Wormerine

Most of the time Rosselio Vittoriano is not impressed. He came to Dyrwood to set up a new business and live a quiet and (hopefully) profitable life. The Watcher incident made things difficult for him, but once the trouble with Thaos has been resolved he ended up with a keep and led a happy life for couple of years. And then Eothas came, smashing all he has achieved and forcing Rosselio to set on another journey. On a ship. In a hot and humid climate. With a party of sex addicts. After learning of the true nature of gods, he was considering their existance as a worthwhile stupidity deterrent. Now he had enough. He just wants them to leave him be.

The whole romance thing seems like the worst part of Deadfire so far to me. It's worse than usual Bioware thing, as those are at least paced. Here, I cant recall many interactions with companions outside being hit on. And it's not like the romance is just an option. It's not like you can avoid gaining companion's romantic interest. It seems like you can either try to sleep with majority of them, or give them the cold shoulder. It's ME3 problem over again. "Guy's we have stuff to do and worry about! Can't you think of anything else than ****ing me?" It's not like there is charisma/beauty stat. I am playing a bloody orlan. According to the lore I am part of a discriminated race. Why in the holy **** Xoti wants to bang me that badly? And it comes back over and over again. PoE1 was full or rich and interesting characters. So far companion wise Deadfire is embarassing. For next playthroughs I might go full sidekick, or custom mercenary. I didn't have high hopes for romances, but this is bad. Is there companion content outside 50 shades of embarrassing?

Yeah, I saw Josh as well as a Principi thug in one of the quests.

Yeah, I doubt anyone will take upon themselves to write his characters. Shame, I would love to see the broken Durance.

If at all, my guess would be the Brass Citadel, where her faction resides.

Nah, the only thing I wish for was mentioned in another thread - an ability to switch party members from "docking view". You have to leave the city in order to switch companions - seems unnecessary, if I am standing already by the boat.

Yeah i figured that in time, but why would they not give the paladin ANY +x engagement talent ? You're forced to multiclass just to fill what should be a natural role (off tank dps). I actually had to start my campaign over after making Pallegina a single class paladin because i had no way to use a greatsword or estoc and have at least one engagement. It's very intentional. Engagement is mainly the fighter thing. You can gain engagement on other classes by using items - weapon with engagement or special items which grant one.

I am still keeping my fingers crossed hoping that if Deadfire will sell well enough a big-post campaign expansion for Deadfire would come. The three DLC plan reminds me more of Firaxis model more, than anything else. However, putting a rushed sequel in a long run might hurt them more than help. Quality takes time. Some people might be happy with a smaller, similar project, others might see it as rippoff. They shouldn't follow EAs policy (sell while people like it), as if they fail, they will be the ones suffering.

Nope. All of baldur's gate 2 takes 50 hours (56h and 55m). I was shocked to find out beating a completionist run through of BG1 too me only 43h and 8m. I could have sworn the first game was about 100h long. They just can be boring. Watching your characters slowely walking from one point of the map to the other can make the game feel longer than it actually is. I can't say much about critical path of Deadfire as I didn't beat it yet, but it feels chock full of content. I see faction stuff, and side areas as critical part of the game. What IS the critical path, hmmm? The areas you have to visit in order to beat the game? Areas with interesting content? With important story?

I would say no. It might be the best in a way, but not for an RPG. Stealth system of games like Arcanum or Fallout allow for some creative emergent use. Deadfire has a bit of it, but I feel it’s much more controlled (or I didn’t try to break quests hard enough). Still, Deadfire has some great moments utilising stealth/pickpocketing.

We went for the very easy going adventure in Deadfire. Go complete opposite for PoE3. First: we go 3D. Not, full 3D, still the top down, isometric, but no 2d prerendered backgrounds. Allows for modability, hopefully easier to edit/generate. If one would want to make it clear that it is different PoE experience, then go even turnbased I say. White that Wends. You are looking for something there. Resources are difficult to come by, land is unforgiving. You don’t adventure personally anymore. It’s too dangerous. Characters you send out aren’t handwritten companions. However, they do have unique interactions, like in IWD2. Ability to rest is limited, stamina and spells aren’t plentiful. Characters can and will die. Story comes from the land you uncover and characters you meet. Role of companions take over various character at your main camp, merchants, smiths etc.

It’s coming from love, to hate. I am leveling Maia and all picks look dull and unappealing.

Oh I love ciphers. I am playing an ascendant and it’s sick. Reach max focus in about 3 shots and go wild with spells without an end. Buffs/debuffs/mindcontrols/damage. Chaining high level spells and not worrying about focus is just crazy. I feel like maybe an 50% discount would be buff enough. Right now it’s hilariously great.

My take on companions is as follows: Eder - straight up fighter. Very useful. Eder is Eder. I like him. Or to be more accurate: I liked him in PoE. I don’t remember him doing or saying much of note in Deadfire. What was there was very Eder’y. I want more. I feel like “reunion” isn’t really acknowleged. I was excited to see him for the first time, but he just didn’t say too much ever since. Aloth - same as above, though as he is a rather silent character I don’t mind it as much. With both those cases I am not sure if I would care much for them, if not for the already established personal attachment. I feel I really should be able to have a more in-depth talk with Aloth after leaving Port Maje all things considering. Good wizard. Pallegina - yhh.... very wrong save import kinda started us on the wrong foot. She also really dislikes one of my permanent companions so I didn’t spent much time with her just yet. I felt like the breaching her exile ending from PoE with Deadfire is very amwkward. Stitches are visible. Great paladin. Serafim - so far my favourite new companion. He has good introduction, you know why he follows you, and he didn’t verbally sexually assaulted my character, unlike other three. Gameplay wise - I manage to do stuff with him a bit more once I ditched his blunderbuss for full melee (I play as cipher, so I made him a barbarian). I certainly keep him more for story when dealing with Principi rather than gameplay. Xoti - psychotic, emotionally unstable character. I don’t know WTF is happening with the relationship system, but many things went very wrong with Xoti for me. Very unappropriate reaction descriptions to various events, and her craving for sexual relationships. I feel like I am talking to an unstable and very dangerous individual. Solid priest though. Maia - meh? Enjoyable unremarkable companion so far. Hoping she will reveal another layer as time goes on. Surprisingly little to say about her relation to Kana outside a throwaway reactivity line. Alright ranger, though wow, rangers lack interesting abilities - people were right. Once again, surprisingly quick to test the water as far as romantic interest. I am considering her a potential romance option, even in spite wondering how an orlan could satisfy aumaua but then I remembered she is Kana’s sister... which just feels awkward. And no way I am going to side with Royal Deadfire Company. Takehu - he has been swiping my ship’s deck for the majority of the game so far on account of very forward advances toward my male orlan being the first thing he said to me. Just rejoined my party for some adventuring. We will see how it will go. Recruited Konstanten and Ydwin, both are still level 1 and swiping the deck.

That’s odd. I am using obsidian’s flag as well, and I have no such issues.

That’s assuming your ranged physical multiclass can go through everyones armor and deflection isn’t always the easiest defence to overcome. Maybe you are better in stacking accuracy than I am, but when I fight an enemy where my physical characters have 30%to hit, spellcasters tend to have plenty of ways to overcome it. Regarding the comment that you won’t do much with 1-2 missiles. It depend what you mean by do. It’s a pretty good burst damage. It won’t one shot enemies, like empowered more powerful version of wizards, but it will do a lot, as long as enemy isn’t resistant to crush damage. Still, physical ranged characters won’t hit all the enemies at once for 60+ damage each. I would say the biggest advantage of wizards if flexibility. Like many others I am not in love with specialisations, though I admit I played with them in beta only. They seem to support only very specific builds - which is not horrible I suppose, just not as exciting as other classes.

Flags act as disguises. If you fly a faction flag, enemy factions will attack you. I am flying a neutral flag and sometimes priest try to raid me.

Also, he has big hands. Damn you, Josh, why do you hate dorfs so He can play Rachmaninov without assistance!https://youtu.be/ifKKlhYF53w

Level 1:Minoletta’s Minor Missle - level 12 and still using it. Good spell against anyone vonourable to crush damage. Eldritch Aim - useful sell buff if you want or land important spells (not using it in current playthrough. Gave some accuracy bonus items and Aloth doesn’t miss when targeting the right defences). + outside buffs Chill Fog - just as good as in PoE1 Thirst of Tattered Veil - probably my favourite interrupt. Quick, reliable, long range. Crafted bunch of scrolls and gave it to couple of other characters. Fan of Flames - pretty strong AOE for anyone vonourable. With less choke points it’s easier to move your wizard to the position where he can actually use it without hurting your own. Level2 Necrotic Lance - great single character damage Combusting wounds Etc. Don’t feel like writing out more. There are plenty of good wizard spells even early on. It takes couple levels before player gets into real fights. For early fights spell selection is absolutely sufficient.

Not it’s not, you need to “assign” food for crew in ship management view (see Sylph’s post). It is done so the crew won’t eat food you want for yourself.

I listed the steps in my previous post on this thread, but if you need it illustrated:

Wizards are monsters. I am trying to force myself to take Aloth out of my party for once. I have three Grimoires which i constantly switch between so his spell range is pretty good. I am not convinced to Druids but I barely used Takehu. Need to level him up and give him a fair shake.

Now when I am thinking on it, Xoti seemed to get stuck at 2.5 reputation with me. I also got an achievement for reaching maximum approval of a companion (Xoti being the highest).

I would say it’s solid, but wait if you don’t mind. Bug wise, the only issue I saw were save imports which are supposed to be patched tomorrow. I hear PotD has issues now, and apparently content scaling doesn’t work. I find Veteran alright, but it could have been a bit tougher. Difficulty is more consistent right now I would say. It doesn’t seem to raise difficulty so far, which is an issue as a PoE1 player should have maybe a bit too easy of a time.

Yes to all of that. As the game progresses you get to talk to companions a bit more, but I did feel as well like we are skipping some important beats. I understand the desire to trip writing as it was the biggest complaint about PoE for many people but I am supposed to romance companions, and I just know nothing about them, beyond what is in their “reputation” sheet. Sadly, with full VO there might not be a way to fix any of that.