Boeroer

I agree to all of that. Just to clarify: what I meant was that arquebuses don't have more base damage than other "heavy hitters" in Deadfire and can't get bonus crit damage. With the +20 you can count on overpenetration, but that is "only" an additive 30% which can counter the missing 25% from crit (and you won't miss of course). Viable choice of course, but I wondered if it's really overwhelmingly good for alpha strikes (you guys made it sound like the modal is too good). As I said I'm only guessing around. I brought up PoE because there the arquebus has the highest base damage and at least does +30% on a crit (bad ACC though) so it seemed like the even more obvious choice for alpha strikes. Now that I think about it: I mainly use to snipe casters and such - enemies who are squishy but have high damage/annoyance potential. So maybe I get this impression because then the lower ACc doesn't matter that much. I can see that for bosses with high AR and defenses the Deadfire arquebus + modal (especially when used by several party members) can be a nightmare.

Exactly!

One thing about Deadfire's arquebus: compared to PoE's arquebus and also other weapons in Deadfire its base values got nerfed. It now has less base damage and doesn't do any extra crit damage besides potentially gaining 30% from double PEN. It also still has an ACC malus. The modal is nice to prevent misses, but do you guys really think it's that overwhelmingly good as alpha strike tool? I don't know because I didn't use arquebus much so far.

Armor penalties work the same for melee weapons and bows. So in other words: no special conflicts. Some weapons like for example guns don't have recovery time but reloading time which is not influenced by armor. They are generally slow but won't slow down further with heavy armor.

Cool. Totally useless for me, but good to know. So one could use Quick Switch and go wild with five Grimoires or so. I do have a nice Quick Switch build for a wizard by the way.

Erm... what? Don't understand what exactly you mean. Secrets of Rime has zero effect on a Mith Fyr lash. Scion of Flame has also zero effect when the char uses a weapon with a freezing lash. If a char has a weapon with a burning lash and Mith Fyr - then both burning lashes would get raised from 25% to 30% with Scion of Flame. If a character has Mith Fyr and a weapon with a freezing lash, then Scion of Flame would raise the Mith Fyr lash from 25% to 30% and Secrets of Rime would raise the freezing lash from 25% to 30%.

On 4500+ hours of PoE on PotD I never ever switched a grimoire. I just put the best four of every tier into my book and that's it. The "best" means in this case the most suited for my current wizard build. I don't know if Quick Switch and/or Coil of Resourcefulness reduce Grimoire Cooldown - I would be surprised if they did but I actually never tested because I never felt the need to switch Grimoires during encounter in the first place.

Played it for 2 hours or so now and it's really fun. The music is also great - like in FTL.

Bought it right now and am currently installing. Was waiting for this since it was announced - and then forgot about it on release date!

Me too. I wish Obsidian all the best and hope the whole PoE IP will bring us many more nice games. Maybe something classless for a change?

That's what I figured I would have to do, but I don't really want to go outside the game. I have an aversion to Windows mode when I play. I was really just echoing what a couple of beta testers indicated on their YouTube streams. If you use Steam you can do screenshots without leaving the game and without using windowed mode. Also if you use Nvidia Shadowplay. For GoG I don't know since I'm not using it. On Linux you can always trigger a screenshot without tools. You can even take a screenshot in the game, hit ALT+TAB and change to Gimp/Photoshop/whatever toll you want to use crop & resize the screenshot, put it in the right folder, ALT+TAB back to game and pick the new portrait. It may be that you have to go back to the main screen first so that the portraits get re-loaded.

Since I wrote that some things have changed (PEN system for example). Also, as always: you get used to things if you only do them often enough. Maybe remember how pissed I was when Josh said that you will not be able to enchant weapons/armor like in PoE? Well... I got used to the thought - it just had to sink in. And there are lots of things that will change in the upcoming beta and the final release (faster summoning times for weapons, faster casting times, cipher improvements, more passive abilites and much more), so I have higher hopes now. I've put around 230 hours into the beta at this point and of course there are things that are great and better than in PoE (look at the awesome stealth system with sound detection, pickpocket, graphics, loading times and much more). I'm starting to see them better now that the first wave of frustration is over. It was just so that I didn't want a complete overhaul like this - since I, as you, love PoE and would have liked a sequel that uses the same mechanics (with improvements of course). Now I know this is no request concert - I'm just saying this just so you know why I'm still a bit disappointed. Deadfire feels like a totally different game (let me repeat: still feels a bit like Tyranny for whatever reason) and being a beta (with a completely new system), it has several flaws that dampen the fun while playing. So while I'm not really pissed anymore I'm still not very happy. Maybe just because of nostalgia - I mean they took something that I really liked and turned it into something that I don't seem to like as much. Given how much time I put into PoE I'm sure my view on this is totally biased, but still... However: the main reason why I feel still unhappy about is this: When I play the beta I don't get the, how do I put it... the "vibe"? The feeling? The spirit of PoE anymore. That what bound me to PoE all the time. Mechanically it feels like a different game and it can't motivate me. It may well be that this is only the case because the beta is short and not connected to any main plot. So I'll see what the whole game will bring to the table and then I'll judge again. Maybe I will be totally blown away. I hope so. I'm always trying to be objective, but I'm also an emotional and impulsive person (I guess I still hold the record in my Basketball team for most technical fouls in one season - mostly for yelling at refs ) and as soon as you see me write in a somewhat roiling manner you should take it with a grain of salt.

The raising saints and the crawling skeletons are a nice addition to the relativly simple PoE "cutscenes" or scripted combat introductions though. I can image they entail a lot more work, but I would be happy so see a lot more of those. Engwithan Titan is basically the same. It not only prevents massive alpha strikes from stealth (or right at the start ot battle) but also looks pretty neat and gives you those "oh crap!" moments I really like.

Arquebus damage got tuned down and also does no bonus damage on crit, so the FoD damage might be ok with it, but not massive. Dual pistol or blunderbuss has The higher potential because of the Full Attack. The highest damage with FoD I get with rods (because of Blast's AoE getting the lash as well), great swords and sabres atm. Dual scepters with modal are also nice (but short range). The advantage of FoD with an arquebus is that with the modal on (+20 ACC) you can't miss. Or let's say it's really hard to miss. This is great against tougher enemies. I don't think that Videlo Vidorio is even in the beta code. Two hints that they might stack: - in PoE they stacked - Deadfire's rule of stacking: passives stack, actives don't. Sure Handed Ila is on the passive side, FoD on the active one.

Nothing new, we're still in beta3. I'll wait till Tuesday when the next beta will come out. Until then there's not so much motivation to play the beta3 again. I already have 230 hours on the counter.

But you would need a lot more of those scripted encounter starts.

If you find yourself multiclassing everything with a paladin you know something's not right with the class balance.

Eh, that's something for another thread.

Yes, I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same thing. As I said I also see a problem there. Especially with Empower and the easier resting method (without restricted camping supplies). Other things like Assassinate and Backstab are obviously taylored for this. What's your take on those?

One cannot simply troll Gromnir.

Those are two seperate things and you mix them up all the time: A) Boeroer wants shorter summoning times. B) Boeroer wants to tweak down some summoned weapons and buff some others - especially Firebrand. I want shorter summoning times because I think it plays better/ is more fun. Said that from the beginning, tried it with a mod and I think I am right. More people agree than disagree, so I can't be totally stupid and unreasonable. I didn't say that this would fix any problems that some summoning weapons have. You keep saying that, not me. Origin of this fruitful discussion was: Josh says "Summoned weapons are ludicrously powerful", Boeroer says "no they are not, for example look at Firebrand". Then you came along and added lots of other stuff about being unreasonable and some other baseless assertions. If it fatigues you why don't you just stop?

How do you define alpha strike? Is it only done from stealth or are things like an arquebus shot with FoD in the early phase of an encounter also considered an alpha strike (I mean in this discussion)? Because when we're only talking about the first I think you are right: things like Assassinate and Empower made attacks from stealth even more devastating than in PoE and it can get kind of boring. And once the developers would balance around this you would feel gimped if you're not doing it. Maybe restrict Empower so that it can't be used from stealth? Now that you brought this up I realize that I seldomly attack from stealth in PoE unless I have at rogue. Can't say why - maybe because it indeed gets boring after a while. The second variant of alpha strike - a powerful attack in the early phase of an encounter to take out a caster or so - is ok for me and I like it. It's still a very powerful tactic but more "fair" because enemies can do/will do the same (see Lagufaeth for example, often targeting my casters with Necrotic Lances once encounter starts).

Harhar funny - I meant that part (and I guess you knew that): Should have shortened the quote in the first place... Or the developers just tried MaxQuest's mod and realized it was more fun.

Ahaha! But I also asked myself several times why they go there and not into the ability bar (like spell masteries for example).

One might think. But there are different summoning times for weapons in Deadfire already. Look at The Long Pain for example: short summoning time, short(ish) duration. I don't quite agree that summoning times for weapons and summoning times for creatures are the same stuff. The creatures are very potent because of their use as cannon-fodder, distraction and body-blocking (not even looking at their stats and abilites). So I can understand why a few summons that pop up right at the start of an encounter would be too good.