AndreaColombo

As mentioned earlier in this thread, I agree that any rebalancing of single vs multiclass should start from making power levels matter.

Wait, so the problem is that having an optimal build is more complicated if you can reach 0 recovery? Because if you want an optimal build, gathering meta knowledge about the best magic items and stats is pretty much the way you do it regardless of 0 recovery. As far as PoE goes, there have been several builds posted that didn't reach 0 recovery and were still popular, fun to play, and capable of beating the game on PotD (sometimes even solo); having a hard break on attack speed didn't really seem to curb any of that as far as I could tell. I would also contend that making an optimal build in a system with no hard breaks is actually harder, because your marginal advantage from increasing everything never ends. You pretty much have to pull out an Excel sheet if you want to know how much more DPS you're going to get out of 1 extra point of X instead of Y at the point you're at. With 0 recovery you at least had one definite end-game goal to reach, while trying to do as best you could in every other department (and you still needed a sheet for DPS calculation precisely because of the absence of hard breaks elsewhere, but that was never an issue for me to begin with.) If you're going for an optimal build, a slower weapon is always inherently deprecated. More so in Deadfire, where no DPS is lost to DR when attacking faster (although you can lose damage to under-penetration, but an optimal build is likely to avoid that; in PoE, avoiding DPS loss from DR was impossible.) We can't reach 0 recovery now, but firearms and arbalests don't appear to be very popular still—and rightfully so: In this game more than in its predecessor, speed is king. ...and yet, despite that one hard limit, you still had "many different ways to build your char for each class." As you noted, that's currently not much of the case in Deadfire; 0 recovery cannot be reached, so now it pays to always stack speed any chance you get. As I tried to explain in my previous post, the ability to reach 0 recovery with all three styles made the choice among them actually meaningful in PoE. I can't comment on WoW, but in PoE you had to really stretch yourself thin if you wanted 0 recovery in heavy armor with a 2H or 1H. It's not like you reached 0 recovery and automatically discarded a plethora of potential extra bonuses to speed from then on; you pretty much exhausted your bonuses. Or you could choose to wear lighter armor or dual-wield, in which case you lessened the speed boost requirements in exchange for something else that would be more valuable to you. That, to me, is meaningful decision-making rather than trite "stereotypization" (if that's even a word, which it probably isn't.) What, OTOH, would lead to said trite stereotypization is a system where every weapon style was made mathematically equal in DPS to the others. If balance went that far, the choice wouldn't matter anymore—you could pick one style at random, safe in the knowledge no other style would be better (not saying this is what you guys are proposing; it's more of a general consideration.) I'm also a little surprised that you guys don't mind sitting through recovery times longer than 1.5s; to me it is boring and it also conveys the feeling that my character isn't very powerful, though that's probably because I'm used to fast action (and I'm generally a fairly impatient person)

Still a v4 fan myself, but I could live with v5 to avoid unnecessary over complication of damage calculation.

I second that. I’ll take nerfs over arbitrary restrictions any time.

Interesting. They must have changed this in the beta update.

You do get them, but last I checked the subclass’ description specifically stated they’re supposed to pick one melee proficiency

I opened both and switched back and forth; backgrounds look blurry in the later versions of the game.

The blights are a ranged weapon, so it makes sense for a Devoted to be unable to specialize in them. Try a Berserker/Wizard if you want the blights with extra penetration

We can't be sure without access to the full game, of course—however the change to how speed bonuses work from the first beta build to the second has been broad and significant, which suggests it was done for the purpose of preventing 0 recovery. I don't think 0 recovery per se would lead to any more meta-gaming than anything else. Now that 0 recovery is impossible and speed bonuses never stop adding to your power, albeit with diminishing returns, it pays to use meta knowledge to stack as many of them as possible. I'll pump dex, DW (regardless of how much the bonus is; the point is that DW is the only style that offers a speed boost and other styles have no way to close the gap), multi-class into a Fighter for the extra speed from the DW style talent, and pump Alchemy to abuse Potions of Deftness. I have no mechanical reason not to, because—especially in absence of DR—faster attack speed linearly translates to higher DPS (up until the point where adding damage or penetration adds more DPS than another speed increase, provided that a bonus to damage and/or penetration is available to you at that time.) Even if DW was nerfed to balance*, in the end hardcore players would use meta knowledge to calculate which combination of equipment and abilities led to the highest DPS and pursue it. The difference is that with 0 recovery reachable, you know you can max out on speed with any style and the choice becomes meaningful, as different styles require you to sacrifice different things for 0 recovery. As it is now, since it's impossible to max out on speed, you're encouraged to pursue the path that leads to the highest stacking of speed bonuses. * given two options to balance things out, I'll always choose the one that leads to my having shorter recovery. I just don't enjoy watching my men pause between attacks for more than 1-1.5s tops.

You'd prefer this to making 0 recovery possible again?

Devoted/Soul Blade is a good melee build

Guys, a quick experiment. Here's a quick and dirty, very simple A.I. script I made for a Crusader character. Since this character was relying a lot on consumables, which cannot currently be governed by A.I., it only has two instructions to use Sworn Enemy and Disciplined Strikes. Condition is "Always True", to be checked every X seconds where X is the duration of the each ability. It appears that these instructions are never executed by my character. Can anybody else try and confirm? Every other instruction set I've made for my characters seems to be working fine, even though sometimes it takes them a while to acquire a new target for some reason.

It's +1 talent point every time a new power level is unlocked, for a total 7 extra talent points at level 19. Indeed, there's a bug in the current beta build where multi-classed characters receive +2 talent points on those levels instead. This should be kept into consideration, as it makes multi-classed characters more powerful than intended. Personally, I'm not a fan of making multi-classed characters unlock power levels at the same pace as single classes. This should remain a key advantage of the latter over the former. If you take it away, it also becomes impossible to lock multi classes out of the higher-tier powers, which is also something that I believe it makes sense to restrict to single classes.

Not really. Why do say "not really"? It's even in the post I linked: "However, multiclass characters get access to each power level later than a single-class character and their abilities progress in power at a slower rate. A wizard has access to Fireball at 5th level, but a battlemage (fighter/wizard) does not gain access until 7th level." Ultimately I don't see how what you wrote would be in contrast with what I wrote. Single-classed characters unlock new power levels sooner—e.g. in the beta a multi-classed Priest cannot cast Devotions for the Faithful, arguably one of the best buffs in the game—but how much of an impact this has throughout the game remains to be seen. In the portion we're given to play in the beta, it doesn't make enough of a difference to make single classes appealing; but then again, one of the key design advantages of single-classed characters is doing nothing, which brings us to... That was the entire point of my post, wasn't it? The gap is there by design, but if it doesn't have an impact on actual gameplay, what is the point? I say, let's make it matter. Once it does, we may determine whether more intervention is needed to make single-classed characters appealing. At least, that's my take on the matter. I disagree. Multi-classed characters get an extra talent point on levels where they unlock a new power level, which I believe makes sense. If they didn't get the extra talent points, they'd often find themselves stretched too thin—a single-classed character would have the same number of talent points to distribute on a much narrower pool, and multi-classed characters would have a hard time taking advantage of the synergies they were built for. As I find multi-classed characters fun to play in their current state, I would rather give something to single-classed characters than to take something away from the former (but I will admit to a bias as described by Josh in one of the latest Q&A streams: Once I'm given something powerful, I find myself reluctant to let go of it.)

So, to elaborate further on my previous post about 0 recovery and its impact on weapon-style balancing (I figured I wouldn't open another thread just for this in the end.) In PoE, as we know, it was possible to reach 0 recovery with all weapon styles while using any armor—indeed, the 0-recovery variant of the LoP wore plate mail and wielded a two-hander with Vulnerable Attack active at all times. Obviously, once 0 recovery was reached, the most damaging weapons (2-handers) had an edge—but there was a catch. The whole setup came at a trade-off cost, where reaching 0 recovery with a 2H was harder and required you to sacrifice other equipment choices, rely more heavily on consumables, and of course give up on the extra Accuracy from single-weapon style. The choice of weapon style was therefore meaningful: All styles could reach the holy grail of DPS, but DW made it easier, 1H had extra Accuracy, and 2H had extra damage. I've read of more than one player who went for the LoP build and chose to DW despite the build's ability to reach 0 recovery with a 2-hander, for example; this let them rely a lot less on potions of DAOM and lightened other equipment requirements. In Deadfire, reaching 0 recovery is no longer possible, which means packing speed bonuses—while exhibiting diminishing returns—never stops paying dividends. You're always better off adding more speed regardless of how much you've already stacked, which also means the one style that grants extra speed (DW) trumps all others, since the others have no way to close the gap. In light of the above, I see two options: Keep things this way, but nerf the speed bonus from DW to rebalance styles. This makes things generally slower. Leave DW unchanged, but make it possible to reach 0 recovery again. This makes things generally faster. My personal preference lies with the second option, as I notoriously enjoy fast-paced aggro. In the current beta, I try to get all my attackers below 1.5s recovery and that's an acceptable level for me, but getting closer to 2s would start to eat away at my enjoyment. That said, I understand there have been more people asking for slower speed than there have been asking for faster combat; ultimately, we need balance and I trust the devs to make the right choice. I'll always find ways to speed my crew up

I voted no, even though I agree that single-classed characters should be competitive vs. multi-classed ones. I believe you hit the nail on the head right here. Let me elaborate. Single-classed characters have three things going for them: They unlock new power levels sooner. Doesn't seem to make a tremendous difference in the portion of the game we're playing, but it may matter more in the early stages where your tactical options are more limited. It may also matter at higher levels when facing more powerful foes. At present, only the devs know. They have access to 8th- and 9th-level abilities. We do not know how powerful those are and how desirable the end-game content makes them, so it's hard for us to tell how big of a selling point this is. They are 1-2 points of power level ahead (depending on character level.) As shown in the table in this post. Presently, the third point doesn't really mean much. As noted elsewhere while discussing the effects of Empower (which basically adds +10 power levels to its target ability), power level is very inconsistent in its application: While some spells (e.g. Minoletta's Bounding Missiles) benefit greatly from an increase, others (like most melee classes' abilities) only get extra duration. Furthermore, power level only grants very small increments per point (e.g. +1 power level adds a fraction of a penetration point, a fraction of an extra projectile, etc.), which means the benefit of being 1-2 points of power level ahead is pretty marginal—and would remain so even if the application of power level was more consistently good across spells, powers, and abilities. In order to make single-classed characters more compelling, IMO we should start exactly from this: Make power level more consistently good for all spells and abilities. Make the impact 1 power level more significant (and nerf Empower accordingly as needed to avoid making it OP.) In other words, make that 1-2 power level gap between single- and multi-classed characters mean something. Two more things: Casting times being as they are, single-classed casters aren't a very compelling choice. Right now, you're generally better off combining casters with melee classes to use a Wizard's self-buffs on a Fighter or a Monk's abilities on a Druid's Spiritshift. Fixing casting times would ameliorate this, giving single-classed casters more appeal. Casters in general (and Druids in particular) would benefit greatly from a wider array of passive talents to select from at level-up. Right now, if you want to focus on Spiritshift you're better off combining a Shifter with a martial class because the Druid's talent tree doesn't really offer much in the way of specializing on Spiritshifting, for example. Appreciate this would probably take more development time than Obsidian can spare at this time, but you know ... food for thought.

Agreed! The art team as a whole really went above and beyond with Deadfire. Weapon and armor design are especially great; though, frankly, everything is

SAVED GAME: Link 1. Load the attached saved game. 2. Check out your character portraits in the bottom left half of the screen. 3. Observe that next to the first, third, and fourth portraits the icons of specific items are shown even though hovering your mouse over them shows no effect: The pendant one shows up thrice to boot. The icons seem to disappear if you unequip and re-equip the items.

Well, you got me there. You have me all figured out. I must clearly bow to your superior knowledge and argumentative skills.

This would normally be where I'd leave it at, but since you’re making it personal: You have no idea what my likes and dislikes are, and whether or not I min/max (hint: I don’t.) Please don’t put words in my mouth that were never spoken.

Min/maxing is a play style like any other. It shouldn’t be prevented or punished. Rather, a good system should be designed so that min/maxing isn’t the only way to be powerful (or necessarily the best.) Limiting player options in RPGs isn’t generally great. People have different taste and like to play differently.

I’ll probably dedicate a separate thread to this over the weekend, but ... removing the possibility to reach 0 recovery with all weapon kinds gave DW a huge advantage the style wasn’t really in need of.

Why would you want to nerf Ciphers more by making Soul Whip not apply to other classes’ abilities? It would positively kill off the only good synergy left for melee/Cipher multiclass combinations. At that point not only will single-class Ciphers be generally bad; multiclassed ones too.

I agree—my “kewl” comment was tongue-in-cheek

However—and with this I'll clarify what I've written before—#6 is already enough to make most melee/caster multiclass builds invariably, necessarily mediocre—and, therefore, uninteresting. One can easily roll a number of very powerful melee/melee multiclass characters, but how many melee/caster combinations are up to par? None. In part it is the fault of the exceedingly long casting times that have been discussed at length elsewhere; in part it's because the key synergy of having a single stat control all damage is gone. The moving of Healing from MIG to RES also made non-RES-based Helwalker builds a lot less viable. I had to give up on my signature build altogether owing to this change. Not that I won't survive, mind you, but I wasn't exactly ecstatic; there was a reason that was my signature build: It was tailored to my play style and preferences and now puf! It's gone