[Main character attack and damage]

The PoE you describe frankly sounds terrible . One of us is remembering it wrong. Did you talk your way through claiming Caed Nua? Piles of coin were not hard to earn through combat in PoE if you wanted them (e.g. bounties). You're right about leveling though. That I forgot. Wondering how may companions were keeping up.  

 

Abilities are almost entirely about how much damage you can inflict or take. If everyone gets the same reward the wonderful/terrible labor of creating a brilliant or lethal character becomes meaningless. There is also little point to multi-class if you are not going to fight because the key difference between classes is the way each hits people (Ciphers excepted). Technically, I think everyone can sneak past trouble.  

 

All of that equals kind of adventure game with tons of nostalgic rpg prowess and class tweaking but relatively little of it actually matters. I'm not sure which of the NPCs demanded equal experience but damn those trouble-makers too. Different kinds of rewards for brainy, diplomatic or violent victory would satisfy the goal of not favoring styles.
 

 

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.

 

[[Spoiler] A Tale of Two Sympathies]

Are you datamining or something? If so, could you please be a bit more specific with the spoiler warning? I'd rather not stumble upon main-game stuff, especially if it's fragmented or incomplete.

 

You seem to be complaining that the spoiler reveals to much information and too little, and that you accidentally read a comment in the spoiler section, that had the word "spoiler" in the title, and an additional warning sentence describing exactly which kind of spoiler was going to be discussed.

 

Only a non-sentient program could post into this particular thread and have that particular reaction because, of course, they cannot actually read. So: are you being ironic and deeply meta with the data-mining reference or have I completely misunderstood what you are trying to say?

[Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers, part 2]

 

 

 

 

 

 

And from a recent Kotaku-interview:

"So that has already been that way since Pillars I, but we still find that the majority of players make white, human, I think typically men, which is fine, but it's also interesting to see what they don't make. Almost no one makes dwarves.

We hear people say that they like dwarves, they like the dwarves in the world, everyone seems to be like, "Yeah, fantasy dwarves." But they don't make them. They want a companion who's a dwarf, but they don't want to make a dwarf. So it's an interesting sort of dichotomy where you see like, well they like priests, but they don't necessarily like making priests. They want to have a healer, they want to have a support character – but they want to make the two-handed sword-swinging psychotic.

We find this overwhelming tendency towards making devoted fighters who are the single weapon crazy people, and assassins. It's like the concept is very appealing, they do a tonne of damage, and people are just like, "Yeah, assassin. White dude assassin."

 

I make dwarves, truly I do!

I always try to play an unusual class and after getting my ass kicked a few times in the first fight, I start over as a fighter (or a rogue so I can scout ahead and don't get stumped by traps or locks). I'm doing it right now in the Deadfire beta. If you have to count on magic protection and good attacks that run out mid fight you have no choice but to hang back. That's a little like you're in the game's game if you know what I mean.

 

I look for characters that promise exciting interesting play and storyline. I don't play dwarves because they are (traditionally) slow and don't feel different enough to be compelling in spite of that. I've played Godlike in PoE but (I don't think) you can change the appearance so it hasn't become my thing. Everyone who plays is playing the same character and that doesn't appeal. I don't think I've ever played a human in an RPG. I've also never played as a white dude though I do in fact make the character resemble me as much as possible.

I currently have 3 play throughs as a dwarf. A Barb, a Battle Priest of Magran and a Chanter (Solo). I love Dwarves. Borreals for exceptional DPS builds and Mountain Dwarves for more of a RP/Story experience. BGEEs brought us Dwarven Defenders. Played that class first upon the EE releases. I have 3 close friends who played PoE, they all played at least one completed game with a dwarf. I guess they can track metrics these days via Steam and what have you but that they are saying no one plays dwarves and no one plays Priests seems very odd to me.

It doesn't seems odd to me. Play any MMORPGs and watch how many DPS they are compared to tank and healers (answers: healer and tanks are super rare) and the race distribution: dwarf is always at the bottom.

But this isn’t a MMORPG. I fully understand the DPS solo play of the MMORPG. POE is a completely different type of monster.

It's pretty obvious that most people like to play a character that is similar to their own physiology. It's basic psychology.

 

As for healers, same psychology applies, people want to be leaders, not support characters.

 

Of course this doesn't mean everyone plays like this but we are talking about averages, not individuals.

True, and a reason I made the post asking why people play the classes that they do.

 

I'd say that perhaps the DPS popularity is more commonly associated with a need to feel empowered and strong, being able to enforce one's will over others. A leader can be the healer/buffer/speaker like real life leaders who orchestrate the team to their strengths.

 

 

If by enforcing your will you mean specifically beating people up as opposed to nurturing and just enjoying the success of the whole team, yes, but leading from the rear is waaaay more puppet-master-y in game.

 

Of course as a player you're probably directing every single character either way. Maybe you imagine shouting orders. I do. I think people like the front-line because it means taking the most risk and enjoying endless individual, victories.

[[Spoiler] A Tale of Two Sympathies]

This comment is about a plot point that may not even be in the final version and I haven't finished (not sure I can) so the quest may end better than it starts. Reader discretion advised.

 

The islander story of a people traumatized by colonization seemed like a bold choice for a game especially with almost no allegorical camoflague. However particularly if you are a Cipher, and even a bit if you are not, ithere is a cheap they-sort-of-do-it-too twist. On top of that is seems like you're stuck with a choice of being an or being an . Just later.

 

It's hard to get a sense of a game with graphics missing (You have gained: A White Box with an X on It), incomplete music and without your companions but as it stands I am less excited. The water is wonderful, especially by the shore, but I'm dreading it a little if I'm honest.

[Main character attack and damage]

Heya playerone,

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback. This is definitely something we are looking at closely as the backer beta continues. Ill add your input to the discussion we currently have

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

 

I had to really play with the pause settings to have a chance to set the team up at the start of combat without them running off, observe the effect on their targets and remaining power options, and make the next choice(s). I feel like that sort of staggered mechanic has been the norm until now.

 

There also seems to be a delay in the invidiual combat log versus the general so a character can finish an enemy and you won't know if you're parituclarly looking to see if they did.

 

It seems that after a long battle there isn't much of an experience point haul and even if your character is an awesome closer who saves every team member, just as a random example, you don't get more.

 

I feel like balancing, if that is what this is, makes ordinary fights fairly hard without a really satisfying payoff in experience or stuff at the end.

[Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers, part 2]

And from a recent Kotaku-interview:

"So that has already been that way since Pillars I, but we still find that the majority of players make white, human, I think typically men, which is fine, but it's also interesting to see what they don't make. Almost no one makes dwarves.

We hear people say that they like dwarves, they like the dwarves in the world, everyone seems to be like, "Yeah, fantasy dwarves." But they don't make them. They want a companion who's a dwarf, but they don't want to make a dwarf. So it's an interesting sort of dichotomy where you see like, well they like priests, but they don't necessarily like making priests. They want to have a healer, they want to have a support character – but they want to make the two-handed sword-swinging psychotic.

We find this overwhelming tendency towards making devoted fighters who are the single weapon crazy people, and assassins. It's like the concept is very appealing, they do a tonne of damage, and people are just like, "Yeah, assassin. White dude assassin."

 

I make dwarves, truly I do!

 

 

I always try to play an unusual class and after getting my ass kicked a few times in the first fight, I start over as a fighter (or a rogue so I can scout ahead and don't get stumped by traps or locks). I'm doing it right now in the Deadfire beta. If you have to count on magic protection and good attacks that run out mid fight you have no choice but to hang back. That's a little like you're in the game's game if you know what I mean.

 

I look for characters that promise exciting interesting play and storyline. I don't play dwarves because they are (traditionally) slow and don't feel different enough to be compelling in spite of that. I've played Godlike in PoE but (I don't think) you can change the appearance so it hasn't become my thing. Everyone who plays is playing the same character and that doesn't appeal. I don't think I've ever played a human in an RPG. I've also never played as a white dude though I do in fact make the character resemble me as much as possible.

[Main character attack and damage]

The main character misses constantly and hits for extremely low damage despite proficiency with weapons used and very high perception.