Purudaya

Indeed. Say what you will about Camping Supplies, but they did impose a(n admittedly small) restriction on rest spamming. No such restriction exists in Deadfire, so per rest is meaningless. I would be surprised (and disappointed) if one of the new challenge modes didn't add a some kind of rest restriction. Just restricting rest to inns, ships, and cleared map levels would do a lot for the game.

Exactly. The built-in console will disable achievements and has a bit of a learning curve. This one has an actual GUI and will allow you to make the same changes without the penalty.

So it's a game that promises to be twice as big as Deadfire for 1/4 of the budget? Plus better narrative/character development AND a fully fleshed out kingdom/army building component? Bigger doesn't always equal better (*cough* Oblivion *cough*), nor does marketing necessarily = reality. I'll root for any CRPG to succeed (except for Divinity), but anyone expecting every promised aspect of this game to come out fully baked should probably know better by now. Unless it's more about not liking Deadfire and wanting to compare it unfavorably to a game that hasn't even been released yet, which seems like an intentionally unfair metric. If it somehow pulls off a BG2 and blows everyone away, then I'll happily eat some crow. Until then, I'll stick to comparing Deadfire to CRPGs I can actually play, among which it's shaping up pretty darn well. Also, sidenote re: 'success' and sales — Planescape: Torment bombed at release and is now a cult classic widely considered to be one of (if not the) greatest CRPGs of all time. It wasn't successful as a product, but it was successful as an enduring work of art. There's also IP building to take into account. Even if a game is only a moderate financial success (Deadfire would have to sell less than Tyranny to not make money), allowing a company to invest millions into expanding the world and mechanics of its signature IP for further development provides value in and of itself. Pillars is coming to consoles, table-top, and the lead narrative designer is talking about future games like they're a given. The franchise may not be making hundreds of millions, but it's clearly expanding, which is a sign of success especially in such a niche market.

I've been having some fun with this Savage frostseeker build: You may not get the damage bonuses you'd find on a stalker, but Crushing Blow and the various action/recovery speed bonuses from Blood Frenzy and Bloodthirst mean more chances to land crits and trigger AoEs from Garland's Rake. Once you add Driving Flight, it becomes one of the best DPS classes period against groups.

I mean, you can test full party builds at any inn in the game. When I want to try out a new build, I never do it with a new game - I create a handful of level ~15 adventurers and sick them on Queen Onekaza/Captain Furrante. So the game has us covered in terms of build testing (aside from blood pool bonuses, etc). As for wanting a more combat-centric "mode," you might find less enjoyment from that kind of experience than you'd think given that PoE2 (mostly) did away with attrition-based gameplay. I suppose you could do something like BG:EE/BG2:EE's Black Pits, but I really don't think that fits with PoE's aesthetic. The 2nd DLC is supposed to be more combat-centric, so maybe that will provide something that appeals to everyone without entertaining the (imo awful) path of games like Diablo.

Scaling is currently implemented at a +4/-4 level range, iirc. This means that a level 10 enemy encountered at level 20 would scale up to a maximum of level 14, while that same enemy encountered at level 1 would scale down to a minimum of level 6. I remember hearing someone (either a dev or a modder) looking at changing that to +6/-6, but I'm not sure. I'd prefer +8/-8 myself, so hopefully future challenge modes will introduce some new scaling options.

Unlocking the merchant costs very little iirc - I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to play through the game without earning the necessary points fairly early on. I suppose it's frustrating to have to start a new game, but given the limitations of GoG and non-dlc content, it's probably the best implementation save for dropping all of the items into every player's inventory from the start (which, given the novelty-item nature of some of them, I would find immersion-breaking). Future players are unlikely to know about the scavenger hunt, so this will actually have an equalizing effect across platforms as all players on Steam, GoG, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch will now access the items the same way. From the standpoint of long-term implementation, adding the items to an unlockable vendor makes the most sense for everyone.

As of the current beta branch, scavenger hunt items have been added to the port maje merchant unlockable via Berath's Blessings. Once 2.0 drops for GoG users, this issue should be resolved.

Except that you say things like "the bonus only triggers on a crit" and rhetorically asking whether a single attack PEN bonus is better than the Streetfighter bonuses. Rather seems like you *are* forgetting some bits there. And similarly, when you start suggesting things like the Assassinate ability being underwhelming and the class being subpar, it rather seems like you're talking about the class and its abilities as a whole, not just melee Assassin builds. Which then raises the question what those statements are actually based on, given that the thrust of your arguments do seem to be specifically about the viability of a melee build. If that's all you're talking about, indeed my Evoker Assassin is not relevant; but then your claims about the class in general are irrelevant as well, so why make them? As for pontificating about your playstyle... yeah, I think I will actually. It seems relevant. You seem to be quite adamant about what is necessary for a melee assassin build. You *have* to go for a 1H crit build, you *have* to heavily invest in MIG/PER/DEX only, you *have* to turn it into a one-trick pony (never mind consumables and multi-classing), quickly blow through your Guile, start uselessly (?) auto-attacking and die. It remains a bit misty exactly why that would be the only or optimal way though; perfectly reasoned, I think not. And it does rather suggest that this may be informed more by your particular preferences in playstyle than you think. And apparently the video you're referencing doesn't agree, if it suggests using a Great Sword instead. So kindly do get of your high horse, would you? I have also at no point claimed that it is illegitimate to compare builds within a class. What's more, you can even compare them across classes as well! Possibilities are endless. It's not necessarily a very useful comparison if the different builds don't aim to fill roughly the same role though, which was my point. I can make a high DPS Fighter build and compare this to a dedicated tank Fighter build, to see which has the higher DPS; the results of such a comparison will be as predictable as they are pointless. Similarly, perhaps the point of a particular Assassin build is for example to quickly take out individual, possibly hard to reach targets. I would think it's quite reasonable to judge a build in relation to its intended role, an apparently very bizarre thought in your world. Good luck with 'generating positive discourse' though. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it some day. Given that I selectively referenced assassinate's PEN, accuracy, and damage bonuses seperately throughout my posts, basic reading between the lines would tell you that I was being reductionist (my bad) rather than ignorant about an ability that I just told you I've tested through multiple builds (which obviously include multiple playstyles and roles). You can keep using it as an excuse to be relentlessly ascerbic, but I've made it pretty clear that the crux of my argument isn't just the specific bonuses but the limited opportunities to benefit from them and their relative weakness as a result. As for "criticizing the class as a whole" rather than just melee builds, you can stop rewriting history right there – I explicitly used the word 'martial' at every opportunity to make clear the context of my argument. Again, it seems like you're more interested in cherry picking to criticize/demean than actually responding to the points being raised (actual efficacy of martial assassin builds vs other martial rogue builds, widely acknowledged problems with weapon style balancing re: full attacks, the frequency trade off between the assassin's bonus and malus, etc). You won't actually bother to look at a video that illustrates my point (he doesn't ''suggest" a great sword, he illustrates how constantly switching one in and out is basically the only way to make melee assassins compete) but you're more than happy to grab onto the one element of my description you can use to justify a blanket dismissal. You won't actually *try* a melee assassin to see how it plays vs other martial rogues, you've already made up your mind that if anybody has a negative experience with a subclass you happen to like then it must be on them rather than a possible shortcoming that could be improved. If you can't have a friendly conversation with someone you disagree with, then move on. There is zero need to be this confrontational over a disagreement about game mechanics.

There's really no need for your condescension. I'm not "forgetting" parts of the assassinate bonus, I'm saying that a bonus that you only get to benefit from 1-4 times per battle is outweighed by a malus that you experience every single time you get hit. I've also run a stealth-based rogue for my first playthrough in every single CRPG I've ever played over the past 20 years, so don't pontificate to me about my playstyle - I'm glad you're enjoying your assassin/evoker's fireballs, but my post was specifically about martial builds (with which assassins are traditionally associated) and the shortcomings thereof. As for the "unnamed others" that you apparently think I'm making up, feel free to do a topic search for "backstab" or "assassinate" and see what other users have to say about the subclass post 1.1. Or check out RPG Division's build, which has to resort to greatsword backstabs/weapon switching and lays out the problems with assassins pretty succinctly: I've already explained to you why primary attack and full attack styles lead martial rogue builds down two different paths (and why one of those paths is significantly more optimal than the other), but you don't seem interested in addressing the actual points beyond "the class just isn't for you" or the bizarre assertion that comparing builds within the same class is an illegitimate means for gauging their strength. If you want to discuss builds that's great, but responding to perfectly reasoned posts by talking down to people is a poor way of generating productive discourse.

Tyranny didn't fail economically. It didn't reach what Paradox expected it to sell at release. But 562k copies + GOG + whoever haven't even started the game yet is profitable for Paradox. The team wasn't huge and the game wasn't being worked on for years. That's a pleasant surprise; the common narrative is that Tyranny was an unmitigated financial disaster. If Tyranny managed to sell 560k over its lifespan (which is allegedly Deadfire's break even number) despite no marketing and no built-in following, then there's no reason to assume that Deadfire won't finish a modest success given the *partial* sales numbers we've seen from its first two months alone. Again, those numbers don't include GoG, backers, or the upcoming console sales that neither PoE1 or Tyranny benefitted from. I think it's interesting that many (not all) of the people who are relentlessly adamant that Deadfire is underperforming also don't seem to be big fans of the game in the first place. Since none of us know what Obsidian's internal targets are and none of us are experts on the revenue side of the gaming industry, we should probably take any armchair claims of failure or success with a grain of salt. At the very least, people should consider searching the topic first before posting ill-informed comments on the state of the IP while having only a fraction of the information necessary to do so.

The 500k number is from Obsidian's October 2015 sales report: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pillars-of-eternity-reaches-new-sales-milestone/1100-6431677/ I'm not saying that Deadfire is a runaway success, but that with our only data point being steam-only sales at 1 month 22 days post release it's just too early to tell. It would be interesting to find out what percentage of PoE1 sales were on GoG so we can better estimate what the actual total sales are so far: if GoG only accounts for 10% of total sales then Obsidian might have something to worry about, but if the number is closer to 30% then it's probably well on track to meet its goals. And that's not including console sales projections - I have no idea how to estimate how many copies will sell on other platforms, but it's clearly projected to be enough to justify the effort. That said, even if Deadfire only breaks even or a little better (if it has anywhere near the sales longevity of PoE1, I don't see how it wouldn't), there's no reason to assume that PoE3 is dead as a result. Well-developed IPs are worth a lot more than any single release and Obsidian appears to be investing a lot into expanding theirs - while future releases might focus on better marketing or set higher crowdfunding thresholds, it would be really odd to see the IP shelved over anything less than a total sales disaster, which this does not appear to be. The lead narrative designer is already talking about future PoE games. Are you referencing Tides of Numenara, which Obsidian didn't produce, or Planescape: Torment, which Josh Sawyer only built the web page for and which flopped 20 years ago in a video game market completely indistinguishable from today's? As evidenced by reviews, the overwhelming majority of players really like Deadfire. As evidenced by sales data (of which we have very little and only for one of several current and planned platforms), there just isn't enough to make any kind of definitive determination re: performance. Once Obsidian releases its figures, we'll know. Give it a few months.

Not everybody, just a couple of armchair experts who like to quote Steam-only sales numbers from 1 month and 22 days after release while ignoring every other possible factor or point of comparison to PoE1 over the same period. My sense is that Deadfire is doing about as well or a little less than its predecessor, but that's not including the upcoming console release (which PoE1 didn't have). All that matters is Obsidian's internal targets. We'll probably know a little more after the ~5 month mark.

PoE1 sold 500k copies after 5 months as a PC only release (steam, backers, and GoG combined), PoE2 sold 220k after less than 2 months (that's not including backers or GoG) and is also about to release on consoles. Based on these numbers and the fact that the PoE series has had tremendous sales longevity so far (PoE1 went on to more than double its sales by around 18 months after release), there is no reason to assume that PoE2 isn't on track to meet Obsidian's internal targets. All of this has been discussed to DEATH. In the most recent dev stream, narrative designer Alex Scokel was talking about future games in the PoE universe without the watcher as the main character - that's games, plural. If Deadfire was the bomb that players with some July 1st steam sales numbers say it was, we wouldn't be seeing Obsidian devs speculating genuinely and enthusiastically about the future of the IP. Unless we hear differently from an actual game industry expert or someone from inside Obsidian (the way we eventually did with Tyranny), we should assume that things are going roughly as expected.

The Assassinate bonus always applies when you attack from stealth/invisibility, not just on crit. The +50% damage may be crit only, but you still always get the +25 ACC and +4 PER. Those are rather useful by themselves already. I'm also not sure how you end up being a one-trick pony, doing a couple of backstabs and then both becoming useless as well as auto-attacking. I have found auto-attacking to be fairly useful, myself, so this seems somewhat contradictory. Characters hardly stop being useful when they run out of class resources, I should think. The assassin is somewhat different because it takes bonus damage (that 15% adds up quick) and the necessary stat distribution (max dexterity, perception, and might) to proc crits and improve speed means major sacrifices to health and defenses. An assassin fresh out of guile plays an awful lot like a wizard fresh out of spells when engaged directly, except the handful of hits it gets off on the way down do a little more damage. You could spam invisibility potions (harder to do than you might think given their cost/ingredient list) or do a multi, but again - a martial/assassin multi doesn't approach nearly the DPS of any other martial/rogue multi or even a rogue single class focusing on two-weapon style and full attacks. As for the assassinate passive, there's not really much I can say except that it's widely seen as underwhelming. You have to go through so much to set up that comparatively minor primary attack bonus (stealth, wait for enemy to engage new target if applicable, reposition, attack) while any other rogue with two-weapon style would spend that time laying down so much hell that the DPS tradeoff just isn't worth it. Which is worth more, a single-attack PEN bonus that can be used max 4 times per fight (late game, assuming you are able to connect 4 times) or Heating Up/On The Edge letting you use an ability/make an attack roughly every second? What other martial class experiences its malus every time it gets hit but only gets to apply its bonus to a couple of attacks per fight? It becomes a one trick pony because, again, you need to use one-handed style to take advantage of the assassin's innate ability and maximize crit damage from stealth. Once you're kitted for that, it doesn't make sense to spend 2 guile on a full attack ability that you only get half of the damage potential from, so you spend all of your guile (rightfully) on smoke veil. I'd welcome you to attempt some more versatile assassins, but you'll eventually run into that moment where you realize your stealth component isn't paying off enough or you've gimped yourself in toe-to-toe combat and you'll inevitably start to wish you'd rolled a streetfighter or trickster instead. You could fix all of this today by giving all weapon styles a different full attack bonus rather than only letting two-weapon style benefit from it. But as it stands assassins don't hold up vs. other rogue, martial/rogue multi, and even a lot of other martial multi styles (and I've tested every single configuration). You don't make a subclass that relies on stealth and primary attacks in a class tree that otherwise encourages speed and full attacks without offering something substantial to balance the two paths out.

The problem is that the Assassinate bonus isn't really all that great and it only triggers on crit (AND only from stealth), which means that even with the accuracy bonus there are still plenty of times it won't proc. You can use single weapon style to augment this a little bit, but the whole class is built around full attacks so you wind up becoming a one trick pony (smoke veil + backstab) with a trick that 1. isn't that great and 2. you can only pull off a few times per fight (after which you become useless and die). I love the idea of a single-blade assassin jumping in and out stealth and scoring massive dps bursts, confusing and disabling enemies at the expense of survivability. And I was really excited when I first saw that Deadfire introduced smoke veil - but I've tried every martial/assassin build combination and there isn't a single one that can hold up against martial/streetfighter, martial/trickster, or even single class rogue. Any one of the following would bring the class up to par: 1. Make backstab improve with power level (+100% base with the same progression as sneak attack, which will help incentivize single class builds). 2. Leave backstab alone but change "assassinate" to just deal double backstab damage. You should be able to actually, you know, *assassinate* people with it. 3. Leave backstab/assassinate alone but reduce the cost of smoke veil and shadowing beyond by 1 each so that backstabs can be attempted more frequently. Seriously, these abilities are way too expensive for what's essentially a 5 second non-healing "Withdraw" - maybe give escape some extra deflection bonus or a short DEX inspiration to keep it competitive. Probably the solution that would improve gameplay the most. 4. Give assassins some kind of bonus when using poison consumables - like Nalpazca but on a single-attack basis. 5. FFS, balance one handed style against full attacks. Two weapon style increases action speed, so let one-handed style reduce recovery by a smaller amount. Increase the accuracy/conversion bonus. Don't add any new bonuses but let one-handed strike twice (and let two-handed strike in a cone) with full attacks. Anything, really. As it stands, I can probably land 3 successful backstabs per fight (I always lose 1 because an enemy usually moves out of range just as I'm about to strike) after which there's nothing left to do and I spend the rest of the fight auto-attacking. The implementation of assassins is really terrible right now - it's also the only subclass to get zero love in any of the patches thus far iirc, so hopefully they're going to do some serious reworking for 2.0.

I know it must be a difficult thing to pull off, but it's just so gratifying. To me, at least. And I'm not talking about all the tiny random NPCs and whatnot. I'm talking about big things, like the steps you have to take in ME1, ME2 and then ME3 to be able to unite the Geth with the Quarrians. That isn't a small consequence lore-wise, it's huge. And while the ending had failed bad, that doesn't diminish the overall experience for me. I still remember ME fondly and sometimes whip them out to play them yet again with mods. It just feels bad that my big decisions in PoE basically had no impact whatsoever. Makes them feel...pointless. edit: Dragon Age had a bigger funding, yet they failed hard with this. Even the biggest decisions end up being just a few extra dialogue and cutscenes in DA:I. Oh I agree - the reactivity (and overall story delivery, character development, and world-building) made the ME series one of my all-time favorites and had me believing that ME3 was the best game I'd ever played until the last 15 minutes (I'm glad you were able to continue to enjoy the series; I just can't knowing that it all builds up to a giant nonsensical insult to my intelligence). I'd absolutely love to see a game that offers that same level of narrative complexity and personalization, but we're unlikely to get it because 1. indie developers like Obsidian can't afford it and 2. AAA developers don't seem to be interested in telling those kinds of stories. That said, BG2 has no reactivity whatsoever and it still stands as one of the best (probably still *the* best) CRPGs of all time. It all depends on what you're looking for from a game - Deadfire didn't quite hit all the marks for me either, but overall it gets much more right than it gets wrong imo.

Yeah, it's unlikely we're going to see a reactive trilogy the likes of Mass Effect for a *long* time - you could tell from the interviews that they regretted the lengths that they had gone to by ME3 - Bioware had to create entire quests based on decisions small minorities of players made in ME1 (there are more M&Ms in a single bag than there are people who saved Kaiden) or for DLC companions only a handful of players were fans of. They pulled it off beautifully imo until their narrative cluster**** of an ending flushed the whole narrative retroactively down the tubes, but I think a lot of developers look at the reactivity of the ME series as more of a cautionary tale than an aspirational one. The more impactful the choices, the more mutually exclusive (and multiplicative) content you have to implement. Even if they wanted to, Obsidian doesn't have nearly the money needed to pull of anything close to that kind of reactivity over the course of a trilogy. It's extremely labor intensive and my guess is their telemetry showed that too many players made similar core PoE1 choices to really justify it.

New companion/sidekick, new items, new pieces of lore, new ending slides. New priest subclass as well iirc.

Yes. Priest of Rymrgand; can multi into a Chanter or a Rogue. Sidekick or full companion? I'd assume the latter...

You might also want to try a cipher/helwalker if you're looking for a martial multi - swift flurry makes a noticeable difference on casting/recovery times and you get plenty of damage from might boosts, turning wheel, and refundable full attacks via stunning surge. If you're set on rogue, I would probably recommend trickster (mirror image + repulsive visage on acquiring every first engagement) to protect against interrupts. I'd also take devastating blow for the extra damage/focus potential.

I am not running windows. I use a Mac. Well there's your problem. Man why so many Mac haters lol It's mainly the closed ecosystem, lack of innovation, price-for-what-you-get, and user-hostile design decisions. But to each their own - they're certainly reliable devices. For me, there's no reason to get an iMac when you could build a state of the art gaming rig for far less, just like there's no reason to buy a MacBook pro if you can buy a Surface Book 2 with an 8th gen processor, GTX 1050-60, and convertible form factor for roughly the same price. Of course, the thing that really drives me crazy is that Apple will appropriate one of the latter features next year and be hailed by the media as if they invented it in the first place

What, no "awesome" in the American mandatory list? Very true, we are a perpetually awe-inspired people.

Games are generally expected to be an improvement over reality...If i had 1 Euro for every guy ive met who is naturally lacking in eloquence id be rich. I dont want to spend money or my free time to listen to awful speakers repeating the same expression all the time especially if the main focus of the game is dialogue. (In the same way you dont want to play a racing game if the only available car is a honda civic and you have to stop at red lights) If I had a Euro for every time a German started a sentence work the word "genau," every time a Brit ended a rhetorical statement with "is/isn't it?" or every time an American interjected the word "cool," I'd be pretty rich too Cultures have linguistic quirks. I like games that improve upon reality as well, but that doesn't mean they can't borrow from it. It would be much more immersion-breaking if all of the factions spoke the same vanilla iteration of common, imo. I was listening to a podcast teaching German and the German lady said genau so frequently in such a way that it started to give me anxiety. Should I not be saying "cool?" Yeah, genau is basically the German ekera. I actually really love little colloquialisms like this - and as an American, I find "cool" and "ok" pretty much indispensable

Games are generally expected to be an improvement over reality... If i had 1 Euro for every guy ive met who is naturally lacking in eloquence id be rich. I dont want to spend money or my free time to listen to awful speakers repeating the same expression all the time especially if the main focus of the game is dialogue. (In the same way you dont want to play a racing game if the only available car is a honda civic and you have to stop at red lights) If I had a Euro for every time a German started a sentence with the word "genau," every time a Brit ended a rhetorical statement with "is/isn't it?" or every time an American interjected the word "cool," I'd be pretty rich too Cultures have linguistic quirks. I like games that improve upon reality as well, but that doesn't mean they can't borrow from it. It would be much more immersion-breaking if all of the factions spoke the same vanilla iteration of common, imo.