Lamppost in Winter

When it said "1 passive ability point and 1 active ability point", I tried to purchase both an active and a passive, but I only had the one point to spend.

I tried to do that and it didn't work.

Mark Brown also has a great video on systems based stories vs. branching narratives:

hey everybody i know we're all worrying and fretting about deadfire, but fortunately josh can assuage our concerns

Hard CC (Paralyze at least) doesn't Interrupt.

I like the idea of spell schools, but not a huge fan of the Wizard subclasses. I'd prefer something more akin to the Druid/Chanter/Cipher subclasses which might be easier to write a "theme" around, e.g., a martial Wizard subclass, or a summoner. Perhaps something like the Priest subclasses which give access to extra spells from other lists could work too. Dunno what we'd do with spell schools then, though.

I want a cloak that isn't just a cape. (yeah yeah the poor modellors' wrists)

I don't think any stat has to be useful for literally any type of character, but should be useful for different builds within a class. A ranged rogue has no use for Resolve, but a melee one does.

With the either/or checks you can have more variety in how you meet a check as well. Like you could have low Insight but enough Perception to notice somebody isn't telling the whole truth. Stuff like that.

Yeah, it seems hard to use the subclasses to achieve a specific character concept, apart from Evoker and Illusionist maybe.

Got some nits to pick about spell schools. Ironskin's description specifically includes the word "transmutes", and is flavour-wise very much a Transmutation spell, but is considered Enchantment. I also feel Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment fits Enchantment more than it does Illusions. Indeed, I think despite Enchantment being described as, among other things, affecting the mind, most of the mind-affecting spells are in the Illusions school. Most of them fit that way, but at least this one doesn't have any flavour that makes it fit in Illusions. These are the only ones I've really cared to notice so far, so feel free to share your own.

One thing to consider when suggesting huge damage on long cast spells is that they would also become an "Interrupt or die" for players, unless they had some serious buffs/debuffs up. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to take into account when talking about balance.

I did enjoy the debuff juggling aspect of PoE combat, getting in the smaller ones to soften them up for the big ones, but I suppose hard CC need not be that powerful. I still think some extra defensive debuffs to hard CC wouldn't be out of place, like automatically applying Flanked (as Blind also does now) to Stunned and Paralyzed. On a related note, does anybody know what the Tier 3 Constitution Affliction is? I remember somebody saying it was called Enfeeble, but I haven't seen what it does.

Would more easily countered afflictions not somewhat obviate the need for weaker afflictions? Also, Paralyze doesn't interrupt. Not sure any hard CC does unless the ability specifically states it. Perhaps we don't need to go back to the specific numbers of PoE but it does feel bad when a hard CC'd enemy isn't any easier to hit with weapons or reflex spells.

Agreed, a lot of the affliction changes have put a few spells in a weird place. It also seems that hard CC is more about just disabling the enemy rather than nuking their defenses as in PoE1 (e.g., Stun is just -5 STR and disable), while reducing defences is more the domain of dedicated abilities (Nature's Mark, Shining Beacon) and weapon modals.

Throughout both versions of the Beta, I've noticed enemies dying randomly, even while in pause, with no indication as to who killed them: I just figured out how: with a hotkeyed ability (e.g., Strike the Bell or Knock Down), you can press the hotkey, click on an enemy, and it'll apply the damage while in pause. You can do this repeatedly, cancelling and re-targeting, and enemies will die while in pause.

There seems to be something wrong with the Power Levels UI feedback on levelling up. Here's the level up screen for a Fighter levelling from 2 to 3. He gets access to the Power Level II abilities, as per the Fig update: But the "New Power Level Unlocked" feedback only appears on the level after: For multiclass characters, the "New Power Level Unlocked" feedback appears at the top as normal, but again, the highlight only appears the level after:

Was there not supposed to be a Cyclopedia entry on Afflictions this update?

Right now, free-exploring with the ship requires a lot of repetitive clicking to clear out the fog of war. Either allowing us to click on the fog of war area or to hold down the mouse button and have the ship follow the mouse cursor would help with this.

It's possible those are in higher levels. I know in some footage we've seen Pallegina have both Wrath of the Five Suns and her unique Flames of Devotion upgrade.

I think it might also have to do with being able to list an exact time in seconds for action speed and recovery time instead of Fast/Average/Slow, since everything is happening in "real" time.

Speaking of the Spiritual Weapon, should all of them be a Corrode Lash? Seems like they should have different lashes depending on the deity.

hurtful subtweet of my Int>Per>Dex>Mig>Res>Con crowd controller wizard I think with Int and Mig (or Str or Res or....whatever) already adding to these effects it might be too much. Crits are already quite powerful anyway.

Oh for sure. Not against having that option.

I'd be somewhat disappointed if it were so simple as finding a way to kill Eothas. One thing I liked about the main plot of Pillars was how incidental combat was to the mandatory quests. There was a lot of combat in them, but it wasn't the main point of anything you were doing, apart from killing Thaos. And even then, the difficulty of killing Thaos wasn't what the Watcher was significant for. All the difficult boss fights being in optional side quests was a good approach, I felt.