will say he did not make up UGIGO. I had a conversation once with him here (believe it or not), and went and looked it up. It's a real term. You can find it in the turn based games section under the alternate "IGOUGO".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turns,_rounds_and_time-keeping_systems_in_games

Yeah, I've seen other variants used before, but I don't see his particular ordering/spelling of it on that page that you linked. That's why I say he created it. I could still be wrong, who knows. It's kind of irrelevant anyway. People who aren't batshit insane just call it turn-based combat on every forum I visit.

Zerth said:

So basically you are not allowed to pause ever or you are instantly bad. Seem to be so salty about this. Must be some god tier player here who has no difficulty playing diamond+ in starcraft 2 who scoffs at the idea of a pause button.

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That failure to consider a point is amazing. The urge to turn it into something else prevails.

Not only it never was about never pausing in RTwP, but it is now the third time that the remark is made.

When real time is involved and pause is not involved, that is real time.
When real time and pause are involved, it might be RTwP or PwRT. That is that simple.

No needs to invent stuff that is not.

As to players being bad, people unable to fly a jet are not bad, they are not even bad pilots, they are merely unable to fly a jet. They do not have the required skillsets to do that.

Players are unable of playing RTwP because they do not have the required skillsets.
So they shifted to PwRT, which is closer to their UgoIgo skillsets.

Arkadia7 said:

Stingray nailed it. The guy, Chien, most of the time, always says the same things.

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Weird stuff. The same situation commands the same depiction of the situation.
Players are unable to play RTwP. They shifted to PwRT (pause/place inputs, assess the board/unpause)

The second players start to play RTwP, the second the depiction of the situation is changed. Not before.
Not for tomorrow. Not for the next year.

Say what? You made up your own version of game types to support your theory?

That's gotta be a special kind of "herb" that Chien hits on. You could market that product and rake in the lewts!

Better the herb that get people to think they play RTwP and see other people play RTwP. That is the type of herbs that hit the drug markets.

The herb that lets people see that players do not play RTwP, useless. It adds nothing.

You unnecessarily conflate two different systems and combat styles. I'd argue most players of RtwP games have little to no interest in playing in such a way more akin to real-time action RPGs such as Diablo. Therefore claiming they don't have "the required skillsets" is simply irrelevant elitist nonsense.

I can play RtwP just fine, thank you very much. Calling it PwRT is a language problem that only confuses issues.

They are unable to play otherwise. It is not a decision or a lack of interest.

PwRT is a proper handle to refer to the way players use the product. RTwP is not.

Nothing elitistic, the elitism is on the other side.

RTwP and PwtRT are not compatible. They cover different fields. Making them equivalent leads to failed conclusions. For example, on the issue of difficulty, RTwPwise, spamming pauses is an exploit. Leading to a failed perception of easiness when players actually are unable to handle a single combat RTwP

It is not possible to make a hard RTwP product when players from the start are unable to play RTwP.

I think as well that it's just a language problem or rather a problem of the usage of the misleading term "RTwP".

The actual distiction is this:

• turn-based (or igougo or whatever):
  • when the player is idle, either nothing happens (player's turn) or the AI finishes its turn
  • the player might pause the game, which is irrelevant for the combat outcome (as long as the turns aren't time-limited)
  
  
• real-time:
  • when the player is idle, the AI acts nonetheless until combat is over
  • the player can pause combat but can not give commands during this pause
  
  
• "RTwP":
  • when the player is idle, the AI acts nonetheless until combat is over (so same as real-time)
  • the player can pause combat and can give commands during this pause

So that's what "RTwP" means. It's not about pausing frequency.
When players pause too often, it might indeed be an indication of bad design, which might result from designers overestimating player skills or underestimating the combat mechanic's complexity or from crappy UI design.

At least I now understand (after all these years!) what you, Chien, actually wanted to say with "There is no demand, no audience for this type of combat".

ChienAboyeur said:

For example, on the issue of difficulty, RTwPwise, spamming pauses is an exploit.

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Bullshit. Pausing is a legitimate feature of the system. On the other hand, an exploit is a weakness or trick in a game discovered by players and is generally not considered a part of intended design. The difference between the two ideas is quite clear. Again, pausing is not an exploit in a system designed around that feature.

It is not possible to make a hard RTwP product when players from the start are unable to play RTwP.

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I'd like to see you beat Icewind Dale on Heart of Fury mode and Throne of Bhaal on the hardest difficulty and come back and say that again. My distinct impression however is that you only watch games not actually play them. Once more, I can play RTwP just fine thank you very much.

Pessimeister said:

Bullshit. Pausing is a legitimate feature of the system. You can't be that dense, surely?

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It starts to be easier by the day to understand struggles with notions like reasonable amount of force.

Pausing is a legitimate feature. It was never implied otherwise.

That being stated, there is a quantifiable difference between players who pause twice or thrice per fight and players who keep spamming pause to place every single input.

Morrandir said:

[/list]


[*]real-time:

• when the player is idle, the AI acts nonetheless until combat is over
• the player can pause combat but can not give commands during this pause

[*]"RTwP":

• when the player is idle, the AI acts nonetheless until combat is over (so same as real-time)
• the player can pause combat and can give commands during this pause

[/list]

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No mention like players can act during real time.
Because if in RTwP, players can place inputs during pause, they can also place inputs during RT, just as in RT.

A convenient omission of what a player is supposed to do: act.

When players pause too often, it might indeed be an indication of bad design, which might result from designers overestimating player skills or underestimating the combat mechanic's complexity or from crappy UI design.

At least I now understand (after all these years!) what you, Chien, actually wanted to say with "There is no demand, no audience for this type of combat".

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Strange story to tell after PoE, Tyranny, PoE2 which are a story of devs trying to comply with the demands of players who claim they were interested in RTwP.

There is no bad design because there is no good design when players are unable to play RTwP. Everything fails as shown.

The only proper design: make the combat UgoIgo because it fits the skillsets.