Boeroer

Most mature post of today - and I guess at least of the whole next week, too. Not that I generally dislike immature stuff... just saying.

I agree. Also good point pro trinkets (vs. additonal "native" ability): you'd need to spend an ability point on the latter while you would get it "for free" with the trinket. What we do want achieve is to give Priests and Druids a bit of the advantages that Wizards have with grimoires (not the same ones because Priests and Druids already get bonus spells). So more "unique" thigs in trinkets is cool with me. But I'm not opposed to adding a native ability that adds a second spiritial weapon choice either. I mean it's not that most players woul choose both spiritual weapon options I guess...? But leaning towards "additional spiritual weapons on trinkets". You can do a lot of awesome stuff with a trinket (adding a bit of description, a "theme", even a bit of lore or story if you want). Adding an additional ability to the tree is just that. Quite limited experience all in all. One could do one "spiritual weapon" trinket for every subclass, sure. And nothing says they couldn't look like mini-versions of the weapons or something. Or a magranite priest's essay about warfare that contains the spell - whatever.

Afaik DID is just the newer, more accurate and scientific term for what was once named Multiple Personality Disorder.

@Phenomenum: Yes, something like that. To bring back a bit of PoE nostalgia (and options for Priests). Just an idea though - but since our trinkets are not yet set in stone and we might need some more ideas for trinkets in general... @AndreaColombo: would also be a possibility. I was just searching for more "themes" for trinkets. To make them unique and interesting. I do miss my Priest of Magran with an Arquebus.

@Phenomenum: I asked because of the post above (that I wrote yesterday).

@Phenomenum: Do you know if it's possible to add the visual effects of the spiritual weapons to other weapons models via mod? In order to create otjer variants of spiritual weapons? I read about that Aldris Blade of Captain Crow sabre i the mod forum (the one whose grip'n stuff looks like a chicken ribcage with wings) and for example the wings could be made invisible. So... I guess there are some things that one can do...?

So, you'll never accidentially play a Tactician? Brilliant is by far the strongest of all inspirations - I think nobody denies that. Why it replenishes 1 spell use of each tier per tick is totally beyond me. Who thought that this would be a balanced 3rd INT inspiration tier? Then they realised that it might be a bit strong when auddenly all those "unlimited resources" Chanter/X builds popped up - but instead of nerfing Brilliant (e.g. making it slower for spell regeneraion - or just giving it a high PL bonus instead) they took it away from the Chanter (and nerfed tons of other stuff that was not nearly as OP - Baubles of the Fin whoohee). Then they put in on a cloak and designed a whole subclass around that... SoT wouldn't be so OP if Brilliant wouldn't allow to spam it in less than 10 sec. If Brilliant would instead replenish 1 single spell use per tick (like Blood Sacrifice) there would be not much of a problem. Or if it didn't tick every 6 secs but ever 12 (for spells - for resources 6 secs is fine). This SoT/Brilliant or Wall of Draining/Brilliant abuse is so obvious - I don't get why nobody at Obsidian saw this coming. This is the first thing I think about when reading about a spell that prolongs buffs for 10+ seconds and an effect that makes you regain spell uses every 6 secs. Now all Ultimate runs either include Tactician or Shroud of the Phantasm... I wonder why...?

The problem is Brilliant, not Salvation of Time.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0039279 It basically says that you can determine if somebody fakes that disorder or not - with neurobiology.

Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder are two completely different things. Both are very real things though.

Yes, you would need to reinstall. Adding mods to your game is pretty easy. Search for the "override" folder in your Deadfire directory and place the mod folder in there.

Back to trinkets: how about some that bring back the good old Priest weapons from PoE1? In PoE a Priest of Magran could get +10 ACC with Sword and Arquebus, Wael got Quarterstaff and Rod, Berath Great Sword and Mace, Eothas Morningstar and Flail and so on. Most spiritual weapons in Deadfire miss one of those. Magran got Sword + Pistol (why?) but no arquebus, Berath Great Sword (no Mace), Wael has Rod (no Quarterstaff)... So what about trinkets that add a spell like "Spiritual Mace" for a Priest of Berath for example (same bonuses)? Only question is: would it be possible to achieve the same look? And if not: is that a problem?

They kept stiletto AND club from the PoE Priest of Skaen. Would have been cool to make two spiritual weapon spells per Subclass: e.g. Spiritual Sword and Spiritual Arquebus for Magran. If you want both you'd have to pick both. Then you'd have the same options as in PoE bus consistent with Deadfire. Hm... maybe worth a mod. Although I don't know if you could replicate the "spiritual weapon look" for weapons like arquebus, quarterstaff etc.

Berserker/Stalker gets +3 AR when frenzied, even +4 vs. pierce/slash/crush with Thick Skinned. That is a lot if you combine it with a decent armor. The Confusion can get resisted with Devil of Caroc's Breastplate or Modwyr - or lots of Luminous Lobster. Self damage is rel. ok if you use Savage Defiance. Corpse Eater/Stalker also fits thematically - but I guess Furyshaper woul be more effective. Don't pick Furyshaper/Ghost Heart: Wards count as summons as does the animal companion. You only can have one summon on the field at a time...

Sure they are. Didn't you get the memo?

Most of those All of those things above affect all characters and creatures, be it allies or enemies. A few are cipher specific (Pain Link, Amplified Wave, Mindweb, Tactical Meld) So one could make the argument that all classes are weaker if you compare them to PoE1. But so are the enemies. Overall the gameplay was made slower and all CC effects (including enemies') were made less impactful.

I don't have that impression. On PotD at least (where PEN issues are common) Ciphers are on par with Wizards due to certain key abilites such as +PEN passives and powers - and of course because they are the only class that can "spam" effective Mind Control which still is the most effective CC option in the game. Besides that they also are able to buff themselves up pretty nicely (e.g. Psychovampiric Shield, Borrowed Instincts, Time Siphon) and others (Ancestor's Memory ftw). Also when soloing o PotD (where fights take a lot longer) it's way easier with a Cipher since he can replenish his resources while Wizards(exept Bloodmage), Fighters (except Tactician), Paladins, Barbarians, Druids, Rogues and Priests cannot. They are also more fun than in PoE1 for me - because the subclasses influence the way you play your Cipher a lot more that Wizard's subclasses change the way you play your Wizard. Beguiler, Soulblade, Ascendant and Psion have pretty unique changes to their mechanic or role in combat. Also while they start with less focus, the generation of focus is much faster, especially if you take Draining Whip (which even doubles it). And attack/casting time got increased for everybody, that's not putting he cipher apart from the rest. In fact with a patch those initial long casting times got reduced so that the cipher is one of the "casters" with the fastest offensive spell pool on average (casting time and recovery combined). They work very well with muticlassing - but are also very good as single class characters. Reasons for that are the truly great passives of the highest power levels but also some very strong powers like Driving Echoes (which, cast on your party's nuker, makes a huge difference), Time Siphon (which stacks with itself to ridiculous amounts as long as you can infect a lot of enemies with one cast - especially bonkers with Ascendant) and Reaping Knives (which is especially crazy if you use with with a Soul Blade). Wizards have the HUGE advage over all other classes that they have potential access to all spells via grimoire and grimoire switching. You don't need to pick up a single spell at level up to be able to cast them. Just equip up tp 6 grimoires and get 12 free spells at your disposal. At level up only pick passives if possible or non-wizard-stuff if you are multiclassing just pick the good stuff from the second class. That's why I would argue that, generally speaking, a Wizard is more suited for multiclassing than a Cipher (although there are exceptions like Soulblade getting a boost from Rogue for example).

We are doing that with the upcoming "Community Patch" (it's basically a mod) which not only fixes some leftover bugs (as long as fixable by modding), polishes some abilities (includes mild buffs and also nerfs, based on a community poll), adds unique icons for all passive abilities but also will introduce some trinkets for priests and druids (which you'll be able to get rel. early in the game). And while will be based on grimoire mechanics, they don't give the exact same bonuses (+2 spells per PL - since both classes already gain a bonus spell per PL) but can grant a broader variety of bonuses such as +Power Level for certain keywords, some bonus spells (fitting the theme of the trinket - e.g. prayerbook) and so on. More about that in the "Deadfire Polishing" threads (discussion thread and poll). Those things will be spread out to seperate mods though (basic polishing, extended polishing, passive icons, trinkets...) so that you can decide what you want to use and what not.

Maybe... maybe not. I know a lot of people, non-religious and religious (no fanatics though), and none of them decides between "like you" or "dislike you" based on that. But I'm living in a bubble - so maybe it's true in general. Additionally: Xoti's is not even a real religion. Reactions to that should be a bit softer. She may be zealous, but it's not dominating her. She is a bit ridiculous though. Still: if I would be an atheist (I am) and because of that would dislike religious characters/people (I don't) I'd still have to distinguish between "I don't like the character because she is religious" and "she's badly written".

Yeah that was hyperbole. I just think it's boring. But I threw the book into a corner. One of the few books I didn't want to finish. I like character development and expositions in general - but what I don't like is excessive descriptions of.... I don't know... archways, food, faces, clothing, whatever... I like Ivanhoe. Can't say if it'swell written or not (not my mother tongue and also fairly old) but it was entertaining for me. Other non-contemporary (yet well-known) stuff I like is e.g. "Kleider machen Leute" from Gottfried Keller. Also can't say if it's well written (difficult to say since I don't know what whas considered to be "well-written" during that time period) but it's a nice read (for me).

You are correct that the naval combat lacks some fetures that would make it make more fun (like being able to sail around a big, heavy ship with a much smaller, faster ship as a tactic). Also the game does a very, very ppor job of explaining the rules to you. Actually it's a complete refusal... But: once you figured out how it actually works it's a very easy way to get XP and money (and some items) really early - and it takes a lot less time and levels than boarding. However: if you don't know how (and don't want to spend your time with testing session or browse the forum for any ideas on how to do this naval battle stuff - which is totally understandable) - it can be a real chore. Missed opportunity. As I said so many times already: the biggest gripe I have with both Pillars games is the lack of proper explaining/examples/tutorials - let's call it communication. It's like in general software development: everybody codes the heck out of his keyboard - but nobody does seem to so proper commenting and documentation. Of yourse usually you want to get the code done and afterwards do the documentation (because else you would have to change it all the time) - usually that means that the documention suffers the most from crush/deadlines. Also nobody likes to do it it seems...

I guess most people don't really distinguish between "I don't like it" and "it is bad". Because if I don't like it then surely there must be something wrong with it. I also think that most people are unfit for judging the quality of writing. I loathe books like "The Name of the Rose", "L’Homme qui rit" or "La sombra del viento" (still read them though, urgh). But I would'nt say tht they are not well written. Or would I?

Like Phenomenum said, the game checks if an attack has the "shock" keyword. Unfortunately all the weapons you mentioned that don't work do carry that keyword. It means that their attacks will get bonuses from stuff like Heart of the Storm (+1 PEN) and from shock Power Levels (e.g. from the armor "Deltro's Cage": +2 Power Level). It also means the game totally ignores that they will (also) do non-shock damage (slash or pierce) and just dismisses the whole attack (including the damage) without further explanation. Same happens with Dragon's Dowry (pierce damage but tagges with fire keyword - can't hurt burn-immune creatures), Essence Interrupter (shock/pierce, shock keyword), Frostseeker (pierce/slash, frost keyword) and so on. I don't think it's fixable in any other way as to remove the keywords from those weapons. At realease they didn't have those keywords and honestly: the drawbacks because of this "bug" are more severe than the benefits I think.

I think that emboss would look "cleaner" or "sharper" if the icons themselves weren't white. White edges can't be made any brighter - and thus the added highlight looks a bit like a blur effect on the top while it's totally fine on the bottom (where the contrast beween white icon and dark edge is the highest). Maybe grey icons would solve this - but then all the non-altered icons (all class icons, Snake's Refelx, Confident Aim etc.) would need rework as well... But actually what you showed my in your last PM was totally my cup of tea.

Wow, you were fast. The right ones look a bit blurry, but only at the top. That might be caused by the slight "embossed" effect that adds a highlight to the top edges and darkens the bottom edges. The ones you did a few weeks ago for the "alpha" version didn't have that. Therefore they look sharper - like the original ones. Here's the atlas file from the mod: I think I prefer them without that effect.