Crucis

Unless you're playing a real life simulator, there is absolutely no requirement for a game to reflect the "real world." Especially a world as different from ours as Eora is. Requirement, no. But it seems rather clear to me that the writers are trying to parallel human history. And expecting a world where all the groups are behaving pretty much like Earth humans to be any different seems rather delusional.

In my first run through, I sided with the Rauatai, mostly because I didn't want to lose Maia (and liked her loud brother). But regardless, there really is no way to please everyone and find a diplomatic solution that somewhat pleases everyone. You either pick a faction, and tick off the other three. Or you pick none of them, and tick off all four. Looking at what you describe above, the problem is that there's no halfway. Having sympathy for one group, or a number of groups, doesn't mean anything. You are forced to side with one group for your sympathy to matter. And any sympathy for any other faction is completely ignored and wasted. In some ways, it's too bad that it wasn't possible to come up with or force a minor agreement where The Watcher as the Herald of Berath couldn't go to Ukaizo on his/her own and deal with the situation in whatever way The Watcher deemed proper and that all the other factions would accept this. Heck, I could see a scene at the Queen's palace where each side tried to convince the Watcher to do what they felt was the right thing. But in the end, it'd be the Watcher's choice. Of course, I suppose depending on what the Watcher said in this 4 sided confrontation, each of the 4 sides might choose to either accept the Watcher or attempt to stop him. But even this might be asking too much, given all the animosity between the 4 groups and "human" nature.

Seriously? This is no more than a reflection of the real world. Different groups, parties, factions, countries, whatever have different agendas. That's reality. And sometimes the animosity between groups is so great that even on an issue where any degree of common sense would say that they have a common ground and could come up with a solution on some small issue, you sometimes end up with one group refusing to work with the other group because they'd rather bash the other group and see them lose than to accept that the two groups actually do agree on the issue and accept a win-win. Exactly what makes you think that if these factions were anything like normal humans that they'd be able to do what you want them to do and come to a common solution? For that matter, remember that the nations and peoples represented in this game are in an era not unlike Earth's Renaissance era, and not exactly like the (supposedly) more enlightened people of our times.

I tend to think that it's good to be very good at 1 or 2 skills for each character. For one thing, there are items that give bonuses based on how many points you have in a given skill, so being a total generalist doesn't help there. Also, Athletics is a good skill for any front liner to be solid in for the sake of the Second Wind ability. Furthermore, there are a good number of those both dialogs and story pages where there's a skill check. Some are checks against the talking skills, while others are for skills like athletics, streetwise, survival, or stealth. For any check that involves something athletic like climbing or swimming, athletics is checked, while if you're trying to identify something in the wild, perhaps survival is checked. Overall, it doesn't hurt to have each party member be very good in a different skill. But it's also good to have every party member have at least a 2-3 points in Stealth so that the party doesn't get spotted a mile away. If you like stealthily going through a dungeon checking for traps and disarming them, mechanics is good, but you also need perception to spot the traps first. I found that Eder as a rogue didn't really have the perception to spot traps, even though with strong mechanics, he could disarm them all. So I used Maia with her exceptional perception (and good stealth) to actually lead the way through dungeons, only bringing Eder up to do the disarming as needed. Side note: Sometimes you end up in battles where there are traps in the middle of the battlefield. You can disarm traps in the middle of a fight, and I would regularly do so. Background choices. Do I take them into account? When I'm making a main character, I probably do. I will say though that it's more important for mechanics than the other skills, but I happen to put a premium on always having a skilled traps and locks mechanic in my parties.

Just a waste of time, IMO. More adventure, less companion relationship chatter, please. Well, I obviously with you. That being said, I also want more adventure, so why not both ? IMO, the story is a large part of what makes these games interesting, wouldn't you say ? A. You obviously what? I think you left out a verb in that first sentence. B. To me, those silly romances are NOT party of the story, nor are they any part of what makes the games interesting for me. Not in the least. The banter is fine. Bring on the banter. Romances, not so much (as in, not at all).

Just a waste of time, IMO. More adventure, less companion relationship chatter, please.

I think that Sagani would be the most relevant to the Deadfire, given that her homeland is part of the Deadfire, IIRC. OTOH, as Camonge put it, she earned her retirement, though I suppose that it might have been possible that after so long on the road, she might have been considered as a potentially useful ambassador for her people and might have been in the Deadfire at the time of this story, perhaps even at the Nekataka palace. But as a companion and with her skill set, she seems to duplicate what Maia brings to the mix.

Honestly, I don't give a damn about the romances. First off, I wish there were no romances period. In my first play through, I said no to every single advance made towards my character. I will say that the only potential romance I wouldn't have minded seeing advance was one between Eder and Xoti, but whatever. I wish there'd be no more romance material, other than fixing whatever bugs may exist relating to romance dialogs. As for non-romance companion interactions, while I like them to a degree, I don't really care for them to be particularly deep. I care more about interesting and amusing banter to pass the time while traveling. Maybe the occasional squabble between companions, I suppose. But nothing too deep. I'm not playing the game to play group counselor. I'm playing it for the adventure. So, I'd rather see more effort on more adventure and less companion relationship stuff.

Honestly thought you got the same amount of loot for winning ship combat minigame which I also thought cost you less in repairs etc. Actually, I think that it cost less in repairs to play the ship combat minigame but charging directly in to boarding range, than it would to instantly choose boarding at the start of the ship combat. it always seemed like choosing to skip the ship combat/direct to boarding option caused you to take a fair amount of damage every time.

Do you recommend buying a Dhow and roaming the seas and plundering early game to make money/ levels? If so any tips on ship combat? I always seem to muck it up unless I outgun the enemy ship (or have a stronger hull) I honestly got by just fine with the plain ol' starting ship, with some minor upgrades to sails, and cannons. But the fact is that after a bit, I largely didn't bother with ship to ship combat, and bored straight in on the enemy ship so that I could board them, and fight them with my party. I found that more fun. And, I don't know how true it is, but I thought I read that you got more loot from boarding, while you'd get more crew XP for ship to ship combat. So, I went for the loot.

Honestly, dunehunter, I'm not fond of games where you're cash poor. Yes, maybe it forces you to make difficult decisions. But personally, I'd rather have plenty of money because it's just more fun that way. Regardless... I don't like all the Superb and Legendary generic weapons and armors that get dropped. Not because I don't like the money they provide. I just don't feel that there should be that many super high grade generic items floating around a "semi-realistic" feeling world. They're too costly to produce in bulk. I'd honestly rather that they reduced the numbers of these high grade generic items and just commensurately increase the amount of currency you find as loot. On this topic, one thing I really dislike is finding some dragon's (or someone else's) giant pile of loot (judging by what you see on screen) only to find a measly amount of money and a small number of items. If I find a dragon's stash, it ought to be overflowing with gold, etc. Thousands upon thousands in gold. Maybe some good unique items. But lots and lots of gold.

NICE. I'm wondering when the patch will be officially released, because I really don't want to start another party and have the patch drop midway through the play through.

Thinking back on this and my post, it occurs to me that there's no real reason that the character creation process has to be embedded in the "wrapper" of the walk over to visit Berath as well as the conversation with her. I get that you need to sorta have that conversation as a lead-in to the picking a past story, but shouldn't it be possible to create the rest of the character (i.e. attribute stats, class(es), skills, and abilities) BEFORE you go to meet Berath? I don't see how the character's prior history has to have any bearing on the character creation process, unless there's something relating to the POE1 import process involved.

Actually strength is especially relevant for archers as it would allow them to wield bows with a heavier draw weight. Also rapiers are typically amidst the heavier single-handed swords, if I recall correctly. But granted, gunners are a bit more debatable. Algroth, actually strength should matter for crossbows too, though not in the same way as for bows. You need strength to pull back the string on a crossbow, and perhaps this could affect recovery time. That is, a Might modifier could reduce recovery/reload/whatever time on a crossbow. Oddly, IIRC, some, if not all, arbalests used some sort of pulley system to draw back their strings that wasn't reliant on raw strength. However, guns shouldn't be affected by strength at all. Ya, I think some folks take their obsession with certain kinds of roleplays and want that to trump effective game systems. Might is perhaps flawed, but it's a pretty elegant solution to the dump stat problem. Moreover, you don't even NEED high might to be a great Wizard in either the original nor Deadfire. Ya, if you're obsessed with fireballs and magic missiles, sure. But you can do fine just maxing Intelligence and Perception, and cursing your opponents into oblivion for the rest of the party. Honestly, I don't like the use of "Might" as a measure of arcane strength. I think that arcane strength should be some combination of Intelligence and Resolve's modifiers. But whatever. Whether one needs a high Might to be a great wizard or other spell caster is largely related to the degree with which you trying to have that spellcaster being a damage dealer vs. doing non-damage related spells, like say, charm spells or confusion spells, or buffing or debuffing spells, etc. Of course, this probably varies with the class of caster.

Does it matter? Fits both of them perfectly I liked Devil of Caroc just fine actually I always disliked her, sorta. Oh, not because of her personality, but it annoyed me that the only rogue companion in PoE1 wasn't available until far too late in the game (IMO). I was far less bothered by Mahena's late availability for 2 reasons. 1. I don't really like barbs, so had no pressing reason to want to pick her up, except to do her personal quest. And 2. I don't consider barbarians a critical class to have. They're just another frontliner class (which is why I don't see them as critical). And with Eder and Pallegina available earlier, there was no pressing need to get Mahena earlier.

I'm not. if they add some evil companion, all it guarantees is that I'll never use him, if I don't desperately need him the way I felt about having Durance around because he was the only priest companion. I'd rather he was a sidekick so that they could add another good aligned companion.

Good grief. Who wouldn't forge that estoc back in PoE1? That's just so stupid.

How and where do you get this sword? I realize that it's in two parts, but I don't recall every seeing the second part in my first play through.

Actually, Archaven, I'm seriously wondering if all these various tweaks were things that the devs wanted to do before release, but were prevented from doing so due to some sort of pre-release code "block". It would make sense to me, because I'm sure that at some point 1-2-3 weeks before release, they lock the code from any further changes because they don't want to make some mistake that would screw up the release. And these might just be some of those changes that they didn't get in under the wire. Honestly, I didn't expect these sorts of changes to come from player feedback post release in the first patch. I was much more expecting a patch focused almost entirely on bug fixes rather than rebalancing changes.

I think that the problem with breast plates, in particular, is that they're kind of gated in an annoying way. For example, the Casita BP can't be obtained if you try to go for a non-violent solution to the Bardatto/Valera dispute (unless, I suppose, you go back later on and kill its wearer after completing the mission non-violently). Ditto for the Furrante BP. Having gated unique items is OK, but maybe it's a bit much to have all of the unique breastplates all gated in this way. Not everyone wants to go around the Deadfire slaughtering every single character in the search for unique items. That kind of defeats the purpose of role-playing. At the same time, I know that I didn't get all of the unique items in my first playthrough for this reason. And if and when I do my next play through, I'll definitely try to take a different "path", so that I can see things play out a little differently. It might be a tad tricky, because I invariably play good and benevolent main characters. But I'll try to find a way to play a nice-ish guy Watcher who simply walks a different path than my first PC.

I think that it's like the cause behind a lack of unique weapons (particularly in certain weapon types) too. Honestly though, i don't mind that enchanting is restricted to the unique weapons and armors. There's certainly a lot of generic enchanted weapons and armors throughout the game. Too many, IMO. It seems to me that the game's later game economy is more driven by the (over)abundance of superb and legendary generic weapons and armors. I don't mind the amount of money they produce. I'd just rather see less of this highest grade weaps/armors and just give out high amounts of money as rewards. There's some that seems wrong with having such a high number of what should be extremely costly and difficult to produce enchantments for weapons/armors, even generic ones. On a side note, I wish that the Queen's clothing had really been a high grade magic robe. I don't know how many of you checked out Queen Onekaza's robe if you happened to kill her, but the darned thing is absolutely gorgeous! IMO, the thing ought to have been a unique Robe with at a minimum a Superb, if not Legendary, basic enchantment, and perhaps having other secondary enchantments. A robe that great looking doesn't deserve to be relegated to being sold because it's "just" clothing. Heck, I really love those Valian coats, like the one that Ydwin is wearing at first, and wish that one of those was an enchanted "robes" of some sort. Seriously, is there any reason why enchanted "robes" really HAVE to be actual robes? Why couldn't it be a set of nice clothing instead? Or perhaps you could have something like that Valian coat as a unique padded armor that just happens to look like a Valian coat/clothes? Heck, I think that a long trench coat could make for an interesting enchanted "robe" or "padded armor". It'd be nice to see a little outside the box thinking here.

evilcat, I'm not sure that barbarians are truly designed to be tanks, assuming you define "tank" as a character who can hold a lot of enemies on the front line with a good number of engagements while taking or resisting lots of damage. Barbarians are much more offensively oriented than fighters or paladins. But I do agree that pallies really aren't particularly meant to be tanks more so than fighters. The two classes just approach tanking slightly differently, even if they can end up in essentially the same spot (i.e. tanking).

Seems to me that the simple thing to do is only select Will-based cipher spells, in addition to the obvious ones related to holding/charm/domination. There may not be quite as many Will-based cipher spells as one would hope for. And it might have been nice if ciphers were a lot more focused on Will-based attacks. After all, it seems like that's what ciphers really are ... psionicists. That said, that shouldn't have to mean that all will-based psionics need to be simply charm or holding. There's no reason why they can't also be damage related or do other things. But having said all that, I can see a good reason for NOT having all cipher mental attacks being strictly will based. What if you run up against enemies that have amazingly high Will saves? Ciphers would be essentially blocked from using their powers against such foes. It'd be like being stuck with only piercing weapons while having to fight enemies that were immune to piercing attacks, though at least ciphers do have their own physical weapons to fall back on when their mental ones aren't cutting it.

IMO, this is one of the flaws in PoE, both 1 and 2. Fighters are designed to essentially be the masters of melee combat. Though technically, nothing stops you from playing a ranged fighter, they're really not optimized to be fully balanced between melee and ranged. And then you have Paladins who aren't really optimized for melee or ranged. OTOH, they do seem optimized around using all those active pally abilities, while giving up an awful lot of physical combat abilities that seem like they'd make logical sense. And frankly, the same can be said for rangers too. Ignoring any issues surrounding their pets, rangers are rather optimized for ranged combat and supporting their pets, with barely a wink towards Melee rangers. Now, in truth, you could just multiclass a fighter and paladin, or a fighter and a ranger to deal with these supposed weaknesses, though it'd be nice if paladins and rangers had more of the fighter passives. But arguably, I suppose that that's why one should go for a Ftr/Pal or Ftr/Rngr MC. I don't remember all of the level 8 and 9 abilities for those 3 classes off the top of my head, but to the best of my recollection, there aren't that many of them for those 3 classes that are must-have show stoppers (except perhaps for twin arrows for ranger at level 8, if you're a ranged combatant). I'm currently playing a party that's made up of 100% pure class characters (except for Ydwin and she's only a reserve for me). I currently have a pure Black Jacket fighter PC, a pure paladin Pallegina, and a pure ranger Maia, and from what I've experienced to date is that I just don't see that any of these 3 would have really been hurt by multiclassing, because the 2 highest level active abilities don't seem all that great. The level 9 prestige passive might be a bit of a loss, though perhaps that is offset by the greater flexibility that would have come from multiclassing.

Good grief. Xoti is a bubbly, talkative person. That's her personality. Can that be as annoying in game as it can be in real life? Sure. Some people are bubbly, overly talkative in real life. And some other people often find bubbly, overly talkative people really annoying. That's life. Not everyone is the same. Honestly, I'd probably find Xoti's outgoing, overly talkative nature really wearing on me and eventually very annoying if I had to be in her presence as often as it'd be when you're in an adventuring party. One of the things that I do find kind of strange with Xoti is that she's so positive and friendly and outgoing, etc. while at the same time being a priestess of Gaun, which I suppose you could say is the death aspect of Eothas. Maybe it's a bad stereotype, but it seems to me like Gaun worshipers would be more grim, while Eothas worshipers would be the positive, upbeat ones.