Wait, I thought you were an Apple guy?
I guess I just have a larger budget than some people?
Ask a backer on here to get you a copy of the base game and dlc for $50. Or wait for a sale I guess. :p
A new backer beta update dropped today, and it brings quite a few mechanics and fixes with it, including crewing your ship and enchanting/crafting.
I played for a little bit, going in blind and whipping up a character I didn’t get to see all the new stuff, but I took a look at as much as I could while my son literally breathed down my neck so I’d stop recording and watch Arrow with him.
Which didn’t even end up being freaking ON yet, by the way. It’s on at 8pm which we keep forgetting every damned week.
Anyway, check it out and if you have any questions or want me to focus on something specific, I’ll be digging into this later tonight during Critical Role anyway.
Thanks BBB!
I was playing a little more after I finished recording and the very first thing I did was the very first thing I always do in the beta, which is run out of town and do a quick fight to play with the character I rolled up. Lo and behold, this content was quite a bit more robust and had additional options as well (it was a choose your own adventure type of deal, but not only did it lead to a pet this time, but also when asked to perform a specific action, I was able to select one of my party members and select from ALL their abilities what I wanted to try - very impressive).
So, I rolled up a new character (one I wanted to try out anyway, rather than yet another wizard) and this time I landed on a massive heavy plate armor, great sword wielding Barbarian/Fighter (Brute, they call that) hybrid class. I’m very excited to give him a shot. He looks fantastic, too.
Hey @Scotch_Lufkin. Have you seen enough of PoE2 to have a general idea of how you think the game has improved over PoE1? I think it was your excitement for PoE1 that got me interested in it to begin with. I ended up liking it quite a bit even if I did have some complaints about it - mainly combat devolving into a chaotic scrum much of the time. PoE1 was one of the better tactical RPGs that I can recall in recent memory.
Initially I had some concerns with how they had change characters leveling up (going from a list of feats/perks to a skill tree) and a few other concepts I was unsure about, like penetration vs. armor as well as abilities/spells per combat vs. abilities per rest. Over the last few months and two major updates to the beta, I’ve come around on everything I was unsure about before, while still loving what makes the game an Obisdian RPG (flavor, smart implementation of mechanics, fantastic dialog and choices, stuff like that).
EDIT - I should add that after having these initial thoughts, I played about 20 more hours of PoE nearly to completion with a save-in-progress and while I still love PoE1 dearly, so many improvements with PoE2 make it harder to enjoy. I mean, even just the much improved combat log alone…
At this point, it’s better than POE1 in every category. It looks better, it plays better (especially with this last patch, it’s been vastly better optimized), the battles are cleaner and easier to follow (though I do hope we get a Slow Mode for combat again, it’s not nearly as necessary any longer - and this new beta emphasizes that even more by adding +1 second of recovery for every weapon attack, so there is a more measured pace to combat). The ability trees are really well considered (and we saw a tweet from Josh Sawyer that those are getting even more fleshed out by release*), multi-classing is really fun, the enemies have a wide variety of abilties and tactics that make them fun and unique to face (I definately have enemies I fucking loathe now).
And the AI scripting is a freaking joy as well. So many ways to build up a script for how you want your specific character to behave when you aren’t directly controlling him. And that goes for all your party members, so you can really fine tune very easily. It’s also (imo) fun to do this, which is key.
Like I said, I’m going to be playing some more of the new beta today, maybe I’ll record some more footage while I’m at it, but so far at this point they are on track to have PoE2 be the BG2 of the show, so to speak. With, I’m sure, quite a few changes, updates, and iteration to come thanks to the amazing feedback on the beta forums (and it really is amazing, so many quality of life things and even major mechanics changes (like how I enjoy penetration now because of them trying out the way the community suggested it should work) have come about thanks to that forum and other forums, I’m sure).
That’s great to hear Scott. I’d be nervous about a transition to skill trees too, but I’m glad to hear your impressions are favorable. This is definitely on my highly anticipated list, which I have more on at the beginning of this year than I did at the beginning of last year. It’s gonna make it tougher to stay in my budget target :-)
Good grief. My Berserker/Fighter hits like a mac truck.
two 70 damage attacks casually as enemies walked past him (disengagement) that one-shot said enemy in real time. This guy is a keeper.
Hopefully the AI gets a little smarter ordering their units around!
It was kind of strange, the battle at the base of that slope had ended and I was looting bodies when a few more creatures ran down and started combat, but were targeting my mage so ran past the other guys? Not sure. Seemed a little bit like a bug to me.
I know in PoE1 the AI takes deflection values into account when choosing targets, so I assume something similar is happening there.
Now I have to create a Brute. Damnit, Scott!! :)
I don’t know when it happened, but the latest backer update reminded us to generate keys (GoG or Steam, I think) for the products we imported from the FIG backer project. I have done so, it’s a slick and easy process, so if you want to have a nice entry for your game in steam you can do so at any time.
Glad you said something, I deleted those emails since I’d already watched the video.
Weird thing is, on my Obsidian Deadfire account it lists two copies of the game in my Products tab. I redeemed a Steam key for one, and I think the confusion is over the purchasing/upgrade issues I had late last summer (mentioned upstream).
Birds! Hahaha.
I always waffle over whether I should go Steam or GOG for keys when I have the choice. For the most part, I find Steam to work smoother overall (compared to the use of Galaxy), but I do like the idea of games being unlinked from any DRM. And PoE is in Steam so keeping things in one place is a positive. Guess Steam it is!
I take it any keys for the DLC will just come along at the time of the DLC and won’t need to be added at launch. Sounds reasonable?
I hope I don’t XCOM this one up. I burned so hard on constantly playing XCOM that by the time XCOM 2 showed up I was just done and still haven’t played through it.
Been playing through POE1 with a Cipher (btw: holy shit you guys) and it’s sooooooo goooooood after all the patches. Never did finish my first run - ran out of steam around Twin Elms - but I’m still going pretty strong with this one.
On the plus side, several key mechanics from leveling up to combat have been enhanced and improved in the sequel, and as such when I play POE1 and 2 back to back (like I have been) it feels just a little different/better, unlike XCOM 2 which does really play and feel identical to XCOM 1 but with different toys/tools.
Yeah. I like XCOM 2, but it’s very much a 1.5 kind of expansion. That music though.
Been really enjoying your impressions here, Scott, and seeing some of the stats and such broken down. Was just drooling over your screenshot of your 2H dude with my buddy who’s been playing through POE1 for the first time. Stoked!