Baldiedash

Well I'm still working with the old probability matrix, and I think that (if I remember my physics correctly) as long as nobody checks, we have all gotten the DLC. We also simultaneously have not gotten it, but I prefer to collapse a probability field in my favour. EDIT: So I guess I will have to wait a bit

I for one quite like the ship combat mini-game, but I would like to figure out how to know which way I'm facing the other ship. There is some sort of guidance in the form of the round dial thing in the middle but I can't seem to get how it relates to my actions, and thus I can't quite seem to grasp how I'm positioned in relation to my enemy (victim). Turning starboard and port, I guess means 90° turns to the left or right, and jibe means the full 180°. So far so good, but somehow turning doesn't seem to correspond with the ships direction around the middle dial. But maybe they do and I just can't see it.

My post reminded myself of an addition question. Surely, ordinary passive deflection buffs stack with passive disengagement deflection buffs?

Excellent, hopefully it will stay that way. It would make it easier to attain that +210 deflection WotEP style counter build I know it might have seem a bit of a naive question for experienced Deadfireists but as I said on the outset, it isn't the lack of good solid rules, it's that they are a bit opaque. And you certainly have helped making them a bit clearer.

I guess I can't get a clearer answer than that So that would mean that Vigorous Defence would stack with Arcane Shield for a +70 deflection If you would hazard a guess, do you think those exceptions are balance bugs, or features?

If so then that is very good to know . That piece of information certainly helps when building a character, and inform some tactical usages of those skills.

Sure but the official release of the DLCs have coincided with patch releases, I think. The DLC's could very well be a small patch as well to release already imbedded content, but honestly I don't know.

Also does that mean that actives stack with passive, or not? Does actives just not stack with other actives.

Fair enough. But not to be to picky what counts as passive and which are active? For instance Paladins have that all-defence-buff-on-kill ability. Does that stack with other all-defence buffs like in Pillars, or is it an active enough ability that it doesn't. Is such an ability active or passive? Sure it activates on kill but it's latent and permanent like a passive. I would guess it doesn't Not to mention priests all protection spell, which might stack with similar buffs despite its activeness.

True, the DLC's are optional but so far pretty much all of the free DLC's have coincided with patches as well. Haven't they?

True, the version jumps usually indicate major changes, but to my mind the patches so far has contained some fairly hefty balance changes. Especially, nerfing some fairly OP abilities and items that allowed for somewhat game-breaking recursive proccing. Those things are almost bugs in of themselves since they are most likely the result of typing errors or misunderstanding of what the results of the proc would actually be, and they really have priority over other balance considerations. There have been some significant of other balance and easy-of-use changes that weren't even in the patch notes, as far as I could tell. So it's not like Obsidian have been lazy and ignored its costumers. It seems though that what people are actually irritated by is that the changes weren't as major in this BETA patch as the ones in previous patches, yet. Now it could be that the balance people at Obsidian are currently somewhat busy with potential problems with the new DLC, and there must be some new mistakes in there that won't be discovered until it is unleashed upon the horde of gamers. They will be quite busy trying to figure out everything that needs doing. My point is, why the surprise? Obsidian isn't the largest studio out there with the resources to infinitely prolong the development cycle to test its products to destruction. That is unfortunately our job as consumers and gamers. It wouldn't surprise me if the balance patch would arrive fairly soon after the 2.0, after they have more data to properly address concerns.

I'm reminded of an interview, or possible a presentation, where Josh opined that one of the things people found to be most problematic with Pillars was the opaqueness of the games rules. Something which I agreed with. Now, that was actually largely fixed in subsequent patches and Pillars became much more transparent, showing how damage increases were calculated for instance. Well, I'm beginning to have the same problem with Deadfire that I had with Pillars. I have a somewhat vague sense of which effects stack with each other, which I have inherited from Pillars, but stacking has undergone changes and now the rules became a bit more opaque again. And although I can certainly see that more effects stack, especially inherent ones (from abilities and clothing), there are other temporary ones that escape me. Like from drugs, food and other consumables as well as from spells and scrolls and such. So I'm just wondering if there is a good list of the rules of effect stacking. It is a bit of an annoyance when you apply a spell buff without knowing whether it has the intended effects or not. Edit. Also I seem to have used the wrong word in my title, should be "effect" not "affect". I didn't intend to call out for a list of emotionally moving stacks. Could some very considerate moderator change this please, I don't seem to able to do this myself

Why are people surprised that the beta patch doesn't include balance changes? It addresses bugs which hinders proper gameplay. Isn't that what a beta patch should do? The balance changes can come with the full patch, when they have figured out which would be best to implement and have tested them. Besides, isn't a beta patch between 1.0 and 2.0 almost literally 1.5?

I don't pretend to know the intention behind the design decisions that went into making Deadfire, but so far when I played Pillars (to get a pristine save import ) and gone back to Deadfire, I have to say there are quite a lot of gameplay improvements. And to direct my comment the title and the OP, I think Deadfire is more fun to play, so I'm guessing that's why they made the changes. I quite enjoy the change to per-encounter abilities and powers since it encourages me to use them. The Empowerment feature I don't use that much, mostly because I don't really enjoy the type of grinding gameplay you employ in a PotD run, which requires spamming empower and rest. I'm sure it isn't actually required to complete a PotD run, but from what I read those that do do such runs use it a lot. And quite honestly even if kiting and infinite rest makes the game easier it also makes playing it a lot duller and time consuming. I personally think that the easiest way to restrict resting, and therefore per-rest abilities, would actually be to limit the access to the infinitely large party chest to only be accessible on the ship, and limit both the food stacks you can carry and require camping to use only food you brought along with you. If you included malnourishment injuries sustained after resting without food, you would, I think, get a reasonable restriction while keeping roleplaying immersion. You could add such features as an optional challenge perhaps to allow for people who relish a challenge to use it, if you don't want to inflict such changes on all who play. In fact changes to camping, like the ones I suggest, I would like for the roleplay immersion even if they nerf empower. Especially since it wouldn't change how I play the game much anyway If you think it wouldn't be a restriction because you can always return to the ship, you are equipped with a far higher threshold for boredom than I.