Leaderboard

Hey, that'd be a unique path to victory. Seduce the villain!

If Morrison is becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience, they are probably letting you romance the boss fights.

@xzar_monty, what @Boeroer laid out is exactly what I meant as well. Thanks for laying it out so well @Boeroer.

A bit of that as well, but I guess the somewhat lighter tone wasn't that much of a repellent. I suspect that the lighter tone (not goofy, but lighter than PoE) was established because of feedback from PoE and because the D:OS games have it and they were/are a big success. Again, no quote on or proof for that. Anyway - I presume what @kanisatha meant - and what I mean - is that many "hardcore" CRPG players prefer a "Lord of the Rings" setting over a "Pirates of the Carribean" setting. I use those books/movies because they show a much bigger picture than I could paint just with a few words. In PoE we also had a post-medieval, renaissance-ish world in the background, but it wasn't very obvious because the game took place in the Dyrwood... which is, culturally speaking, very different and fairly "behind" compared to some of the more advanced nations (Old Vaillia, Rauatai and so on). Basically in PoE it's just the guns that remind you of it. That and some rare Vaillian haute couture... The rest is gritty, quite dark, kind of backwards and medieval: the architecture, the common people, the items - even the tone is dark like the dark times (besides Edér, Hiravias, Zahua and Aloth sometimes). I mean Durance alone puts the whole setting back for at least a hundred years for the player. In Deadfire all that stuff (overall presentation, architecture, clothing, even the weather) is obviously fitting the more "modern" and light setting of Pirates! (Arrrr!). There are some cool things mixed in to loosen it up, but you can't know that by simply looking at screenies and stuff at the storefront. So - if you are not into that then you might be put off even before purchasing it. You can immediately see from screenshots and videos about the game what the setting is. This may influence your decision to give it a try. Lots of gamers really have to think about on what they want to spend their money. Lots of them are young and don't earn their own money - and if they do then it's probably not enough that they just can spend 40-50 bucks just to see if the game is nice despite that non-preferred setting. I would argue that if there are second thougths about the overall setting then that's bad for such game (which is not cheap compared to many others you might want to try). That's just my highly subjective and speculative theory though.

I do every quest. I don't repeat heroics or grind mobs, at least until I'm at the cap for alliance crates and command levels, but I've never been able to skip content. I should probably clarify, I don't skip content that's not gated by Ops and/or PVP. I play MMOs like ever expanding single player games. E: come to think of it, I think that's why I never got into WOW. My friends wanted to rush to the end game and I wanted to explore the maps and read the story, at least the first time through, and do all the quests. That's how I ended up in LOTRO, I wanted a game that was more about the journey. I'm weird that way

^ I tried hard seltzer about a month back, it was ok. I concluded that it would be a good drink if my aim was to get hammered and urinate a lot, on account of the fact that, while it didn't taste particularly good, it also didn't taste bad, and it was really easy drinking. Whereas the beer I usually drink tastes great, but is fairly robust and filling and something I generally can't drink quickly or a ton of, at least not at my age, not that I'd want to (different story 20 years ago ). I could easily see myself plowing through a 12-pack of hard seltzer without so much as batting an eye... Then regretting my life choices shortly thereafter.

Lead producer of next Dragon Age game leaves BioWare Second lead prod to quit in a week.

Josh said in his post mortem that adding TB mode was like nothing compared to the ship combat system and full voice over. Maybe also because some efforts were already made to introduce turn based mode since PoE1. Maybe because it was easier (technically) than we think it was. Iirc ship combat wasn't explicitly mentioned in the original fig campaign nor was a stretch goal. No idea why somebody would be so adamant and insist on its implementation then.

If it has the look and feel of D:OS I or II I'm out.

I knew about Fernando Melo from the Andromeda debacle. Nice enough guy I suppose but was, together with Lead Designer Ian Frazier, apparently oblivious to what people wanted out of that game or how to deliver it. As far as I know, and as you correctly surmised, Ben Irving does not exactly hold a stellar reputation among Anthem players.

Make love not war

It'd still be socialism because conservatives call everything that these days.

Right. It's an obscure mechanic and good to know. That's by the way thr reason why Driving Roar (Barbarian) is so good as well: it counts as PL 1 ability since its just an upgrade of the Yell - but it has the highest ability level at the same time. But maybe Divine Immolation is not worth 1 ability point if you don't actually heal anything. Although depends... 4 ACC and 1 PEN are hard to get with just 1 PL from Prestige. Even if you don't heal anybody. On the other hand the PL from Prestige works on all of your abilities, not just SI. Difficult decision...

Note on Divine Immolation. Like many upgraded abilities, it will be considered t's original power level for the purposes of calculating bonuses from PL, (which is good, more room for bonuses), but it will be considered it's new, higher ability level for the purposes of calculating ability level bonuses, which will right off the bat increase it's PEN by 1 and ACC by 4.

Thank you very much Boeroer for such long and detailed answer , appreciate it !

Sorry, I meant PL doesn't affect the AoE size. It does always influence PEN (if there is any to begin with). There are some exceptions like Arcane Archer's Imbue spells - but iirc no exceptions for Paladins' abilities. No Divine Immolation for you? It's pretty good if your Paladin is not alone in the front line. If he is it's pretty useless though...

At first I was taken aback as well by that hedgehog that crawled up Aloth's exhaust pipe and died there, but eventually decided it all makes sense and is completely in character. When we met him in PoE, dude was lost in several different ways, and here this Watcher lets him to tag along and even live in his castle. So if you're desperate for company so bad you decide to travel with ghost-seeing weirdo you met at the inn's entrance, it's only natural you only show your good side and best traits to the kind stranger lest they decide to dump you somewhere, like suspicious pool in Skaen-flavoured catacombs. But by the time of Deadfire events Aloth feels secure in his and Watcher's fire(and ice, and acid, and poison, and insect swarm...)-forged friendship so he can drop the mask and be his actual dour, pedantic, no-fun-allowed-ever self.

Generally speaking: with somebody who doesn't get attacked a lot (characters with ranged weapon, ranged casters etc.) you can drop Resolve and Constitution. All other stats do have an offensive component in one way or another. I will write down the stats and what they do and then you can easily see what you can safely dump and what not. MIG: influences all damage done (additive). influences all healing done (except draining) in the same way. influences your Fortitude defense. CON: influences your health pool. influences your fortitude defense DEX: influences your action speed and recovery time. influences your Reflex defense PER: influences your accuracy (for all offensive actions). influencens your Reflex defense. Influences your ability to find secrets (traps, hidden stuff) INT: influences the size of all Area of Effect stuff (spells, special attacks etc.), influences the duration of your applied effects (CC, damage over time, summons etc.). Influences your Will defense RES: influences the duration of harmful effects (the higher the shorter the effect), influences your Will defense, influences your Deflection defense. As you can see, only CON and RES have effects that are non-offensive. So - for offensive characters it is best to drop those. Of course: a dead character can't be offensive, so one might not want to overdo it. Getting one-shotted by an arquebus or arbalest is very possible if you are too shquishy and it's difficult to prevent that at the start of the fight. So... it's a balance act. The most important dps stat is DEX for most glass cannons, followed by PER in the early game (when you miss often). For MIG and INT it depends: for example for a fasdt melee Rogue who can stack a lot of other additive dmg modifiers MIG isn't very important. But for a Wizard who can only raise his spell damage with MIG it's often the only dmg boost - so he wants it. Also a Rogue who does mostly single target damage (no AoE abilites picked) INT might not be that important. It's nice to apply long lasting afflictions - but usually enemies don't last that long against a Rogue so a mediocre score is often sufficient. For a Wizard with Fireballs: he wants a huge AoE and thus needs INT. Tanky characters usually want to do it the other way round. If it's a pure tank he might want to drop DEX and PER since they are mostly offensive stats. Their only defensive capabilities are for Reflex - but for that there are large shields: they not only raise Reflex back up (and drop accuracy) but also have a modal that helps a lot against AoE effects - and those often target Reflex. MIG can be important because your self healing will be a lot better with high MIG. Also Fortitude is an important defense which protects against the most nasty afflictions. Same with CON: bigger health pool and higher Fortitude. Although as soon as your defenses are really high you don't need that much of a health pool if the healing is good. But for the earlygame it can be importent in order to not get one-shotted. Your defenses only develop over time. However: this is just generally speaking. There are enough special cases and subclasses or items and abilites where this might not apply. For example: A Forbidden Fist Monk has this awesome ability "Forbidden Fist". It's a great offensive tool but if you use it too often too quickly you get a curse that drains your health rapidly. However, the duration of that curse can be shortened with Resolve. So this guy wants to max Resolve in order to keep the curse very short so he can use his "oompf" more often which raises his damage output. Or: a Rogue who specializes in Damage over Time effects, applied to multiple enemies, wants to max INT and MIG. Not only can he reach more enemies with an AoE weapon (there are some like hand mortars, rods with a blast and so on) but also the overall damage of a DoT effect raises with MIG (every tick does more damage) and INT (longer duration so more ticks). Stuff like this you can find in many forms. But the general approach I described above is a good point to start I guess.

It gives you +1 Power Level. It is def. worth it if there is not a really good alternative at PL 9. For example with monks it can lift your fists to the next scaling level (fists scale ever 2 PLs). And that's without the effect that PL raises the base damage of all offensive abilites by 5% multiplicatively (very potent with lots of additive dmg bonuses in the mix), raises projectile count (Minor Missiles etc.), amount of jumps (Mind Blades, Eld Nary's Curse etc.), accuracy, duration and PEN. Not AoE size[edit] though. This is especially good with DoTs which then get a dmg bonus from the direct dmg boost AND the longer duration - both multiplicative. Of course, if you have to decide between really awesome stuff like Whispers of the Wind/Devine Retribution/Barbaric Retaliation on one side and Prestige on the other I would go for the first one. But you can have 3 PL 9 abilites by lvl 20 and thus there's often room for Prestige.

Made brunch for my wife. Prosciutto wrapped black figs stuffed with goat and gorgonzola cheese and sprinkled with thyme and I paired that with some rum soaked brioche French toast with brie and black walnuts. My wife said it was surprisingly very delicious. I like to experiment even though I can't eat any of it but I refused to make one more avocado toast and that's what I settled on. Speaking of avocado toast, I think I reached peak millennial today when I tried a sip of hard seltzer. Mango, wasn't bad.

Did they at least license the Fugees song?

I have pretty clear memory of Swen not discussing anything specific at the time the reveal was made. They did state that they will be making changes to the system to adapt it to computer setting. Personally, I would be shocked if it was a real-time game. Not because they did a turn-based game before, but because from what they said, their attempt is not to recreate Infinity Engine games.

I mean he's as laid back as you can be with Llawran's Stick up your derrière.

I'm about 90% sure there was a 'resolve attack' or rest to a specific time type button on PC where you'd wait until the attack happened. The Keep management part of the game wasn't great but I didn't find it actively annoying and I certainly would have found it annoying if it was as described. (Worst aspect for me- apart from the main game being over long and a bit of a chore- was hitting the level cap with about 25% of the game to go. Hitting the cap in the endgame is marginally annoying but overall fine, but I hit the cap about half way (?) through the first part of the expansion...)

So... your Priest did resurrect this thread then?

That is really interesting indeed. I noticed a similar behaviour when using summonend weapons. In my case I used once on my multiclassed wizard Nannasin's Cobra Strike and Rot Skulls. If you cast Rot Skulls first and then Cobra you will have both summoned weapons in each hand. Simply means, double DoT on your target for more DPS. ____ I really forgot to mention something IMPORTANT about my Priest/Rogue Ultimate Run. Wit of Deaths Herald (upgraded ability that gives you Brilliant) can be cast out of combat, therefore it's effect also last after combat ends !!! You can, and I did so in my run ofc, cycle it between each fight without the need to rest everytime. That's why I mentioned that I only need to rest like 15 times. If you prolong the buff long enough you can easily jump into the next fight without resting, for example the arena fights in SSS or in the Forgotten Sanctum. Enjoy. As always. #IdoNotHideStrats Tenray

Do you have those Wolfenstein blues? Are you tired of RPG and loot em up mechanics being crammed into every single game? Do you miss the days when shooters were just shooters? Good news! Ion Fury is out now. I'm probably scooping it up when I get home from the road on Monday.

As Wotcha said, doing right choices for all god conversations. As for combat: - start fight safe if you want with traps OR immobilize + withdraw and invis - cast Wit of Deaths Herald on Vela => you get Brilliant - start buffing as usual Needs however resting because all Watcher abilities are per rest only.

If you make the right choices in the first god convo, your 1/rest watcher ability gives you a level 1 INT inspiration. If you make the right choices in the second convo, it upgrades to a level 2 inspiration. And then again in the third convo to get to level 3. It requires some mix of Clever/Passionate/general-smartass responses to do this, I’ve never written down the exact choices. It’s still only 1/rest but anybody can get it, and it has a huge duration. You need to trigger it by casting it on somebody, but hey, Vela’s standing right there.

I really don't know =( I played as Woedica/Streetfighter. Primarily because of the streetfighter bonus you get while being on 1 health all the time.For some encounters I used Belt of Magrans Chosen to flank myself in order to deal more damage against a single target enemy for example Dorudugan. I picked up Woedica because as a rogue we got access to invis anyways AND the Spritual Weapon from Woedica is insane. The Hands dealing additional raw damage. Smoke Veil is totally fine. I never upgraded it. With a a couple of points in INT it lasts for 10 seconds which is enough for my playstyle, you can however reroll if you are higer lvl and pick up Shadowing Beyond, which I would recommend if you feel safer with it because it's duration is alot higher. But it's really not that needed. And yes you are right about Scordeo's. If you get double streetfighter buff you really do not need Scordeos. However I went for the saferoute and picked it up for the mega bosses. I did some testing however and you can beat all megabosses without scordoes except Hauani O Whe (ooze). Since we do not have any access to CC we just have to burst as much as we can, which streetfighter is really good at. You can go for Priest of Wael and get Gaze of the Adragan, but the Spiritual Weapon is so bad. Shroud of the Phantasm was actually only used ONCE in this run at Jadaferlas. After Jadaferlas you can get the upgraded version of your watcher ability and trigger Brilliant. From this point I decided to make a rest-run. My first Ultimate Run ended with an ingame time of 71 days, so I got alot of time left. I did plan to rest 15 times for my new run in order to kill everything which is in total 5 days and 8 hours that you need to invest for resting. At this point you will notice that I still have time left and it should be manageable. You might ask yourself but how about protecting your Brilliant buff from being dispelled. That is also the reason I picked up Rogue. I skilled Slippery Mind which gives you immunity to mind afflictions while you are near death, which we are permamently. So there is no need for Captains Banquet or Waels Wind. In fact I picked up Shark Soup a couple of times which makes you immune to EVERYTHING combined with Slippery Mind. Quite funny. Enjoy. Tenray

OK, my question is answered. Thanks everybody. I am also tired of this discussion, but I wanted to know how all of this started. I don´t care if a game is turn based or real time as long as it is fun to play. There are many good and bad games with both styles.

Not yet. Still playing it. It's not that complicated though. It's a single class ranged Helwalker with dual mortars using Whispers of the Wind and Resonant Touch. Power Surge is only there to add more jumps for Whispers of the Wind. And the rest is pretty standard (Lightning Strikes, Enduring Dance). You can also empower Whispers of the Wind to add more jumps: Or add Avenging Storm with Heaven's Cacophony: An additional trick here is to use a Cloak that stuns enemies if you attack out of stealth or invisibility - because Whispers of the Wind makes you invisible.

Flagellant's Path lets you spam mortar shots (any shots) because it has its own recovery but skips reload. The crush damage is unchanged but at the target you do the usual dual AoE shot - without the following reload. Just jump here and fro and fire your dual mortars every time.

I posted this like ten times already but here you go: Bonus points if you use the Stalking Cloak because it stuns when you are invisible - and you are indeed invisible during the duration of WotWind. And if you combine it with Resonant Touch. No need for the lately omnipresent Herald.

^ I guess that's the video game equivalent of pivoting to an agile synergistic model to conceptualize the value-add proposition.

Halo Infinite will deliver an "AAA player investment experience", which, as far as I can tell is MS-speak for "a sense of pride an accomplishment". Guess selling people subscription services wasn't enough for Microsoft after all.

In Poe Sloth was much more timid. He wasn't relaxed by any means, by he was slow to speak his mind. In Deadfire he is far more outspoken, reflecting his growth in confidence. Relationship mechanics do make characters behave weirdly (Xoti laughing and clapping as you burn Dawnstar bodies)