Zaris

Definitely buy. While I have my issues with Deadfire (Tyranny is much more my thing) it’s wastly superior to PoE 1, so any fan of the original is going to at least have a good time with the sequel. Objectively speaking, as a person who’s far from a fan, it’s the best isometric RPG that you can play right now (however subjectively speaking Tyranny is the best : D ). Also, developers like Obsidian and CDProjectRed are worthy of supporting, so as long as you can afford it, you should buy everything they make, as an investment in the future of gaming as a medium.

Well, that’s up to you of course, since everybody is entitled to their own view. But since we’ve already gone offtop let met go a little more and say that it amazes me to what lenghts people will go to excuse the faults in something they like. Are you also pretending not to see game-breaking bugs in Deadfire just to spare the poor devs the effort to fix them? Excuse me for going too far with that parrallel but isn’t this blind defending of obvious flaws the reason we have so much sh*t in our media, be it books, games or movies? Because fans will defend and buy everything, no matter how bad? I prefer to love things for their true lack of flaws and not blind myself and convince to love a faulty thing. The second is the very definition of being a fanboy/girl. But suit yourself. And yeah, life is a bunch of unanwered questions. But we actually look for answers and not pretend there is no questions to be asked in the first place. If you don’t see the problem in something you’ll never fix it.

Looks like somebody watches Patrick Williams on YT and arees without thinking, mr house2fly (Mrs? Miss? Sorry if I assumed wrongly) But both him and you are wrong. When a creator is too lazy to come up with coherent plot then it’s his fault, not the audience for observing it. True, Berath gives a half-hearted excuse about incarnating but obviously this excuse doesn’t stop Eothas who’s the weakest of them all and yet manages to deafeat all. Not too mention that by the end of game all gods are desperate enough to try anything, no batter the bull***t reasoning that Obsidian gave Berath at the beginning. Another aspect is that a truly awesome story makes you forget about plotholes, even if they’re present. So if people complain about them, it’s because creators failed to convince audience to suspend their disbelief. But of course it’s best when they actually do their job properly and avoid making mistakes for us to ignore/point out.

That’s just one retarded plothole on top of gigantic pile of retarded plotholes that is Deadfire’s story. Basically Obsidian should take FromSoftware approach of telling a story by not telling a story („don’t think too much about this; just go out and kill some beasts. It’s for your own good”) if they’re going to maintain this level. But then again their gameplay is not so good either, as seen by another mountain nearby: this one made out of bugs and crashes. The most retarded thing is Eothas’ immense power, capable of withstanding assault from both Magran and Ondra at once. What gives? Sure, he absorbed our soul and the souls of hundred others but all gods could do it. If Maros Nua was such a poweful tool why didn’t Woedica possess it instead of relying on Thaos? Or after we broke her plan and killed Thaos? She certainly was more poweful than Eothas after his death at Bridge Ablaze and clearly lacks any moral safeguards to stop her from such a thing. Not to mention that all gods should want to have a similair statues, just in case they need a physical body. You know, instead of using a fu***ng farmer. The most funny thing is that they could explain it but just couldn’t be asked; maybe Rymrgrand and Skaen gave Eothas their power, because they want to use him for their goals? Skaen could actually make at least one real clever plot because for now he’s basically a creepy asslicker od Woedica and not a brilliant god of deception. Not to mention that a true god of deception wouldn’t want to be known for a god of deception since that kinda ruins all his schemes.

That’s a great idea. Provided you’re not opposed to your character looking like Frankenstein’s ballsack with Effigy’s Husk on : D I’m always amazed when I see how creative some people get with their builds and how many such ideas they have.

As the tittle suggests I noticed a rather nice combination of two items: Maker’s Own Power and Shroud of Phantasm. The illusory clones from the Shroud also gain Reforge The Flesh from the belt, which on some occasions led to creation of wall of iron statues around enemies or myself; very useful seeing as currently my character is a Sage and rather squishy one. Although the clones are rather weak so many times they die instantly after crossing the threshold for Reforge the Flesh, without triggering the ability but it’s still a nice enough combination. Even if only one clone will turn into metal it’s still useful, since enemies tend to focus on them (I don’t know if intentionaly by the game design or if that was just my luck) so you have couple precious seconds of break while opponents try to beat up a statue. Hope it proves useful.

I'll never understand the criticism "more time spent around campfire than exploring/fighting." It's completely untrue from any player's experience. Camping in PoE or any of these games takes seconds. You should really avoid words like „never” in such trivial matters: what if I explain my point and you’ll suddenly understand? Maybe you won’t share it but understanding is pretty easy, so brace yourself: it may take seconds in real time but it’s a huge immersion break when your party has a couple fights and then go to sleep for 8h. And again. And again. Hence a comaprison to camping trip. It’s not something you could really show in any other medium, or even in any normal RPG. If devs want to give us long dungeons and some sort of per-rest/atricion mechanic they should just take a clue from Darkest Dungeon and their sanity meter: that’s an awesome mechanic, especially when your character reaches breaking point and can either brake or become stronger. And guess what? That game is 90% long dugeons but they are done in such an awesome way that nobody minds. I’d love to see THAT in PoE or some other isometric RPG. Otherwise keep to short dungeons and no per-rest stuff.

I searched all four threads and found no sign of this portraits, either done or just posted; I would be very grateful if somebody made watercolor versions of them. Thank you in advance, you're really doing great job here.

Yup, this bug is still there. Annoying as hell, if you don’t spot it immediately and lose tens of thousands gold for nothing. But no rush people, that’s just 3 months, you can easily wait another 3 before actually fixing it.

In my opinion shorter dungeons and almost no per-rest abilities are both great changes since in PoE all expeditions quickly changed into camping trips with more time spent around campfire than exploring/fighting. If somebody likes mindless grinding of mob after mob there are plenty of nice MMORPGs for them, but isometric RPGs should allow for a smarter (or at least more varied) approach; Fort Deadlight and Arkemyr’s Mansion are two prime examples of a clever dungeon where you can just have a number of encounters and traps but also can solve it a number of different ways. So I can’t thank Obsidian enough for making the regular fighting dungeons shorter, since they have always been the worst part of their games: Endless Paths in PoE, Oldwalls in Tyranny and those motherf***ing Vaults in New Vegas. Many times I was inches from just lowering the difficulty to breeze through that tedious parts and go back to having fun and doing interesting quests. But as I said at the beginning that’s just my opinion.

Sure you can: search this forum for a Witch (Berseker+Ascendant) build, from like a month ago. It’s not only viable but actually quite OP when it comes to damage. Not sure how will it transfer to Serafen with his fixed atributes, but at least you can get some blueprint for your own build.

Sure, in any other RPG that would be appalling but remember that we are Watcher of Caed Nua, lord with a sizeable land to his name (even if said land is in questionabke state at the moment), one of the most important figures in Eastern Reach and Champion of Berath, risen from dead. It would be appalling to send somebody like that for a fetch quest before leting him inside Palace. If anything it was strange that people were not waiting for you in Queen’s Berth with an escort since you’re the only authority in the current crisis. The note we find at the digsite shows the respect people have for the watchers, so a watcher with our experience should be VIP. It’s like in Witcher 3, where you have much better standing with major political figures because there is a lot of common history with them.

You certainly have a point, although I must say that no romances is even weirder than BioWare f**kfests. After all it’s only natural for people to get closer to each other during shared adventures; in real world a mere mountain expedition can cause a number of romances among the group so we can imagine what would happen after a couple days of fighting pirates, monsters, undead and chasing a literal god. After experiencing death, dealing it and being so close to it people want to feel alive. It made sense to lack romances in Tyranny, because people there were used to war and violence on top of just being broken and/or evil (although a rut with Verse should be possible given her nature and maybe some flicker of romance with Sirin who was the only „pure” character in that game) but PoE presents a world in times of peace (relative) and change, times that foster feelings required for romance to blosom. Other thing is the fact that companion dialogue in Deadfire is terrible and doesn’t give you the feeling of actual connection at any point, so no wonder romances feel unnatural. Mere friendship seems strange when you can talk only about „how you got that bird?” or „how you feel about Eothas” over and over again. They really should just give up on recorded dialogues and make a normal amount of conversation options because what we got is even worse than a half-decent BioWare game. That’s like loosing with McDonald in food quality. So to sum up: idea of romance on itself is good, but it’s destroyed by bad companion dialogue.

Actually, out of the two BW seem more interesting, although that depends on the way you play. For me they aren’t mere brutes but rather people who embrace the true nature of war and conflict, instead of hiding behind honor, loyality or other illusions other warriors use to justify their actions. And, unsuprisingly, their attitude leads to lesser violence since many opponents straight up surrunder when they hear who’s coming for them. They use strategy that actually saves the most people, instead of focusing on pretentious moral grandstanding. As to Goldpact when I first saw their dispositions I thought they’re going to be some kind of Order of Rationality, scientists at heart, warriors devoted to reason same as traditional paladins are devoted to their gods, which got me pretty excited. How sad that they turned out to be just very loyal mercenaries instead. But I’ve gotten offtopic; both these orders seem like a good match for Principi, especially when siding with new blood. Do let us know with which one you decided to roll, once you make up your mind.

Keep in mind that Watcher has spent years away from his/her paladin order, so the code of conduct may have became quite flexible for him/her. So there is no reason why Bleak Walker or Goldpact could not decide to support Principi out of simple sympathy for their cause, even when there is no contract from them strictly speaking. It would not go against any of their dispositions. Also, one reason for which a member of this group could side with pirates is that he/she sees them as the best way to keep the conflict in Deadfire going and thus provide a large number of future contracts for both the Watcher and other members of Goldpact and Bleak Walkers (which are essentialy mercenaries after all). Helping any other faction would lead it to dominate the region and end any reason for hiring mercenaries around here except some odd jobs like bounties or protection.

You’re quite right that it’s based on pop culture rather than history since we’re talking about loose analogies in a video game and not hard facts. I doubt that any of the devs have deep historical knowledge and even if, they are unlikely to use it in creating their in-game universe. If you want we can create a freaking list of empires that assimilated other cultures and trade dates/names for days, however it would go a little off-topic, don’t you think? Thanks for the info about Zahua, I never played WM so also never interacted with the guy. This really changes the picture of Ixamitl. But seriously „rest of your analysis”? Like the parts about LL or Iceland’s climate? : D That’s some generalisation on your part. Unless you want to say that from a historical point of view Iceland is a tropical island and my idea of it is tainted by meaningless things like pop-culture and actually visiting the place? Or that Australia is not a big island with fauna and flora like no other place on Earth? But anyway the point of the topic is not „find a best equivalents for Eora’s cultures” but rather clarify some of the descriptions since they’re not something you can call clear or obvious, as seen by numerous attempts such as mine above and people actually creating their own maps because the devs can’t be asked. That’s got to be the only RPG in which you can play a character from a country you don’t know much about. The comparisons were only meant as a shorthand; and I mentioned that at the very beginning by the way. Edit: wow, thanks Taevyr; that map is a great find! And similarities to eastern Europe are quite on point (sadly, since I come from there). Now that you mention it I did think that Galwain/Abbydon description of Woedica from the first POE kinda matched current political climate in this part of the world.

Noticing a lack of Witch (or Witcher, shame it’s a trademark) build I took it upon myself to create one. However since this is my first Deadfire build, I would appreciate some feedback and tips. So, here we go: Witcher (Berseker/Soul Blade) Overview: This is a high-risk, high-reward striker meant to focus as many enemies as possible on her/himself and wreak havoc with a mix of two powerful attacks (Soul Annihilation and Barbaric Smash), Spirit Frenzy/Tornado, Carnage and Secret Horrors. Also having Borrowed Instinct and Desintegration in backup against most dangerous opponents. Party: Best combined with a healer to counter our lack of other means for healing as well as tank to protect this healer when we’re out kicking ass and taking names. Rogue for taking care of enemy casters would also be nice, unless we invest in Lion’s Sprint and are able to rush past enemy frontliners ourselves. Stats: Might 15 Constitution 10 Dexterity 10 Perception 19 Intelligence 19 Resolve 5 I don’t like dumping stats, but in this particular occasion it fits really well both from build as well as role-play perspective, since somebody regulary flying into a bloody rage and killing friend and foe alike is not somebody you would consider having high resolve. Most important is Perception since we want to hit as many times as possible and not waste a lot of attacks, both regular as well as from Carnage. Int, Mig, Dex and Con can be rearranged depending on personal preference and the kind of character you want to play, all four of this stats are useful in their own way. Abilities: Level 1: Frenzy & Iron Will Level 2: Blooded Level 3: Lingering Echoes Level 4: Draining Whip & Barbaric Blow Level 5: Two-Handed Style Level 6: Thick Skinned Level 7: Secret Horrors & One Stands Alone Level 8: Bloodlust Level 9: Bloody Slaughter Level 10: Greater Focus & Spirit Frenzy Level 11: Hammering Thoughts Level 12: Unflinching Level 13: Borrowed Instinct & Barbaric Smash Level 14: Uncanny Luck Level 15: Keen Mind Level 16: Empty Soul & Improved Critical Level 17: Interrupting Blows Level 18: Tough Level 19: Blood Thirst & Desintegrate Level 20: Spirit Tornado Backround: Hunter Active: Alchemy (fits perfectly with our title as a witcher and helps make more potent potions) Passive: Any Passive abilities: -Iron Will adds 15 to Will which balances minus from low Resolve. Would be nicely paired with Backlash and Brutal Backlash but unfortunately there were no more points for these two -Blooded combined with Fighting Spirit gives us a huge boost in damage when we’re, well Blooded. Also, if we’re not playing as Human this provides indication that our Health is low even when we cannot see it in Frenzy (HIGH PRIORITY) -Lingering Echoes is not so great, but there is nothing better on this level (to my knowledge) and it’ll prolong the effects of our Frighten, Sicken and all the others for a couple seconds, so why not -Draining Whip helps us build Focus faster which is very important for using Soul Annihilation. Extra 10% Damage from Bitting is tempting, however we already get a ton of that from Barbarian abilities so it’s better to choose Draining and use Soul Annihilation more often. Naturally this is (HIGH PRIORITY) -Two-Handed Style is another Damage boost, which is always nice (HIGH PRIORITY) -Thick Skinned gives more Armor, helpful when we’re playing as a frontliner, even if the bonus is not so big -One Stands Alone is a must-have for character constantly surrunded by enemies (HIGH PRIORITY) -Bloodlust makes us faster with each kill and we’re going to be killing a lot (HIGH PRIORITY) -Bloody Slaughter helps us kill faster inreasing our odda against damaged enemies so (HIGH PRIORITY) -Greater Focus allows us to build more Focus (kinda self-explanatory, I know) which increases the power of our Soul Annihilation (HIGH PRIORITY) -Hammering Thoughts gives bonus Penetration, useful but not so much -Unflinching gives resistance to affliction to Might, Con and Dex which will keep us from getting weakened and hindered in any meaningful way. -Uncanny Luck provides another slight edge in fights, albeit small so we can replace it if anybody has any suggestions -Keen Mind gives us more Focus at the start of each fight, making our Soul Annihilation available faster (HIGH PRIORITY) -Empty Soul helps us attack Will of enemies, which is important considering our most useful spells (Borrowed Instinct and Secret Horrors) both attack Will (HIGH PRIORITY) -Improved Critical is important seeing as we’ll be getting this Crits left and right and need to empower them as much as possible (HIGH PRIORITY) -Interrupting Blows is another improvment of our numerous Crits, making our enemies loose turns and rendering them unable to attack. Especially nice seeing as Carnage Hits can also be Crits, so in best case scenario we’ll Interrupt everybody around us. However it’s only 50% chance so you may want to swap it for another VI level ability. -Tough is just a Health boost, always good for somebody at the front lines. Although it’s VI level so there can be some more powerful options -Blood Thirst is amazing for this build, making us recover immediately with each kill, of which we’ll be getting plenty (HIGH PRIORITY) Active abilities: -Frenzy is obvious since it’s the base of our entire build and Berseker subclass so naturally it’s (HIGH PRIORITY) -Barbaric Blow is a powerful attack, combined with all the Passives it causes 75% more Damage, improves Crits and with our Intelligence the Carnage effect of this attack has 95% larger range. (HIGH PRIORITY) -Secret Horrors combined with our high Intelligence and Empty Soul can stop everybody in a 4m radius from doing anything except ****ting their pants for over 20s making them easy targets for our attacks, Carnage and Barbaric Blows (HIGH PRIORITY) -Spirit Frenzy improves our favourite Frenzy so it’s important, however whether you choose this or Blood Frenzy is up to personal preference. I personally think Spirit is better because we’ll be getting plenty Hits so also a lot of Stagger all around. -Borrowed Instinct is super powerful seeing at it makes us a lot stonger while also hindering enemies. I try not to put a lot of spells in this build so that we can focus our Focus on Soul Annihilation but this spell is definitely (HIGH PRIORITY) -Barbaric Smash causes our Babaric Blow to refund it’s cost if we kill our target so hell yeah we want it: (HIGH PRIORITY) -Desintegrate is somewhat controversial as it costs a lot of our precious Focus but I think it’s good to have one powerful offensive spell in case we’re up againts a dangerous opponent and Soul Annihilation just doesn’t cut it anymore. Unless there is some mechanic that I’m unaware of that makes this spell useless for this build -Spirit Tornado is an obvious choice once we have Spirit Frenzy since it Terrifies everybody around us and causes a small extra AOE damage to combine with our Carnage As I mentioned above there are a couple of abilities that I’m not enitrely sure of and I may be oblivious to some more powerful combination of Passives and Actives. You may also want to ditch Secret Horrors, Borrowed Instinct and Empty Soul if you opt for more brutal and direct approach, with all Focus going to Soul Annihilation, but I prefer to have some spells, at least for the sake of our „Witch/Witcher” title not feeling hollow. What you pick instead of this three Abilities is your choice, I think Sprint, Lion’s Sprint and some buff like Bear’s Fortitude seem good, giving you ability to rush past the enemy line and into their casters/ranged strikers, massacring them, while also getting far from your team so that they’re safe from your Carnage and Spirit Tornado

Sure, that’s why I said „more-or-less comparison”. However even when a developer sets out to create a completely unique world, the one that they live in still has some influence, on subconcious level if nothing else. If you honestly don’t see Caribbean in Deadfire and Mediterranean in Old Valia / Republics, then well... Iceland has some diverse climates, with dense forests, ice caves and beaches of black sand all close to each other, but the same cannot be said for it’s plants and animals. The most diverse ecosystems are in warmest places and this rule seems to carry on from our world to Eora as observed by WTW’s desolation compared to Deadfire’s jungles. So the logical conclusion is that LL are warm, tropical even. And it’s also certain that there is no definite (discovered) end of the world on the north and west, like we have in the south. I missed any remarks on Ixamitl mythology, care to give some examples? That sounds interesting. Now that you mention it, the name does have a Mesoamerican ring to it. Still, the savannas, scholars and philosophers are all strong points toward more Arabic culture, but I’m open to your opinion. When you say „American politics” you mean modern CIA-backed meddling in the affairs of other countires? Yeah, I can see some resemblence. Although we have yet to see a Rautai ruler who openly supports Valian Republics over his own intelligence agencies : D As to Polynesia...I’m not sure. Don’t you think that Huana take this spot on our imaginative map? Rautai seems to be Korea as hell; in my view they basically need only an internal conclict that will split them in two and StarCraft to complete the picture. I know that Hideyoshi’s invasion wasn’t exactly like described but I wanted to be brief and not delve too deep into it. Especially that the sense remains: Korea won thanks to clever use of their navy and superior cannons, both of which are characteristic to Rautai. And even if Ottomans had bigger ones, it’s the Far East that was the birthplace of gunpowder, not the Middle East. Also their common spirit and putting the country before an individual are very indicative of Asia; USA and Europe were always more individualistic, still are to this day actually. But I’m not hell bent on connecting R to K, it’s just what seems to be the case here.

Given how often "Say nothing" shows up, I feel it was a missed opportunity for the Watcher to pull a "Glare Silently" and have a path where the Watcher "Says nothing" enough times that people start commenting on it/expecting it ala Tyranny. Sort of a super easter egg above and beyond the normal reactions to being Stoic. ... Come to think of it, makes me wonder what Atsura would make of a Glare Silently Watcher. Great idea; „glare silently” was awesome : D And I was really pleasantly suprised when characters started to notice that and it even came up during final trial with Tunon.

I think the best companions for such playthrough would be Verse, Kills-In-Shadows and... oh, that’s not Tyranny. Well, **** then, I guess you’re down to Xoti the Reaper, Konstanten and Maia. Not bad, since at least you can focus on them and not have plenty characters just bumming around on the ship. Damn, I miss our party from the times in the Tiers.

I realise that this subject has already been discussed, however without any satisfying conclusion; so perhaps now with a little bit of hindsight after couple playthroughs and Beast of Winter’s release we can come up with unified geographical information about Eora. Bear in mind that below is just a more-or-less comparison to real world for picturing the map and climates easier and I realise that not every in-game place has to correspond to some real world equivalent, however this really seems to be the case in POE: -Aedyr is your generic european empire, however with tropical climate. Medieval England/Germany thrown into Central America so to say. This could be really interesting setting for the next game actually, with this mix of Aztec and European cultures (what if Cortez wasn’t a **** so to say). -Ixamitl is Middle-East or North Africa; philosophers and scholars seem to point to the former, as well as connection via land to Eastern Reach AKA our generic fantasy Europe -Old Vailia is your standard mediterranean empire, like Italy, Spain or Portugal, currently at the stage of it’s colonies revolting and economy collapsing -Rautai is Korea, both geographically as well as culturally, visible trough their gear, language as well as heavy use of artillery. From what I remember Korea once defeated Japan mostly by sinking their elite forces before most could reach shore and destroying their supply lines with superior cannons and new type of ships. And they are even said to be on a penninsula, same as Korea. Also scholar as a possible backround is a big pointer since Korea had plenty of those and they held as important position as knights in Europe. -Living Lands are like Australia: weird creatures, huge bugs, unseen anywhere else plants, crazy people, seems correct. I know that Josh said that it’s bigger Iceland but all the in-game information seem to contradict that, so maybe he meant that it’s like Iceland in correlation to other continents? As in „north but not the northest”. Or they changed their mind during development and decided to go with something more original and shift all the vikingness into WTW and southern Deadfire. Anyway LL are far to the north but apparently not the furthest you can go. From what we know the north pole have not been discovered yet, so our map is basically a blank sheet on the north, west and beyond Ondra’s Mortar. The only boundry we are certain of is White That Wends and the south pole. That’s actually really cool because it shows us how people used to see the world: only in their own little fragments and not in it’s entirety. -White That Wends is Greenland. Yup, that’s all there is to say. On a personal note I wonder what place would be best suited for a viking-like character. I’m torn between WTW and Deadfire. Technically both are correct but can somebody please tell me what kind of dialogue Deadfire backround gives? Does it assume you’re from the „central” part and familiar with Huana, VTC and RDC or can you roleplay as somebody from southern reaches of the Archipelago? Are there any special dialogues in BoW when you have Deadfire backround? Thanks in advance.