IndiraLightfoot

You can set updates on an impossible timer, though. That still works.

These three I can definitely agree with. S-o v-e-r-y g-o-o-d !

@algroth A very nice write-up, and I agree. I must add the Junvik-Memnok questline as my personal highlight, with Arkemyr's Manor and all of its twists and turns as #2. I still find that PoE1 has a more distinct Obsidian stamp on it, regarding atmosphere and story branches, whereas Deadfire feels much more incoherent and disparate. Things don't interweave together organically. It's almost as if the factions are too much Factions, and the archipelago, too much Archipelago, and the pantheon too much Pantheon, and the theme of colonialism too much Colonialism. Also, something that you don't touch upon is the vast amount of changes done to classes, spells, abilities, the combat system, going from the "matured" final patches PoE1 to Deadfire. The comparison is perhaps unfair, but I found the variety and strategy involved in PoE combat to be more fun and engrossing (as in "I wanna try a new type of character build or a new difficulty challenge") than Deadfire, where I could win almost any encounter just by selecting all party members (plus summons, if any,) then either press attack or have them on scripted AI, and here I'm talking PotD. Since I played Deadfire, I've had the pleasure of playing a few NWN1 mods, and also the first act of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and what that at least shows me is this: Classes, abilities, stats, and items, etc - they matter more and they give you sense of actual difference to how you do combat, how you try to overcome enemies in an encounter (despite most of the encounter design being even simpler than what we saw in Deadfire). The conclusion I draw from this is that the CRPG system, with the combat system as an integrated whole, is lacking in Deadfire, nearly to the point that it's there for show ("as if"). I want my choices when building a character to mean more, I want my tactics during combat to mean more. And in this department, I reckon Deadfire can do much better.

Actually, it just says "Diablo", and what's next for the world of Sanctuary. Could this be Diablo 4 getting announced?

Now that's my kind of pace and way of a challenge! Good on you!!

Thank you for the warning! And yeah, it looks like they released this pretty brilliant gem a tad too early, methinks. EDIT: It will be tough waiting for all this late-game stuff to be patched, though. Hey! I have an idea. I can start over and over, which I already like, trying out different characters. I mean it, seriously.

Well, I've just entered Ancient Greece 431 BC as Kassandra, and so far I've been very much impressed. I really hope that it delivers enough fun to warrant my time, since I absolutely love the setting. I've never played Assassin Creed before, and I just noticed the bizarre amount of assigned keys, but somehow I'll get used to this, otherwise I'll switch to a controller. EDIT: And I had to disable FPS display counter and screenshot messages and what not in that UPlay monstrosity. Why do they keep insisting on that garbage? Why?

Yeah, that's the curse inherent in these games. In many ways, it's one of the best parts, but it can wear on you as well. Usually, I am a compulsory restarter, but since Pathfinder has quite a bit of new stuff to me, relatively speaking, I'm just treating this entire first playthrough as my session with training wheels (pretty wise, considering, all the bugs I'm expecting to run into). So far, I haven't multi-classed any character, and it wouldn't surprise me if I'll let them stay single class all the way, while I'm getter a better grasp of it all. Sure is fun, though.

I'd go as far as saying that it was Neketaka that single-handed made this game go from a decent CRPG to a great CRPG. Still, for me, overall, I found that if you weigh combat and combat system and all the classes and build possibilities all together, PoE1 was the better game (despite the seemingly neat multi-classing). And if I collectively would compare this very stuff to the CRPG adaptations of D&D 2nd ed as well as 3.0 and 3.5, and now recently, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, I'm afraid it was PoE that came closer to that kind of robust and diverse quality.

On DLCs planned: One DLC will add new classes, one will add new areas, and one is currently kept under the wraps. “We have different approaches and different ideas. Right now we’re planning for the first three DLCs. All of them will be devoted to different types of content. Some will add new classes. Some will add new areas and some will … well, that would be spoiling.” Even though the game will launch with 14 playable classes, the studio says that they’ll be incorporating more classes from the huge Pathfinder roster. “We have fourteen classes in the game but there are dozens of them in the Pathfinder universe and each member of the team has a favourable class, archetypes and things like that. So they all want to add them into the game and right now we’re considering more classes, spells and abilities for the game as downloadable content.”

Food for thought! A few interesting forum quotes and other comments, I've garnered: From a seasoned Pathfinder DM: "I’ve played about 10 hours so far and I’d say it’s quite good, at least as far as a pathfinder -> CRPG translation can be. It does a good job translating the feel of a pen and paper tabletop adventure to the computer with a lot of skill check encounters, narration, fantasy tropes etc.. Some people complain that the setting and adventure are ‘stale’ but considering the intent was to translate the experience of a traditional Pathfinder campaign to the computer I’d say those ‘tired’ tropes are charming and probably necessary. I’m a long time pathfinder DM and I’ve had a lot of fun. Character creation and management is exactly faithful to the pathfinder players manual which I think is pretty refreshing considering the somewhat simplified or video-gameified player management systems on a lot of new CRPGs like pillars or Tyranny. Overall I’d recommend it to anyone who is a fan of tabletop RPGs like pathfinder, but if you aren’t into the whole wonky pen-and-paper shtick you might have issues." From a dev: "The harder levels (Hard, Challening, Unfair) require optimized min/max characters and a deep understanding in the meta of the pathfinder rules." From a CRPG BG player veteran: "Tbh, I like story and companions in Kingmaker more than in PoE2, and combat in Pathfinder is so massively better than it's not even comparable. People look at BG through nostalgia glasses, but it was exactly the same. I remember like it was yesterday, how my first sub-optimal party in BG was wiped by a first enemy they encountered, an assassin that was waiting for your main character near tavern's entrance. I rage-quit after not being able to beat him, and didn't pick up the game until couple of years later, when I got access to the internet and was actually able to find the strats and builds online. Pathfinder is the same, it's super challenging, and unlike PoE it actually requires you to use your brain, and most importantly learn the systems, gain meta-knowledge, to be able to comfortably beat it on standard difficulty. And I love it. People whine about it, because they're used to modern PoE-style games, so they think something must be wrong if they can't beat an encounter on normal difficulty. But honestly, I don't get the whining, because difficulty settings are so flexible that you can make it easy as PoE story mode, so mostly I think it's hurting their pride, and they can't get over it. And if you actually take your time to learn the system extensively, Pathfinder combat is more rewarding than any RPG I played since BG 2, and even than BG 2 itself." Like Raithe, someone having played the game longer than 30h, and into more Acts: "I think I'm farther in than everyone else here that gave a time, 30ish hours. Stop everybody! That 10 hour mark is where all the bugs start!" Yikes!

I couldn't agree more! Well, POE1, story-wise. I'm really happy about the PnP feel. Being a PnP player that only later began playing CRPGs, I've always appreciated the slightly less fluid and the more strategy board game feel to it all. In certain respects, CRPGs like the PoEs, play themselves a bit more. They certainly look the part in so many ways, but they've evolved into more modern games. Here, there are more semi-hard counters and true hard counters. Also, I find that the combat rounds - those 6 seconds - matter more. For instance, knowing that quaffing a potion takes just 3 seconds, meaning that you can perform a few other basic combat actions within 1 combat round, is useful, and something to consider during an encounter.

Like 20 min ago, a hotfix for the hotfix was released: Graphic settings now saving. Spells visible. Among other stuff, apparently. Nice! EDIT: I just realized that this fix means that they were working on the problem in the middle of the night over there. Kudos to them for their dedication! @Volourn: I had 26 days on the clock when I offed the Stag Lord, since I had been lollygagging far too much in among the forest and the random encounters. I actually felt that time pressure a bit.

I love such moments when a specific character is used in a very specific way, and then your plan come into fruition and succeeds! That's the very definition of a MVP.

Phew! Finally, my Eldritch Scion, only fighting with her bare hands (except rare occasions, with a torch, and later a long sword), managed to conquer the Stolen Lands sufficiently and get the barony. Reaching lvl 4 took me 20h, and that was just about exactly when I walked into the Stag Lord's fortress. And that… I've had oodles of fun playing the game so far. Now, onto Act 2, so many choices!

Same here! I love this feature!!

Have you fought one of those swarms that they throw at you at level 2? The ones that you can only kill with fire spells or 10-20 alchemist fires? That stuff really isn't fun. I think most people can agree that there are aspects of the system that are convoluted and outdated. Yes, they're not difficult. And a tip straight from one of the loading screens that actually help against them (if you have any useful AoE spells, or any AoE prolly), you can use "control" on your keyboard to lock AOE onto targets, and then toggle with "control" to unlock and redo it, if needed.

Sure, making clever encounter design and a number of balance passes vis-a-vis difficulty settings takes lots of time, so it's easier to just buff various monsters, and sometimes to ridiculous proportions. Still, most of my favourite PnP-based CRPGs of all time, have always done this to a rather hefty extent. I absolutely love MotB, despite rather simple encounter design and epic level gnolls. While some of the early encounters in IWD2 and PoE: White March are much better designed, but leaves me going "meh". It's a matter of different taste and what kind of atmosphere you get out of it. I reckon, we fill games like these with our own "fantasy padding", and in this case, I'm clearly making it more neat and cohesive via my love for D&D 3.5, so rose-tinted glasses? Yup! But I'm not sure I want to come down from my high right now. I've missed this hit sorely.

I second Phenomenum's last suggestions.

@majestic: That doesn't sound right. I haven't gotten that far, but already I'm hoping that they'll adjust that.

Wilderness: Encampment, you mean? Well, it really fits the setting in PoE1. This may come across as a weird blurb escapade, but to me it somehow evokes woodlands on the British Isles and Medieval Robin Hood, during some sorrowful night, when they're all pondering over the question: Is our trying to get the balance right worth it? (More seriously, it captures all those sad people having hollow children in Dyrwood.) In addition, this tune is one of the signature tunes for PoE1. I have a really hard time making it fit in any sort of island-desert-jungle-lava mountain setting, so barely any place in Deadfire as far as I recall. And it doesn't feel very indoors at all. Having just said that, I just came to think of an old favourite of mine, the Great Outdoors, early 80's: [Youtube] And obviously, I'm not saying that this kind of tune would fit, but it's a good example of an outdoors-y feel.

I presume it's like my CN playthrough. I try to be in character, but sometimes I have picked other options, like Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil and Neutral, and sometimes the blank option. In several convo options, you may get LG, LN, LE, but not the rest, and similar variants, but only with NG, N and NE, or CG, CN and CE. The game registers your choices, I assume, but I'm still so early in the game, so I haven't seen any effects of this yet apart from the very cool tutorial and the two parties formed afterwards.

Please consider having several night tunes, and like Phenomenum said, try to select tunes, like Elmshore, which fit the Deadfire archipelago and its various flavours. If no such tunes are found, you can always consider remixing and slowing a few Deadfire tunes down, and make them more airy and nocturnal, as it were. Lots of work, obviously, but then you'd have a few night versions.