Wormerine

I must say I am not a fan of Empower. I am not convinced to its usefulness or role. It seems like a weak system left over as a tribute to old per-rest resource management but I don't think its very interesting mechanically. When I say "usefulness" I am not saying that it doesn't impact the game - empowered spells are noticably more powerful and gaining another healing spell might save from injury, but tactically it is not interesting. Its problems are very similar to old per-rest system - they help winning the fight, but you don't need them to win a fight. In the end its something I don't think about at all when considering my choices. It certainly doesn't force the rest out of me if I run out of empowers (did I even run out of empowers?) Maybe if old health/endurance system was in, it would have a value as ending fights with as little damage received would have been beneficial. In Deadfire as long as no one falls to the ground you are fine.

@injurai I think that a lot of your obeservations arent wrong, but I also feel that it is difficult to judge how it really plays until full game comes out, when we have more enemies to fight against, and more levels to experiment with. Really, the only danger I see with the new casting system is restriction on available spells - especially subclasses seem to force you into rather narrow range of spells. However, I have been observing my gameplay style through recent playrheoughs of BGs and PoE. And I know it is just me, and someone else might play differently, but I would be surprised if Obsidian would make those changes before consulting data first. It’s true, in Deadfire you will have to specialise your casters. But don’t players to it already? Yeah, your wizards can have multiple Grimoires giving them access to every spell in the game, but did anyone really used them on regular basis? I am actively trying to juggle 2 Grimoires and it’s just not happening. I have built my current mage with using magic weapons in mind, and I stick to it. I have 2nd grimoire prepared for a long range fight, but so far I didn’t use it. I feel the same about druids and priests - once I set my mind on using them for certain purpose I rarely go beyond that. I think that the restriction of choice might be felt more by “single character” people. It certainly will make those classes less flexible. At the same time, I don’t think that self imposed challenge runs should inform overall design of party based game. And as far as few spells cast per encounter. There are about, what 9 or 10 power levels? For mages that means over 40 spells to choose from, with an ability to cast what...? 16-20 per encounter? Early levels will be slower, but so they are in PoE1. Casting time means you probably won’t empty your access to spells, but who knows. Combat in Deadfire certainly feels more active with more things to do per encounter and more things to keep an eye on. Solo classes will get a big buff by being granted and extra ability to pick per power level. The multiclass vs singleclass is difficult to judge without full skill trees, but multi seems to sit on top.

I told you, they made the puppet for a reason. Katrina may be gone from Obsidian, but her likeness will be sold for years to come.

Considering that Josh won’t helm PoE3 I would much prefer if they wrap up Watcher’s arc in Deadfire and introduce new protagonist and new take on the system/genre in the third installement. Last parts of trilogies tend to not be very good. I am sure designers are full of cool ideas and it would be shame to force them to remake same game over and over.

Mechanically there is a big design difference between PoE-PoE2. If we are talking about importing PoE1 campaign with Deadfire mechanics I doubt it would be a good idea - I am pretty sure that encounters and map layouts are designed differently for old and new system. There was sort of a discussion on the subject during one of the streams. Here is the excerpt: EDIT: pffff, we are yet to see this performance gain they talk about.

I thought that spell crafting was really neat. But other than that yeah, I didn’t like the “classless system” tyranny had, and combat was really dull overall.

I don’t feel that way. PoE1 has been one of the few RPG where I could think of my character first and let my decisions be informed by it, rather than really worry about not screwing up. PoE system is fairly limited because there is a clear distinction between combat stats and personality stats. Every character you build is a combat trained veteran. Which does fit the setting. For the type of an RPG it is, I think it’s pretty well done, overall.

Will is a defence stat. deflection is raised by resolve, fortitude is raised by might/strenght and constitution, reflex is raised by dexterity and perception and will is raised by intellect and resolve.

Haha! Two is great but three is a crowd.

Ok! So it is a thing. I remembered Josh saying that concentration needs to be taken down before an interrupt will work, but I couldn’t remember if it is in current beta of of it was the concentration tied to resolve system he was thinking about adding. So yeah, seems like you can prepare to prevent for a potential interrupt. I will keep an eye for those during my next beta playthrough.

Hellblade? Bastion is probably in my top 10 games of all time so further recommendation from me.

What? Where did that came from? Might is coming back (all damage and healing) and resolve is getting buffed to make up for the loss of concertration. Possible buff to resolve revealed here: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171289309831/various-deadfire-changes Resolve is being revertd to its POE1 state and, additionally, is receiving a buff because it was meh. If you are talking about empower/depower from Resolve than it's not a possible buff because And revert they did.I am pretty sure he means moving magic damage&healing back to might, and leaving resolve with deflection and will bonus. Old resolve would mean implimenting interupt and concentration back, which would mean a core redesign of entire Deadfire system. It was entirely different system back in PoE1. Resolve is getting a buff, because without concentration it doesn't provide much value. EDIT. Right? Having two interrupt systems in play would be really odd.

I just jumped back into beta and made my team smack each other in the face to figure that out. Unless there is more to it that meets the eye the system seems fairly simple. Basic attack don't interrupt. Various abilities, however, do interupt when certain conditions are met. For example: Strike the Bell works on a hit: Knock Down will interupt even on a graze: While a fireball needs to crit to interupt: It seems that if an attack meets those conditions an action will be interupted.

What? Where did that came from? Might is coming back (all damage and healing) and resolve is getting buffed to make up for the loss of concertration. Possible buff to resolve revealed here: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171289309831/various-deadfire-changes

Rocks fall, everybody dies. That's not anti-climactic ever! It's just the ending of NWN2!

It certainly happened to me before, but with the buffed up Lagufaeth. Once I avoided him the encounter disappeared. I assumed it's intentional, but now when you mention it I am not so sure. As they are hand placed events and don't pop up randomly (at least in the beta) It seems weird for them to just disappear from the face of the earth forever. Really inconsistant with how the rest of the game works.

That's all true and part of the design. If you didn't play Pillars of Eternity1 here is a summary: you gain experience by exploration (discovering new areas), completing quests and completing journal entries - those aren't in the beta yet, but essencially you have a journal with bestiary, which lists every monster encountered. Info about each monsted gets filled in with every enemy of that type defeated. Once you fill the entry you don't gain extra experience from killing this type of creature. Gained experience is spread across all teammates. It might seems like an odd way of doing things, especially compared to jRPGs but that's because Deadfire doesn't encourage combat. It is certanly part of the game but if you want to avoid bloodshed through diplomacy or stealth you won't loose anything. That way game avoids rewarding various roleplaying choices more than others. Combat is there to be hard if that's what you like. If you feel that a tough fight isn't worth the effort without a better loot or experience boost than the difficulty is there to accommodate you.

I can't do anything here unfortunately. It's an injustice that who discover only now the game can't have the cool items of the Fig campaign. Do you think can be a possibility to contact the support? Thanks! Hardly an injustice as those items are there to encourage funding the game. They loose a bit of an appeal if they are sold after the game have been funded, no? Though I do feel your pain. If you talk about exclusive items ingame, yeah, I never like when backers get "extra" items in a singleplayer game. Those items aren't a big deal, but still. Whenever I back the game or buy it after launch I like to have the "complete" edition. Splitting game into various exclusive version drives me nuts.

Is Thursday the usual day or Tuesday? It would be nice to get some official ballpark? I know how people go monkeycrap out of entitlement about not meeting the internal deadline.. but at least naming the week would be nice Beta updates traditionally come online on Thursdays. I doubt Obsidian will say anything specific until actual beta update release. They don't want to not release update after announcing it. Josh has been teasing this one for a while so it's probably coming soonTM but whenever its this week or next week or week after that? Who knows. I do hope it's this Thursday. It has been a while.

Looking forward to finally seeing good Overwatch cinematics:-). They haven't been quite what they used to be. Good for her. Maybe she could sparkle some cooperation? Starcraft Obsidian RPG?

I don't have access to the beta, but from what I've seen on YouTube and posts like yours, it seems it would be really difficult to maintain a high performance on a low-end rig. Suffice to say, I don't believe these promises also. Deadfire has full capacity to run well - its very uneven right now. Sometimes I get smooth framerate, sometime it gets really bad. I have seen other games drastically improve performance within one patch, so its not impossible, but its probably my biggest fear right now. All excited I will launch the game soon after release and it will run like crap.

As “strength” checks have been mostly moved to skills (in this case athletics or intimidation) it shouldn’t be an issue anymore anyway.

Darn, and last week was the first when I gave up on receiving new beta. I suppose it’s time to get excited over nothing again this coming Thursday. ;-)

Excellent question. I don't know if this can be answered here, maybe with spoiler tags, but is there a bigger battle in the beta? How interesting will mages be in this case?Nothing of the sort. Beta includes sidecontent and gameplay wise focuses on fairly low level basic stuff. While there are some tougher names enemies there, there is nothing too epic there. It’s not that I want to hear the answer - I prefer to discover on my own. I am just curious/worried how they will approach it as those fights are usually ones where full “rest” of abilities was coming to play.

Optimism is a path to constant disappointment. To minimise unavoidable letdown once the 8th of May is upon us, let us lower our expectations ahead of time by discussing all the possible ways in which Deadfire shall fail. PERFORMANCE! You would think that a game with a 2d background and an isometric view would run on a potato. No, Sir! While the basic graphical nature of the game comes with a limited option screen, it doesn’t mean that it won’t require an expensive machine to run. Beta suffers from some serious performance issues. New weather effects seriously tank the frame rate and, strangely enough, so do menues. Inventory screen seems to be the new Crysis. Sure, they say that will be fixed. They say that the optimisation is the last thing to do. But I know better. I have heard all of that before. <But seriously, why is inventory screen so bloody taxing. It makes managing equipment a real pain.>