Sounds like a great new way to screw lower paying players and f2p players out of building teams if they miss a banner character.

Big surprise they dress up a scummy way of further monetizing things as a benefit to players.

As a Pillars fan Avowed was a never ending disappointment with each update on its progress up to release, I've never had the wind knocked out of my sails so thoroughly by a game in 35 years of gaming.

Here's the thing, it's NOT a bad game, it's fun, it's a romp and an adventure, I didn't ever feel like I needed to drop it because it was a poor showing.

But I never once picked back up the joy I felt when it was announced, they butchered so much of what it SHOULD have been, not could, should.

PoE deserved infinitely more than this and instead of becoming a new household name it'll just be another in an increasingly subpar showing from oblivion.

I'm so glad "3D anime" has come so far recently (or been relegated to minor scenes) because Berserk (2016) was a prime example of how god awful it really was at the time, even in Dorohedoro it was bloody terrible but at least the story and VA was good enough to make up for it.

Snorefield was one of the most ankle deep experience I've stepped into for a long while a d is most assuredly the most high profile one.

The biggest issue, and I agree fully with your assessment of procedural generation here, is that the reason older Bethesda, and even other exploration and heavy adventure RPGs is that people MADE them, you can tell some dev somewhere went, "Ha, you think we can get on that building? You think they will? Let's put some cool stuff up there for them" the created areas are lush with human creativity and psychology.

They understand our at times obsessive need to see the results of "what if?" And then they reward us, it works because they know as other players that they'd be exited to get up on that building but they'd be even more excited to find a treat for their efforts, haha.

AI and progressive gens don't understand that part of rewarding exploration yet, they don't understand how to create mystery or reward curiosity.

Handmade may not always be better, but it still will be for a good long while.

The spawn on top of you issue and the completely broken stealth system have been the only real issues for me while playing, the game world itself looks fantastic, the sound has been amazing, and running all about finding artifacts has been a blast.

Really hope they get it up to snuff because there's a lot to love with this game.