VincentNZ

All I'm saying is, you can read information much faster, than a good voice actor, who pronounces everything correctly etc., can say it. So you are automatically in the situation to cut down text or have an audio book for a game. This is about so much more than just money for VO. No one wants to listen to 10 minutes of VO every few steps. btw: JS just answered a question about VO https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171942616176/how-much-vo-should-we-expect-in-deadfire Oh yeah, I just thought you brought up an interesting point. Yeah in short time you can really process a lot of information by reading a text, especially if it is well written. At the same time you are likely to overread stuff, if VA is not in or at a minimum. I had that in PoE, when you could read on these souls. When I figured out they were not relevant to the gameplay I stopped reading them, but I would have listened for 30 seconds. There are really good fully voiced RPGs out there and you are right that it needs to be limited more than a text box, but there are many good RPGs out there that are fully acted out and still deliver enough of their story. But yeah, Skyrim or Fallout are vastly different from PoE. How did Divinity Original Sin handle it, I wonder?

Hmm I do not know if you can say this is the reason for it, or if it is just correlation. I would say that it has been a natural process to have less text in a medium that by nature gets more and more visual. Twenty years ago immersion was mostly doable by setting the mood via textboxes. 30 years ago computer games were as close to books as modern games are to movies. It is very true though, that full voice acting is a really costly product and something that not many companies can afford on a broad scale. Also bad VA is something that sticks in minds and can kill any immersion.

Yeah it is true, IE games are naturally quite heavy on text and I surely do not ind reading. However the more voiceover is done the more immersive it gets. When your companions really talk to you you are drawn in much deeper into the lore. Plus of course your are more inclined to listen than to read and stuff just stick in your head more.

Yeah but doubt that it will be full. Not with the amount of text and the budget they have. But one can surely expect more VA and I thought it was on a really good level, too. When I think about it Eder's voice still sticks in my head.

Cipher is very unique no doubt, and I mostly make a ranger type class in every RPG, but I never thought it is an interesting or unique one. Beyond the big three (fighter, rogue, mage) I find the ranger to be the most generic. Why do you consider it interesting, I wonder? For me the Ranger is mostly convenient, because he has the ranged option, is usually a capable melee combatant, has access to medium armour and mostly a companion that makes the start easier. Ciphers are a really unique class, remind me of the Mesmer class in Guild Wars, not in mechanics, but because it is something new. Chanters are a challenge as well and Druids offer some interesting mechanics with the caster/combatant/shapeshifter layout.

Yeah but if you need spreadsheets to just figure out the basics it is no fun either. :D I mean PoE1 systems did absolutely allow you to maximise your output and to skill on a certain level. It seems PoE2 will be even less limiting in many cases, with all that weapon switching, heavy armour and all weapons available to everyone. BUt with all these liberties you hit a lot of balance problems that would have not arisen if you simply would not allow casters armour, or restrict rangers, ciphers and rogues to light/medium armour. Hard caps are a good thing at times because you do not have to put up with the ingenuity of the players' hivemind.

I would definitely agree that PoE was complicated in it's game mechanics, but BG2 was way worse in that regard. PoE always explained the things, but there was an awful lot to learn about what each attribute does, how damage is calculated and how you can defend yourself from different sources. From everything I read on PoE2 I would say it is more complex and likely equally transparent, but again there are so many things to think about that it might overwhelm many players. I would absolutely second that Dragon Age had a very good combat system. It was not as shallow as one would think, but very accessible and easy to grasp, whilst you could still crunch some numbers to reach maximum potential. A very elegant system, where everybody can step right back in. Pillars really scrapped a lot of the dead weight from the BG mechanics, but still resembled it's spirit very closely, while Dragon Age was really far away from BG2. I prefer PoE overall, but one has to admire how simple good mechanics can be.

Dak'kon's Zerth blade. And yes, it paired well with Celestial fury, when you dual wielded katanas as a kensai/mage. Yeah and it is a crazily special item. For most other classes it is rather useless or unavailable, but it something worth skilling for. I like these niche weapons, or weapons that have a history and are restricted to being good/evil/neutral. I would like to see similar stuff in PoE.

I doubt that they would do that and it is not really something I would want them to put resources into, as, if we are honest, nobody is really inconvenienced by the delay and they never signed a contract to release it on April 3rd either. However I do not think that beta backers would need to feel unfairly treated because they would have had more beta-time and updates than the guys that would get a couple of weeks. In the end it is unneeded because Obisdian would not be able to put the telemetry gained into context for a release patch and the players would only try to satisfy their curiosity.

I tend to put everyone in plate and brigandine to stay safe. Curious, have you guys found viable classes/builds where you can play naked and be effective? I’d like to try it but I’m not creative enough to know what works. Light or no armour makes you attack faster, by reducing the time between actions, right? But this does not work for firearms, because they have reload times and casters have casttime, is that affected by armour as well? From what I see it is indeed either go full armour or no armour, because of how the penetration stat works. Casters and Ranged would go unarmoured to maximise their output and amrour would not reduce damage by high enough amount to justify, while the tank would go full-plate naturally because it reduces all kinds of damage. Rogues and Ciphers as well as Rangers and maybe Barbarians are in an odd space. Classes that are fully capable of dealing damage in melee, or where you would want them to take a pounding at times. They would suffer unless they really carefully balance how recovery and damage reduction scale with medium armour.

They're changing it in a way I think you'll like. You will now be limited in how far you can enchant and item and what enchantments you can apply to a given item. As it was described quality enchantments (Fine, Exceptional, Superb, Legendary) can only increased by one tier, so a Fine item will never become Superb. Also you won't be able to stick elemental lashes on any weapon, instead they'll be tied to weapons that have them innately and you'll be able to upgrade them. Yeah that does make sense to me. I certainly like to know what I have in an item once I loot it and when I can drop it again. I also read that there will be a mid-tier and a high-tier weapon for every class, but I am not so sure what I think about that. I did like that there weren't many Katanas in BG2 and that this limited the effectiveness of certain proficiencies. I recall that there was a specific Katana +2 that also gave extra spells so that it really worked with that Kensai/Mage combination so that was something cool to build up to. If there is a set number of high and mid-tier weapons so that everything is rather evenly distributed you lose a lot of story for these items as well, if you get my drift. But yeah one can always find something to bicker about. I do want to have cool and effective weapons that are unique in certain ways and can be used individually.

These are all good points and valid concerns and I am afraid I don’t know game nearly in-depth enough to confirm/relieve your worries. Medium armour has always had this issue where you either build DPS character, and put him in light, fast clothing, or you build a tank so you put him in the heaviest thing you can find. To encourage medium armor use its recovery got buffed. Whenever weak armour is useful depends on how much penetration various enemy attacks are. While it won’t save you from heavy hitter, it should be useful against smaller attacks. If you want your character to survive prolonged, direct confrontation you have to consider heavier options, no matter if it’s fighter, rogue, wizard or cipher. Classes in POE aren’t restricted in armour types they can use, and deflection is stat entirely seperate from armours. I am afraid that in Deadfire you will have to get used to switching weapons. It is very encouraged by design - you can use any weapon without penalty no matter if you got proficiency for it or not, and proficiencies are rather plentiful. Luckily, penetration is very clearly communicated - if you are below penetration or do full penetration (2x pen vs armour rating) a tooltip above your target communicates it well, together with infamous NO PEN message. 1:34 It is as simple as taking a look at enemie’s stat sheet to check what armour rating is the weakest and making decision based on that (change target, swap weapon, use modal etc.). Yeah that is quite the tooltip, it looks extensive. This might work out for average players. I still think it is a very complex concept that might prove unneeded. But without having actually played it there is simply no way to be certain. It does seem a thing at the moment that games have, what I call "spreadsheet design" where numbers are very important, in addition to the understanding of game mechanics and basic tactics. I am curious if we get more info on what they changed within the next weeks so that I can make more than educated guesses. :D

Postponing anything that many people anticipated is never a good thing, even if you cite good reasons like bugfixing for it. This just creates the sentiment that the game is a bugfest and not at all in a stable form. Realistically it probably is a good thing for the game, because balance might be worked on, serious bugs get squished and ideally the game will be out in a state where players get the minimum hassle. Publicity wise it is really hard to turn this into something that is regarded as a positive.

Yep I understand the reasoning, but I think it opens up a whole new can of worms when you think about how different classes use different armour. What about light or medium armour that would come natural to rogues, chanters rangers and such? Just from the information at hand you would want to maximize your armour if you want to shield yourself from ANY damage, or to go unarmoured to get all the benefits from that. Having a light or no armour will still mean you will get hit for the double value against many enemies. A medium armour for a non-tank melee might diminish some damage, but why not go all the way and use that full plate? Yeah and as you say, it is highly equipment and engagement dependent. You might find some fights ridiculously easy against high level targets, simply because their armour was low. Or you just chip away at enemies and it takes forever because you only do half the damage most of the time because you are fighting six full plate fighters. Personally I never really switched weapon kits, because it is another form of complexity that needs to analyzed in an already complicated game. If I need to switch weapons than I need way more transparent mechanics than PoE had. The game needs to tell me exactly why my weapon is not effective without the need of going through menus and without cluttering the UI, otherwise many players would just be totally oblivious of the mechanic and why they steamroll/have a hard time.

Pisses me off, because I just signed on to this forum on the weekend because I saw an article about PoE and said: Oh yeah it comes out in spring, let's look up the release date. :D

Thanks for the insight. This does sound needlessly complex though. And with additional grazes, crits and whatnot, damage would seem awfully inconsistent. For it to be transparent you would need a lot more info in every stage of the fight. Some stuff would just not seem really worthwhile, too. The incentive to use AoE damage spells and abilities would drop if there were more armoured than unarmoured targets, because damage would be so low. If a fireball hits four targets but only deals 6 damage instead 24 because the penetration is so low, I would of course rather use a single target spell of that level, or a buff/debuff. And if I did not know about how armoured my targets are, I would never use it at all. Maybe it will work out though, I do not have the full inisght, but I am inclined to regard magical damage in particular as something armour can not really protect of and this is why you have attributes like willpower or similar to defend against it. This makes armour not the go-to thing to mitigate damage. But yeah in order to balance things out with all the different classes, weapons and skills you probably have to come up with something more complex to avoid a steamroll by certain set-ups or at higher levels. The times of fighter, rogue and caster as only roles are long gone.

1) per rest is gone, which means you can spam spells in every fight, however, you are limited to casting 2 spells per spell level. 2) to compensate, now spells take time to cast. For example, in current build it takes 6 seconds to cast fireball. 3) in addition to that you can only learn spells when you level up. Wizards get grimoires which can expand their repertoire up to extra 2 spells per level but you can’t edit grimoires, so it’s very likely that one grimoire will contain spells which you already know or can’t cast due to subclass restrictions limiting its usefulness. Druids&Priest gain free extra spell every power level based on their subclass. (Personal note: small selection of spells makes singleclass spellcasters feel very restricted. It is confirmed that singleclass characters will get an addition talents [spells] to pick, when reaching new power level, however, there will be passives to consider as well) 4) new armour/penetration system applies to spells as well, so it’s possible to spend couple seconds casting spell, only to see multiple NO PEN messages and do a fraction of base damage, though it is not nearly as bad, as it was in beta1. 5) in current beta build (though it is likely to be changed for 1.0 release, if Josh’s Tumblr posts are to be trusted) strength governs weapon damage, while healing&magic damage has been moved to resolve. That makes spellcasters less flexible in combat and encourages either a specialised weapon build, or constant casting. That is quite a good summary, thank you! It would seem that spellcasting is a little more like "classic" RPGs with casttimes and a limit of use in each fight. I think this is more accessible, yet more limiting when thinking in the context of multi and subclasses. For the average joe I think this is more understandable and I think the general min/max guy will find workarounds. The armour penetration sounds confusing, because there seem to two values, raw damage and penetration, yet a high penetration value will not mean more damage per hit, right? Say I have (note that I do not know numbers) 30 damage per attack and have a penetration value of 20, would this mean on a high armour target would be 20? Or is penetration a chance to make damage that is compared to the target's armour rating? All I read about is rather complex. For me it would make sense to have a certain damage value and that is partly negated by armour. That is easy to understand. At the same time with heavy armour your actions become slower to make up for it. Add to that an evade chance and on the first glance you have an accessible and balanced system, but I do not have the full insight of course.

Is there a blog or a summary about the changed game mechanics, where someone explains the differences in combat, stats and general mechanics compared to the first game? I am somewhat struggling with the Wiki and some already really deep comments.

How can we remember? We're not all Americans you know These early comics never came here (Greece) and most probably not in many other places outside the US. I only learned about them recently. Also they are very old. Many here may be younger than the TV series itself Also: Well honestly nothing comes close to the German intro sung by the great Frank Zander. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTcwZ6gRXnQ

It is understandable though, Ninjas are indeed assassins, paid murderers. If you are convicted here in Germany for murder, it is more than having killed a person with intent, but with the lowest of motives. The Turtles however were heroes indeed, that used weaponry somewhat associated with japanes culture. I do wonder what they were called in the japanese original. In any case discussing this topic is a bottomless pit. You can argue both ways and every coutnry has it's own flaws and specialties. In Germany you can not show certain insignia, but on daytime TV, ads are shown for a sextoy online-shop. In France, Alien vs Predator is cut by 20 minutes, but six year olds can go and watch Fifty Shades of Grey. In the US there is an uproar over a nipple, but severed limbs are generally fine. There are pros and cons in all cases and I have an opinion about this, but it is just as valid as everyone else's. That is why there is so much discussion about it. :D On the topic at hand I find Sidekicks a really good idea, as they seem to have some form of personality and backstory as well, maybe even a minor task, dialogue or quest attached. It is good to be able to fill a niche with one of them, with no need to create a template character, where you would have no story at all or have to roleplay one. It also reduces the bickering and constant expression of opinions, something that Eder really liked. Or the constant anger that this nutcase Durance was in. However having read about memorable characters in this thread, I would agree that PoE has "pale" characters compared to the extremes we met in BG2 or other games. There is just something extremely likeable about a good, yet incredibly dumb Minsc and his hamster. Aerie is a total clichée, but really lovable so a natural romance choice. As is Morrigan in DA, but representing the total opposite. However each game also had some rather forgettable ones, especially BG1. Stuff like this a personal opinion though. That said, each companion in PoE is really fleshed out and extremely well written, they are just indeed not over the top. I liked how Eder was mostly indifferent in tone, and how Aloth was kind of arrogant yet funny but always slightly off-balance. Durance was a crazy zealot and genuinely unlikable, yet never expelled from my party. Sagani was really empathetic and caring, yet determined. Pallegina, Hiravias and especially the Grieving Mother kind of lost a bit, Pallegina seemed not as polished and the GM just came to late into my game. I could also really relate to Kana with his knowledge seeking and his general light-hearted attitude. In the end I think we have better characters in PoE, as we also have a slightly better game overall than BG2, but definitely a less memorable one.

When you complete the game there is "gamecomplete" save in your save directory (%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity). I can see only two "save complete" saves, even though I "replayed" the ending with my first character due to missing on Zahua's sidequest. So it is possible, that it creates only one "gamecomplete" save per character, and overwrites it when completed again. I don't know, if its possible to "read" the save file. Deadfire might list core choices when importing, but it might not. Pfffff, a chosen one who decides fate of thousands of souls and can't even remember what he did. :-D Yeah, I know, right? It is really strange with PoE, I recall many details from my different BG playthroughs, and for Tyranny I recall a lot as well, mainly because you truly shape your own adventure there, but here I only remember some bits here and there, although I genuinely liked the story and the sidequests. I just read up on the ending screens, and mostly I have no idea what I did, I can only assume. Normally I would just reload and watch it again, but I am hesitant because the playthrough was rather "pure", meaning that I finished it without looking at consequences in the Wiki, but with knowing the mechanics well enough that I know what I do. Also I read most things carefully and chose as I just thought I would. I guess I killed off Thaos and would have put the souls back into reincarnation, as this seems close to me, but I can not be sure, and I do not want to muck stuff up just to refresh my memory. :D So maybe there will be a way to look at the choices in the menu for Deadfire, or to copy that savegame, replay it, and then put the old one in again, so I can see what I did beside the main quest, which might be referenced. I just really hate it when I play a game, and a guy comes up to me saying: "Man I hate you for the thing you did there!" and I have no idea what he is talking about... :D Edit: And thank you for the quick answer!

I have a question regarding the saves. I just read up on the storyline again and I have no idea what I did with the souls, or if I promised any god anything before. At the same time the last save obviously is the one before the fight against Thaos. So where is that save actually that displays my ending? And if I reload the final fight again, and either complete it again or quite after the fight started, wouldn't that overwrite my previous progress? If you get my drift... Is there a way to look up what I did in that playthrough without manipulating my savegame?

I recall having some trouble in certain very specific areas. I believe on the second level of Caed Nua I had a fight in an area where the FPS always dropped to just barely playable. Very strange. Every else on this level was alright. Other than that I had no performance issues, beyond rare crashes. I think it might be a very individual problem with some setups. That is rather tragic for the player, but not very common. You are right though, a game like PoE should not have performance issues at all. But optimization is a tricky thing.

> At the same time I liked Eder, so I would have been rather bummed out, had I made a tank myself. To be fair Eder can be made into an extremely effective damage dealer as well Yeah, I made him my tank since everyone else was better suited for damage dealing such as my rogue. Now I'm interested in this fighter/rogue mix Éder could have in Deadfire. Very true. I just never got the hang of the game mechanics, which I found rather complex, so that I can not really assess the potential of characters especially if they are special. Actually my first character was a cypher, that I did not play beyond the prologue, because I immediately knew that this class is too complex until I know more about the game. I probably totally misused Kana as well, because he hit harder than my ranger with his rifle, but I never really used his chants. So Eder was the guy that had a shield, and I was the guy with the two-handed sword. :D But yeah the game mechanics of PoE where every attribute at least seemed usable for every class made me choose something I never played before. I hope to find out a bit more come the 3rd of April.

I am kind of divided on this subject. I think the characters you receive in BG2 are appropriate in time, especially if you play a neutral or good character, so that you can finish Korgans quest, for example, or if you want to experience the Viconia romance. Characters introduced late in the game can be of critical value gameplay-wise, by giving you something that is missing in your party, especially if they are powerful niche companions. However in a long story-driven adventure new characters really have to score upon meeting them so that you would actually swap one of your companions that you have spend a dozen hours with, started or finished their quest, romanced them or simply got to know their personality really well. I met the grieving mother rather late in PoE, when I was already fond of my companions and with the glum attitude I was not really fond of her. Had I met Kana or Aloth later, both that offered more to me in the first encounter I probably would have recruited them.