Wormerine

Yhhh, I am pretty sure PotD takes hard and cranks everyone’s statistics up. It was hard which took normal and added more enemies/harder compositions. Either way both worked well.

Because the archetype I want is the rogue who attacks super fast with 2 weapons but is still a rogue. I don't want to multiclass and take all of Fighter (which I want 1 single passive out of) and lose out of a ton of Rogue abilities (as opposed to 1-2 if the talent was universal or I had some other way to get it) just for that.Although right now, if the system doesn't change I probably will make a Rogue/Devoted. That's exactly what I wanted, and exactly what I did. Turns out a devoted/streetfighter is a total badass. Great, sounds like the problem is solved!!!! As a bonus tip you could make a Monk/Rogue and use Swift Strikes to get increased attack speed. Not really. A devoted/streetfighter is a total badass, but it's not a duel-wielding high-attack-speed rogue. It's a fighter/rogue. I'm having fun playing my devoted/streetfighter, but it's *not the character I wanted to make*. It's just a decent substitute. A duel-wielding high-attack-speed rogue was totally doable in Pillars...but not in Pillars 2. In Pillars 2, the best you can do is a fighter/rogue to *simulate* that. I was worried about my imported cypher - with new system I won’t be able to improve his firearms and reload times while being a pure cypher. So at the end of my run I bought 7th lvl companion to try cypher builds. I made ranger/cypher... getting all basic cypher spells I wanted and nice long range accuracy, reload boost. I am kinda loving it. He also has an antilope running around.

It is a crowdfunded game. It is also why Obsidian is doing this beta and listening to feedback. The sales pitch was on fig. That said new system seems to do what it was designed to do. It provides more or less the same utility health/endurance did but with clearer UI and easier to understand system. Personally I do find it awkward but more I played less it bothers me. It’s not really winning me over (I still think previous system worked more naturally) but it stops bothering me.

Just beat my first playthrough on veteran. Beginning was tough as I was figuring mechanics but by the end I was rolling through enemies. I created a monk character (glass cannon subclass) and rolled with premade and preleveled companions. I found warrior’s mace modal very useful (lower armour). My main difficulties didn’t come from gameplay itself but from unfinished UI - people loosing health and me not noticing it in time, difficult to see what’s going on. I wonder if one handed speed made it too easy for me - my monk was ripping through everything. Still, all of it looks very promising. I like unrestricted casting, battles feel much more involved and reactive than before. Injuries sometimes felt cheap, but it is something I could get used to. I like how grimoires work, though I am looking forward to having a wider choice of spells with next update. Stealth works well, allowing you for some sabotage before combat. I found rogues’ upgraded “teleport” which makes next attack paralyse enemy a bit OP. Love it though.

Ignoring the issue of a more limited classes I am liking more and more current system. Skills at your disposal seem to be much more impactful than they were before. Muticlassing allows you to freely mix skills of two classes of your choose, but I wonder how much items could bring into class building. I finally beat beta, and I think I found at least two items, which gave wearer a skill from other class. I found boots which granted leap, and gountlets which granted ability to graze hits (with abilities like that and spells buffing allies with ability to graze, do we really need deafault graze mechanic?) I wonder if there are some cool builds which could be achieved my mixing single class buffed with well chosed additional skills. If there is a shop with items like that (so you don't have to find them at designer's choosing) it could be very cool. I am slowly warming up to it. I would welcome a pool of shared skills, but I would rather prefer them to be as impactful as base skills rather than bunch of small boosts.

At this point we might as well return to health/endurance. The point of injury system is to make things more readable and easier to understand not a complex web if major/minor injuries, with different penelties and "death door" points. The main focus of the game is on adventuring, not healing. It ain't Hospital Tycoon.

The specific downside of Godlikes is that they can't have helmets. They have some pretty cool racial skills, not getting helmet bonus is your penalty for being the cool kid. Fire Godlikes would melt helmet anyway. Deathgodlikes love to show off their beautiful faces.

I believe there was upgrade system in mind when pitching it. There is also combat, crew system. We know crew can starve or rebel. How exactly it will work - we will have to wait till it’s implimented in backer beta.

Yeah exactly, resting meant something in the last game even if the system was not that great. There were good times to rest and there were good times not to rest. In this version game it really is best to just rest after every injury, there's no incentive not to other than the loss of resting bonuses but then food also gives bonuses. Maybe if they made removing injuries harder as in it requires specific recipes to heal specific injuries? Also make it so only specific recipes give decent bonuses or just no food bonuses. The problem is you are adding mechanics and expending part of the game which doesn’t interact with the rest of the experience. You have to rest, because if you don’t in the next fight kicked out partymember wont get up. So you rest. I would advocate going as far as removing resting entirely and create entirely different “punishment” system for getting knocked out. Maybe not for Deadfire, but at this point we are moving so far away from IE games that it might be worthwhile for PoE3 to go back to drawing board and do things from scratch. New protagonist, new rules, new systems. At this point, old ones don’t really seem to glue all that well anymore.

D&D style resource management feels most natural if choices you make are irreversible. Decision “do I push in, in spite of danger or unoptimally rest now” is also an interesting choice only in a situation in which that decision made can’t be altered.

I do find combat very difficult to follow though it might be a result of my PC not handling glory of unoptimized alpha gameplay. Whenever there is bit AOE spell casts game stops for couple seconds calculating results.

So far my impression is that changes “gameplay wise” are,for the better. Classes are more distinct, they nicely complement each other in combat. All of them bring something unique to the table. Creating characters is fun - choosing between subclasses, multiclassing, thinking how you can combo strengths and mechanics of both classes. What is not fun though is levelling up. It feels to me that after choices made in character creation there isnlt much to do afterwards. Our paths are pretty much laid out for us. Multiclassing doesn’t seem like an expansion of what was possible in pIllars1, but rather a more clearer but more limited rebranding of PoE1’s system.

rest mechanic doesn’t feel all that good to me in this iteration. I do like individual changes (food used for camping, food replacing supplies, resting flexible but with diminishing returns, spells per encounter not encouraging not using them) but as the result resting mechanic (and therefore injury system) seems to be in the game only because is has been there before rather than fulfilling intergral part of the gameplay. In PoE1 rest would interact with many aspects of the gameplay - replenish health, refill spells, remove injuries, set right bonuses before tough fight. In PoE2 it’s just remove injuries and replenish “empower points” - which so far I am not using all that much - it might be me being new to the system, not fault of the system itself. Bonuses from resting seem nonspecific so far making them general choices (more healing for tank, more health for squishes etc.) rather than tailored for next encounters. While I wasn’t a fan of how KOTOR didn’t punish getting knocked out in any way, PoE2 injury/resting system seems to be there only to punish getting knocked out. It’s not terrible but feels more artificial than before. I got annoyed with traps giving injuries but at the same time I do like that activating trap does something tangible now.

Eye color in isometric RPG... sure why not. Nah, I get it... but its still funny.

Yes, and it doesn't seem to be the case with all NPC. But most of NPC text boxes display for far to short.

THat is odd. I am pretty sure two beatles joined the combat.

Beta isn't feature complete. Quite a few mechanics are missing.

This “lootbox” micro transactions never work for me. I stopped playing Heartstone as I always felt I am catching up to other players and wasn’t able to catch up without spending money. I would rather pay set price and get access to all the content than have to grind/pay every few months to stay on top of things. That said I don’t have a problem with that as it is Free to Play. It’s just not a model I see myself returning to anytime soon. I have no problem with Overwatch model, though for purely selfish reasons: this model abuses players who care about cosmetics. Content I care about is given out for no additional charge. Still I feel rate at which you acquire lootboxes is enjoyable and it doesn’t overshadow gameplay. While getting EVERYTHING is expensive, so far I managed to get every skin I liked without playing beyond I feel like playing. While I don’t believe Blizzard needs lootboxes to be in the game I don’t believe it hurts the experience. It did open gateways for other publishers with less integrity, however. Any interest I might have in Shadow of War, Battlefront2, New Need for Speed disappeared after seeing what they did with lootboxes. I am sick of buying incomplete games and with games designed to milk as much money throughout their lifespan it seems they might never be complete, always making you feel like you need the new, overpriced stuff.

I don't think it would work as some of the subclasses change in big way how said class works. Even with spellcaster, suddenly loosing access to spells which you might have picked would be odd. It wouldn't change how restricted single class characters feel as it would add around 3-5 mutually exclusive perks per tree. To me the game does feel very BG2 style, and I probably wouldn't mind it at all if it was my first dive into PoE. I did find flexibility of PoE1 quite interesting though.

I think that’s very much the point - how do you mak multiclassing work and a system which already supports flexible builds with single classes? Restrict single class characters, move interesting hybrid builds to multiclassing. This system has its benefits. If you want a wizard who only casts spells you choose a pure wizard. If you want to a wizard no goes beyond that you multiclass him. It is really all that different than in original? The downside is that once you opt for single class character levelling up is boring as you won’t even have a choice of expanding your character.

But weapon proficiencies unlock modals and don’t increase your accuracy with weapons, right?

You can still use new spells you find in Grimoires, and switch Grimoires before a difficult fight to switch up your spells. There's a better Grimoire than the one your wizard starts with near Tikawara, which you should probably pick up before doing the dungeon on a high difficulty. Tbh, without having played the beta myself, havign your wizard pick fewer spells but cast more from grimoires that you can find and collect sounds pretty fun to me. I never switched grimoires in the first game, I just picked up spells and stuck with them because it felt a bit of a chore. This sounds more interesting. Yes, overall I do like the new system. The downside is that spells don’t feel all that impactful, especially when they have long casting time. It might be a case of polish and feedback.

There is little benefit of rest spamming. The only benefit of resting is removing injuries and replenishing “empower” points. As you can use one empower points once per combat they last for a while. True injuries are easy to equire but are quite devastating. If someone has two injuries you should consider resting.

The new system is very clear. And for the most part fulfills similar role. It might get more interesting once Rez is available - do I Rez my tank or DPS and have him fight weakened with 2 injuries and risk him dying or use the spell for something else and try to beat encounter with 4 characters?

After completing first combat heavy area I must say that the new system feels less organic. However, I do enjoy combat itself much more so far. Recource management works very well. I didn't feel yet new system influencing combat just yet - while in lengthy combat scenarios in PoE depleteing your health on your tank was a thing, here you encounter the danger of running out of healing abilities. So far it works but I did find the original more elegant.