Wormerine

Eder: figher, Pal: Paladin, PC: cipher ascendant, Xoti: Priest, Aloth: Wizard

I found the story and character arc satisfying. The best I can describe is "season one of a TV show". The wrap up the conflict of this game, but there is certainly more to come,

Oh, easily Blow the Man Down (taking care of Benweth). I like me some hitman, and I didn't expect to get a fleshed out hitman level in Deadfire. Great start for the game, and great vertical slice of all gameplay elements in the game.

I've never played it. Is it worth a go? Additional content - don't know yet. Tyranny itself? Depends on what you like. I don't like the gameplay. There is little enemy variety, it has classless system, which is still sort of classes due to how skills trees are designed, and it's based on cooldown system, which encourages spamming over decision making. But I did enjoy story and world quite a lot. It's a much shorter game with a bigger focus on main story and different story paths. I would say it's worth a playthrough.

I finally bought all the extra content for Tyranny and preparing for the 3rd playthrough.

I got first encounters fairly quickly. I also got ambushed around the gullet.

I pretty much posted my thought on the subject in the spoiler forum: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/100592-critique-of-the-faction-system-and-its-negative-impact-on-the-ending-spoilers/ Avoided as much spoilers as I could but it is difficult to talk about ending and structure while trying to not talk about them.

What’s the narrator hate? The Deadfire narration is top-notch.

The only challenging encounters are those which are way higher level than you are. Devs are working or rebalancing POTD and Veteran but it will be a while before patch is out. Right now game is a cakewalk, even on harder difficulies.

Probably extra code to make finding all 55 easier. So, Obs. How is this integration with GOG going?

With of course. It'll be bisexual of course, or more precisely it doesn't see gender (see Spindle Man). It'll also be the first time the romance won't be optional as the companion will read your mind and see that you are attracted to it regardless of what your character actually says. Won't this reduce player agency you ask? No, of course no, who wouldn't be attracted to a hot, sexy Vithrack? And just like Shelob in Shadow of War it will change into a hot woman if you try to romance it, just to make things more generic.

I think it could work but not in the way system works right now - reputations should be more like in fallout: individual to certain factions. I can be honest and supportive of one faction or town, while completely opposite to another. I do find it odd to get reactions to both aggresive and diplomatic one after another from the same person (it happened!).

I don't think Bearn really likes you. And what if you get him killed?

Did getting to -3 do anything?

Yes, similarly Takehu and Pallegina had a little episode because of Takehu showing his interest in her, by dripping a religious idol into her bag. However, those are not faction related. The point I was trying to make, is that as factions are such a central part of the game, and the most important choice you will make, your companions would be a great place for those factions to clash and try to sway you towards them on a human level. I find it odd, that in spite of such opposing goals, some of the companions didn't seem to show much opposition - Pallegina and Maia in particular has been sent to support company interests.

Yup, it has been like that from the release.

I have seen many posts praising new factions and there is a lot to like in there. All four of them are well developed, with detailed backstory and with multiple representations throughout the Deadfire. Each of them have a companion to represent them and have a lengthy chain of well designed quests. How Deadfire handles its factions is in many ways similar to New Vegas. The political scene of Deadifire makes up the majority of games content and choosing with whom the player will ally with (if at all) is probably the most important choice in the game. Who will become your antagonist depends on that choice. That’s right, while Eothas might be the one who starts you on your journey, it is the fight before you confront him, which is the true resolution of this games conflict. It is a big deal – you face a major faction representative, with whom, most likely, you interacted for the big chunk of the game and you will have to kill one of the companions who traveled with you for tenths of hours (or from what I understand: you should have to. In my personal playthrough I managed to not kill said companion by now talking to her after making my faction choice, From what I have heard others a just as easy to exploit). Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel nearly as impactful as I am making it sound like and, as I believe, it should be. While there is a pretty elaborate combat sequence before reaching Ukaizo it isn’t quite the same as charging the enemy in the battle for the Hoover Dam in New Vegas. The final confrontation with the faction leader feels more like an afterthought, rather than a climax – perhaps it might be redeemed with a better difficulty, but personally I feel there is just not enough buildup to really allow this moment to properly pay off. However, I think that the weakness of this finale comes from fairly inconsequential faction and relationship system. In New Vegas the conflict between factions was active and present everywhere you went and you were part of it. The choices you made throughout the game – both following certain quest paths and by making mechanical choices (like killing members of certain faction) influenced your standing with various faction in both story and gameplay. This lead to said faction responding: either granting you access to their hideouts and helping you in wilderness or becoming unfriendly and later hostile and even sending bounties after you. Choices you made throughout the game actively allied you with certain faction, making the finale the result of your entire journey, rather than a single choice. While Deadfire has means to achieve a similar effect, it never utilizes it. While many of the quests will force you to favour one faction over the other, I didn’t notice my choices being reflected in the faction system. The following screenshot is taken from my “on the crossroads save” – all of the sidecontent completed with only the final choice and Ukaizo left to complete. How is my standing with all of the factions so high, in spite of my actions hurting some of them? I made a lot of choices against Royal Deadfire Company and yet, none of it is reflected. Only Principi ended up at “mixed” though outside one or two token reactivity in conversations it had little effect on my interactions with them. Even better, here is my standing after making the choice: allying with Valians, blowing up RDC’s powder reserves and lying to the Queen (while RDC might have been unaware of my actions, queen wasn’t). Nothing has changed. While hand crafted content might not support such flexibility, a worldmap is a perfect space to react to your choices – unsatisfied faction trying to raid your ship, you raiding faction ships affecting their reputation, friendly ships coming to your aid, ambushes in the city etc. Unfortunately, world map is static and shares no connection with the rest of the game, even though many ship claim to represent one of the four factions. Similar problems can be seen among companions – before and after the choice: I didn’t go out of my way to appease all of my companions. And yet as a character who didn’t respect the Gods, was fairly unsupportive to RTC and vocally supportive of Valians, trade and animancy I didn’t step on anyones toes. As a matter of fact, I was pairing companions with opposite worldviews (Pallegina+Maia, Takehu+Maia, Serafim+Pallegina) and yet I didn’t see any disagreement there. Your choice of faction should have repercussions earlier in the game and get reactions from both companions and factions. The final choice should be a natural extension of the previous adventure and not artificial “which ending slide do you prefer” choice, it is right now. It is probably unrealistic as expansions are planned already, but what I would much like to see is an expansion which would focus on core mechanics of the game. I feel that the way faction and companions interact with each other is in need of a major overhaul to make the story that is already in the game effective.

There are 3 dragons and all in need of serious difficulty increase.

Oddly enough none of my companions left me when I sided with Valians. Maia would, but I didn’t talk to her, so the conversation never got triggered.

There are way to many swords and sabres. I liked the idea of sword with crush damage a lot, but I vote “yes”.

Tradition. Rest has been part of table top D&D. IE imported this system even though they didn’t find a way to properly impliment it/enforce it. PoE1 iterated on the system, trying to encourage right rest distribution via limited camping supplies. In Deadfire they got rid of it altogether, except the token injury and empowerment system. It’s there, because it is expected to be there, but has little influence on overall gameplay. The positive aspect of injury system as getting someone knocked out is undesired. I do like it more than KOTORs complete lack of consequence. However, money and food are easy to come by, so the ”punishment” is more psychological than mechanical. In that aspect it is similar to PoE1, however, if you do play poorly it wastes less of your time, and doesn’t encourage you to not use tools at your disposal.

Yeah, but why. I get that Pallegina is pro-Valian and i get that Maia is pro-rauatai. I have less problems with returning companions, as i got to know them in PoE1. I understand why Pallgina is so attatched to brotherhood and what it means to her. I liked Serafim the most out of the new companions as we actually learn about him - his upbringing and i can believe that Principi ideals would appeal to him. All i can say about Maia is: she is an well disciplined Rauataian soldier with a bird. Cool. Throughout the game i got to know her job and that she is good in what she does. That isnt a person, thats a business card content.

Oh yes. Those are nice. By the way: Thank you all very, very much for a thread that points out the many great things about Deadfire, without the usual complaints and whining. It's a great game. Maybe the best I ever played. Can't tell at the moment, as I didn't finish it yet. Of course there are things I don't like, but those things are in every game. Deadfire comes incredibly close to the perfect RPG for me. My favorite thing is how the factions and companions are designed. They are so believable and you have lots of reasons to either like or dislike them. Like real ****ing people. Nobody is just plain good or bad and you don't have to decide too early with whom you want to side. In PoE1 my decisions where always the same, no matter how much I tried to roleplay different characters. I cant wait to play Deadfire again to make totally different choices. The companions all have kind of a Durance side, where they are just complete ****ing ***holes or idiots, but on the other hand they are completely OK in some way. The companions I thought I would dislike have some aspects to them that make them still interesting (Even Imoen Xoti), while the ones I thought I would like (Aloth for example) can be just plain ****, depending on where you take them, whom you take with you and what you decide to do or say. More of that please! Cuious. While I agree about factions, I have completely opposite feeling about companions. They didn’t feel like humans at all, and had very little to them outside robotic responses to what they like in reputation sheet, without much explaining what motivates them or what they believe with. In PoE they acted as “sound board” strenghting and amplifying stories wider themes, showing individual humans affected by revelations. In Deadfire they are just combat meat, who get upset if you not support the faction they have been attached too, with their personal quest having little to do with anything, and being of little consequence, story and character wise. They feel like what I hoped sidekicks would feel like - a basic character concept with little exploration and development.

I assume he complaints about the amount of gay/bi sexual characters. The one thing that did bother me about this, is that on one hand they treat it as if the eora was the open minded world were your sexuality doesn’t bother anyone. On the other hand a lot of jokes in banter assume that character’s sexuality is unusual or has a shock value in order to deliver the punchline. You can’t have one and the other. It reminds me of a guard banter I saw in DA:Inquisition: “isn’t it great that women are treated equal and it’s absolutely normal for them to act as guards?”. Well, if that’s so normal why do you bring that up? That’s just lazy writing.

Ciphers thing is manipulating people souls. Manipulating your soul seems... irresponsible.