Lucaltuve

Yeah, right now it's a waiting game. And as awesome as those abilities were, Ciphers are not the best example because they always felt even more unbalanced than others in the sense that they were often better off with lower level abilities. And as much as I love Minor Avatar (yet always forget to cast it), it's just a cherry on top of a character whose power and utility is defined by his other abilities. Your fighter and paladin examples are way better because I could see them as class-defining (you're totally right, Charge is my favorite fighter ability and it doesn't get enough talk). But even then, that paladin that wouldn't have gotten sacred immolation is casting slicken and confusion and that warrior without charge is buffing the party in a multiclass system.

Full disclaimer: I haven't played the Deadfire beta, so no hands-on experience there. Anyways, using POE1 as a base, I'm having tons of problems understanding people that find Multiclasses underpowered because of "high level abilities". In most cases this doesn't seem influenced by actual experience playing the game, but rather because it "sounds" like they're going to play an inferior character. There's tons of people who've complained about it ever since Josh's explained the outdated version of multiclass so it really seems like a conceptual gripe. The thing is, in the original game a higher-leveled ability didn't ALWAYS meant more powerful or useful. Not even as a caster. Do Wizards cast all of their highest leveled spells until they run out, followed by the second highest level until they run out of charges, followed by the third highest level etc? They certainly don't. I'd even say the low to mid levels of abilities in Pillars are spoiled for choice and utility, while the highest levels are often not quite as awesome or game-changing. Design-wise this only makes sense as you shouldn't wait until max level for the class' identity to suddenly appear. A multiclass character in a game like Pillars is de facto useful because having more abilities and options is de facto good in the game. With multiclass Rogues can now cast group buffs. Wizards can be party healers. Fighters can have pets at their side. Monks can use chants. You get to play the whole game with one or more character like that. At that point... does it really matter that much that your character doesn't get the Green Dragon Punch of Destiny at max level? Opinions may vary but I honestly don't think it does.

Perú.

Hi! I´ve had this issue for as long as I can remember (but I´m a fairly late adopter, I bought the game over a year ago so this might´ve not been present before that): What´s wrong: When using Sagani, Penetrating Shot looks active on the UI but it´s effect doesn´t get applied. This is easy to check with the combat log BUT the icon is also missing next to the character portrait, where all the buffs and debuffs usually appear. I can solve the issue by deactivating and activating again the modal icon on the UI. It´s important to note that I say "Sagani" but this is probably a general Hunter bug, it´s just that I only use the pre-made companions. - I like to use all companions so I´m always switching up my current party. The issue only happens when Sagani has been left behind in the stronghold. When she returns to my party the issue is always present, I fix it as described and everything is fine until the NEXT time she returns to the stronghold and I put her back in my party (rinse and repeat). -This appears to be a conflict with Vicious Aim, a hunter modal I always take with Sagani. Grieving Mother also uses Penetrating Shot and the modal is always correctly active and applied to all her attacks even after she´s been in the stronghold and returns to my party. -Like I mentioned, the issue is really easy to reproduce and it´s spanned two separate playthroughs and installations that were over a year apart.

I agree, Josh´s comment is extremely odd without any more context. I´m glad they´re at least making CPS faster to cast because otherwise it´s kind of a big blow as far as action economy goes. If the staff is a self healing tool that requires you to hit your opponent then you´re sacrificing the ability to cast spells while you make use of the summon. You´re also sacrificing damage in a way (because the point of the weapon is no longer damage but just draining). Also, the staff always had the tradeoff of putting you in the middle of a battle rather than as far away as possible and there doesn´t really seem to be an incentive to do that anymore with the lower damage? Maybe it´s just because I haven´t played the beta, I admit to speak from ignorance in this case. I can totally understand Josh being careful due to Deadfire´s multiclasses and POE1´s single class battlemages but at the same time I think this mostly hurts those of us that play regular wizards. A Wizard+Fighter Battlemage (or a frontline wizard or whatever we´re going to call single class Battlemages n Deadfire) will just use a good regular weapon since he has the stats, build and specializations for it. I mean, he´s losing the cool theme and perhaps the RP but at the end of the day he can probably replace the staff with a cool morningstar to go along with the plate armor he´s wearing. I mean, I thought CPS was supposed to be a single target crush damage tool for frail wizards at the tradeoff of being way too close to the huge angry ogre or whatever? I don´t mind nerfing it but making it just a draining tool seems wrong thematically.

No I agree, Chosen One was a poor choice of words. Being a Watcher fits the general archetype of being "special" in fiction but it's certainly not driven by fate or a prophecy or anything of the sort.

That´s perfectly reasonable and I´m honestly glad the developers´ choices of past lives resonated with you. This is one of those cases where personal preference has too much of an impact I suppose. I´m personally tired of chosen ones and past connections to the bad guy so that´s already something against it. But what really matters to me is that limiting my created character besides the vague "backgrounds", it feels as if suddenly Durance´s Godhammer background is one of my past lives and there´s no way around it. Or Eder´s, let´s say every created character fought in the Saint´s War against Waidwen and perhaps the bad guy was your commanding officer, you could roleplay your way out of it in a million different ways and despite taking place in your current lifetime you could always argue you were a different persona back then (as it sometimes happens in real life). It´s something that´s certainly been done before and it´s not completely unreasonable but I still wouldn´t like it.

I don´t disagree with my character´s motivations for the main quest... because I gave him those by roleplaying him. I do agree that it seems like an intentional throwback to Baldur´s Gate which is fine I guess, but it still seems like a lazy shortcut to me and the execution is one of the most poorly written parts of the game imo. Given the massive importance of reincarnation in the plot/world I guess the temptation to give a concrete past life to the MC was probably too much to bear, I just think it could´ve been handled in a more elegant manner (and yes, preferably with no ties to the main bad guy) and Iovara exemplifies this lack of elegance.

I really enjoyed Lady Webb actually. Her last scene + the riots was probably the most emotional part of the whole game for me. Anyways, several people are saying she was a deus ex machina but If anyone is guilty of this it´s The Acolyte (who really should´ve been able to tell you were an impostor btw) regardless of your methods for getting that info. Webb´s plot dump concerns the Leaden Key and some info on Thaos but your character´s motives don´t even change explicitly at this point unless you roleplay them. As far as Iovara goes... I really dislike her, apologies to whoever wrote her. I disliked the character itself but she´s also part of the only thing about Pillars that I absolutely despise: Every element about your past life is terrible and it´s nothing more than a way for writers to FORCE a roleplayed character to have the past that´s convenient for THEM, not their actual character. Yes, yes, it´s a past life and you can make some choices but it´s a hackish way of introducing mandatory personal "stakes" and relationships to a plot that really didn´t need it. It´s having your cake and eating it too. If I come off as bitter or anything let me be clear: I absolutely love this game and most of the writing, just giving my two cents on some stuff that bothers me.