Boeroer

Normally I'm using a fixed party because I want to come up with new build ideas for the different official companions (e.g. playing Xoti as a SC Priest with a morning star to maximize her Blessed Harvest and going on from there or making Aloth a melee Battlemage and so on). But for the DLCs it can be fun to bring certain Sidekicks who are especially involved in that DLC (Vatnir & Ydwin in BoW, Fassina in FS, Konstanten in SSS and so on).

Yes, it's great at higher levels because animal compainions' base damage scales very well with level. Also check out Brutal Takedown. It doesn't work with Predator's Sense but it ignores 3/4 of enemies DR (which isn't mentioned anywhere in the description). That's especially great against stuff like thick beetles and animats and such. You can make your animal companion hit like a truck (with Persistence more often and without the need for any active DoT). They hit a bit slow but the high numbers are fun. And with the bow your own single target damage output is also very nice.

Right. Eternal Devotion scales exactly the same as Flames of Devotion. So Eternal Devotion is a no-brainer (if you can spare the ability point). Especially a no-brainer since Eternal Devotion's 10% lash applies to almost all dmg you cause, spells included. Walls, seals and other abilities that are called "hazards" don't profit. DoT ticks also don't. Everything else that I know of does work (e.g. Sacred Immolation).

A thing that seems to slow down the game for me is when I carry a ton of equipment around in the stash. Once I sell all that stuff certain aspects of the game run more smoothly (e.g. I experience lags when Iooting dead bodies if my stash is very loaded).

I would have done it in a completely different way (only in hindsight of course): give everybody with a shield a bash-ability (instead of engagement - why does a shield help you to engage somebody in the first place?) that can be used instead of an attack with the main weapon. Could do minor crush damage with lowish PEN but push enemies away on hit. Could be useful to push enemies away from squishies, back into an AoE or whatever. Than it would have scaled like any other offensive ability with PL. Use it or don't. It would not be used in Full Attacks. Now you can leave it like that but give certain shields that are focused on bashing (or meant to be used offensively) special enchantments that improve or alter that bash. For example The Best Defense would give you a high(er) dmg piercing ability with higher PEN (that scales normally with PL) but it would lose the push. Some other shields could stagger on hit in addition to push - or prone on crit. Lots of options, individual control, not much fuss. Implementing it as a retaliation effect means you have to get hit. Implementing it as riposte-effect means you have to get missed. Either way you exclude a fair amount of build options then. Making it proc as randon chance effect: meh (in my opinion). Or: I wouldn't separate shields from weapons at all but allow a smooth transition. I'd give every weapon the same offensive and defensive variables, even ranged ones. Shield: maily points in defensive stats - Quarterstaff: somewhat balanced - crossbow: high offensive stats, maybe negative definsive ones even. Stuff like that. But that's nothig you could mod into Deadfire. The first solution: I guess that would work.

It is only a faux 2D game. It's actually 3D objects on a flat canvas. Besides that: no problems on my system: Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.20GHz × 8, GeForce GTX 1080 and an SSD, 32GB RAM, Ubuntu 18.04 Maybe you have some stuff installed that's interfering with Unity3D/Dedfire but not Metro Exodus or whatever. Keep in mind that Unity3D is not famous for its performance in the frist place and that this is a rel. small budgeted game compared to AAA stuff. So naturally it can't be optimized as well. Still the game runs fine enough for me.

If Ituumak (the fox) has Predator's Sense then I'd recommend Persistence. Its wounding enchantment unlocks Predator's Sense.

Yes, the destroy is cool - but it only works against underleveled foes which is another circumstance.

Additive dmg bonus: doesn't matter if the weapon has low base dmg as long as it's faster and thus has equal base dps. Just not so nice for attack abilites that cost non-replenishable resources. +30% is not something I would necessarily build around though. Unless I would be using stuff like Binding Roots all the time anyways. Could be a nice tank setup with a Stalker/something: keep enemies near you with Binding Roots and kill them a bit more quickly with 30% bonus. With a bashing shield that applies stuff like Bindnig Roots that could be done even without using any Ranger. But yeah - +100% was def. more interesting. I understand that it was nerfed - but that much was unreasonable I think. I would have reduced it to 50%, maybe 60% - not less.

I don't remember how it was before. Now you can have +30% dmg against targets with Plant status effect (with the enchantment "Wood Bane"), can't you? This should be nice with a Ranger/something who uses Binding Roots or a Druid/something (tested Binding Roots and it works). 30% is not fantastical but it's a solid bonus. The rest of the enchantments are very circumstancial but can be quite useful in certain encounters - e.g. with spores of any kind.

Being able to give certain dialogue choices a "custom" meaning, tone or disposition is a really nice idea. I don't know what problems it might cause with the implementation, but it sounds pretty awesome. Maybe something like a drop-down select behind the line which is defaulted to a certain disposition (in your case "cruel") but you can change it to "benevolent" or "rational" because you interpret it like so. You know what would be really great? If the characters in RPGs has some advanced AI that had certain goals and character traits etc. and could actually chat with you (see ELIZA). Maybe we'll see that some day.

@Frykas: unfortunately @MaxQuest has diappeared completely from these forums (or from the whole internet it seems). And that's the only channel we have to contact him (besides Nexus). @Phenomenum was the other forum member who coded the Community Patch (and he's still here from time to time). I made the custom icons for all passives for the CP but didn't touch the mechanics and didn't alter any JSON files. So I would give @Phenomenum a call (which is basically done by me tagging him ;)).

Yes, Mirrored Images gets reduced a bit with every hit/crit until it's gone. Grazes don't do anything if I remember correctly (not 100% sure anymore). Wizard's Double gets removed instantly from any hits/crit (not only the ones that target deflection), but not from any graze (100% sure ). So also here it can be very benefical to raise your defenses even before using it so that enemiesy can only graze you. Then it wil last forever.

The correct spelling is obviously Axopotl. It was originally invented by the Maya and is advanced axetech.

Or if it puts a plant-tagged effect on an enemy (like Binding Roots, Tanglefoot or such) so that you can make full use of Vion-ceth (unique hatchet). So far only Rangers or Druids (or Xoti) can make good (non-circumstancial) use of it.

Sure, you can put CON at 10 no problem. You can get away with lower MIG because you will get plenty from the Helwalker passive anyway. DEX and PER don't have to be at 18+ - 16 is also ok. A thick armor will help in the early game. I wouldn't lower INT though. It's just too good with mortars. If you are using a tank (e.g. Edér) : let him unstealth first and wait a few secs before acting. That way enemies will focus on him first and not attack you so much. Instead of Helwalker a Nalpasca would also be ok. There are enough drugs to be able to use them in every fight and it's convenient to have a constant flow of wounds (stacks with Dance of Death). Vanilla Monkalso works. Squishyness is worst in the early game. It will get better after some levels.

I like it that you won't find a Carsomyr +5 in Deadfire and immediately know that you have to reroll a Paladin right now.

Indeed. Besides that, the perception of the severity of the problem is also related to how much you talk to your companions. I mean the dialogues that you initiate. If you only initiate dialogue once a companion/sidekick signals it then you won't notice those problems that often. In my first playthrough I talked a lot and the relationship model just exploded right away (especially Aloth). But in subsequent playthroughs I didn't initiate dialogue myself (knew most of it already) and then I didn't really notice any problems (except a few of those weird reactions that don't really fit). I suspect that's how QA missed those issues: they were most likely not trying to go through all the dialogue again and again when playtesting. After release it was so severe that you could make Pro-Leden-Key-Aloth leave you after the first lengthy dialogue with Edér right after Aloth jopined the party. If that happened new players were like "WITAF?" - and rightfully so.

On the other hand: if they change the game in a way so that it appeals to more players - would it still be a game I like? I mean from my personal perspective this isn't somehting I should wish for - maybe.

I informed you (and other readers) that the quirks are not related to the UI but are actual problems of the inner reputation system. Of course "in theory" there could be additional issues with the UI. But why speculate on that with furor when there's no hint and no reports about that? It's like: "Hey, this salat tastes like olives and I don't like olives. So maybe there are some pieces of cut olives sprinkled over it and when I remove them it tastes fine?" "No, actually the salat is marinated with olive oil and olive paste and the source of the taste are no pieces of olive - I also think there are none in the first place." "But there could be!" "The salat tastes like olives because the chef told me there's olive oil and olive paste in it. No pieces of olives as far as we know." "Hey don't tell me I'm wrong! I'm explaining here how in theory the salat could taste like olives because maybe... maybe there are pieces of olives in it!"

A few occasional suboptimal bashes won't ruin your playthrough. If you want to use weapon and shield and use primary attacks often then bashing shields are a good pick.

Only invocations

That's the false assumption. Why would you? There were two complaints: "Deadfire's too easy" (it was - it was ridiculously easy on the highest difficulty setting and that had to be fixed) and "Combat's a mess" (which isn't completely false). Those got adressed. No need to spin this into a "We cater to the pedants and screw the casuals" conspiracy.

Sure, if you take resources into account. But if it's simply about "what you would like to have" then I can see zero reasons to not vote for both. If they keep the Deadfire engine then delivering both modes shouldn't be a huge problem resource-wise (or so I would guess) since the foundations (and more) would have been laid already. If the question was "What would you prefer? TB or RTwP" then this would be a different beast of course. I personally think a PoE3 needs RTwP - just to be a coherent experience as a sequel. But I would welcome a TB game with the Pillars IP (which is not a sequel to PoE/Deadfire) very much as well. I don't need multiplayer at all. But if it helps selling more copies and makes more players happy while it doesn't mar the single player experience too much: why not? More sold copies might more than balance out the increased resource cost.