Purudaya

You can't capture entire ships or start your own faction (the mid-late game economy is already broken enough), but you do get loot from sinking/boarding ships and several of the major bounties are ship captains. The combat needs work, but there are other elements of the ship system that I like - you even start to develop a sense of relationship with your crew, which is pretty amazing given how surface-level they are individually.

Most maps contain a wardstone for the relevant sigil somewhere. I don't think the Old City does now that I think about it, but as the game progresses you'll start collecting wardstones to use against different recurring sigils.

This. If you don't understand what Eothas is trying to do and what effect it will have on the world even with all of the in-dialogue lore tooltips, you can literally ask Berath to lay it all out for you step-by-step during the gods sequence after Ashen Maw. You're only going to understand the lore as much as you're willing to dive into it. If you're the type of person who always assumes the worst possible outcome or the most insidious possible explanation (Xoti ushering souls to the beyond is tyranny? WTH?), you're probably the type of person who sees "bad writing" everywhere. Every single thing OP listed has a logical explanation clearly presented in-game. But CRPGs don't always serve them up on a silver platter - the player usually has to work their way through the narrative to uncover the plot. They have to ask questions, demonstrate intellectual curiosity, READ, EXPLORE. It's not a passive experience. Also, OP - you keep mentioning that there are "endless" threads in these forums wherein people are complaining because they can't understand the writing. Could you please link us to them? Thanks.

The devs have already stated that they're looking at ways to improve ship combat and Sawyer himself recognized in the most recent Twitch Q&A that a lot of players don't like it. I think we're more likely to get a significantly improved ship combat mechanic than a way to skip ship combat entirely (given that, well, it's a game about adventure on the high seas). For now, it's pretty easy to press "1” a few times until within boarding range and the enemy rarely gets off more than one cannon shot, if any. Small annoyance at best atm.

Bringing the discussion back to the music, one thing I REALLY enjoyed was how cleverly the team adapted real life historical shanties to the PoE world. The twist on "Haul-Away Joe" was especially nice. Also, there's a certain piano melody in Queen's Berth that really stands out; it presses all the right buttons and conveys the mood of the scene so well that I never get tired of hearing it. I agree that the combat music could have been a little more dramatic, but overall...great work

There doesn't seem to be a level scaling option in the console. I'm in a similar situation — I turned on upward level scaling for the critical path only and really wish I had done it for everything. It also completely disables skulls, which is frustrating. This wasn't as much of a problem in PoE1 as the game presented you with side content in stages. In a game with a largely open world where you can tackle things at your own pace and easily become over leveled, some degree of scaling should be on by default and opted out of, not into.

Yeah, I'd say it works about 40-50% of the time atm. I almost never use it any more, which makes confounding blind the only active rogue skill worth taking for a multi (and arguably for a single-class). Seriously, please add some love for rogues. If invisibility doesn't work, they have very little else left right now.

To answer OP's question, you need about 9 stealth to be able to pickpocket/backstab higher level enemies. For dialogue checks I haven't seen one over 4-6.

Items placed in slots unlocked by the Arms Bearer or Deep Pockets skills periodically unequip to the inventory. I have tried reproducing this (at first I thought it happened on area transition or rest, but that hasn't been the case) but can't for the life of me find a cause. It is frustrating, though, as it's something that rarely gets notice until combat has already started and you're without a crucial weapon set/consumable.

It appears that the priest spell "dismissal" has the same effect. Turns enemies untargetable/unkillable.

If an inexperienced player fails to take sleep, BG1 wizards are absolute garbage against multiple enemies until about level 3 (which in a full party playthrough you probably won't reach until after the bandit camp). It's a totally broken spell - always has been - and probably isn't the best example of better class balancing.

The injuries do provide somewhat of an attrition system that encourages rest, it's just that there's no meaningful reason not to just rest immediately after getting injured. You could keep the entire current system intact by just increasing character inventories and restricting stash access to when you're on the ship or buying/selling goods. Would probably solve some problems with excessive generic loot breaking the late game economy as well. Now that the stronghold literally travels with the player, there was no need to keep the 1st game's stash mechanic; it renders any supply-based resting system basically meaningless.

It's not an estimate, I beat it in 50 hours and got every island, every bounty, every companion, 3 out of 4 faction questlines (couldn't do the final quest for the RDC), bought every ship in the game, did every side quest, and beat the game on veteran difficulty: http://i.imgur.com/1guOAOZ.png I play at a pretty leisurely rate, too. I really have no idea how people are playing this for longer than 50-60 hours. In fact, that's what the first results on HLTB say, too: https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=44045 Maybe I'm just taking my time reading through dialogue or something? I don't feel like my pace has been especially leisurely and I haven't lost a fight yet due to the atrocious difficulty balancing (although I did switch to PoTD via console about 20 hours back, so maybe that's slowing me down). I don't know why I'm on track to get double the hours out of this game than you have. Did you go to Ashen Maw early on? Maybe it locks you out of some side content or something (feel free to post a screenshot of your journal, would be interesting to see if there are any glaring differences). I feel like my gameplay has been pretty purposeful and I still have three of the final four faction quests, one dragon, 3 bounties, and about 1/5 of the map still unexplored. I spend about the same amount of time as others on most CRPGs, so it's weird that there's so much of a discrepancy between playthroughs. That said, I'm sorry you're having a negative experience. If I were a backer and felt like I'd experienced everything the game has to offer in 52 hours, I would be frustrated too.

Steam has me at 80 hours so far on Veteran. I've been focusing on side content and saving most of the critical path for last, so I haven't even been to Ashen Maw yet. I've done about 90% of the bounties, Nemnok, and all of the faction quests that aren't locked at this stage of the narrative. There are still about 6 side quests active in my journal and probably some that I've missed or that will open up later. Haven't encountered either of the dragons yet and just reached level 16. So no, I wouldn't call it a short game, especially once the difficulty gets fixed. We tend to think back on the BG series as being longer, but Steam is clocking me in at 220 hours for BG2 and I know I've done at least two complete playthroughs and a few abandoned campaigns. PoE2 seems about par for the course; I think maybe it just feels shorter to some because of how the quests are structured/organized. There's no watcher's keep or underdark equivalent, but the trade-off is a pretty solid sense of adventure and exploration. Your mileage may vary, but I don't buy the 50 hour estimate, especially not for a completionist playthrough unless you're absolutely rushing through it on classic or easy to get it done.

I felt like endless paths was hinted at as being a sort of spiritual successor to watcher's keep, but the end result was basically just increasingly difficult trash mobs and caves almost completely lacking in personality. In watcher's keep, each level was a completely different setting from the previous with its own cast of characters and unique puzzles to solve. Deadfire delivers a little more of that, just in small bits scattered around the islands as opposed to a single dungeon/tower. I do think the Berkana's Folly quest was a missed opportunity, though. If you're going to send me off to an island to explore a wizard's tower, it needs to consist of more than a ground floor and a roof.

Any resting system tied to supplies is going to be problematic because you either have to impose an arbitrary limit on amount (PoE1) which doesn't make sense in a world that allows you to carry around an unlimited stash OR you don't impose a limit and players have so many supplies (PoE2) that resting requires no thought. One option would be to add a difficulty setting that disables resting outside of inns and safe/cleared areas, replaces "knocked out" with "dead," and adds injuries on bloodied or near death. Failing that, just make resting in dangerous places actually dangerous. Baldur's gate had a % chance of being ambushed while resting in a dungeon, which denied you the rest benefit and forced you to fight with an injured party. I've never met an RPG with a resting mechanic that didn't allow for some rest spamming, but the BG series at least occasionally made it feel like a risk.

I don't know if this is a feature or a bug, but smoke veil's invisibility seems to be cancelled by damage over time, AOE attacks, and a variety of other effects that don't seem like they should be significant enough to disrupt. I've tested it quite a bit and often lose invisibility immediately after casting it (like instantly), which is frustrating for a build trying to make use of backstabs mid-combat. There's also no explanation of any kind in the combat log as to what caused the invisibility to break. Invisibility potions are similarly unreliable. It would be great if you could either ensure that combat invisibility works or at least provide players with information re: what can disrupt it so they don't waste guile points.

They seem to be intentionally vague with some of the ingredients. I have no idea what "water of pure quintessence" is supposed to be... Also, there's a pool of liquid in SW of that map that makes you sick when you drink it. Anyone figure out what it does/is?

Shadowdancer (assassin/shattered pillar or nosubclassrogue/shattered pillar) is an absolute blast. Use Confounding Blind (deflection debuff) with swift-flurry+thunderous blows and you just chain-crit everything to death. Best with two-weapon style as the stunning blow upgrade that refunds on crit basically gives you free full attacks for as long as you like. You don't even need to minmax (aside from perception); the build is fun across multiple attribute configurations.

It's mainly because the game is too easy right now. This game limit your freedom the same way D:OS 2 does, by throwing enemies too hard for you to do anything about. Like in D:OS2, the number is so bloated you can't do anything if you are under-level without cheesing. In this one, Level 16 steel preacher can be fought at level 8-10. You really can't limit anything when the game is like that. Totally agree, it's really too bad that the difficulty was so gimped at launch. Sawyer has at least confirmed that both Veteran and PoTD will be scaled way up, but by then most everyone who is going to play this game will have already finished it.

There's a bow that heals allies in proximity to each kill and increases in healing power with the religion skill. Great for priests/Xoti.

Don't even bother with rush to board - it assumes way too much damage. Just keep hitting "1" (full speed ahead) until you reach boarding range and you'll take maybe one or two hits.

I do wish that the world was a little *less* open, or at least that some quests would be locked until certain critical path milestones are reached. As it is, I completed basically all of the side content before taking on the critical path - now that I am, the world feels a little too empty. At least the factions (most of whom heave an interest in your pursuit of Eothas and play a part in the end game) should offer their quests more incrementally as you complete the main storyline. If future patches/content don't add some mechanisms to streamline the pacing, I'll probably self-impose something like this for my second playthrough.

There is a patch releasing this afternoon that addresses issues with level scaling, importing save game states, crashes, and other assorted bugs.

The mage tower that Arkemyr sends you out to investigate would have been a great dungeon opportunity. Not all dungeons have to be underground - I would have loved to go up level by level, solving puzzles or skirting traps to get the top, but instead I just fight some guys on the ground floor, search some bookcases, and take the stairs immediately to the roof. The fight up top is a nice surprise, but it would've been even better if I'd had to really work to get there. I love this game in general (Neketaka in particular is the closest thing I've seen to a big city done right since BG2) but the amount of genuinely interesting quests is kind of belied by their short length and the size of their 'scenes.' The DLCs at least sound like they're adding large chunks of single-location content, so hopefully we'll get some dungeons then.