Zeitzbach

I finally figured out why Serafen has no full romance now. Because Serafen is a Serafriend and Sera in Franch means Will be. So the name Serafen actually means Will be Friend. CURSE YOU OBSIDIAN. At least I'm not NTR'd else I would so uninstall. Pretty much. A lot of my conversations with Aloth in the group went as Watcher: *makes a harmless joke* Maia: lol approve. Xoti: haha nice. Tekehu: good one approve. Aloth: I HATE YOU STUPID WATCHER STOP BEING IRRESPONSIBLE (also I hate you too Tekehu just because). At some point I just gave up and stopped taking him along. He seems to be bugged since he wouldn't lose or gain affection with me, but seing him massage his temples all the time started to get on my nerves. And this is my mostly rational, diplomatic Watcher who was suppoused to get along with Aloth pretty well. I dread the day when I start the game with my truly irresponsible sassy Watcher. Aloth will probably throw himself overboard and swim back to Aedyr. I already plan on having him around minimal for the next playthrough just to avoid his reputation issues. Xoti is probably the only one he likes because of "MUH MISSION!!!" annoyance.

I think it's just the Principi ending where Pallegina gets sent to her death. I'm so done with the Prinicipi then. Maybe I will do the "Screw this I'm out" in the future runs after PotD gets tweaked. The neutral way seems like the most natural way. If anything, they're fortunate I'm not allowed to build a whole new keep with all my riches and regulate all of them. Every ending except "**** this I'm out" and "side with the Huana" will make you lose a minimum of one companion. I thoight siding with the Huana makes you lose Maia? I guess you can leave her on the ship when you talk to the queen so she doesn't get the boot for being a spy. But then she will just stop talking to you which is kinda meh. But what about the rest? Who always leaves if you side with what faction? I'm especially curious about the Vailians. I sided with Principi. Tekehu asked me about what I'm doing and I'm able to convince him to stay, prolly because I have him around the whole half of act 2 (because of how his companion story works) and keep telling him to not give a crap about the Huanu and just be free. Maia is the only one I can't talk to at all on the boat after siding with the principi. She always saying "I WANNA LEAVE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING BLEH LET'S GO MY BIRD CLUCK CLUCK".

Aloth is the odd one out of the group who just disapprove of what you do to make all the other people approve. I find it sad he's at -2 or -1 on half of the squad. I just want to be a sulky sassy watcher.

"i kinda wish people stop turning every PvE game into some kind of self-gimp hard mode epeen contest." This is the problem right here, the extreme ignorance of those that either can't handle harder difficulties or just don't like to be challenged. Here is why i play harder difficulties and it's not to try stretch my epeen: "It doesn't seem like a very important thing and some may see it as just for a few wannabe hardcore players, but the reason why i play the hardest difficulty is it brings out the mechanics best in a game and makes the progression that much more rewarding. You need to know how to play a game properly and use all of its mechanics - on easier difficulties there's no point in even having half the mechanics in a game, thereby dumbing it down. You never want to dumb down gameplay in a game, or have that as the only option. Which is why i believe higher difficulties are the pinnacle of a game and the reason why balancing the harder difficultys imo is one of the most important things there is." Or you know, you can go through and faceroll on normal and not need half the mechanics (especially in an awesome tactical pause-based RPG combat system, with tons of variety and depth) dumbing the game down into nothing more than an interactive novel. Gl with that, just don't persecute me for wanting more... There's a reason why it's an optional bonus. Hard core players don't get persecuted for making their own life harder. They get persecuted when they keep pushing their own definition of hard on everyone else by being a louder minority. No one likes to hear it when someone go "Good job BUTTttTTTttt I did it better!"

When you complete an achievement, you get a few points of blessing. Every time you start a new game with blessing points unlocked, X blessing can be spent to get some early game boost. Some option include start with 5k gold Start with 50k gold Start the game at level 4 Stat with more stat or skill point And so on.

D:OS2 is a good example of a more recent game pf this genre where the hardest mode is a joke once you realize the game is just number stat fest where overgearing and overleveling is more important than strategy. Just like PoE 2 atm. This is something a lot of RPG suffers from and it's why companies are trying to add more reflex-based action to the game to make it easier to balance for higher difficulty. Having to figure out all the broken combinations and customize the AI to be genius level is not something they can really do, especially on the AI parts. PvE will never be hard if the game don't make it completely unfair like you dying in a single hit while they take 10 or 20 to be down'd. And in a heavy number game like PoE, It's far better to make the mode accessible at first and tune it up over time. It's a common practice ever since constant patching has become the norm for game development. You have to go for some kind of indie rogue lite turn-base that remove the over level and overgear element in favor for RNG instead for the higher difficulty on release.

Both things that are done *before release* I can't believe they had to choose between bugfixes and balancing the game, even with a month release delay. This is unheard of anywhere else and really kinda retarded. Guess ill keep waiting til ****s fixed. It's the normal go-to practice that modern games should be accessible by everyone even on the harder difficulty. They just make em harder over time. The only exception being reflex-based gameplay.

Not according to the devs them since they're the one putting it there in the first place as an option. If anything, they can even buff enemies in PotD so you need blessing to slightly even the playing ground.

Every time I run PotD on PoE 1, I just 2-man everything until nearly completion of Act 2 so that I can be level 10 or 11 before I even trigger defiance bay riot, recruit everyone and finish Endless Paths for gears which completely throw the game difficulty out of the window. Easy to get to level 16 before White march even happens. PoE1 was somewhat plagued by terrible AI and easy choke points which is why it's very easy to do that once you start throwing DoT or AoE, rest, repeat. And as you mentioned, people are only being conservative because if they don't, the game become a lot more tedious. A game should not be tedious to be challenging. A good challenge should be like Alpine Dragon or Llangrath Double Dragon boss fight where the game expects you to be prepared and fully rested. (Too bad they are ruined by the fact you can prepare paralysis scroll)

The golden rule of single-player game is that the vocal backseat player gets the final say in deciding how the game should be played. Perfect example being Undertale.

I won't mind at this point if they just release a True Romance DLC for $5 on each char, 25 for a full pack or something.

No reason to remove them. If anything, this game promote multiple playthrough than even the first one and Berath blessing is a major assist tool for it. It's also an option anyway so you can either choose to use it or not use it. Removing options is never a good idea. That and like Sonny states, I kinda wish people stop turning every PvE game into some kind of self-gimp hard mode epeen contest.

They just need to make her a loli or have twin tails and she's a walking anime or a teenager first Mary sue character design. For the record, I've got nothing against pig-tails or goths who like lollipops. But to be fair in the brief introduction I got to her character in game there was nothing gothic about her. She's an animancer. Also a bit of a nerd, but then so was Liara T'Soni and she was my blue waifu during my time with Mass Effect. Not every character can be original, and a trope done well is sometimes better than a poorly written "original" character. Modern Meme Goth = people wearing black+purple/red/green with dark cloud all around them. Her character/background is better used on a more nerdy looking char, not miss white hair with red eyes anime. Something like Xoti wearing big glasses would fit way better. Ydwin just feels like they are trying too hard.

They just need to make her a loli or have twin tails and she's a walking anime or a teenager first Mary sue character design.

I haven't done ship combat yet so can't comment, however what stupid english-italian accent? The narrator? It's American. I think the OP is talking about the valian accept. BELFETTO MAL DIFICO BACO HACO. It's something you will get used to after a few hours and you will no longer however them. It adds to their culture just like in PoE 1 when you have Pallegina talking and people love it because it's unique. And ship combat gets better when you actually have crews, side kick and more companions as the game will throw in the stronger members on yourself to help you out. Your ship is just a small ship that was recently repaired. no reason to try to go to battle with a bunch of weak crews and gears. Even the prologue ship rekt you.

The hardest part about PoE1 is the level 1 to 5 because we barely have any gear, gold and skills. Moves are so heavily restricted and we just lose the dice roll by default unless we get really lucky. However, once we start spamming Devotion and Defense every fight to get rid of the dice roll disadvantage and start getting the best gear available, PoE1 also become easy and stay really easy. So one reason we might really view PoE 2 as super easy is because the game skip the level 1 to 4 hard grind for us and throw us right into our power trip fantasy curve. I don't think a simple +15 to defense and acc stat bonus is enough anymore based on both exp from PoE 1 and PoE 2. After balancing the damage bonus from armor, they should start making enemies gear upgrade after every X level, like all Fine gears become Exceptional at level 7 and Exceptional becomes Superb at level 12. It will ruin the economy but you already have inflated gold on veteran after level 10 so why even bother balancing the game hardest difficulty around income at this point? The vampyr at the bottom right island are only tough because they are all wearing superb stuff. The upscaled exceptional/fine stuff all melt.

From the way I look at it In PoE 1, we learn more about the god In PoE 2, we learn more about the conflict of the gods and they try to ask for your help In PoE 3, we will probably learn more about why the Engwithan had to create the machine, the wheel and transforms themselves into gods, resulting in the gods slowly dying for real and we have to work with them to save the world. This is somewhat spoiled by the ending slide where the your char thinks it's okay to go back to Dyrwood at the end for a new life. it's rather obvious nothing interesting is going to happen there anymore. If anything, this will probably result in some kind of D:OS 2 god vs threat from another dimension story if they make PoE3 unless we get to completely make a whole new char with a clean slate. Blame Animancy while at it.

The game doesn't give a clear "act" but we can easily divide it into the following Prologue Act 1 - Get your ship and go to Naketaka Act 2 - Go to Hasoka and Magran's teeth Act 3 - Go to Ukaizo Act 4 / Ending The pacing works kinda like PoE1 where the first 2 act is for loitering around and doing side quests and once Act 3 happens, barely any quests pop up anymore.

I can already guess how Ydwin story will turn out. "A random animacy experiment gone wrong and now, I'm like an immortal half-fampyr and I'm trying to research a way to revert it so I can finally die" you can either choose to get her to accept her life and use the power for good or finish her research and she dies at the end. .... Kinda like Devil from PoE1. And not just the xaurip cook! We also need a Lagufeth deckhand!

I would actually love it if they add some kind of monster side kick, especially an imp one since the creatures do display a lot of kith-like understanding and intelligence. Ydwin feels kinda lame tbh with the whole "White Hair Red Eye Pretty girl Vampire" poputraitbait. Those kind of design only really work because they aren't fleshed out and the mystery around them is what make them so attractive.

Restriction like that aren't really challenging and strategic though. If anything, per-rest based spell lean more toward tedious scale since you can circumvent all of the difficulty created from that by just running back to town before tackling the harder enemies because stuff don't respawn.

I was discussing with him when Serafen asked me why I haven't slaughtered the boss yet. Being a great captain, I always do what my dear Sera tell me to do. So I immediately attack him after that and free everyone, went back to save the captured pirates and recruited copperhead.

I will probably go with Valian is future run. I went with Principi because I love Serafen but even he is somewhat done with Principi after a few quests. The ending is decent for the deadfire. Ruatai is the big bad of this one it seems. Everyone hates em and they use force to solve everything. And Huanu is in the middle. But the saddest part? You don't side with Valian, they send Pallegina to her death. Like WOW, OKAY. They also seems like the best choice for me and my "We don't need the gods anymore. It's up to us to look toward the future." approach anyway.

Even with level 20, I doubt they will be able to do much. All they get are some stats and they never really use the higher tier skills. Notice how most of the moves AI do use are Foe Only outside a few mages spell. The only one you really see spamming that much Team AoE have a team with immunity to that skill. And look at it this way, a level 7 with legendary gears (crookspur) can probably beat a level 20 enemy using Fine/Exceptional gears. With the new damage formula, the level 7 with legendary only need to land a few hits to kill while the level 20 needs to consistently crit to even deal some damage. Throw in a few broken combination like double Unbending for 100-150% health recovery per hit and we can already see what needs to be nerfed.

It is great to have an RPG that constantly say "The world doesn't revolve around you" in your face.