draego

not sure where to post this but rip Katrina out .

Josh on companions In Deadfire, the companions interject in conversations much more, NPCs respond to their interjections more, the topic system makes them develop attitudes toward each other, and they're just generally more reactive across the board. The feedback we received during our internal dev play week was almost (?) universally positive as far as the companions' involvement in the story goes. and here

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Nice ye the orlan i ran was a slave who is distrustful and spiteful of the dyrwood inhabitants but is looking for his homeland where he was stolen from so he ends up helping when he can the Glanfathans. I enjoyed this as a more nuanced twist on an 'evil' character since it was about whos perspective you looking at to consider my actions 'evil'. I dont like the typical power gaming evil character who steals everything and murders everyone for their gear. Although i despise spellcasters stemming from the IE games since they were the god classes at least for my mc. POE actually help lessen this view though still couldnt do it for my MC.

I do this in general too but i wont be doing this for POE2. after playing POE1 several times i plan on continuing a more roleplaying focused playthrough first with my orlan ranger who is not really a version of me but is a character i can empathize with and the motivations i created for them. I like the ranger due to the animal companion mechanic. It was fun running a melee version tag teaming enemies in combat. I have a couple of character concepts that i could bring from POE1 and none of them will be a version of me. I started to enjoy POE1 more once i created characters with their own motivations and consequences.

Josh

Yes I thought they would scale class abilities by power level but either they give full boost or they scale with level and not power level making those abilities same for multi vs single. maybe they abandoned it when they changed multi classing from picking class per level to just taking both at beginning of game.

Josh No, I didn’t miss or misunderstand it. I think it has more problems than people are considering. It’s overlapping into the space governed by defenses themselves and doesn’t scale well due to it being a percentage reduction that needs 30 points of “growth” on the positive (i.e. above 10) scale. Intellect can continue to scale its duration bonus up in 5% chunks because even after it hits 30 (20 points over 10, +100%) it can always increase more. If Resolve were a percentage reduction, it would need to increment by 3% per point to avoid topping out before 40. At 5% per point, you would hit 100% reduction at 30 and you’ve run out of runway. 5% per point is potent, but almost everything connected to attributes in Pillars is symmetrical, so what works on party members would also work on enemies. Would you want to fight enemies who spike a basic tier 1 Resolve Inspiration and chop (an additional) 25% off all incoming effect durations? If the enemy started with a 15 Resolve, it would cut all incoming effect durations in half. Worse, if the enemy started with a 20 Resolve, the easily-attainable 25 would cut them by 75%. A 10s Paralyze becomes a 2.5s Paralyze. Is 3% reduction per point enough? At 15 you’d have 15% reduction. At 20, 30% reduction. At 30, 60% reduction. Maxed out at 40, 90% reduction. On the lower end, a 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 15%. Is 2% reduction per point enough? At 15, 10%. At 20, 20%. At 30, 40%. At 40, 60%. A 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 10%. Whatever the scale is, it would naturally place a heavier emphasis on Intellect (because you are inherently countering additional reduction) and require balancing base hostile durations (only) around the reality that hostile effect durations (only) are adjusted both by the attack result and by Resolve.

Josh

Josh Not true at all. Off the top of my head, fighters and priests both have easy access to personal and AoE Concentration, respectively (Disciplined Barrage, Holy Meditation). Paladins can grant it from a few different sources. Whiteleaf grants concentration, as does a potion of Spirit Shield. Though it's not in the current Backer Beta, there is a passive ability any class can take that grants 1 point of Concentration at the start of a fight. Any ability that grants the Resolute or Courageous Inspirations also inherently grants Concentration.

Josh I don't think this really solves one of the major issues, which is a lack of appeal* for casters. Tanks/front line characters already know to not dump Resolve or even to pump it if they want high Deflection. It just magnifies that split, inflating the upper end of Deflection for classes that were already taking it and lowering the bottom end for characters who largely don't care/work around it. * Defensive stats, like Con and Resolve, are inherently less appealing than anything offensive/active. HP are at least clearly visible. Defenses feel like they are "under the hood" unless you're analyzing attack rolls.

quote josh Rip i dont think he likes some you guys ideas

From Josh Enemies do not Empower currently. They would if these changes go through. An important note: the Resolve-based random Empowers/Depowers would specifically only occur after a character has been in combat for more than a certain amount of time (e.g. 10 seconds). This is specifically to discourage save-scumming for a random alpha strike double Empower from stealth and similar tactics. And You’d still gain Deflection and Will. There is no “purely” passive build in Deadfire unless you steadfastly refuse to use your 1st level active power. This proposal limits the impact of Empower (outside of restoring resources) to +5 Power Levels instead of the current +10 (though that could still be attained on a double Empower). I.e., while an Empowered enemy ability could be nasty, the leap in power would not be astronomical.

From Josh Enemies do not Empower currently. They would if these changes go through. An important note: the Resolve-based random Empowers/Depowers would specifically only occur after a character has been in combat for more than a certain amount of time (e.g. 10 seconds). This is specifically to discourage save-scumming for a random alpha strike double Empower from stealth and similar tactics. And You’d still gain Deflection and Will. There is no “purely” passive build in Deadfire unless you steadfastly refuse to use your 1st level active power. This proposal limits the impact of Empower (outside of restoring resources) to +5 Power Levels instead of the current +10 (though that could still be attained on a double Empower). I.e., while an Empowered enemy ability could be nasty, the leap in power would not be astronomical.

From Josh if your going with percent chance stuff maybe you can do a small percent chance to upgrade your miss->graze->hit->crit. This would affect more stuff than empower but still cause the same randomness so doesnt really solve that issue.

Code on book with message on back - 25Pwqv "What ?emotes? are you talking about Manifest" Not sure if this is what it says, my eyes are failing me.

I dont do completionist playthrough anymore. There are quests that i think about if my character would skip or not finish and monsters that i dont kill and just skip. Its made playthoughs smoother because i am not as overleveled as i have been in the past. I get that it is a tough route to go and may be more useful for second playthrough. I also play with less total group size like 5 or 4.

Bad: Weapon proficiencies models. They would be better done away with and some re-purposed as general talent models that arent so punishing and can be used by any weapon types you choose for your run. Its feels wonky trying to remember to turn on and off after all arent models meant to stay on for a while. I also would rather think about picking weapon types for my playthrough without thinking if the ability synergyses with my class and if it doesnt then feeling bad for wanting but ultimately moving on to some other weapon types. I think when people complained about not having weapon proficiencies in POE1, they were thinking more in terms of points to spend to get better over time in weapons. Obsidian explicitly went away from this in POE 1 and now it feels like split the baby situation. They dont want to bring back d&d proficiencies but want to appease the complaints so we get this stuff

Good point. I am also not saying take them out . just dont force them on only one weapon. I also did find them a little annoying to deal with having to try to remember to turn on and off. I would rather a general talent like in POE 1 that i turn on and leave for the most part. I think when people complained about weapon proficiencies they were thinking more in terms of points to spend to get better over time in weapon. Obsidian explicitly went away from this in POE 1 and now it feels like split the baby situation. They dont want to bring back d&d proficiencies but want to appease the complaints so we get this stuff.

The proficiency gain rate is also changing from 1/4 levels to 1/3 levels. I really dont like the proficiencies. I would rather have a set of weapon talents that could be applied to any weapon you want and just do away with proficiencies. This should be about player choice and roleplaying. I find several of the proficiencies arbitrary and could be switch around and no one would notice. You think Josh. That is what proficiencies do. Just set some back up as global talent modals and solved. Also i dont like switching weapons groups. i general either like to come up with build concept before i start and stick within a range of a few weapons. I dont want to switch and use every possible weapon type in the game. Some players use certain weapons for aesthetic reasons or whatever. Why this need to make us switch. It seems that was the whole point of the new enchantment system also. Although i havent tried in current beta so dont know how that turned out. But its ok if i dont want to change my weapons out. This isnt diablo or whatever i dont need constant loot level up every level to feel good. Josh still does good work i just not into this aspect of the game.

Update Question: Josh

Cipher update

Here is the first question . Not sure if this is suppose to be light hearted sarcasm. If not, geez, You so patient Josh Josh Response: Here is second question from same user: Josh's response:

I think some of that thinking (all of that thinking?) was built on the original premise of roll your stats and decide what class best suits the resulting rolls. Of course, back in the day, Charisma was always fodder for some animated discussions on what it was exactly, too, never mind how important it should be. I'll give BG credit for having it affect shop pricing. I never thought of that as a DM. Makes sense. What I liked about stats in at least PnP D&D vs PoE is that having a certain stat score did not always guaruntee outcomes. It increased chances for things, but sometimes, depending on how DMs weighted certain encounters an intelligence or other attribute score could be high enough with at least had a _chance_. Now with PoE your stat is either high enough or it isn't. You don't even get a probability roll. To me that removes role playing entirely from many encounters. And it still makes no sense to me why my Wizard's intelligence doesn't contribute to some of those encounters. Surely he is listening in on the conversation, too, and would have a say. Everything is give and take. I get it. Joe I disagree with this completely. I couldnt stand percent based chances in wasteland 2 recently. To me you are mistaking two types of games PnP vs Single payer video game. These arent the same medium and when you treat them the same you get for example in this circumstance not better roleplaying but encouraging more save scrumming with percent based stuff. This isnt a table with friends were you can stop retry after retry as the DM. To be sure you could still encourage some save scrumming with POE by saving and going back and fixing your stats until you meet the requirements but i found it much more enjoyable to turn off showing requirement checks and just roleplaying your character instead of seeing some stupid 25% chance to succeed and regretting what could have been or worse 95% chance to succeed and fail i mean who wouldnt retry until it succeeded.

Ye i agree this has been really annoying