xzar_monty

I just noticed something that is definitely different from PoE, and now I'd like to know whether there's something wrong. There are a few items in the game that grant the "Overseeing" effect, i.e. 10% (or more) area of effect. But even when two of my characters have items that grant these effects, they are not displayed under "Current Effects" on the character screen you get by pressing "C". So what's the deal with this? I even did a very small test: Aloth's armor gives 15% to the area of effect, but removing this armor doesn't change his Fireball area of effect one bit. So does Overseeing work?

Ha. I just had a really interesting fight. When it began, I set my main character, the monk, to do a stunning blow. That was the last thing she was able to do in the battle: she was stuck in a loop, with "Leyla abandoned casting Stunning Blow" repeating literally hundreds of times in the combat log, i.e. constantly, and she was completely paralyzed by this for the entire duration of the battle. Movement was impossible, everything was impossible. Whenever another one of my characters decided to commit a special action (drinking a potion, a combat move, a spell, whatever), the icon notifying this action also appeared above the monk, who, despite all this, remained paralyzed. This is really quite unacceptable, but we're stuck with this.

Yep, very much so. And here's something that I have noticed both in PoE and Deadfire: stats matter so little that it feels almost meaningless. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, only that this is how it feels to me. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker, for instance (or Baldur's Gate II), I can quickly, easily and definitely notice the benefits of a really good strength score in comparison to a mediocre one. In PoE and Deadfire, these differences disappear almost completely. I don't feel that it matters at all whether a character has 12 or 18 Might, for instance; the resultant differences are so small. This effect is further compounded by the fact that everybody can wear all armor and use all weapons without any apparent difficulties. Again, this isn't a good thing or a bad thing. Now, I'm not sure if stats start to really matter if you play on the hardest difficulties with several god challenges switched on. Possibly. But at least on Veteran, it's all the same. And to reiterate: Deadfire is a great game. Given the choice, I would tweak the system here and there, though.

More specifically, CRPG logic. In a proper RPG, the DM would be able to deal with that kind of thing, but no CRPG has AI sophisticated enough to deal with all the ramifications of extreme min-maxing. (This, incidentally, is one reason I regard it as ethically dubious, as it's essentially taking advantage of inadequate AI.)

Yep, I would have to agree with pretty much all of that. Obviously it's nothing more than a guess, or rather speculation, but at least it's particularly convincing and sensible-sounding at that. And I for one would also count myself among those who wouldn't give a toss about the sidekicks if it weren't for content specifically written for them.

Btw, it's pretty interesting that all the main recommendations for the dlcs are sidekicks, not NPCs.

The dlc itself will point out the most recommended character in-game, you can check it there. If memory serves, it was Konstanten for SSS, Fassina for FS and Ydwin for BoW. For instance, Konstanten is just a sidekick, but within SSS he comments like a proper NPC companion. I have not tried all the permutations, so I can't make any further recommendations.

Apologies for repeating your example! I had no intention to. Your post was rather long, and before writing my reply, I had clearly already forgotten this detail. Foolish from me, no question. And yes, you're quite right: min-maxing will likely always remain a possibility, but min-maxing within more reasonable limits doesn't look as bad as min-maxing within, for instance, the classic 3-18 range found in DD. Realistically, it would be difficult to effectively role-play a character who has a 3 in any of the classic stats, except charisma. No question it would be a challenge, but I don't think it would be an interesting challenge most of the time. But in CRPGs, most of the time, a 3 -- or the equivalent -- presents very little challenge, for obvious reasons. And yes, I did mean ethically, although the word is possibly a tad strong in this context. As for Boeroer claiming it was presumptuous: I only described what I feel about it and what I do myself, there is no judgement on anyone else, so no need to get upset. I also find blatant spoilers, asking for the in-game locations of best items, save-scumming etc. to be against the spirit of the game to an ethically questionable extent, but obviously that's a valid way of playing to anyone so inclined. No superiority implied here, just a preference. I prefer to have the possibility of spectacular failure, not knowing what to do and/or getting lost or stuck -- although I would agree that the developers of Pathfinder:Kingmaker erred on the other side of this, i.e. they made spectacular failure a bit too likely in some of their design choices. Like, no sensible DM would present their players with a random encounter where everyone is immediately within the range of an insta-kill effect -- that's just not fun. (My background is table-top RPG, CRPGs are a distant second.)

The main problem is that really low values very rarely have the penalties they should have in CRPGs, except for maybe strength in the sense that your carrying capacity will be minimal. This makes min-maxing possible. I find min-maxing ethically dubious, so I never do it. I find values under 8 to be extremely undesirable, except for well-justified role-playing reasons. An example about the lack of penalties: if you make your character as stupid as possible, you will still have all the discussions with NPCs that you normally have, even if you shouldn't be able to. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

It has always run ok for me, but this summons thing is peculiar. However, unlike the Stunning Blow bug that's really serious (see other thread), this is merely cosmetic. But it was curious enough for me to merit a question. Thanks for the reply!

Hi, there's something that kind of bothers me a bit. Or at least puzzles. Deadfire generally performs quite well on my computer, but there's a very specific instance where it lags a lot. Just before my own summons appear on the screen, the game seems to hang and then stay hung for a while. It certainly doesn't feel like an intentional dramatic pause, simply because it's so long. Does everyone else seem to have this, too?

D'oh. That's really bad! You know, I just continued my game and decided to pay attention. My very next fight was against a troll. I went forward with my monk and Eder. I set my monk to stun and Eder to do a mule kick. And guess what happened? Well, neither of them happened, because both of them self-interrupted with the combat log saying: "Eder abandoned casting Stunning Blow." Again, remember, Eder is not the monk, my monk is the monk. I'm going to be somewhat uncharitable now and say that this really, and I mean really, sucks.

So what happens with the potion-drinking bug, then? I always turn AI off, so I have never seen that.

If you call it a little PR stunt, the emphasis is surely on the word "little", as there is no real reward and the challenge itself is so incredibly hard that only the most devoted player would even consider taking it on. I would be more inclined to simply call it a little extra fun they decided to put in. There is a more fundamental question at stake here, too: in a commercial culture, some people argue that anything done by a commercial entity is either PR- or money-motivated. It's not an unrealistic stance, but it's also not true. Having been on both sides of the fence, I can vouch that people do an awful lot of things simply because they think it's fun. Granted, they need to be able to afford it, but still.

People do the damnedest things for minimum rewards, and have done so since time immemorial. So there is nothing in this that is beyond comprehension, it's precisely what people do. I am also one of those who don't even think of doing this, simply because it is not interesting enough for me, but I can understand why such a challenge has been presented. I think it's nice. And yes, I do think that whoever takes on the challenge could probably think of something better to do with their life, but who am I to judge on that.

Very interesting! I have never had it before 5.0. The bug that I did see, and I have not seen now, was the one where the character did nothing and the combat log had a thousand entries for whichever action he tried to take.

I think you can only call it minor because the game is so very forgiving. In a rougher system, like Pathfinder:Kingmaker, losing 40% of your party like that (if only for one action) could often be fatal. I am somewhat bothered by the fact that I have only just entered level 5 and I have already seen it happen twice. If it keeps coming up this often, I'll probably just quit and forget about Deadfire. Which would be a real shame, because I haven't seen how the game ends.

I have been at level 5 for a couple of hours (real time), and in that time I have maybe had six (?) battles and seen it twice, once with Aloth and once with Xoti. It may have happened more often, but I couldn't comment on that. You're quite correct: the dig at Obsidian was unnecessary. Apologies for that. Annoyance got the best of me.

So, I decided to start a whole new game after 5.0 came out. I just got to level 5, and boy did I notice an annoying bug straight away. It may also prove to be fairly serious in some battles. I'm playing a monk. There's a Power Level 3 ability called Stunning Blow that you can get at level 5. It's a good ability, but with 5.0, it's also bugged. It goes like this: You click on Stunning Blow and choose a target. You also decide on what your other characters should do. Then you wonder why only some of it works. Then you read the combat log and understand why. Your main character was supposed to use the Stunning Blow, and, say, Aloth was supposed to cast Necrotic Lance. What happens is: both of them appear to try something for a bit, but in the end, neither of them does anything. What the combat log reads is: "Aloth abandoned casting Stunning Blow." Yes, Aloth. Who is a wizard and has no monk abilities. I have seen this with both Aloth and Xoti, neither of whom has any monk abilities, regardless of what the combat log says. My monk does nothing, and the other character, according to the combat log, "abandons casting Stunning Blow". Stuff like this just might make you understand why Deadfire bombed and Obsidian was sold. I mean, this ain't going to be fixed, and I think it's serious, and the game's over a year old now.

The ultimate challenge is not boring, it's just meaningless. Not going to attempt it. It's meant for way more hardcore players than me. I think it's nice that it's there, though. I already noticed a fairly substantial new voiced dialogue in the game. Was surprised by that.

Wow. Very interesting, thanks for that. I have to say that kind of makes the idea of traps moot, since the game makes it impossible not to spot them, if you pay any attention at all. An odd choice, but yeah, if it's by design, then it's fine (although not a good idea in my view, but that doesn't matter).

After months of not playing, I continued on with my game after the new patch came out... and it didn't take me long to note that the trap cursor bug is still there. It's not going to be fixed now, so I must say it makes this aspect of the game look a bit, I don't know, unfortunate, and maybe a tad unprofessional. I mean, you're in a dungeon, and your cursor happens upon a spot where there's a trap, and the cursor immediately changes to the "disable trap" icon, even if you have not actually spotted the trap. Doesn't look good.

While playing badminton yesterday with a friend of mine, we were discussing the various ways of playing computer games. It's really interesting to see how different approaches people have for games like these, and it's also nice that this is actually acknowledged by (some) developers. Like, personally I couldn't care less about the ultimate challenge (I'm in it mainly for the story, but with a challenge, so the Veteran difficulty is plenty fine for me), but I do think it's lovely that it's there.

Wow. Given how this has gone -- commercial disaster, Microsoft acquisition, long silence from developers -- I would think it's pretty much set in stone that this will be the last thing ever for Deadfire, and probbly for Eora, too. Will be very happy to be proven wrong, but I'd say this will be it.

Having the stat and reputation checks on feels like an inbuilt spoiler. I can definitely see how that could take away from the experience. I have always had them off, never even considered having them on. To the extent that playing like this has a downside, it's that you may well miss the fact that a certain dialogue could lead elsewhere, if you had the skills/stats/whatever. But I'm fine with that.