Mygaffer

I disliked how you only learned the defenses of an enemy as you killed more of them. It wouldn't be the end of the world if the same system stayed in Deadfire but there's got to be a better way. You can't really make tactical decisions without knowing the DR or defenses of an enemy.

So I've down some research into Fig/Loose Tooth and this is what I see them as. They want to be a sustainable way for hand picked games to get funded, not just from backers but from investors. By giving people a return on their money they hope they can consistently get niche games published using Fig for years to come. Think of Fig as you would any publisher. They are going to give advice and help the developers. They are going to hand pick projects and developers, not just any old slapped together project can appear on Fig. That means less likelihood of failure, and hopefully ZERO incidents of "take the money and run" as we've seen in a couple Kickstarted projects. So not only will the games funded through Fig be better on average, they'll get real help making and releasing their game which they wouldn't get from Kickstarter and the people who choose to invest might actually make a return. Don't forget that not only are the public able to invest by buying Fig shares but Fig is investing into the game as well. While the amount Fig returns to investors and charges to manage the investment is still up in the air, and those numbers will likely be a big part of how sustainable this is, it's a much thing than Kickstarter when it comes to getting a video game funded and made.

It's all in game, it's not online only, you're not locked into anything. Also, I love the idea, I love new game+, I'm that kind of hardcore nerd and I will replay a game that has a 100 hour campaign. More than once if I love it. EDIT: In the stream they've also said you can completely ignore Berath's Blessings. You guys watch the streams, right? Because reading these threads I feel like you aren't watching the streams.

As a working adult who doesn't have a lot of time to play the game, but still found the where I could over the years since it's been released, I quite disagree. I don't want to know ahead of time how everything is going to turn out. Sure, I want maybe some clues about what effect my choices will have but the second I know for sure is the second those choices become a lot less interesting to me. Secondly you don't have to be happy with all of your companion endings. You made some choices and you see what happened. Maybe it wasn't a good outcome, or at least not one you think is a good outcome. That's kind of part of the experience in the Pillars world. You control the choice, not the outcome. Also I definitely want a lot of reactivity. I will agree in spirit with one thing you're saying, I don't want it to go so far that half the content can be cut out depending on what decisions I make, as I fear it would make the game too short, but I'm 100% OK with not getting some loot or going through one dungeon instead of another, or one quest instead of another, or one branch of quest instead of another, etc., if it means I'm making meaningful choices, or at least choices that feel meaningful. I want to feel like a real agent in this world, where by making a decision I'm not only affecting myself but I'm effecting the world. That can't happen in a static world where every play through is the same. And if every play through is the same that means I'm on rails and my decisions don't really matter at all, except perhaps for what color explosions I get at the end.

Since we're getting to the really big asks like this I'll throw in that I want a groinal attachment as referenced in Red Dwarf https://youtu.be/tqf-yZQOdPo Once groinal attachments become a real thing everyone will all of a sudden want relationships to be in the game.

OK, this one I really like. Like if you have a great sword and your next attack roll ends up being a killing blow the animation shows your great sword cleaving the enemy in twain to the chest, then kicking it's already splitting apart body to the ground. Or if your magic missiles will deal a killing blow you see some deformation of the character, like it's been crushed in on itself, and then falls. I'm no expert in programming art but perhaps shaders could be used to this deformation without a big performance hit?

Josh has said on stream if Edér is dead in your game, he'll be dead when you import your save. But hey, you've got a full year to do another replay.

Nothing official but I'll pile in and say that yes, sounds like we're getting a pirate ship. Which is ****ing awesome by the by. Sounds like this time you'll have real decisions to make when upgrading it too.

Honestly I don't see reserved and polite Aloth as someone who bring up how similar you two are superficially. I also don't think he would consider your race or origin to be that meaningful to who you were as a person. That being said they've said that they way companions will relate to your character is being greatly expanded in the sequel, which is perfect and much needed. More reactivity, deeper relationships, it should be just what the doctor ordered.

I like naming my pets, and actually like the idea of an in-game notes section where you can type notes for yourself to refer back to later.

I'm sure the limited randomized pool in the first game was something most of us hated. We like to be able to plan our builds around items, and that goes away if epic quality items aren't guaranteed to drop. They will have randomized loot but none of the epic level stuff should be in it. This is something Josh has already said on stream.

Basically they like them a lot, they know we like them a lot, the only limiting factor is that because they are so branching they are be very time consuming to author. They've been working on tools to make them easier to author but haven't really released any specific information on how. So expect more of them, but probably not a ton more. It's very interesting how many design problems were solved in the past but those designs have been forgotten about.

Baldur's Gate did it and did it well. That being said it almost doesn't matter, they're planning on making character relationships (not romantic relationships) much deeper and more reactive.

I believe this will be a significant step back in terms of strategic resource management. Even if spells are weaker, making Empowerment a significant boost, or very limited per-encounter uses, I don't think this is enough. You'd still have the problem of the original game in which you'd use the same (per-encounter) spells too often, and even if they are very limited in (per-encounter) uses, it would only create a priority list. I'd love for Josh Sawyer to explain his reasoning in detail and give some example scenarios. That said, I think eliminating having to make a conscious decision of saving spell uses for following encounters would be a huge loss. I think this actually solves lots of issues with per rest stuff, which I frankly hated. You either ended up with people like me, who never used the per rest because I was always saving it for "when I needed it" yet on anything short of PotD I rarely did. So I literally wasn't using spells for like 90% of encounters until I started forcing myself to just because otherwise I never would. It also really unbalances the combat. I can either push through with my two camping supplies through a dungeon, or I can leave after every encounter, go to an inn and rest, and then go back to the dungeon and have fresh per rest for every encounter. That's literally the scope. Super abusable. Also spells won't be weaker, they'll be stronger, but take longer to cast and be able to be interrupted, making the cast just not go off at all. To compensate you'll be able to re-target them before you actually cast. These are GREAT design changes that honestly needed to happen. I love Pillars of Eternity, I really do, but there are some major design flaws that hopefully Deadfire will address. I mean especially after the White March stuff, by the time I'm in Act III on hard I'm steam rolling encounters to easily I had to start a PotD playthrough b/c frankly I got bored with the really easy encounters. I think people get used to one way and any change automatically feels scary. I've been super enthusiastic about pretty much all the changes announced, it shows they really know the areas that the first game fell short in and that they want to address those. I think Deadfire is going to end up being amazing. EDIT: Oh not to mention that with per rest your ability change up strategy, especially with spell casters, goes a little out of the window. Oh, you want use a fire spell in this situation? Sorry, you've used up all your casts for the levels for which you have fire spells. It just reduces player choice and makes it hard to know just what a given player will have entering any encounter. Did they just rest before this encounter? Are they completely out of per rest spells/abilities going into this encounter? The per rest system just overall detracted from the game, especially for the caster classes.

Number of proficiencies is going to increase with character level and is constant between classes (with one exception). You don't need to pay for them with talents. It means modals are going to be more common in POE2, especially if enemies use them too. Sadly, current buff/debuff stacking mechanics are not that well suited for modals. Modals and spells are in the same category and it is a non-stacking one. You may be happy with your +damage - attack speed modal, but the moment your priest buffs you with +damage spell you'll like your modal much less - your damage bonus is now overriden by priest's buff and you get to keep attack speed malus. You'll end up not using your modal when buffed and you will be buffed because everything is per encounter now. Please consider making separate category for modals. Stacking won't work the way it did. I love the idea of modals from weapon efficiencies, the broad +acc stuff they did in PoE was kind of limiting I felt and generic.

I totally get why people are bummed about it, five is less than six and it feels like you are giving something up. That being said it sounds like individual characters will be more powerful this time around and having five in a party will really enable them to tune the difficulty of encounters more finely. I think once we get the game and start playing we'll see just how much sense it really makes.

True. Bashing shield auto-attack damage starts to lag behind even before you achieve zero recover. There are many variables to take into account. And unfortunately I don't have time to run the math right now.But I feel that bashing shields were mostly made for low-level tanking when enemies don't have much DR. And had their potential used to the max, against hordes of low level xaurips (if you have stumbled somehow upon a DAoM potion). Scâth Gwannek and Larder door become obsolete very fast. Barricade is mostly used by a rogue with Deathblows. And Dragon Maw for Fear Aura / Taste of the Hunt. Btw, just checked: naked character with sword and bashing_shield who uses DAoM: has his mainhand recovery reduced by half, AND has zero recovery with shield bash attack. So it's confirmed, bashing shields do not get Single1HWeapRecoveryFactor penalty. They also don't benefit from Two-Handed Style. (had to check just-in-case) So you are saying the shield bash does not affect one handed weapon recovery? That is what the idea of the DPS hit is predicated on. I usually check these things myself but didn't, I guess I should have. Bash still kind of sucks and something more interesting should be done with it.

In theory yes. In practice however it would be hard to pull off because as well as doing low damage compared to proper weapons, bash shields also can't get any damage improving enchants like Exceptional, Beast Slayer or (most importantly) a Lash. This means you'd either have to balance them to be worthwhile when paired with a relatively unenchanted weapon, in which case they'd be terrible when paired with something heavily enchanted; or you balance them for use with heavily enchanted weapons, in which case they'd be a big boost with low tier weapons.Yes - it would be very difficult to balance with the PoE1 mechanics. Also, making it faster will still result in dps loss unless you push the damage further. It already is pretty fast. Adding some kind of utility seems to be the easiest way. The retaliation idea also makes sense and would solve the problem. The reason I really like the retaliation idea is not just because it completely fixes the reason most smart people won't use the larder door but by only have it proc on a melee miss or graze it really fits well with the idea of Eder fighting against a thug, the thug lunges at Eder with his club which merely glances off his pauldrons and it leaves the thug open to a well placed bash with the edge of his shield into the thug's side, after which Eder continues the downward swing of his saber he was about to make anyway. And the strats it opens up, like using Nightshroud with a bashing shield, if your blindness procs then you'll be able to bash more often. It could also be cool for a bash to do something else, like slightly reduce enemy constitution or reflex for five or ten seconds, who knows.

I totally got what you were talking about on the stream and the fact that the issue wasn't quite picked up by Josh. I kind of think the fix for that is make shield bash a retaliation type of thing. Bashing on a shield would give a character an X% chance to instantly cause 7-10 crush damage to an attacker who either glances or misses you with a melee attack. When it procs it is an instant effect that does not effect recovery time. It fits in with the logic of fighting, i.e. some guy whiffs an attack at you and you bash him in the head with your shield, and allows bashing to be really interesting and useful without being over powered in anyway. With it being instant you no longer worry about it lowering your DPS. Even if it never procs your characters recovery and thus DPS will remain the same. When it does proc it will be doing so against misses and grazes, meaning you can get some tactical stuff going on with blindness effects and other effects that reduce accuracy in the hopes of getting more bashes in. Now bashing has real value and real use case, even if it isn't very powerful. Of course you'd have to play with those numbers, is a 50% chance on a miss or graze and 7-10 instant damage, is it 20% on a miss or graze but 15-20 crush damage? I really like this idea of how shield bashing could work and hope Josh and the team consider something like this.

I love the idea of random encounters. That feels like a content stretch goal that wouldn't really contribute to scope creep either.

Yeah, that kind of content is a blemish on any CRPG (only exceptions: the start of the first Dark Sun game and the NWN2 OC story-based arena event). I know the history (Dark Sun is awesome, still have my physical disc and manual), and I know it divides the fanbase down the middle, but I think like all things it comes down to execution. Arenas can feel like they're just thrown in to pad the playing time and are combat heavy. But, an arena with a narrative focus can change that. You brought up Dark Sun's opening. Even though that game is so old it kind of is a little bit of what I'm talking about. There you start at the mouth of the arena and you see a little old man. He's up against a big, powerful looking enemy. He's going to get slaughtered you think. But boom, he's got some psionic powers and almost takes out his enemies. You then enter, have some entertaining banter with the announcer, and have a pretty easy fight, but of course this is your first encounter of the game. If you do well the crowd is awed, they throw money at your feet. It's great! Then you go back to the pens. You meet the different factions. You explore. There is a zombie ghost. There's a traitorous ****. There's leg crusher, the dumb as rocks trainer who will tell you what you're fighting next. The fights get harder and harder as you go. You meet someone looking for the "veiled alliance." You get some slightly better gear. You plan your escape. There are multiple ways to do so. It's awesome. The added bonus is that if, like me, you are someone who really enjoys the core combat mechanics of Pillars, has mastered them and plays on PotD, you get the opportunity to have some truly unique and awesome encounters. I'm not saying it should be half the game. I'm not saying it should be 25% of the game. I'm definitely not saying the game should revolve around it. I just love the idea, even though I know it will probably never make into a Pillars game.

I know after the scope creep of the first game Obsidian is probably leery of stretch goals that include actual game content, i.e. cities, the Endless Paths, etc. BUT those types of stretch goals also tend to be the most exciting. This thread will hopefully provide an opportunity for us backers and fans to say what kind of content we would want for stretch goals. So post your top wish for a content stretch goal here. Mine goes like this: I envision a fighting arena in these savage lands, where skilled combatants of all stripes and backgrounds come once a year to compete in a tournament and prove themselves as the best fighter in the Deadfire. This fits in with the theme of constant fighting warring among the nations of the region Lot's of narrative opportunities here. We will meet many different characters. A young boy and budding warrior who has disgraced himself in the eyes of his tribe. Instead of protecting his family from some danger he dropped his weapon and ran, now he is mocked and can't look his father in the eyes. He comes to prove to his tribe, his family and mostly to himself that he can be brave and he can fight. The player can counsel him to forget this and go home before he gets hurt or worse, the player could give him equipment and/or lessons in how to fight, or the player could mock him, crushing his spirits and causing him to abandon his tribe all together, all of these outcomes would have different consequences. We meet an aspiring pirate captain who hopes that by doing well in the tournament he can not only win the money he needs to buy a ship but also prove himself worthy enough to attract a fearsome pirate crew. We will meet a grizzled vet and victor of several tournaments who, if we're perceptive and pay attention to various clues, we learn will be throwing a match. Is he doing it for the money? For some other reason? Who else is involved? Can he be convinced to fight fair, can we help him fix his reason for throwing the fight in the first place, or do we expose him and the people involved? There will be different consequences depending on how we handle it. We will meet a young woman who comes from a tribe where only men can rule. Her brother is preoccupied with wine and women and she believes he would lead their people to ruin at the hands of a rival nation that has been prodding their borders with increasing boldness. Her father believes she deserves to win but that the only way their people will accept a female ruler is if she wins the tournament. I envision a relatively large but simply constructed arena, mostly wood and clay. Shaded balconies for the rich and powerful to watch from, stadium style seating out in the sun for everyone else. Vendors selling consumables. A locked and barred area to place bets at. A room for the combatants to wait for their turn with some equipment for warming up and practicing with their weapons. The player would be able to enter these battles. Preferably full party encounters. There is a prize for winning, top prize gets the belt that signifies they're that year's champion, perhaps this is an enchanted wearable item. Prize money and reputation. It would also be neat to be able to have unique encounters happen here. Anyway, that's my idea, hope to hear other people's ideas too.

Well guys, sounds like the team has heard, Feargus has said [Will Monks get Custom Unarmed Animations?] "I am almost certain that is the plan." Can't wait to see what they come up with.

I love the monk class, half the characters I rolled in Pillars of Eternity were monks. One thing I always wished was in that first game was for an unarmed attack animation with a martial arts flair for the monk class. It's how I always image monks, ascetics who practice their moves over and over again until they are second nature to them. In Pillars they feel more like pub brawlers, just swinging both fists over and over. Would other monk players like to see this? Is this a good thing to include in the stretch goals? What does the Deadfire team think?

I'm approaching their ideas for the new game with an open mind, because with most design decisions it is all in the execution. There will be a beta and they've shown in the past they listen to fan feedback.