Wormerine

Unexpected. Any specific reason? I find UI easy, so its not like in the first game where buffing with food was a pain in the butt. Did you dislike survival bonuses from PoE1 as well, or is it something else?

99% of the Players probably didn't play on Story Mode // Relaxed, where you could have x99 Camping Supplies. Others had to manage their ressources with Two Camping Supplies only on PoTD. Rest-Spamming... lol Oh Yeah ! Now it's Deadfire that has indeed bacome a Rest Spamming Festival. Since there are no Ressources to manage anymore, & all of that, regarding the Difficulty on top of that. Great Improvement ! [Get yourself two stacks of x99 Hardtacks & you're good for an entire Playthrough, on any difficulty ! xD] My dear Dex, you don't even make much sense. What exactly is the benefit of sleeping in Deadifre and feeding your party with Hardtacks (except loosing resoures on your team and time, which in Deadfire is money, as while you party after every combat stuffing your face with hardtacks your crew eats as well... preferably not hardtacks). Considering Obs changes in WM1&2 and Deadfire my guess would be that the issue PoE had was people not using spells enough. Frankly, PoE1 gives resting supplies like candybars. I fail to see what great depth PoE1 has what Deadfire doesn't offer right now, except spells being an "I win" button with marity of the game being balanced around not using them.

Its different. You use food to feed both crew and your teammates. Moral is a mechanics tied to crew. Feed them with hardtacks for too long and they be unhappy, gaining xp slower, possibly rebelling etc. Feeding your teammates with hardtacks won't lower moral but it also won't provide bonuses. To encourage people to not rest too often a high quality food gives your team bonuses (similar to those gained from resting in high quality rooms in PoE1). You rest again, you loose this bonus. So yes, you could rest after every fight if you stock up on hardtracks. However, unlike in previous iterations you gain very little by it. The only per-rest resources are willpoints and potential special abilities from items. In previous games resting spam was breaking a game and needed to be discouraged because using your abilities made game trivial. In Deadfire by resting you are not really making things easier, unless you really want those willpoints. Resting is result of player's failures (falling in battle, running into traps) rather than a punishment for using resources at their disposal.

That... would actually be a pretty good twist.

It’s frustrating. All the changes listed here have been known from the very start of the fig campaign, over a year ago. Reason for and against them have been made over and over again. Devs made it clear why they make them. And yet a bit over a month before release, a poster comes with a very aggressive attitude flipping out as if it is new info, as if we were cheated, while claiming some kind of intellectual superiority over everyone else without even stating tangible reasons for disliking said changes. But as news has been slow, and nothing of value has appeared in forums for quite a while, let’s go back and talk about the same topics for the 4th of the 5th time. 1) Huh? If anything, splitting might into two stats makes it more difficult to not sacrifice something. Keep in mind resolve governs all abilities that are not tied to physical attack, meaning not just spells. The change was made precisely to make all attributes valuable to everyone – due to changes made to armor and penetration resolve lost its usefulness. However, there is little reason to argue for that. That was an experiment (keep in mind this is beta, this is not finished game and balance, mechanics and features are a subject to change) and one that wasn’t well received by many. From what we know might will return and there are some further attempts to make resolve more appealing. I don’t have high hopes, but we will see what they will come up with. 2) Pfff, again with offensive “dumbing down” standing for “I don’t like it”. This time I am not a fan of the change to injury, though with current playthrough of PoE1 I am less disappointed. For the most part the new injury system fulfills the same role as the old health/endurance system – it forces players to rest every once in a while. However, as the old system forced players to rest not matter how well they played the new system is a result of failure on players part – you let your companion get knocked out, you stepped into a trap. This is actually a part of the system I really like. Considering you would want to keep bonuses from good food for as long as possible, keeping rested tied to your failures seem like the better way of doing it. What the old system had, which the new doesn’t is “in combat” resource. No matter how much healing you had your tank would run out of health if he took too much damage. It was, however, an element of only the toughest fights and as healing is much more limited and valuable, after all there are only that many spells you can cast within one fight and they take time, such additional resource might not be needed. Overall, while playing Deadfire beta, I am missing health/endurance much less than I thought I would. It was a bit more nuanced than the new injury system, but only “a bit”. 3) First things first: Baldur’s Gate and Pillars of Eternity didn’t have resource management outside each individual combat. Except some rare instances (Spellhold’s Labirynth) player can rest whenever they want, how often they want with only drawbacks were 1) annoying random encounters 2) wasting time running back to the town and buying supplies. While those games fake resource management by those soft restrictions, they do not have resource management – spending your “resource” badly isn’t punished in any way. It is similar to a health system or ammo, if you could simply refill those by pressing a button when you run low on it. I get that some people created self imposed restrictions, like resting only in taverns etc. but if players have to design their own rules to make a system fun, that means the original system has issues. With that in mind, there are two paths we can take to improve on that flawed system: rethink structure of the game to add an element of resource management (perma death dungeon run with limited system within? Aka. Darkest Dungeon) or focus on resource management which already is in the game – each individual combat. They went for the second. It might be your preferred way of doing, hell, I am not sure if it’s my preferred way of doing – I am a fan of tough decisions. But it is better than the previous system. This is an idea Obsidian was playing around even back in PoE1. March’s addition of free use of low level spells and later mastery of few spells was just that. If the old system worked – players played the way devs hope them to – I doubt they would change it just for the kicks. Obsidian revealed couple things, like people never switching Grimoires. I imagine way they paced and used spells also wasn’t what Obsidian was hoping for. So they changed it into something that better encouraged intended way of playing. As far as my concerns – I really have only one. How will Deadfire handle epic fights? In previous games those were handled by requiring players to use all their tools to win. For Deadfire they will have to rethink how they design those. It could lead to some fresh, dangerous opponents, but it also could be a big letdown, where fight with the epic dragon feels the same as an average fight. 4) Well, someone should have paid closer attention to campaign rather than blindly backing and assuming that the game will be what one imagined it will be. All those changed discussed above were announced early during the campaign. Shame on you. EDIT: Typos and grammatical incompetence.

I cought my Wizard cheating with how many spells she can cast: Her character page is a bit odd: It seemed like she kept spells in her repertoire when switching Grimoires. The problem fixed itself when I unequipped all grimoires both from active inventory and easy access slots. Save included. Cipher (8d2a70bb-45cc-440e-91bc-82f29e0af70d) autosave_1.zip

I think you just pointed out one of the biggest issues PoE1 spellcasters had - its a god class if you use it. PoE is a team based game - classes are there to support and fill each other. Spellcasters were in this weird spot that when you use them they are the best, but you are actively discouraged from using it. Its not my probem - its design problem. System rewards using as little spells as possible per enocunter. If you can win a fight without casting a spell you should do just that. I wasn't talking about the most difficult fights in the game - sure I will cast a lot of spells during key encounters like Adra Dragon. But those encounters are pretty much the only places you will have to use spells. Deadfire makes spellcasters consistant. They are still good but they are good in everyfight, unlike PoE1 when they are weak in most fights and godlike in a few.

That's not correct: At the current state priest and druids gain three spells per spell level (assuming you always pick the highest level possible: 2 choices + one from subclass) and 3-4 in case of wizards (2 chosen + 0-2 from grimoire). While it is difficult to judge I would hope for some way to craft at least one custom grimoire late into the game. I didnt' compare PoE1 spells to Deadfire spell (mostly because spell trees are not complete so it seems like a fools errand right now), but is there something specific you noticed is missing? More doesn't necessarly mean better. BG2 had over 100 spells but many of them were on repeat. In PoE many spells were designed to counter one specific affiction. Personally I didn't notice anything specific missing as of yet. EDIT: We know single class characters will get extra talent to spend per powerlevel, which means potential 5 spells per spell level for wizards and 4 spells per spell level for priests&druids. Seems fine to me.

Played quite a bit of beta, recently finished playthrough of BG1&2 and started PoE1 playthrough with a mage character. While the Deadfire’s casting system has its issues I believe it is the best system for spellcasters yet. Per rest system discourages using spells which means it gives you more options which you never use. I didnt find that an access wider range of spells means using more of them. While spells spellcasters can learn are more limited, let’s not forget there are scrolls, which can be use by anyone who invests in arcana. In Deadfire i am regularly capable of cast quite a few spells befor combat is done. I understand that there are some completely broken multiclass builds, but those need an attention first. PoE1 spellcasters have a habit of making the fight trivial when using spells, or being not very interesting when spamming weapon attack. I find per-rest discourages experimentation leading to me casting the same spells, if they keep working. Cipher was my favourite spellcasters in PoE and I am glad to see that Deadfire aims to improve in other areas as well.

My problem was more with writing. Or at least it annoyed me, personally. There is a lot of writing in Divinities, but little character, meaningful story or anything memorable whatsoever. I skipped through a lot of voicework as well, simply because I wanted to skim through dialogue. Rarely anyone has anything interesting to say. They will give you quests or hints, but there is also a lot of filler to hide useful stuff. Conversations rarely “go” anywhere - what I mean by that they don’t have an arc. I feel it’s more coop oriented. I don’t think that you as a player are expected to pay close attention to everything or discover everything by yourself. VO isn’t bad by itself - there is some really funny stuff. Impressive chicken voices.

Click or not to click, that is the question

Why? Well, when I think Battlemage I think: mage + standard melee class. Like a mage but also trained in traditional combat. Warlock I always associate with a more tribal enviroment and casting spell, making its connection to barbarian and wizard class make more sense to me. Argument you are making does make sense, but just doesn't work for me either. Its a subjective thing though.

Well, at least Sagani showed that dwarfs can be interesting. I was creating a new character in PoE1 and I was considering creating a dwarf femal mage, just to mess with Obsidian's data but sadly no good portraits for a mage dwarf. Had to go with old good wizard elf.

Let me summarise it just to make sure I understand it right: casting buffs with decrease casters (or everyone inflicted?) concentration making it easier to interrupt him/her next time he/she casts. It would be still possible to cast as many buffs as one desires but it would get easier and easier to get interrupted. As a side note: it is already possible to cancel buff/debuff by casting on a target opposites debuff/buff of the same type of affliction (strenght, dexterity, perception etc.)

Josh said its coming so I am sure it is. I doubt they knew they will delay the game before we did, so they must have been planning with that in mind.

Something I would like not to see in Deadfire - padding! I have grew more and more critical of Baldur's Gate2 over the years and when I restart it I always forget why... and that's padding! While its nice to have lengthy games, don't make game longer than it needs to be. After absolutely delicious first half Baldur's Gate looses it's speed once you leave Ankathla: Pirate Island is empty, underdark, while cool in concept, has a lot of walking from one point to another and passively watch the story develop. And then you leave underdark and you have this really weak content just before finale - killing vampres 'again' + 3 completely empty, pointless and boring new maps. A lot of fat and empty space which earlier quests simply didn't have. Let it end already. Sorry, had to vent for a bit.

Do I understand it right that you have to override existing portraits and can't just add new ones as you could in BGs?

The system is heavily abstracted and no, it doesn’t make sense. In case it is not clear the restriction is that you can make one full move per round (1x full sail, or 2x half sail). From what I understand from a ship stream, it is a callback to tabletop RPG rules, though I never played one, so can’t confirm that. Josh mentioned a while ago that this restricion will probably get removed.

It should be found under: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity If you use steam or gog cloud service you can regain saves by reinstalling the game.

At the same time Witcher series have a benefit of being more confined - you play as Geralt. This is a weakness and strenght not many RPGs will have. It leads to more defined characters and interactions, which lead to more character and overall a more direct voice acting. As an actor you know who character is, what their attitude is toward the person they are talking and they can craft several arcs of how this conversation could develop. It also helps that Geralt as a character is emotionally muted, making decision making more natural. A lot of voice acting in RPGs (especially from PC character) is very generic to make space for interpretation. And this is where unvoiced characters work better, making more space for interpretation and expression. I do agree about soundtrack. I like it overall - I think main title theme is excellent, but I could use more unique tracks. Looking forward to shanties.

Prerendered 2d background must look great in 3D :-D

I am not 100% sure what you mean. Engaging works the same as it did in PoE. Once you are engaged in melee you and your enemy are locked down and if one of you moves away the enemy will get a free attack. This doesn’t work when a target is being pulled away, via spell or an ability. There are also abilities (like rogue’s escape), which allow characters to safely leave an engagement.

Yeah, but I don’t feel like there is an easy fix for that beside allowing you to move between “preparing” and casting a spell, which might introduce a new can of worms. Once the change will be live that cancelled casting doesn’t consume the spell it shouldnt be as frustrating, though as I usually target a back line I don’t run into that issue very often.

A cannon shooting dragons?

I feel like beta hasnt been focused on giving us better experience with each update but on giving us stuff to test. Feedback from beta1 still hasn’t been implimented, while we know they have been working on adding more passives for a long time. Makes sense, I think. While might not be satisfying right now, if they fix the stuff for 1.0 it’s all that really matters in the end. At least I am not burning myself out on Deadfire beta.