AndreaColombo

How did you boost your stats that high? (Except the dumped Resolve, that is.)

Ah, there's just one more thing... Empower. Now, I realize this is probably going to be too much work for the team to consider it, but I'll ask this anyway. Currently it is unclear what the effect of Empower is on each given ability. Sure, it will make Minoletta's Minor Missiles cast more missiles. But what about Knock Down? More damage? Longer duration? Higher penetration? A combination of those? It would be good if each ability carried a section in their description that explained the effect Empower has on them, possibly with a revised stat block to show it at a glance.

Upon reaching Poko Kohara, you can travel to the top left corner of the map to find an abandoned altar to Rikuhu. Praying to the altar gives you a resting bonus called Rikuhu's blessing, which doesn't seem to have any detailed description of its effects anywhere: Based on my character record, it gives +1 Resolve. Would be good if this was indicated elsewhere too (in the character record the effect itself is only listed as "Rikuhu's blessing", mind you; I saw +1 Resolve by hovering my mouse on my Resolve score and seeing that it was affected by it.)

One more ease-of-use suggestion, this one straight out of Tyranny. During combat I found myself instinctively trying to pin this information so I could mouse over it: I know there are more details on active buffs next to my character's portrait, but I don't get that for enemies. Also this screen shows my current afflictions and what inspirations will counter them, but I don't know the icons by heart; I'd want to mouse over them to see what inspiration I need to free myself of the affliction.

Agreed; let's see how that plays out. I would still advocate that modals could be less extreme (and therefore less situational.)

I've just tried running a party without a Wizard and guess what? Game was a lot easier. If nothing else because I didn't have a completely useless party member either getting interrupted all the time, or casting one single spell before the encounter was over, which hit nobody because it had low Accuracy. As with many other things, with casters too I believe the devs correctly identified the issues from the first game, but unfortunately applied several fixes for the same issue, thus moving too far in the opposite direction. A few suggestions that have been scattered in other threads and I think would work: Casting times should be slightly shorter across the board. I don't mind their being longer than PoE's in general, but 6 seconds is a drag. Buffs should be fast cast (those that aren't already.) For this purpose, summoned weapons should count as buffs. Spells should be able to graze right off the bat. Damage spell would graze like weapons do; CC spells would last shorter and apply a lower-ranking CC (e.g. stuck instead of paralyzed.) All casters should have access to spells that give Concentration from level 1. It could be one spell every two levels with increased duration and ancillary effects as we progress through the level ladder. These would count as buffs and should be fast cast or insta-cast. Casters with no access to Grimoires should be given more spells (e.g. 1 extra spell per level) to pick to make up for it and encourage a bit more experimentation. Right now you're forced into picking the must-have spells as there's no room for any other. This should suffice; I'd rather experiment with spell grazes before suggesting that spells be given some inherent Accuracy bonus again (and if I did, I'd advocate for a smaller bonus than it was in PoE.)

True, but also prosaic—everything is better with buffs, thank you very much My issue is that many things appear to be balanced around the expectation that you'll be using buffs in conjunction with them. E.g. Savage Attack + Devotions for the Faitfhul. This makes the buff mandatory if you want to successfully use the ability. Never leave home without a Priest who has Devotions for the Faithful if you wanna use Savage Attack, and of course you have to wait until your Priest gets the spell. ... and this pigeonholes casters even more. They are already forced into picking "safe" spells at level up because they can access so few. If certain buffs are required to make specific abilities worthwhile, your casters become mere enablers (provided that they don't get interrupted during their ages-long casting times.)

Hey, do you think you could code a system like MaxQuest proposed in this thread? It would be nice to give it a try. A solution would be just to dump that. Then there's no benefit to having more PEN than the AR. Or make it 50% additive like a critical hit. Much less powerful than 30% multiplicative, but still worth pursuing if you're into that. It would go from being the one way to boost your DPS to be one way to do it.

My .02 on combat speed: Current combat speed is fine for a "normal" setting. It can feel too fast at the beginning because a) we're facing lagufaeth, who are fast enemies; b) we are still getting used to new mechanics, which requires time to think our moves in combat. Combat did not feel too fast for me when facing enemies like xaurips, delemgan, or wurms. After warming up to the mechanics, it felt all right against lagufaeth too. However: A slow mode appears to be called for, if nothing else out of popular demand. Increasing recovery times further won't do any good. In fact, it will do harm: Recovery times are already very slow. If you wear plate armor and wield a two-hander, you spend half the encounter staring at your idle guy doing nothing, which isn't fun. I believe recovery times were good in PoE. If the problem was that we could reach 0 recovery and the team wanted to balance that, just reducing the number of bonuses to recovery that can be obtained and stack would do. Deadfire is not going to have Durgan steel enhancements, that I know of, which was a big contribution to reaching 0 recovery (I also don't believe it's a problem if it can be reached; you had to take very specific steps to achieve it.)

Agree with your points in general, KDubya, but also agree with Boeroer in that currently Pen trumps everything else. It’s a good system but Pen needs to go from THE concern to A concern.

Some of the modals are too extreme in their effects, imo. Savage Attack, for example, gives too much extra damage in exchange for too much Accuracy. I would never use it unless I was mopping up under-levelled foes.

Damn, I ran into one at CC earlier but didn't take a screenshot \ I'll see if I can repro tomorrow.

I got the items on Vektor, but not the cash. Does anybody know the code for money?

Hey Cdiaz, it played out very much like the Mule Kick issue that makes creatures untargettable. I sure used Mule Kick against them, but that wasn't the only ability I used so I can't say for sure it was the root cause of the issue. I say, let's wait for a Mule Kick fix to be rolled out and see if I still run into this

^ so true about planning!

Agree with the OP. I don’t mind longer casting times per se, but those we have now are too long. Again, slow drags are unfun. All casters should have access to spells that grant concentration, starting at 1st level with a basic one; higher level spells may grant it for longer and or with ancillary effects. It’s way too easy to be interrupted and lose a precious spell (we only get 2 per level now.) We also need spells to graze. Damage spells would graze the way weapons do; affliction spells would decrease duration and apply a lower-ranking affliction (e.g. from paralyzed to stuck.) Right now I can spend forever casting a spell that either misses and does nothing, or hits and is meh.

Having one more thing to account for is good; having that thing be disproportionately more important than everything else is not.

Actually the -120% from Armored Grace has been confirmed a bug. I did mention though that 20% is too underwhelming given the penalties incurred when wearing heavy armor and the tier of the ability. I can accept penalties to speed but there has to be a limit. The game is first and foremost meant to be fun and slow drags are the opposite of that.

Agreed on faster recovery. Armor recovery penalties have been made too steep and two-handers are very slow. It’s no fun to stare at your guys sitting through an endless recovery cycle. I also agree with the addition of a slow mode as in the first game. Pacing is fine in normal mode; just give us faster recovery and a slow mode we can toggle. Spells should be faster and casters should have access to different spells at various levels that grant Concentration for different amount of times (and at higher levels, perhaps, in conjunction with inspirations that can counter afflictions that would remove concentration, so they’d have a “safety layer” before their concentration is dispelled/taken away.)

Sounds good to me.

^ I agree. However, what about spells that only deal damage?

It sounds like something I experienced more than once today, for sure. I had it with Xaurips too.

I too believe the pace of combat to be all right, as someone else pointed out. The initial outpouring of complaints about combat's being too fast are mostly due to two factors, imo: Most people's first taste of Deadfire combat was against lagufaeth, who are supposed to be comparatively faster enemies. Deadfire brings many mechanical changes to the table to which we are not used. It is only natural to feel overwhelmed at the beginning and wish for a slower pace so we can take our time making decisions during combat. I did not feel pacing was too fast against delemgans, wurms, blights, or xaurips. It was actually generally good, except recovery times were sometimes too slow. The change to armor recovery time was too steep and perhaps uncalled for. The way AR vs AP work now, you are encouraged to wear the heaviest possible armor to curb your enemies' DPS, but that makes you very slow. You're still gonna win, except you get to stare at your men sitting idly through their recovery time for boringly long spans (especially if you're using a 2-hander.) Bottom line in my opinion: Current combat pacing is fine. A slow mode in the vein of the first game should be implemented out of being in popular demand. Recovery times could use being smaller. At least the penalty from wearing armor could be closer to the original game's. AR and AP values should be rebalanced to avoid making lighter armors useless while you need a legendary sword to pierce through regular plate armor. And of course the AR vs AP mechanic needs smoothing (i.e. it needs to be gradual when you're below your enemy's AR, and the bonus for being significantly above needs to be additive instead of multiplicative.)

I too have encountered the issue with the xaurip standing there after combat. It also happened with a blight and with a desert wurm. Unfortunately I couldn't pinpoint the root cause, as the bug would not necessarily occur every time. I could repeat the same fight ten times and get ten different outcomes. Once I had three desert wurms affected, then just one, then none. In some cases the enemies would just stand there inactive and impossible to target, with still some health. Combat wouldn't end but nobody could do anything. Fairly annoying bug. Will keep trying to repro.

Hi aartz, in relation to this, I would like to add that several talents, spells, and abilities have descriptions that are way too generic. This is something others have pointed out as well, but I figured I'd put it on QA's radar. A description that says "Grants resistance to X Afflictions" doesn't mean anything. How much resistance? Is it immunity? Is it a % chance the affliction will fail? We also don't have a list of afflictions that affect which attribute, so "Might Afflictions" for example doesn't mean much to me. Similarly, saying I get a bonus or penalty to anything without specifying its magnitude and how long it lasts isn't informational. The Fighter ability tree has a Knock Down upgrade that makes the enemy fly in the air before being knocked prone, for example, and it doesn't say what else it brings to the table. Does it last longer? Does it deal more damage? What am I buying with this talent point? Ideally, every talent, spell, or ability should include a clear indication of how much it adds/subtracts from what and for how long.