Boeroer

Riveted by that of reasoning.

As far as I'm concerned it seems to be most interesting for Chanters + Invocations (because of Sasha's Singing Scimitar) anyway? Other empowered actions that might trigger multiple times: melee ability with Sun & Moon, Whispers of the Endless Paths, Keeper of the Flame or Wahai Pōraga, Whispers of the Wind (Monk), Heart of Fury (Barb), Clear Out (Fighter), empowered ranged ability with blunderbuss or hand mortars or rods, ranged ability with Driving Flight, empowred ranged ability as spiritshifted Fury, Whirling Strikes. Maybe even pulsing spells like Consecrated Ground or Chillfog or beams like Ectopsychic Echo?

Well I mean it's thelee after all.

Eh - you are better than this.

I can give you his phone number...?

Ah, you mean the upgrade where every one of the three lighting triggers an additional lightning burst on hit? This also counts as single empowerment for the coil? Sweet! I alsways though that invocation was so bad compared to some others - but with Empowerment-effects in general and the coil it may be quite awesome. Too bad it comes so superlate. The coil I mean. The sabre you can get pretty early. Maybe there are some other effects besides the coil's which could profit from the ivocation's multiple triggering...?

If I remember correctly you asked why players don't ask for such mechanics if they were so popular. On the other hand you stated on multiple occasions (and correct me if I'm wrong) that fans don't know what they want anyways and that developers shouldn't listen too much to the suggestions of fans. So basically you were saying that fans don't know what they want and what's good - but if resource management would be such a good feature why don't fans demand such features more often? Duplicity of that aside: looking at the sales numbers seems like a reasonable and logical way to determine how much certain games were received and liked. My example of the Darkest Dungeon (which is an RPG and which heavily emphasizes on resource management, per-rest mechanics and survival aspects so I think it's a good example) shows that a lot of players actually want this stuff. They show it not by crying for such a game beforehand (since they don't know what they really like until they get it, right?) but by buying the game about one million times. Now where exactly is my argument that sales numbers show what players like, that an RPG with heavy emphasis on resource management sold tremendously well - which shows that such mechanics are well-liked if implemented well - ridiculous? What I said was never about D&D or if some grognards only want per-rest mechanics because of nostalgia. I personally don't care about D&D and also not about IE games and what they did and why. I think D&D rules in general are awful and so much worse than what Deadfire does. Still I'm trying to explain why I think that certain limitations of resources over the course of a whole dungeon or area (instead of refreshing everything after each encounter) can make an RPG better IF the players like resource management and survival elements. At the same time I never said that per-rest is the "alpha and omega of resource management". It can be a part of it, but D&D and also PoE show that's it's not so easy: simply adding camping supplies and reducing their number on higher difficulties doesn't work well. You have to add more in order to make per-rest mechanics enjoyable. So I'm fine with Deadfire's per-encounter approach when it comes to abilites. As we determined it's easier to balance and it's easier to plan encounters then. It's easier to get it right compared to a resource management/survivalish approach - which might turn out bad if you don't get everything right. I already said that in another post above. What I actually emphasized on was PoE's endurance/health system compared to Deadfire's. PoE's health mechanics where easy enough (seriously who thinks they are complicated as soon as sombody told you what's it about?) but still allowed encounters to have an impact on each other. Was it perfect: nah, far from it. Was it better than Deadfire's instant wolverine-ish regeneration with also added access to unlimited healing? I think PoE is better in that regard because of the reasons I stated above. Others might like the Deadfire approach better. They might love that a Herald can just heal the whole party endlessly as long as nobody gets one-shotted. I find that boring but that's only me. It's a matter of taste really - same as Powergaming vs. "proper" Roleplaying - but I hope I can make some people understand why other people (including me) might like PoE's approach better - at least the health part. Nothing ridiculous or stupid about that as far as I can tell.

I guess what you mean is: "Her Revenge Swept" triggers three times (three separate lighting attacks - this is the important part) Empowering this invocation (which triggers three times) while wearing the Least Unstable Coil will not give you one inspiration (see its enchantment Empowered Being) but three inspirations with Sasha's Singing Scimitar you can turn Empower from x/rest into 1/encounter, giving you these three inspirations in every encounter (once). the Weyc's Robes and Wand will also trigger thrice on Empowering this invocation (although most of the effects won't stack with themselves I guess?) Nice find!

What nerf of the Soulblade are you referring to? Keep in mind that Soulblades not only get Soul Annihilation and -5 shred costs, but also gain +1 Concentration and +10 max focus per (melee) kill which can synergize very well with the Barb's on-kill effects (Bloodlust, Bloodthirst etc.). I like this combo best with Whispers of the Endless Paths. It applies raw damage to all in the cone (dmg numbers vary though, first target gets hit hardest most of times) which helps to do kills on multiple enemies quicker. If you build your Witch with highest Resolve, grab Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Insticts and put on deflection gear you can also pick Offensive Parry. It's not as reliable as with a full-on-deflection character, but enemies will still miss every now and then (especially when blinded etc.) or when you disengage. And if that happens you are basically generating focus from the parry on the fly, allowing you to utilize Soul Annihilation or casting another power more often. Ascendant+Barbarian is a very strong combo because at first you can cast faster during Ascension (due to Frenzy and potentially Bloodlust) and then later of course the combo of Blood Thirst + damaging spells is ridiculously good. Especially with spells that have short casting time but longish recovery (which then falls down to 0). See Mind Lance. But also the longer casts still profit from Frenzy+Bloodlust. Amplified Wave is a very good power here since it not only damages but also keeps the enemies down once you can spam it. Beguiler is often an overlooked option when contemplating about melee witches. But Beguiler is always strong. Imagine a Berserker/Beguiler Witch themes around fear and torror with the Willbreaker (+Body Blows), Secret Horrors (Frighten/Sicken), Spirit Frenzy (Stagger) and Brute Force. It is a beautiful package theme-wise but also in terms of synergy and power. You gain a lot of focus from casting big AoE deceptions - and I mean a LOT. Even the most impactful deceptions such as Ring Leader don't cost you much if anything at all as long as you hit enough enemies. Cast right from stealth the Beguiler-rule applies and you get back a lot of focus, often more than spend. Powers like Phantom Foes and Secret Horros are especially great for opening a fight and filling up your focus. You can then utilize those focus points for a buff or even to cast disintegrate (wil trigger Bloodlust and Blood Thirst when it kills). Body Blows + Stagger + Sicken will lower enemies fortitude by 45 points(!) making it easy to land all fortitude-based powers such as Disintegrate. But with Brute Force you can also target that -45 fortitude as if it were deflection. Still not low enough? Well Phantom Foes can bring down enemies deflection as well. Allthewhile the frightening will unlokc the special enchantments of the Willbreaker. Wear the Whitewitch Mask because nothing fits the theme better. Spread Carage and fear, you howling maniac! Also it's easy to do the following with this setup: cast Whisper of Treason on an enemy (get back 5 focus) and then Disintegrate (it's possible to cast in on charmed enemies - if you cast Secret Horros first you'll have more focus and lowered his will and fortitude). Then off to the next. Disintegrate will not turn the enemy back but instead he will keep fightng for you. When he dies from the DoT he will trigger Blood Thirst. Meanwhile swing away and weave in some Secret Horrors, Phantom Foes and the likes. Also Mental Binding is very good to stack the crit chance with the Berserker's crit chances. It also gives you back good focus if you hit enough enemies. Those are all viable combos. I guess you just need to decide how you want to play that guy. Melee-heavy with the occasional buff: Soulblade. Focused o casting: Ascendant. Hybrid (with rad theme) : Beguiler. I guess you can tell which my favorite is.

I also found Tyranny's use of health/wounds very annoying. Together with those abysmal cooldown mechanics (I mean the idea of cooldowns in general, not that this implementation was particularly bad) and the rather unbalanced ability trees it destroyed my desire to replay the game. I tried but cancelled. The argument that if resource management mechanics were so popular gamers would ask for them: well they are. Rogielites and roguelikes and also games with survival aspects who nearly all work with restricted resources from "resting point" to resting point (in many different ways) sell better than most party based CRPGs. Darkest Dungeon sold very well for example. Over one million copies I read the other day. That's a lot more than Deadfire.... One of the rare mixes of RPG with strong emphasis on survival and resource management. So if such an approach is ridiculous or stupid: why does it sell so well? The way I see it: If you use more per-encounter mechanics you drift a bit towards action RPG, if you incorporate more resource management it feels a bit more like a survival RPG. Whether you like the one or the other is just a matter of taste and how well the whole game incorporates certain mechanics. No need to call one side or the other ridiculous or stupid or whatever one would call tastes that don't align with one's own. I have problems with Deadfire's health mechanic and favor PoE's because healing becomes too powerful. As we can see with the omnipresent Herald who has unlimited healing over time capabilities: you're essentially giving the whole party infinite health as long as you can make the fight slow. Infinity is never a good thing with game mechanics. Also see Gouging Strike, Brand Enemy, True Love's Kiss and such. It's so easy to abuse it and render most other approaches inferior. The argument with the PoE-character who should get knocked out and stay knocked out rather than die: there were potions and talents that would have prevented this. You could also have rested earlier. If you chose not to use those options that's a decision you took but not the basic fault of the mechanics. You deemed Wound Binding etc. worthless and so didn't take them. But then you get frustrated in situations where they would have helped you. I don't know if that's such a good argument against PoE's endurance/health mechanics. It's a reason why you didn't like it but not a point that proves that those mechanics were bad. One simply option to fix this situation would have been to introduce a "feign death" option that everybody gets 1/encounter. Small change that would have solved your problem while not changing the underlying mechanic (which I think is superior to Deadfire's). Was it "confusing"? Maybe. But it would have not been if it would have been explained better in a tutorial. Because if you can't understand the mechanic itself you shouldn't be able to understand most of the PoE mechanics and especially Deadfire mechanics (hello PEN/AR with double inversion and stuff) anyways. So this is also not a good argument against it.

Stalwart is a good example: it has quests, but not in x districts and not a ton of them. It can be a hub, with shops, tavern, healer and so on, nothing against that. But I share the same feeling as wih above: you enter Neketaka and suddenly feel demotivated, even disoriented. It would be nicer if quest lines would slowly unfold and bring you to places of the city. Instead, you can go everywhere you please and grap quests. dozens of them - no need to finish anythng before picking up the next. I'm no a big fan of that.

I don't care about D&D and what it inspired. I simply like it more to plan over the course of several encounters instead to view every one as an isolated event. Basically you can say that i'd like to see a reasonably sized dungeon (or other areas) as one big encounter or challenge - and not every fight as a singular one. It doesn't necessarily mean that there have to be per-rest abilites. It can also mean something else like PoE-health. I played a lot of The Dark Eye P&P when I was young and health as well as "mana" or other resource pools only replenished a bit during sleep. I mean if you drained yourself or got severely wounded it would have taken weeks (in game time) to be back to 100%. In case of priests you couldn't even go to sleep but had to properly meditate or visit a church or speak with a brother. Stuff like that. So you couldn't just enter a dungeon like a buch of drunk spring breakers and try to roflstomp its residents. I always liked that.

The Devil has to be killed by the villagers. Afaik this always happens if you spare Harmke. So any option that lets him live should lead to the breastplate appearing in Deadfire. Or you just pick the "Benevolent Soul" background in Deadfire.

It is true that it's a lot easier to plan and design encounters, balance classes etc. if the party always starts fights with the same resources (consumables and trinkets etc. aside). But in my opinion that's the only real benefit. I like a more tactical approach better, especially when it comes to "dungeon crawling". I like to manage my resources and finding a way how to spend them best over the course of a certain passage. Only using resources if I must. The risk of frustration is higher but so is the feeling of accomplishment, especially if the challenge was hard and it's your clever use of resources that let you win. As I said earlier: you'd have to design the whole game around non-replenishable resources then. If you simply offer resting supplies which you can buy anywhere then the main reason why I like per-rest resources is taken away - since per-rest turns into per-encounter - if you rest after every encounter. This doesn't only mean spells and other abilites but also the loss of health. Maybe especially health. The whole implementation would be a lot more challenging for sure. But I wouldn't call the desire for a rewarding resource management (be it per-rest or however you want to do it) stupid or ridiculous. Because it's more challenging I said I would design smaller areas between rests. If it would be stupid to like those things then all the successful tactical roguelite or roguelike games which are all about resource management and investing your resources wisely (often health) would only get developed and played by stupid or ridiculous people and I don't think that's the case. But maybe a big CRPG such as Deadfire isn't the best game to try this in the first place. If you want to focus on telling a story, roleplaying, immersion, factions, companions, exploration and so on and not really on combat (as long as it's enjoyable and good enough) then maybe the better approach indeed is to make it all per-encounter and have and easier time to balance and design that.

There doesn't need to be a lack of cities. They just shouldn't unconditionally dump 75% of all quests on you.

Good question. I would have to contemplate about that. But when it comes to Pillars games I think PoE does it better than Deadfire. In PoE you have the clear distinction between Act I, II and III. Defiance Bay is too big of a quest hub for my taste. But stuff like Gilded Vale, Raedric's Castle, Dyrford Village etc. are pretty nice in that regard. Twin Elms is doing too much as well (alsthough not as stuffed as Defiance Bay of course) and it also feels as if it was done in a hurry. But Defiance Bay is nicer (for me personally) than Neketaka. But it seems that a lot of players like those huge cities/quest hubs.

Yes, works. It stacks with the inherit jumps some ranged weapons, including some guns have (e.g. Fire in the Hole, Kitch Stove, Watershaper's Focus). Meaning that Driving Flight will simply add an additional jump. It also works with interrupts (e.g. from Concussive Shot and so on) and other effects that might get triggered on hit/crit. If you have an AoE projectile (e.g. Fire in the Hole) the whole AoE will jump, too. In case of Fire in the Hole you will deal three AoE attacks with one shot (one normal, one jump from Fire in the Hole's "Chain Shot" and one from Driving Flight). But note that the damage malus for every jump rises per jump. This means every additional jump will deal a bit less damage than the one before (on average).

I agree. I don't think that a super linear, "railroading" approach is great either though. Some decent balance is nice. Areas where you can go as you please, but not too vast/big. Gated content for which you'll have to progress in the main quest line. I think that's also way easier to implement - given that managing connection points for quests, companions etc. can become a nightmare if everything is reachable at any time. I also don't like those huge quest hubs like Neketaka or Defiance Bay. Something like Fort Deadlight, Dunnage etc. is more up my alley. Once you finished those you know you don't need to come back all the time and there's a feel of accomplishment and closure if you will.

That's generally a good approach. War Hammers have some good and even early uniques. Swords also deal dual damage types (pierce/shlash) but unlike War Hammers the good uniques come very late. Unless you plan to side with the Crucible Knights. In that case you'll get a Sword that works pretty nicely with a pair of two ciphers since it increases the hit chances of your partner significantly ("marking" enchantment). If you do not side with the Crucible Knights (the talent you get from the Doemenels for example is usually more valuable for a Cipher) then you won't see a lot of good swords until late in the game (don't ask me why - don't know what they were thinking). Luckily one can enchant even the most ordinary sword into something good. If you go White March rel. early (lvl. 6-8) you can achieve a unique sabre names "Bittercut" pretty quickly after the initial fight which has dual damage (corrode/slash) and also gets a general +20% dmg buff from Spirit of Deacy which stacks with sabres' inherent +20% buff and your Soul Whip bonus. If you give it a corrosive lash it will even have a 30% lash instead of a 25% one then. It also has some spell bindings which are neat. It's one of the best one handed weapons in the game. It 's also totally viable to use s great weapon with a single damage type but have a weapon with another damage type (but the same weapon focus group) in a backup weapon set. For example using a Rapier (e.g. "Sword of Danysis") as main weapon but a mace (e.g. "Ravenwing") as backup should you meet pierce-immune or -resistant enemies (which are often vulnerable to crush damage). Sabre/Club or Battle Axe/Sword also work of course - and so on. Also, should you like Stilettos a lot: they are usually pierce-only. But on White March lots of Lagufaeth enemies carry special stilettos that are not marked special in any way, but they actually do slash damage instead pierce. So you could carry a nice unique stiletto in the main setup but a slashing Lagufaeth stiletto in a backup weapon set. Stuff like that. So it's not necessary to stick to a dual damage weapon. Unless you never want to switch weapon sets because you hate it. Then War Hammers and Swords is the smartest choice. Note that the small shield "Little Savior" has an aura that gives +5 to all defenses to everybody standing in the AoE of the aura (including wielder). There's an item you can get from a Stronghold Adventure that's called the "Helwax Mold". You can clone one item with it (except soulbound ones). If you clone the Little Savior you will have two small shields which emit that same aura and they will stack, giving +10 to all defenses. This is - generally speaking - the best use of the Helwax Mold if you have two shield users in the party.

Yes, that's one reason why I'm not against per-rest mechanics - or more generally speaking: resources that don't replenish right after combat/challenge. Of course the advantages of those mechanics don't work very well if you allow resting (or any other means of replenishment) anywhere anytime. And if you use supplies to limit resting people will just travel back and get more - which feels like a drag and adds nothing to the game except tedium. I guess I wouldn't have used resting supplies at all. Instead I would have used resting "spots" that you'd have to reach (think of Hero Quest, Dark Souls, Legend of Grimrock or Slay the Spire and many more). And yes, that means that you can get stuck (see certain spots in PoE like jumping into the pit in the Endless Paths of Od Nua). But I think if you make the player aware of this, don't do superhuge areas between resting spots and also use clever auto-saving it creates a better combat experience over the course of a dungeon/map/area and a deeper feeling of accomplishment once you manage to reach the resting sites or finish the area. It should be obvious by now that I like roguelike games or games that use some roguelike elements. I don't mean that every resource needs to be non-replenishable though. Stuff like per-encounter for less impactful abilites like Knockdown etc. worked very well in mix with per-rest abilities like spells in PoE. If you make everything non-replenishable fights might become boring as well because one tends to hoard precious resources then and only use stuff that costs nothing.

Both loading times and AI are greatly improved in the sequel.

I liked PoE's endurance/health mechanic a lot more than Deadfire's injuries. It made it so that even filler fights mattered. Meaning that if you were careless in those fights it had an impact on your next fight (if you didn't rest in between) but at the same time it didn't lower your figthing ability so you didn't feel the need to rest immidiately after losing some health - like you do when catching an injury.

Indeed. Spell Disruption doesn't work against beasts' abilities. Even if such an ability has the same name as the Wizard spell: it's just a hard copy of said spell. It gets added to the dragon's portfolio but doesn't get tagged as spell. Stuff like Frighten/Terrified as well as Last Word etc. however do work (if target's not immune in the first place I mean).

I say "merla" isn't an adjective, sientere.

Wing Commander: my greatest game of all times (tied with FTL maybe). Can't say how many joysticks I broke with it. I was a master with the scimitar. True master, I tell you.