Boeroer

If you would be so kind to point out my mistakes? That would help to prove your point. If you cannot I must assume you are just writing utter nonsense yourself. I'm sure people can follow my reasoning even if they don't agree and draw different conclusions. Maybe you can try to get engaged in proper reasoning and less ranting as well? At least I presented you several alternatives to Cadhu Scalth which are equally useful (for example Bronlar's Phalanx allows you to get a higher Deflection bonus without any skill), I showed how that shield is still useful even without investment in skills because it has certain starting values even without any skill investment and I also showed that PoE had a worse collection of large shields in comparison. I could compare all weapon groups from PoE to Deadfire if you wish. But I fear that all that work will be in vain if if doesn't lead to the outcome you're wishing for. That you would just write "utter nonsense" again despite the work I would have put into. And what'sthe point then? I mean I know maybe ~90% of loot from both games out of my head so I'm pretty sure my judgement of the loot in both games stands on a solid foundation of knowledge - while yours seems to be based on emotions and not not much else. Several points you tried to make I could falsify with actual examples - while I agreed on other points you made. So you can't claim I oppose everything you say indifferently. But you present... not much really besides rather pointless rambling atm. Using the words "Billion times better" and "in fact" in the same statement about loot in a computer game doesn't give the impression of being reasonable. Also here you present not one current example that may illustrate what exactly you mean. Which loot in PoE (which was pretty balanced as well) could possibly be a billion times better? Or even a hundret times or ten times? I can't think of any. I think we at least try to explain what we mean by giving some examples. Maybe you can also invest a bit more effort and come up with a few actual examples of loot from PoE and Deadfire that shows why you think PoE's is a billion times better. Small copy & paste error I presume that doesn't work in your favor (it's actually 57). You can use the numbered list button with less hassle by the way. Might spare you some work 'cause you don't have to time the numbers yourself. Because you were talking about hundreds of RPGs you played I thought you might want to elaborate on that list which doesn't seem to be quite complete yet...?

Huh? I disagree. Larder Door is one of the worst unique shields in the game. The implementation of bashing shields was pretty terrible in PoE and lead to dropping auto-dps compared to a normal shield. I have to admit tough that large shields are an excellent example to illustrate PoE's rather unintersting loot in certain item groups compared to Deadfire's. I'm sure one can also find examples for the opposite.

I usually only use Monastic UT with single class chars since it scales with Power Level, not class character level.

Only speak for yourself. Enough people already stated that they don't feel this way. That's exactly what happened. "Balanced" loot so that you are not forced to use those few superweapons. This is extreme hyperbole. Go to the wiki and collect the items with "conditionals" and you'll only end up with a few that have any conditional at all. Unless we define "conditional" in different ways. Like "subject to, implying, or dependent upon a condition". I guess you mean stuff like carrying an injury to unlock a bonus - that kind of stuff (by the way there are only three itms that do this and they are all part of a set that is themed around a Barb named Rekvu who got even stronger if she got injured - which is pretty cool I think). But in reality you can find several shields in Deadfire that work equally well without having to skill Athletics. You are speaking of Cadhu Scalth which can scale with Athletics and Metaphysics. Two things here: 1. the shield works very well even without any skillpoint in Athletics or Metaphysics. Because those enchantments start at certain value (not 0) and only scale moderately even when you dump all skillpoints into it. And 2. there are enough large shield alternatives that don't use skills for scaling, such as Bronlar's Phalanx, Shining Bulwark and Akola's Apex Ward - and that's only the large shields. And none of them is that much more powerful than the others but all have their unique enchantments that can be very useful. That's unfortunate. But apparently there are enough gamers who care. Even in this forum you are in the minority so far. I strongly believe that game developers know their custmers better than a random individual player with no access to telemetry, market research, a network of fellow developers and developing experience. I am concerned about balance and I know at least 5 active, resourceful and reasonable board members who do care a lot about balance. That's only your opinion. The goal was not to totally equalize all loot and builds. The goal was to prevent trap builds and choices like the old infinity games had a ton of. That goal was achieved and in my opinion it was achieved elegantly. Also the multiclass system was designed with this premise and it turned out really well I think. That might be your believe, but I see no evidence nor even a hint that the loot of Deadfire harms the RPG genre at all. Besides the repeated unneccessary hyperbole this is highly subjective and also not a correct observation. The loot of Deadfire is much more differentiated than the loot of PoE. That's in the nature of new tree-like enchantment system. The new non-uniform enchantment system alone ensures that unique items cannot develop the same features like they did in PoE (like: having a lash, being legendary and being durgan-refined/reinforced). One of the fiercest criticism of PoE was that the loot felt undistinguishable and bland because all weapons and armors could be enchanted in the same way which many players described as boring. I don't agree - but that's the overwhelming feedback Obsdian got. So... somehow something's not matching if you compare PoE's to Deadfire's loot system and claim that the first one is a lot more interesting that the second's. It surely isn't an objective point of view since so few players agree with you. This criticism wasn't brought up a lot since the release of Deadfire. Lots of complaints about PEN/AR, story, difficulty and whatnot - but I didn't read a lot of complaints about loot. You can of course feel that way - but don't act as if your aversion is a confirmation that a) the designers did a poor job and b) the loot system of Deadfire damages the RPG genre.

I just explained how you get the stiletto reliably and why things might be the way they are - no need to get all cranked up. I would have liked more "special" uniques which are not universially powerful but can give certain "twists". Like for example turning a Paladin's Flames of Devotion from Burn to Freeze (and maybe give it a slight bonus as well). That would be nice for me - while not breaking the game's balance.

That would be Josh Sawyer. I don't think he will do that. I also think he didn't create this system on a whim. He had this problem in mind: You play the game and started as a Swashbuckler with Rapier and feathered hat. Suddenly you find a very good two handed axe. The longer you play the more you realize that you won't find a Rapier that is just half as good. You are frustrated. Balanced loot will prevent that. You will still find stuff that may be better than the stuff you opted for - but it will not give you the feeling that you took the supergimpy way. A very reasonable approach in my opinion. It also works well as far as I am concerned. I never had the "oh crap I'm not a paladin" moment that I had when I found stuff like Carsomyr +5 in the loot of the dragon I just defeated. You won't have to retrain just in order to free yourself from a trap choice when it comes to loot. You can retrain - however - if you feel you want something else from your character (for whatever reason). Both is there to prevent frustration with the route you took - not to cater to powergames who like to try out builds. That's only a side-effect of balanced loot.

No, idea, didn't try it yet. I despise the "stops focus generation on graze/hit/crit" aspect of it while the focus generation isn't too strong to begin with. You needone minute to cast one Amplified Wave. A Beguiler can refill focus completely by casting one Phantom Foes onto a crowd. Not very balanced.

Trickster is def. less finnicky and sturdier but can't dish out that much "potential" dmg. Trickster/Soulblade is a rounded and very effective combo. Mirrored Image stacks with Psychovampiric Shield and both with Borrowed Instincts which makes you plenty sturdy while you lose almost no offensive potential compared to vanilla Rogue/Soulblade. Also Trickster/Soulblade is somehowe more fitting if you opt for Rapier. Rännig's Wrath + modal - that's +29 ACC - is GREAT on a Soulblade. You really don't want to miss or graze with Soul Annihilation. You can choose a light offhand weapon for skipping the longer recovery of Rapier+modal with Full Attacks like Crippling Strike. For example a Dagger. Of course stuff like Azure Blade (+15 ACC without any drawback) or Scordeo's Edge with Adaptive are also nice. So is Sun & Moon (with Ring of Focused Flame which will give you +10 ACC with the initial hit with the Eothas-head, dumping Focus into raw damage and then regaining focus with the second flail head's hit - in one strike). I tried a Trickster/Soulblade recently again with Serafen's hat he gives you (Fair Favor), Rännig's Wrath, Devil of Caroc's Breastplate + Abraham pet and Pukestabber + modal in the offhand (speed bonuses for the Offhand which skips the Rapier's recovery on Full Attacks). It's great. I also tried Streetfighter/Soulblade and found that wearing R.'s Wrath + small shield and then getting flanked by enemies also works well. I piled up CON and health bonuses though in order to stay flanked + bloodied as long as possible before escaping. Devil of Caroc has a nice enchantment that gives you +2 AR when bloodied - which is awesome in this case. In both cases I also used Riposte which will trigger from time to time and gives focus.

I understand that for some people NPCs are important as a motivation. I however liked IWD and IWD a lot. I just couldn't bring myself to play them more than twice for whatever reason. Actually I liked nearly all D&D themed RPGs, from Pools of Radiance over Eye of the Beholder up to NWN 1 and 2 and so on... although I actually don't have any gaming experience with the Pen & Paper version of D&D (I only read the rulesets etc. and found the lore and worldbuilding kind of silly most of times). In Germany "The Dark Eye" used to be the dominant system - which is equally silly at least.

Iirc there's still a god's challenge that has to be introduced? It that's the case there might also be the possibility to see another megaboss...?

If Aloth has not much impact you are not using him correctly I presume. Priests, Wizards and Druids are the most powrful classes in PoE after a certain point (or level). A Chillfog alone can completely turn the tides of a battle. As can a Pull of Eroa for example. But those guys need some levels to start off. Don't use him as a nuker if you have enough other party members who can fill that role. He's not that well suited for that role anyway. Use him to spread his awesome CC/debuff stuff once his ACC got buffed up. Then let the others do their damage thing. Another often overlooked beauty is Misama of Dull-Mindedness. Its stat-lowering effect also lowers enemies defenses a lot (e.g. -6 INT and -6 RES lead to -6 Deflection and -24! Will) but that stacks with stuff from CC effects (blind etc.) which leads to a ton of crits from your damage dealers. Just look at Shining Beacon: its duration will get a boost from INT of course, but also a crit will give it +50%. It targets Will! So a great way to deal damage is: Durance casts Devotions for the Faithful (+MIG, +20 ACC) and Inspiring Radiance (+10 ACC), Aloth casts Miasma (with +30 ACC, causes -24 Will), Durance casts Shining Beacon with the equivalent of +54 ACC (+30 ACC, -24 Will) and will most likely crit with it, giving it a superlong duration. With DoT spells like Shining Beacon a crit means +50% duratiuon which is basically a 50% multiplicative damage boost (compared to "normal" crits on non-DoTs which only do 50% additive). The classes with the least impact after the early/mid game usually are fighters and rogues. But for example a Fighter paired with a "Marking" Paladin can be an awesome single-target-CC/dps-guy. You can even manage to knockdown dragons reliably while your other party members finish him off. Kana is an absolute dps beast once you reach lvl 9 and pick Dragon Thrashed as the one and only chant. But even in early levels he can be incredibly powerful if you utilize the Phantom and White Worms. White Worms, used at chokepoints where you piled up dead bodies already is game breakingly good- Just make sure you disaböle the gib option in the game meanu (gibbed bodies don't work). And don't reload because it will remove dead bodies. As long as you can lure "fresh" enemies to a pile of already dead enemies you can one-shot them all with Kana (with a bit of a "trap" setup). Very useful in Raedric's Hold.

That's a keyword thing and is not connected to the OP's problem (mechanically/code wise). There is a theoretical fix from MaxQuest for the keyword immunity bug. But this turn based stuff is new.

As I wrote earlier self damage does not stop focus generation for the Psion. Only damage that goes through attack resolution does.

1. Is not correct though. Rust is fairly easy to beat down with a full party. And once he teleports away to the entrance to the narrows you just have to follow him. Then a hand-drawn-sheet-based mini-adventure follows where you have to track him through the narrows (which is easy) and then kill him in a final showdown. So all in all it's fairly easy to get such a powerful weapon so early. I guess you just missed the opportunity to follow him into the narrows - which is understandable sice it's not so obvious that you can do this. Azure Blade's ACC bonus kind of always works by the way. Either it's bugged or the radius is like 20m or so. Either way: it's like a permanent +15 ACC bonus. Together those two are pretty awesome. But it's only two unfortunately. I agree that some weapon groups came with too many uniques while others are too few. But that's also a result of the crowdfunding. Lots of people who pledged for the weapon tier insisted on creating a sword or a great sword. Also the system of uniques and enchantments (lash on everything etc.) from PoE was criticized heavily. "Every weapon is the same in PoE!!11!11" stuff. So the devs went and invented this new system where every unique has its own unique enchantment tree. This - naturally - requires a lot more work and can only lead to less uniques compared to the old, more uniform system.

True Lover's Kiss actually doesn't work from invisibility, only stealth. No idea if bug or intended. Pushing was mainly done to prevent chars from getting stuck and to improve pathfinding I guess. Instead of taking a huge detour you can push a little and take the direct route. I like it. That's fairly obvious and I think nobody doubts that.

I liked it (on PC). The spell combos from multiple chars' casts were really neat ("Storm of the Century" and such).

If you go Streetfighter/Helwalker you can drop yourself to 50% health pretty quickly with Mortification of the Soul which will bring you to 'Heating Up' as well as giving you 10 Wounds. No need to get flanked. Maybe you want to boost CON and pick Iron Wheel though.

To be honest I don't pay much attention to the story progression after the first two (or so) runs. But maybe I would if things changed a bit.

Diablo and other ARPGs try this with generated loot complemented with unique items sometimes. While this might be a valid apporach for ARPGs I don't like it too much for more traditional RPGs. Already PoE's pseudo-randomized loot was a pain in my personal backside. It wouldn't only be a nightmare for the players who want to check everything in advance (which I for example don't do - I like to try stuff out by myself as much as I can - I simply can't "replay" builds of other people since all the fun already happened) - but also for those who just want to discuss builds, tactics and so on. But I would totally appreciate variations in encounter setups. What I would like a lot would be improved "smart" KI that would learn how I play the game and adapt accordingly (in bounds of the ruleset). Like... suddenly a Blade Turning Monk gets send after my melee-only superdeady Shadowdancer - or so.

Very nice post.

Welcome! Well that's not so easy. There's a TON of mechanics to know. One can hardly handle it all in a few posts. Maybe most important: - damage bonuses are additive and are beased on base damage. For example a great sword has an average base dmg of 17 (14-20). If you add a 20% dmg modifier (e.g. Savage Attack) you only gain 3.4 dmg per attack. And that doesn't change with enchantments etc. - lashes are multiplicative. THey take the whole damage you rolled (including dmg bonuses from above) and multiply it (most of the time by 0.25) and add that as separate dmg unit that has to overcome 1/4th of enemies' DR. - passives stack, actives don't. Talents that upgrade certain abilites are often considered passive (e.g. Inspiring Radiance). - Item bonuses do not stack unless they are on weapons. - Speed bonuses don't stack if they are in the same group (e.g. Frenzy + Alacrity). But if they are not they stack mutiplicatively. Stacking lots of non-similar attack speed it the way to highest dps. What would stack: passives (Two Weapon Style), speed on weapons, gauntlets of swift action and one active like Frenzy for example. Dual Wielding has no speed penalty while all other options (one handed, two-handers, shield) do have a speed penalty. DEX bonus gets applied as last in the row. All "speed" bonuses only reduce recovery time, not the animation speed (the execution ot the attack or ability). Only DEX applies to both (animation speed and recovery). - Defenses have increasing returns - Accuracy is very important but has diminishing returns.

Phew - how many finals you've got up your sleeve? As I told you before it was not meant as an insult and also doesen't come over as one for any reasonable person. You can act as if it was an insult and insist - but that doesn't make it true. It only lets you look ridiculous. And even if I had "sneakily" insulted you (which I did not) - why would you have to respond with more insults? And no, you can obviously not. Actually you are insulting me directly. Because you say "You are like XY". It's like saying "You are like a pig". I, on the other hand, said "It doesn't matter how many RPGs you played by the way. My mom drives her car for over 45 years now - but she still drives like a freshly beheaded chicken...". I didn't say "You are like my mom who behaves like a headless chicken". I compared the statement "I played a lot of RPGs so I know how this works" with the statement "My mom drove a lot of cars but still drives like a headless chicken". There is no insult. If you see one it's just your imagination. But I didn't say that. I said that you don't understand the quality of the loot. You can "steamroll" many things without knowing how some of its parts work. I didn't say that last one either. You really have to work on your reading comprehension. Or you are making up stuff on the fly on purpose, no idea. I said that your titel and post had the tone of a five year old. I never said that your expertise of the game has anything to do with that. I also didn't call you a headless chicken as I pointed out several times now. You were jumping to conclusions because you assumed things and didn't try out items thoroughly. Maybe it's the game's fault that you did - but you did nonetheless. Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that. Jumping to conclusions and being right about a part of the game which lured you into jumping to conclusions are not mutually exclusive. You are right that the descriptions are obscure and can be misleading. But - again - that makes the descriptions bad, but not the loot itself. Hence no need to say that it sucks. Again a direct insult that was totally uncalled for. And everything because you think I compared you to my moither who drives crappy? My... I never said that it's the best ever. I only said that a) it doesn't suck and b) it's more powerful than in PoE while you claimed that it's the other way round. I also acknowledged that you need some knowledge to apprechiate it. Still no reason to claim taht it sucks. What sucks may be the descriptions. It is. It totally is. It's your way of "presenting" your opinion which is not. Another unprovoked insult which shows that you were not interested in a fruitful discussion in the first place. What you are honestly showing is a decent amount of squeamishness, a lack of reading comprehension and an evil tongue. Hope it doesn't lead to you being in jail at some point...

1. Your criticism was not constructive. Read your inital post - it's right there. It's cursory, hyperbolic, provokative and presents false examples. And surely you attacked the devs. They guy/gal who designed the loot and according to you should step away from it? Remember that one? She/he's a dev, too. 2. You did start with insults. And you keep insulting. Where I compared my mom to a headless chicken (but only when it comes to driving a car) just to give an example that doing something for a long time doesn't make you an expert, you choose to call me Berpissor. Which is not only quite unimaginative (would be lame even for five-year-olds I guess but I'm no expert) but also a direct insult that adds up to the scatology you were using and is not suited to make your posts any more constructive. 3. You may think the loot is utter crap compared to PoE - but as I tried to show you that's because you didn't understand it yet - because you jumped to conclusions. You jumped to conclusions because you didn't know a lot about how the loot works because its features can be somewhat hidden and you didn't test it enough. Example: stats bonuses are lower compared to PoE because in Deadfire they all stack while in PoE they didn't. It's a totally forgivable jump but a jump nonetheless. 4. We are not the ones who talked about "smelling our own farts" multiple times or tried to construct insults out of harmless comparisons or anologies. The only one who shows no manners and really destroys the opportunity for a rational discussion is you.

K KK We'll see... Oh hi! You are really not good at turning rethoric into action, are you?

Yes, Firebrand does more dmg on hit most of the time because it has a lot more base dmg (25 compared to 17 - and thus all dmg mods have a large impact if you look at the flat numbers) - but it also can't be enchanted with quality (but has ACC +4 and dmg +45% so that ok), a lash (so lacks multiplicative dmg boost) and not with Durgan Steel (no increased crit dmg, no increased speed). You can work around that with a Barb who has Blood Thirst (or a Cipher with Time Siphon or a Wizard with Alacrity). In case of Barb the high dmg per hit leads to easy kills on squishies which then lets you trigger Bloodlust and skips recovery (so speed enchantments don't matter much). And Tidefall's wounding actually won't trigger Blood thirst if it kills. Anotehr reason for me to not use it aon a Barb (even though draining with Cranage is great as well). But usually a fully enchanted Tidefall is doing better dps. Even Rumbalt can reach Firebrand's dps once fully enchanted on non-Barbs - just because of the higher speed and ACC. But Firebrand is just royally good right from the start and looks so fricking awesome. Not only that, but its hits also make that nice swooshing sound as if you'd swing around a burning branch. Awesome... In the late game it rarely is the best option - but I tend to stick to it out of loyalty.