Boeroer

He's not putting distance between that world - while you wrote your post he probably continued to write for the Pillars TTRPG. Also - while he's not directing Avowed he said several times that he will give feedback during development. I wouldn't call that "unwillingness to be involved".

Would be good for your purpose.

I wasn't fond of most of the Ultima games except Underworld (and only because I played it with a friend side by side) so no: I didn't even try Ultima IV. The only Open World game I really enjoyed was Skyrim - but only because I turned it into "Thief"- or "Hitman"-ripoff. Eh and Deadfire obviously.

Even if it was impossible to play PotD without meta knowledge: it's something completely different to take that statement and then use is as a reason for bad sales numbers of Deadfire. Only a very low fraction of players even tried PotD or even Hard. Most players just started both games on normal, enjoyed it for a while and that's it. So the majority of players wouldn't even know how the game's like on harder difficulties, nor would they follow a pedantic min-maxing path to optimization. For them the look, feel, atmosphere and story are more important than the exact stacking rules and potential powergaming. That is the bulk of players - at least that's what telemetry and surveys were telling Obsidian and I have no reason do doubt that data. So to take a very special approach to play those games - which isn't the apporach of the majority of players - and then deduce that this failed approach and the feelings it induced represent the feelings of a majority of players - who then didn't buy Deadfire in disappointment is rather... venturous. The issues that are mentioned do exist, no doubt. But I doubt they are the reason for a massive sales drop - because most players didn't even notice.

Maybe you have Open World Syndrome. PoE was more "guided" than Deadfire is, also because content was gated behind its acts. I personally don't like "Open World" and this whole "you can go where you want, yeah!" approach very much. It often leaves you felling lost - or not feeling compelled to really do anything. You can experience the same when you play TTRPGs and the game master just lets you run around without nudging you into the right direction. Open World is completely overrated and isn't necessary for a great CRPG - at least that's my personal take. Maybe other players like it but I feel that it takes significantly longer to really connect with a game if it follows the Open World approach. What saved Deadfire for me was Fort Deadlight. I entered secretly and did a "Thief"-like dungeon crawl in order to reach Benweth. It's such a satisfying part of the early game that I got hooked. So maybe try that one first?

I played both PoE* and Deadfire on PotD without any meta knowledge and was absolutely fine. Had to reload a few of the known tricky fights like Bear Cave, Gorecci Street, Digsite or simply choose a non-violant apporach or come back later - but overall it went pretty smoothly. Nowadays - with meta knowledge - PotD is too easy but I don't play those games for a challenge anymore but rather to verify fun character concepts. Like "useless", "perfect" or "pregnant", "impossible" is a pretty absolute term. I wouldn't use it if I weren't really sure that it fits. )* with PoE I canceled my first playthrough on normal difficulty after some hours because it became too easy and restarted with Path of the Damned.

I don't recall whether Animal Companions receive injuries or not, but if I wanted low micro I would def. turn off knockout injuries in the game options (which is an option that is not related to the general stages of difficulty). Sure there are nice implements, especially if you have WM I installed you can get Gyrd Háewanes Sténes very early and it's awesome. Engwithan Scepter is also a very good implement because of the speed enchantmemt that allows for 0 recovery with Durgan Steel and Deleterious Alacrity. But the thing with Minor Blights is that besides their awesome accuracy bonus of +20 they do AoE damage - and every attack roll in that AoE produces its own Blast(!). That means if you manage to hit 5 enemies with one shot of Minor Blights for example it will trigger 20 Blasts attack rolls (25 attack rolls with one shot in total). With a "normal", even unique implement - no matter how cool it is - you'll only generate 1 initial hit and 4 Blast rolls (5 in total). With the Golden Gaze you'd do 2 initial and 8 Blast hit rolls - but the initial rolls will have low base damage. So imo as long as the enemies stand tight there's nothing better than Minor Blights + (Penetrating) Blast - especially if you are also using Combusting Wounds (which is debatable in this case because: more micro). But of course summoning Minor Blights will cost you a per-rest spell use of tier 3 which is the same tier as Deleterious Alacrity. So you cannot have Minir Blights AND Alacrity as spell mastery - which is sad. So you should def. pick a non-summoned implement as backup and only use Minor Blights in fights where its special advantages would be most effective (like in tough fights with a lot of enemies who stand near together for example). A build for inspiration on how you could build a low-micro Blast WIzard without using Minor Blights too much can be found here:

I would play Path of the Damned with no scaling. It will be a lot harder in the early game (so don't give up - use sneaking or other non-violent approaches here and there, especially on Gorecci Street!) but then the difficulty drops once you reach Neketaka (which is still very early in the game). Megabosses will still be a bad grind and totally suck - but everything else should be roughly in line.

I don't think any caster who's supposed to actually cast spells in combat can be low micro. Only exception may be a Wizard who just summons Minor Blights and uses Blast/Penetrating Blast and then auto-attacks. That's the lowest micro (yet effective) caster I can imagine. Priest are the strongest class for a party-run imo but they need to cast buffs. Casting is micro-intense. Without casting buffs a Priest is moot. Same with Ciphers. If you only want to weapon-attack with a Cipher and not use his casting powers frequently you might as well pick a Rogue. A Rogue can be micro as heck if you build him squishy, but a sturdy one can be pretty hands-off. You don't need to actively trigger Sneak-Attack conditions. There are weapons that can do that automatically for you and if you bum-rush enemies with melee guys they will most certainly get flanked which also unlocks Sneak Attack. One of the most low-micro rogues I played was a shield rogue with Godhanstunyr + Badgradr's Barricade and while being strudy he also did very solid dmg. You didn't say Monk up there in your list - but there are Monk builds that are also potential low micro, for example the Anvil build in this forum that evolves arounr retaliation which doesn't need a lot of input. A quite low-micro Barb is one with Tidefall (Great Sword). You simply hit stuff with great dmg and also heal from it which takes away the necessity to look after him as much. Same can be done wotjh Tall Grass since then he doesn't have to be in the fray all the time but can poke into enemy clusters from the flanks. A Barb with Hours of St. Rumbalt can also be low-micro as soon as he reliably crits enemies. If you give your Barb the Sangune Plate you don't even need to trigger Frenzy manually. Works with every other class as well obviously. Fighter is one of the lowest micro classes, especially if you focus on all his passives. Can be good to have as tank because those don't have to do a lot anyways besides binding foes and soaking attacks. You can build them into great rushers - but that again requires micromanagement. But if you only want to "select all and attack" then they a good fit. Rangers bring an additional body which can deal significant damage (e.g. the wolf). You can just select all and attack. Additional bodies are very effective especially if you don't want to invest time into casting/resting etc. Animal Companions don't have health (only endurance) so they won't ge forced to rest to fill up health. You can use them as cannon fodder which is as good as new in every encounter.

The White March is not an expansion that takes place after the main game. It's an expansion that expands the main game. It adds a "side-campaign" if you will which is only loosely coupled to the main game's plot. How to get there: While you are playing PoE and are at your stronghold you should receive a letter from Renengild of Stalwart (a village in the White March) via your steward. Renengild urges you to come and help with something. You can then see Stalwart on the world map and can now go and travel there any time during the main game. I think it's best to wait until you reach lvl 8 (6 if you are a very experienced PoE player) lest it's too hard. On the way to White March you will also see something called Crägholt Bluffs on the world map. That is also part of the expansion but it's very high level material. YOur steward will have warned you not to go there too soon - so better don't go there on the way to Stalwart. Better to do that later. If you already completed PoE and beat Thaos you will have simply missed the White March (you must have completely ignored your steward then though). But you can load a savegame before jumping into the pit in Twin Elms and travel to the White March then. It will be quite easy at first because you will be a bit overleveled - but after some time it becomes harder, especially the second part of the White March as well as Crägholt Bluffs.

Hehehe! What about Potion of the Final Stand? No need to remove injuries, no? Every class can cause initial shock damage with Essence Interrupter I guess. Just make sure to hand out armor with lower shock AR like plate. I wonder if one can overwrite the lash prematurely with a Berserker/Wizard using friendly-fire Arcane Dampener? Else a SC Wizard with Arcane Cleanse might do. Afaik it's friendly fire. PL 9 though.

... because they have no hands?

Hm - maybe because you got used to PoE and Deadfire is quite different? It's not as gloomy for example. It also took some time for me to like it like I did with PoE but after some tinkering it clicked. I think most important is to find a character that is good fun to play right from the start.

Imgine somebody saying "OK" but with a face like this:

You might want to avoid casters then (those develop inbto the strngest classes during the game but require the most micromanagement by far), glass cannons of all sorts and most Monk builds (they are awesome but often require a lot of micro, too). You want to favor sturdyness over damage output. A class that can be build into a very low-maintenance party member but yet be very effective is a Chanter, especially once he gets "The Dragon Thrashed" phrase at level 9. He can basically just stand there and kill stuff with that "passive" chant. It's very good. You can even habe several of them - they all stack their chant damage. Other classes that don't require too much micromanagement are Fighter, Ranger (but you are adding another body to steer around), Rogue (if not build into a squishy), Paladin and Barbarian (after you level him up a bit or go with reach weapons like Pike or Quarterstaff). You can build Monks with very low micro, too if you focus on cumulating wounds for the bonuses abd keep onto them instead of spending them all the time. I guess the most effective yet lowest maintenance party would be six tanky Chanters who first go with Soft Winds and later 5 switch to Dragon Thrashed. All have Ancient Memory and the 6th sings Come Soft Winds + Mercy and Kindness. Basically you'll have 5 of those (or somewhat similar): And one of those: Here's a whole video series from @Raven Darkholmewhere he captured his 6-Chanter party.

Yes, I think there's no reason to pick vanilla Rogue at all. Trickster will always be the better alternative. The little less Sneak Attack dmg is such a minor drawback compared to the great abilities you get. Debonaire is great with Wizard if you have a Cipher with Ring Leader or a Chanter with the charming invocation in the party. The Debonaire/Wizard can then get 100% crit conversion on all charmed enemies because a lot of his AoE spells cause friendly fire. That removes most issues with PEN. Debonaire/Cipher is more limited - but pretty cool for Disintegrate-crits (or Soul Ingnition). And the good thing about Disintegrate/Soul Ignition is that they don't even flip the charmed enemy back to hostile.

Well a lot of people miss that it not only has an AoE attack (which warrants the lower base dmg) but also has a 15% crushing lash (multiplicative dmg bonus) AND +1 PEN which can make a huge difference even against single targets. Even without Offensive Parry it can be insteresting because its recovery bonus enchantment is good as well. It's not the best 1:1 weapon of course - but it's not too bad at that either. Anyway: as soon as the mob is thinned out and you want to deal better single target damage you can easily switch to another weapon. Streetfighter with blunderbusses is lame imo (just too much power gained too easily which takes away all the fun) - but there are some weird concepts with Streetfighters that are really fun for me. For example a shock-themed Chanter/Streetfighter with Deltro's Cage Helm and Sasha's Singing Scimitar who summons two Whisps that shoot disorienting shock bolts at him which causes him to speed up like crazy and give him a lash (that stacks with Mith Fyr and Scimitar lashes). It's like two floating essence batteries that "load" you up with energy and it's not only powerful but also thematically very cool. Also works very well as ranged build with reloading weapons like Red Hand if you use Sure Handed Ila - or a Hunting Bow with modal (Essence Interrupter) which leads to unbelievable attack speed. But yes: in general Trickster is the coolest rogue subclass, I agree.

Yes, most of the number parts are generated. But there are several mechanics that are quite outlandish if you compare them with the "standard" ones that the generation fails to deliver useful information. Disintegrate is an example where the DoT is implemented differently from other DoTs and therefore the original generated number stuff is misleading. The textual descriptions below are not generated - and I guess those "fixed" parts are kept vague for a reason: since the devs knew that there will be several belancing passes after release they didn't want to be too specific lest they have to update the description every time they changed an ability. THat way they can just tinker a bit with the numbers but leave the time consuming "wordy" parts out. I personally would have done a final "tooltip" patch then which would specify all tooltips once I'm sure that not much will change anymore. But maybe that's too expensive. It would be sufficient if the description was vague but the number part was more detailed and systemic though. I mentioned it several times elsewhere: Slay the Spire (roguelike deckbuilder) has a lot of combat mechanics which are very systemic (yet very interesting) - and its generated tooltips are superb and leave no questions unanswered. Very nice example of a tooltip system done right. The tooltips have nearly no flavor text but it wouldn't hurt them - as long as the numbers are explained/displayed very cleary you can add all the text you want imo.

Not really. I think they are not really aware since that complaint is not a very frequent one. At least I didn't hear any of the devs addressing this in detail. I guess other complaints just get more attention because the players bringing them forth are louder. I also think most devs deem it too unimportant because it's a single player game and it's enough if the average player vaguely knows what's happening. No idea, just speculation.

My biggest complaint since PoE. There's just too much "arkane" knowledge for a normal player to handle. You don't get what's going on without doing a lot of digging and that can be off-putting and frustrating. If only both games had a system implemented that automatically generated correct and precise tooltips. Currently the mechanics of a lot of abilities are not systemic enough and the resulting tooltips are often too vague or just wrong. Stacking rules: still not clear and so on. I mean I have no problem with that. I even enjoy that digging. What else would we talk about in this forum if we didn't have all those things to explain to each other? But I imagine the normal player is just annoyed by that.

I won't argue against that.

Steel Garrote/Trickster is a great combo as well because Offensive Parry dazes on hit which not only unlocks Sneak Attack but also lets Riposte and Offensive Parry heal you. Deflection is top notch, too. Unbroken/Trickster is also nice. Especially because you can engage a whole lot of enemies and once they cause too much damage cast Repulsive Visage which forces them to break engagement and *wham* Disengagement Attacks with big dmg bonus. Mirrored Images stacks with Refreshing Defense by the way. Lots of options with Whispers of the Endless Paths... ;

An idea: Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke counts as weapon attack (even though it doesn't deal damage). With Clear Out (hand mortar in main hand, melee or bashing shield in offhand) you can generate nearly thousand of attack rolls if the enemy stand tightly together. I didn't try but you should be able to not only flank all enemies via disorient from the smoke but also interrupt so many times that your discipline may be full again. Doesn't do anything for the Skald side though.