Voss

Tekehu IS shallow. Not as a companion, but rather it's one of his defining character traits... He's the pampered golden boy, gifted and blessed, and it's all (so far) come easily to him. Now the Watcher is taking him out into the world for the first time. It should play well. It should also be a nice contrast to Pallegina, who has a different take on her status and 'gift.' I look forward to their interactions. Personally I'm exceeding glad there isn't a durance or grieving mother in this one. No circling the same misunderstood Philosophy 101 trivia over and over again like a turd flushed down a broken toilet. For some reason, I prefer characters to be people, not one note attempts at 'archetypes'

She isn't. Or rather, doesn't need to be, Currently, my Chokey has a higher defense than Eder, but I suspect she'll fall behind pretty quickly. Which OK, since I'm not sure I want to keep her. She simultaneously knows too much and too little, and I suspect she won't like that I intend to keep denying her souls. But she's pledged to the monster we're chasing and I'm not going to take that risk, particularly when she's telling me things like 'that's all I'll say about that.' That being soul harvesting.

She wanders around the village- the whole thing, so she isn't meant to be anywhere. She's in her lodge at night, but refuses to talk to you then, and is fairly insulting about it, iirc.

I suspect as levels move on, exclusively casting or exclusively using weapons is the best option. Mid and high level casters will have a pile of abilities to use, and many fights just don't last that long. (Without pausing or slowing, anyway) I'm certainly running into that with my cipher. Shake\confuse, Bang, bang, got focus...and everything's dead already. Similarly the Aloth AI is still casting spells when combat ends. It rarely bothers to auto attack.

The game is either 20 minutes or somewhere between 32 and 90 hours depending on how much side content you do. Supposedly, anyway. I can see a lot of time being wasted on ship battles, but not sure if they're rewarding to do. But I suspect if you go for a lot of side questing, you're going to be max level for a large part of the game. Maybe as much as half.

The game is either 20 minutes or somewhere between 32 and 90 hours depending on how much side content you do. Supposedly, anyway. I can see a lot of time being wasted on ship battles, but not sure if they're rewarding to do. But I suspect if you go for a lot of side questing, you're going to be max level for a large part of the game. Maybe as much as half.

Really? I haven't had much time, but I'm just on the verge of leaving Starter Island and I'm 90-odd XP from level 5. Not sure where all of it came from, to be honest. But the game seems to rush you through levels. Though in many ways this is better than PoE1, since the low levels were very badly balanced against available content, and the low levels were by far far the worst and weakest. So maybe the early rush is by design...

I think that's called "being a Paladin." If she were any less than "too consumed" with the things she believes in, her belief probably wouldn't be strong enough to generate magical powhahs. Ugh. Terrible paladin stereotypes. This class needs to die in a fire if even in non-D&D games characters with the paladin tag aren't allowed to be people first, rather than one dimensional tropes.

It seems even more about min\maxing skills, not sure if their is a ceiling or not. The stray points from class and background will contribute to other character's checks, but obviously its better if you can start your focused skills at 2 or 3. I'm not sure stealth and mechanics works, by the way. At 1 point per level one or both may well fall behind.

I currently have pistols on my cipher, having replaced a rod. Its... Better than I expected, but there are problems with damage types and AR. Can't currently run the modal, as it absolutely crushes accuracy. Thinking about switching to dual scepters, however. I prefer versatility. The biggest problem with deadfire so far is figuring out what works (and what is actually effective) with all the system changes, and the game isn't exactly forthcoming about sharing info.

Mechanics and insight definitely. Athletics and survival have come up multiple times, and I've seen metaphysics several times (but remained out of reach on starter island, due to the need to get other skills up). One thing I don't like about this system is the apparent need to monotask characters. Yeah, extra ranks can contribute a bit, but you really want to make sure you have experts in the big stuff. Changing party members without regard to skills may break your ability to accomplish tasks.

I'd definitely do single class, especially with that playstyle-earlier access and the ability to get more chanter things. Race... definitely not godlike, I don't believe nature does much for summons, and the rest... Eh. It really depends what type of afflictions you want to ignore. I recommend Mountain Dwarf or wood elf for almost any class. Race in deadfire seems pretty meaningless otherwise.

Maybe a hard save before you sit at the table?

Don't be ridiculous, of course it can. If a 'subjective opinion' is based on inaccurate information or flawed conclusions it is entirely wrong.

Anyway... I think the big up issues with voiced narration come down to three main things (none of which have anything to do with Johnson): One, reading for a lot of people is actually skimming. They'll bounce right over and summarize things they don't particularly care for. A narrator puts the kibosh on this and drags everything (flaws and all) out for their attention. The writing for pillars tends to be uneven, swinging wildly between really choking purple prose and really bland 'tell not show' stuff. Skimming over it, the flaws are ignorable. A stately, moderately paced narration of the same thing really highlife the problem areas. Two, the writing for pillars also tends to tell you what you think. No one really appreciates that, and even for the character, the intrusion on player agency can be annoying. Finally, reading fantasy stories and description is a bit different from hearing it. Someone talking about it firsthand as if it were real gives the impression that the speaker takes it seriously, and should either be locked up immediately or laughed at. This is especially true in a setting obsessed with soul mechanics and gods. But hey, at least It isn't as bad as current World of Warcraft stuff, and it very well could be, given the overlap in voice actors. So far nothing is quite as bad as chasing Malfurion around Valsharah while he and Tyrande frantically moan about missing each other, punctuated by frequent Mark Hamil-style yells of 'Nooooo!'

He seems to trigger right after you meet Chokey and company. Just talk to him about his past 'friend' when he says something about it. As soon as I've moved after the Dawnstar conversation, it pops.

Uh... If you spoke to the governor, you have what you need to progress. There are a couple other side quests available, but you can go to the dig site at any time, as he asked.

It might be that the left half of e wheel is for negative relationships. I got to -1 with Eder with one action at the beginning of the game. It's rather annoying, because he now whines whenever he does a bark. And his whiny barks now override all other voices when I group select despite not having him in the first position.

No. And no idea (though probably torches- it looks like they just didn't do animations for right hand torches)The game simply likes not being transparent sometimes.

Nope. Laura does Chokey. Ashley Johnson does the narrator (and Ydwin). You might know her best from not appearing on Critical Role. Or some show called Blindsight.

Bonus crit damage gloves, thieves putty (or whatever it's called) and some other set of temporary skill buffs. Think that was it. The chest also had the preorder stuff and a god-themed gift (if you didn't vow to any God, Berath basically gifts you based whoever advocated whichever action you chose with the souls. In my case, she told me I ultimately made the correct decision anyway- returning the souls to the wheel, so I got a weird healing/damage potion)

Best option for a shifter who wants to focus on the forms? Not multiclassing. Spirit shift scales by power level, so single class gets improvements earlier, and long term can get a full three power levels (with the tier 9 passive) above multi-class.

Gosh, I hope that is not true. I was really hoping for Eder to be a romance option. Or Pallegina in my case. Although in fairness, I did have Pallegina pegged as Character Least Likely To Be Romanceable, so it's not that huge a disappointment if she isn't a romance option. It's weird, though. From the introduction of her I saw (on Cohh's stream, with a kind wayfarer result), there were definitely shipping vibes.

Yeah, first tavern, as PoE. They will, of course, be a level behind again.

Nah, there isn't any conjecture here. This might as well be random ordering. And technically, despite the thread title, this is pre-release impressions, if anything went into it at all.