Wormerine

Probably just an extra in case you missed one.

4 critical hits in one fight and you die?

While i found PoE1 very flawed while playing it, after completion it left me satisfied. Deadfire was much more enjoyable in the moment, but after the credits rolled I found it a bit hollow. What I really can’t find in Deadfire is a coherent set of themes or character arc. Individual quests and stories are a lot of fun, but in the end they don’t come together. Even in something like Baldurs Gate, those unrelated sidequests tend to play well into main story of you being the child of Bhaal - murder and way you use your power is central part of the game. In Deadfire you are a Watcher, a herald of Berath, a ship captain, a hunter, a discoverer, but none of those come together into a coherent character arc. Majority of the game is spent exploring and supporting factions, yet crit path makes all those conflicts feel irrelevant. The more I think about Deadfire, the more interesting it is. Something in there doesn’t really work, and I am not 100% what it is, or what would fix that. But it’s good, it’s really good. And yet it disappoints. Edit: it doesn’t have heart. There are no “feels” in Deadfire. PoE1 gave me “feels” - whenever it’s companions, or finale or quests.

Thaos’s reference to the Wheel: Skip to 41:43

I overall agree, except the notion that inability to confront Eothas is a sign of inexperienced writer. There are plenty stories which use protagonist’s inability to interfere to their advantage: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSz0mEtEsQ I am less sold on why we are tasked with following Eothas in the first place, and why we are the only person who has an influence toward him. The whole wheel reveal the whole situation more confusing, rather than explaining anything.

You are not maping the opening isle - you are mapping uncharted isles around opening isles. You should be able to name each uncharted isle after exploring it, whenever you met the map maker or not. Just like bounties you can explore them ahead of time, and hand in quest after it is given.

What makes you think that he is not?? His honesty? :-D

It’s less about what other people do, but what players do overall - it’s about a good game design. RNG save rest was an issue a it wasn’t designed for a computer game with save/reload function. Slot machines might be appealing to some but they loose appeal if you can change the outcome whenever you like. Sure, you might not reload and treat it as a real slot machine but majority of the people won’t - because people pull the lever in order to win and if they have a way to change the outcome, they will. Getting ambushed is not fun - it’s a punishment for taking a risk, and a punishment which can be too easily avoided. Still, we were talking about random encounters while traveling, not ambushes while resting - those were too in BGs but were o forgettable it seems people’s minds jumped to restin.

Obsidian decided to go with full-on unique and handcrafted attitude for Deadfire. Random encounters are usually tied to grinding - resource and xp. Not in support of those. But a small amount of random encounters could have made the world feel more alive. Currently you initiate every encounter, even ambushes - which doesn’t feel very ambushy.

It didn't add much difficulty wise, but the fantasy was there - going for an expedition, with limited supplies and having to backtrack to get more, and go back into the dungeon.

Just recruited Mirke an noticed that her hair doesn't properly work when wearing a hat, while it did before the patch:

Companions can feel very artificial - companions seem to lack any understanding of social interactions and take everything literally. While I understand Eder disliking ani-eothasians and animal cruelty, his reactions can feel quite off. Same with other ones. That's the unfortunate result of simple system based on tagging things. Still, I am surprised his reputation changed so rapidly. Considering how many conversations are still oddly tagged I hope Obs are working on expanding the system (July update might hint at it).

"retarted" indeed. Are we really talking about 1.1? It was an issue in the 1.0 build - after I stole from Dawnstart priest in the very first encounter, Eder had a serious talk with me about being a good person and following me. I haven't seen any sudden reputation jumps after the patch though.

Just yesterday I found a child of a Sky Dragon in Oathbinder's Sanctum. (its a pet & found if you didn't kill the Sky Dragon in PoE1).

Ha! When game released everyone would try to get into your pants. Not so much now. I like it better that way. In my current playthrough i initiated romance with Maia without much issue, which is good cause I am going pro Rauatai. If I understand the system correctly it requires positive relationship with a companion but it also requires right personal dispositions (passionate for Xoti, stoic for Maia etc).

Neat stuff.

Well I didn't say it had 15, but they are similar. I think BGIi had multiple different similar areas. One where you end up in a tieflings/spirits/demons/devils area and you have to wander around making pacts with them and either kill them or let them kill eachother. I don't remember how big they were because it's been a while. There's also another area in BGII, might be ToB that had a huge statue at the end of the dungeon you had to fight. Durlag's Tower and Watcher's Keep were pretty awesome. Watcher's keep was 5 level deep + boss fight and Durlag's Tower was 4 level deep + boss fight. That said, maps tended to be more sprawling and varied in style of WM's dungeons.

Nice surprise! Happy to see the continous support and can't wait for July update. Mean time, so you don't think we ever forget: How is integrating Scavenger Hunt with GoG going? :-D

Not really, certainly not 15. After the raise in difficulty I find dungeons much more satisfying, as combat encounters actually take time and attention. I would take 3 or 4 level deep dungeon, like Durgan's Battery, over Endless Paths of Boredom. The couple more traditional dungeons were great , and I would welcome more.

Yeah, underdark has a lot of fetchquests and half of the content there is walking back and forth between city and underdark. Still, cool idea nad unexpected detour on the first playthrough.

I like the approval from Xoti and Serafen.

Fleshing out Eothas chase would be grand. Alas we will get even more sidecontent. Which is good, I liked Deadfires side content.

I wonder if Obsidian took "PoE1 is too restrictive" to literally. Sometimes feedback you get isn't exatly the feedback you need. White March is a fairly restrictive enviroment as well, yet I never felt constrained or felt desire for more freedom - it gave me well constructed areas and quest with enough ways to approaching them. I remember W3 did a pretty good job with reactive quests, were many quests you could activate from the middle and game would adjust - complete a monster hunt with no quest giver by simply stumbling on it, and Geralt would say "someone in the nearest camp must be willing to pay me for slaying that thing". Similarly, after doing the Concelthaut quest the game should adjust too: "I am sure Arkemyr might want to hear about it". Fixing that would take a lot of examination of each quest, and doing programing/writing/recording to support it.

I am doing my second playthrough with hand made save: 1) Pallegina is still member of the order 2) Aloth is anti-leaden key and still has Iselmyr. 3) Eder lost faith (well so he did in my previous save, but this time it works) What I find is that first two characters work much much better now - Pallegina's first meeting is great, Aloth&Iselmyr are lot of fun. Here is my problem: recognizing different endings doesn't change much. Pallegina's exile is handled very awkwardly, and stitches between "exiled Pallegina" and "Pallegina who always worked for republics" are very visible. As soon as intro is over Pallegina becomes a member of VTC as if nothing ever happened - NPC openly recognized her as a representative of VTC even though 24 hours ago she wasn't that. I don't think that her blind devotion to VR is bad choice, but it seems clear that the main Pallegina is the one working for VR and the exile is just a surface patch. Its less about amount of content but how it is applied. Similarly, suppressing Iselmyr didn't change Aloth as PoE1 might suggest. He is the same Aloth, just tons of his banter and content is cut, making him a rather unreactive character. I feel like I am playing the Deadfire proper now, while the other character choices weren't fully supported.

I did, but game got confused.... pre hotfix gameplay.