What do you want PoE2 to be like?

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That may be so but not releasing products certainly isn't going to help the situation any.

It's been too long for me to remember specifics. Just a general sense of dullness and feeling somewhat disinterested sometime during the second half of the game or so.

 

That would require people actually wanting to use the system in a game and being someone that Hasbro trusts enough to make a good game with the license. Think, how many good D&D games have been released in the last decade? Neverwinter Nights 2 was... sort of successful. Everything else was basically a flop. DDO and Neverwinter have managed to achieve a very moderate amount of commercial success on the MMO market, but the most successful offline games were iOS games that don't even use the system.

I'm okay with letting it die. It's just not a very good system for video games. It never has been. Variety is a good thing.

 

I was actually referring to the tabletop stuff, as releases have been pretty sparse as far as I know. I can only speculate without knowing specifics on how Hasbro operates and handles licensing. Given the direction MTG has been going in the last few years, and the release of BGEE/etc, I don't think very highly of Hasbro or WotC right now.

I wouldn't call it bad either, it mostly comes down to implementation and tweaking things to make it more suitable. What other tabletop game systems are implemented in video games and are all around better? Game systems aside, D&D has a wealth of settings and characters to draw on.

I don't think D&D is perfect but I'd be sad to see it all go with a wimper; especially the settings.

 

No idea. I stopped caring when they ditched 3E.

There are plenty of role playing games that are flat out better than D&D, especially for use in video games. In fact, it's probably the majority. But they don't use them in video games because they're tabletop systems and they're made for tabletop play in mind. Regardless of how well suited they might seem to be, you're almost always better off with a custom system in a video game. Of course, you can make changes to the system to make it a better fit, but at what point do you stop and say, "Hey, I don't think that's D&D anymore."

And just to be clear, all of the existing implementations of D&D in video games are pretty abysmal. Playable, to be sure, but there's not one D&D game out there that doesn't make me wonder why they bothered with it in the first place. Horribly imbalanced, with a plethora of worthless mechanics and other tabletop ballast, desperately trying to reconcile staying true to the original system and making the game actually enjoyable.

Yes, it does, and they basically dropped all the interesting ones. FR is all well and good, but it's one of the most boring and generic fantasy settings you can find. If they were more keen on developing the niche settings, I'd be sad to see it go, but they won't even sell a license to people who wish to use those settings (e.g. Planescape, Spelljammer, etc.).

There are dozens of amazing and well-developed RPG settings out there. Hell, Monte Cook's been making new settings for Cypher like his life depends on it (which it sort of does). D&D doesn't really have much of anything to offer at this point, aside from a recognizable brand name.

 

Anyone picked up Divinity: Original Sin 2 by any chance? It's early days, but for now, hands down the best RPG I've played since BG2.

 

IMHO the problem with D&D right now is that Hasbro doesn't understand that the players not the GMs are the sales focus. All they have really been publishing are adventure modules which only appeal to GMs. Meanwhile most of us players were left for a long time with a game that had very little reward for our characters adventuring - and nothing at all new on character options or development. They were deliberately keeping magic items out of the system for a long time. This meant that us players had everything we could possibly use by around L2 and after that all we could do with our treasure was live the rock-star life - which isn't very satisfying. HALF of the fun of D&D was finding new magical toys - they didn't even need to be very powerful - they could have implemented wands for instance very early on and didn't. Give me a wand with a couple charges of a spell I can't normally cast because I don't know it and I would be happy - it doesn't even need to be one that's beyond my level. I played in their official tournaments for a long time and one of my characters reached L5 or so and my sole magic item was a Keoghtom's Ointment with 3 uses - the only magic I'd gotten over FIVE LEVELS.

And their Sword Coast Legends computer game, well it's not really bad, but it's not very good either. If you compare it to other RPGs in the same price category it's far too short. Even when you toss in the expansion - which I can't figure out how to progress in because nobody has a walkthru for it. I think most of the companions are pretty cool but you are basically locked in with only four to be had in the expansion because all of the later-added ones from the original story are removed: so a human necromancer-wizard, a dwarf fighter, a dwarf rogue, and an elf cleric are your choices. When you compare it to Div: OS it's a poor second just on the story/adventure content, and you can't even rate it that high compared to DragonAge: Inquisition.

But as far as I can tell, Hasbro is trying to make some progress by putting out some player-based releases, which is good. And definitely needed if the game is going to gain in popularity. Hasbro wants sales, and the only way they are going to get the sales they want is to produce more PLAYER products. Otherwise I'm guessing that what we'll see for a long time is what TSR used to do with their subordinate games: publish something to keep the copyrights every seven years and then drop it until the copyright time comes up again.

As for Div: OS2, I'm really interested in it. I'm curious about how they implemented PC races and what sorts of new companions and stuff exist. For me the companions are always a pretty big draw on a game. Mass Effect for instance has some of the very best. But yes, I really enjoy creating characters who aren't human. I tell my gaming friends: "I get to pretend I'm human every day, when I RP I'd like to try pretending to be something else." So I'm always curious about how computer games implement their PC races, and that particular thing has my interest piqued. I still haven't completed Div: OS though, I'm stuck at several fights I can't quite win because I'm too low level compared to my foes, and I can't figure out how to progress past them.

 

Each companion is a different race; you can even get to pick one of them as your main character and play through the entire game through their perspective, if that's what you choose. The best part is you get to choose your companions' class through dialog. So no more situations where you really like a character but can't pick him/her for your party cos of their skillset.

 

Oh that sounds awesome. I mean in the first game you could evolve your companions any way you wanted through leveling, but this is better. The major concern I have is that I haven't completed the first game: I'm stuck on too many unbalanced battles I can't get through and trying to figure out some wiggle space where I can get some extra XP by pulling out of one quest and exploring a different one. But I'm basically stymied on all fronts now because of fights I cannot win. I don't think my character builds are off because each character is focused at their primary role, but I'm faced with several battles where I'm outnumbered by enemies that are levels above my groups level and every tactic I've tried just gets me TPKd. I haven't even loaded the game for months now. Can't even describe the specific fights except for one with a group of goblins preventing access to a corrupted mine. I managed to shave off a nasty scout by pulling him far enough away from his allies that I could take him out alone without alerting his allies, that's the best I could do. So I'm not certain if I should just abandon the game and move on to this one.

 

Yeah I never finished the first one either, there was something that always seemed not quite right to me. This one instantly felt good and I was much more immersed in the game world. Combat can be difficult, but I always felt there was a way to win. There was one fight that I slept on, thought about and then came back the next day to implement my plan successfully. I like how the game encourages the most outrageous tactics. Oh, and always make sure at least one party member can talk to animals. It's the most useful skill haha

 

I picked it up late, well after they reworked it to answer the larger problems people had with it - including the overdone sense of humor. But I found several of the smaller quests a struggle and even abandoned several of them. A small problem seems to be that you are assumed to complete everything in order to reach the levels you need at some fights that aren't even boss fights, but are blocking forward progress. I'm partially stymied for instance at the invasion of the Winter King's fortress. Supposedly you can toss your TP stones to get around through the side, but I reached a point where I couldn't progress any further that way because I couldn't throw the stone far enough or something. I'm about half-way to a new level and desperately trying to find ways to grind out a few more points.

 

I started on the first game a couple days ago but I'm somewhat put off by it being turn-based Diablo.

 

Loved PoE. Can’t wait for Deadfire. Really digging the MC system. Rogue/Bleak Walker will be nasty. So many combos..... probably get divorce warnings from the wifey after release.