Wormerine

Stuff is wrapping up: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/967567586035560448 "It is still me, your pal Pallegina... the paladin." Seriously? lol

I am on the stage: “I don’t have enough info, to know how I feel about it”. I don’t feel it needs more to fulfill its intended role. As it turns out different positioning gives you various advantages, disadvantages, different cannons have different strenght and weaknesses. I made a playthrough with the knowledge from the last stream and I found ship combat satisfying, however, it was based on a assumption that my decisions mean something, without much feedback from a game. I can imagine, how a more varied mix of cannons and ships could lead to a more interesting gameplay, but for now, we haven’t seen it in game. What I would like the most to see is better feedback during combat: 1) how is damage calculated (not chance to hit, but chance to hit crew, hull, sails - is it %33 for each? Depends on cannon?). 2) How do special events happen? What is a chance of them occurring? 3) most importantly: what are your ship stats and how they get affected by your positioning/movement - your defence difference between bow/stern and port/starboard side, how much defence you gain by doing a move. 4) explain dice roll, which decided who starts the round ingame. Have it visible (with chances to win) will be more satisfying and clear than starting round 1st or 2nd without any explanation. Hell, I don’t know how it’s calculated, but you could even make it an actual dice roll to fit the PnP feel (who rolls more, bonus captain level gives you extra points). Most important of all, two major feature don’t really work right now - jibe is simply a win manouver allowing you to bombard your enemy without a break, and not having to risk “raking hit” by facing enemy with bow/stern. And full sail doesn’t work - it doesn’t give you movement nor defence, which seem like a primary source of dodging enemy fire. This is a real obstacle in testing the system.

They could replace it with another mechanic. As long as there will be a fresh idea to focus on, they should be fine. Sure, some folks that really liked ships might be vocally disappointed and accuse game of getting “dumbed down” or somethin’, but that will happen no matter what.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qAnIOCIBFR4

True. But "text based" has little to do with it. It is not in presentation where potential problems lie. If it has interesting mechanics and variety, or it doesn't If it will become tedious I would rather have it text based where I can skip ahead quickly, than have to way 30s for guns to load in a real time combat. With bad base mechanics it could look like "Black Flag" and still be tedious. Sadly, from what I saw and heard Abandon Ship isn't great. Hopefully it will improve throughout early access.

I did quite a few runs without a priest on veteran and it worked just fine.

Define a "sidegame". Ship is your primary source of transportation and you are the captain. Unlike Gwent or pod racing&Pazak it makes perfect sense considering the setting.

Yeah, that’s my only concern about the ship system in Deadfire; how are you going to top it in Part 3? There is this sequel curse, where developers feel obligated to do more and more, because more means a better game (spoiler: it doesn't). If Deadfire turns out wonderful, and ship mechanics will deliver - why do it again? Maybe instead of vast caribbean setting we get a more focused adventure. Maybe go for this resource management focused gameplay people claim to crave - exploring White that Wends where every expedition can not return. Making every game somewhat unique is a key of not getting repetitive, especially as potential PoE3 will be helmed by a different creative director. Better for him/her to do his/her own thing, that second guessing what Josh would do it like.

But if you don't want to waste empower[...] There seem to be items that restore resources. So far I am aware only of Marux dagger doing this (image). But maybe there will be more. Wow! Never leveled it up. Really cool ability.

@Silvaren I think you have a point assuming that only one spell can be useful during and encounter, or that it is needed. Sure, previous system allowed you to spam favourite spells throughout the encounter. I do find myself wanting to cast myself more spells from the same level - I see it as a good thing though. Maybe expanding my spell limit for a buff, and saving “charges” for a heal. Or not buffing my party in case I will need this heal. Not buffing a spell with empower, to be able to regain spell charge if needed. I don’t find the change that different than first PoE. While first PoE would discourage casting spells, Deadfire requires you to choose what spells you want to cast in this fight. I found myself using a wider range of spells and think about my choices more carefully. The biggest problem I can foresee is when some spells will turn out to be too good and be casted every single fight.

Backer portal? Rewards are the same no matter how you back. Copy of your game will also have fig stain.

I bet they just wanna see what Jack will say now.https://mobile.twitter.com/kgarsten/status/960054625343696897

Sooo..... no beta update (not even bug fixes for ship combat, which pretty much don't allow to test mechanics), no info on how it works (luckily recent steam explained a lot). Luckily, I can't be mad at muppet Josh.

EDIT: Wrong thread

"What codes are you talking about Manifest"

I have exactly the same choices in my save and I don't see why I should change any of them, they weren't bad choices. Sure, I may miss something in POE2 because of that, but I may as well see something people with other choices will not be able to see. I am kinda happy I can't edit importend save. I was intending not to edit anything anyway, but I was tempted by some possibilities, like giving my ex-merchant orlan a 5 year old orlan to care for. Now it will be easier to stick to choices my character would make. I imagine it will be under "The Endless Paths of Od Nua".

Killed adra dragon, didn’t kidnap the baby, made Aloth repress Iselmyr. Not being able to modify imported save, means I will stick with my choices. Good. Will have a strong motivation for subsequent playthroughs.

Investment via fig comes with financial gain only (no game attached). I can see that you have a backer badge, so I assume you backed the game as well, which should get you a copy of a game. 3 items Pre-order bonus will be given to backers. Check what ya get and see what you get by preordering. Even if there are some items which are missing (there are unique items for fig backers and for various tiers of preordering and I am not sure if those overlap or not) fig and pre-order copies seem to be seperate versions (bonuses from those probably won’t stack. You can redeem your game code from obsidian’s backer portal, see what you get and decide.

How can you eat spaghetti without a spoon?! You would waste so much sauce without it! EDIT: I am really hungry for some spaghetti now. Thanks guys.

Sagani was probably the first dwarf companion I cared for.

8-I That's such a weird decision.

I will be really surprised if they will keep using "high quality" portraits for ship crew. As we will be finding them via quest using waterpainted ones seems to make more sense. While I always enjoyed those hand painted portraits I rarely felt like there were enough of them. Luckily it is fairly easy to import your own. At least with dwarf you can easily remedy lack of portraits. Tis more difficult with orlans or Aumaua as they are unique to Eora.

I did find and "equip" baby boar, but did no experimenting with it.

Yeah, Deadfire runs on updated engine, pretty much everything is made anew. Quality of current animations can be easily judged by watching any of the updates on Obsidian site or any playthrough on YouTube. For example here is one of the updates which feature unique animation for pommel strike as well as some basic attack animations. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=64U0n2SaNmI