CENIC

I think changes made in the most recent patch helped a lot. Single class characters get more points to spend on abilities per power level gained now, and there are more passives available for all classes. One of the problems with single class vs multi class is that the benefit of a single class character doesn't really become apparent until higher levels. The backer beta is scaled around a cap of level 8 or 9, so even players who pass the cap using console commands aren't getting the full experience of what high level play is like between single and multi class.

• Polished graphics - the game is looking beautiful! • Hair - I think hair looks better now. It's different, but an improvement. • UI - The enhancements made to the UI, especially the Empower button, are great. I did find myself forgetting I had Empower in the heat of battle before. • Passives for everyone - My only gripe here is that Ranger is still hoarding Marksman and Gunner. Otherwise I thought all of the shared passives were good choices, especially making unarmed combat an option for all. • Resolve - Really glad Obsidian decided to try out affliction duration for Resolve. Might/Strength/Resolve is a situation where there's no perfect solution. The current meta doesn't gimp hybrids and makes Resolve less dumpable, which is good enough for me.

Really glad they brought back Might. Getting two ability points as a single-class character makes them equally viable to a multi-class character where before they felt gimped to play. The passive talents are awesome, although I do wish Gunner and Marksman were available to all. Cast time and Penetration changes make combat feel a LOT better. All in all this update makes me feel confident that the game is going to be AWESOME.

What? You do realize there are Africans and people of African descent with varying skin tones? Are you suggesting it isn't "right" for them to have lighter skin tones? Pallegina's skin tone in the Deadfire portrait is different from her skin tone in her original Pillars portrait. The edited portrait brings her skin tone closer to her original Pillars portrait. I can see how someone with darker skin than Pallegina would be excited and happy if she was "darkened" to look more like them because representation is important, but there is nothing WRONG with being a light-skinned black person. Jesus.

It's equally discriminatory to ban attractive people or call them "unrealistic," and I say that as an average-looking and insecure person. The portrait edits look nice, and whoever did it is talented! Thanks, anonymous artist!

Josh posted on Tumblr about the suggestion for RES to reduce the duration of afflictions: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171380084061/one-resolve-suggestion-i-think-you/ No, I didn’t miss or misunderstand it. I think it has more problems than people are considering. It’s overlapping into the space governed by defenses themselves and doesn’t scale well due to it being a percentage reduction that needs 30 points of “growth” on the positive (i.e. above 10) scale. Intellect can continue to scale its duration bonus up in 5% chunks because even after it hits 30 (20 points over 10, +100%) it can always increase more. If Resolve were a percentage reduction, it would need to increment by 3% per point to avoid topping out before 40. At 5% per point, you would hit 100% reduction at 30 and you’ve run out of runway. 5% per point is potent, but almost everything connected to attributes in Pillars is symmetrical, so what works on party members would also work on enemies. Would you want to fight enemies who spike a basic tier 1 Resolve Inspiration and chop (an additional) 25% off all incoming effect durations? If the enemy started with a 15 Resolve, it would cut all incoming effect durations in half. Worse, if the enemy started with a 20 Resolve, the easily-attainable 25 would cut them by 75%. A 10s Paralyze becomes a 2.5s Paralyze. Is 3% reduction per point enough? At 15 you’d have 15% reduction. At 20, 30% reduction. At 30, 60% reduction. Maxed out at 40, 90% reduction. On the lower end, a 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 15%. Is 2% reduction per point enough? At 15, 10%. At 20, 20%. At 30, 40%. At 40, 60%. A 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 10%. Whatever the scale is, it would naturally place a heavier emphasis on Intellect (because you are inherently countering additional reduction) and require balancing base hostile durations (only) around the reality that hostile effect durations (only) are adjusted both by the attack result and by Resolve. Honestly, the 2% reduction per point sounds good enough to me. Assuming STR changes back to MIG, 2% reduction in affliction duration would achieve the goal of making RES more appealing than it was before.

To make Resolve useful to the majority of players while also keeping it balanced and lore-friendly, one (maybe both) of these is the best option. (STR should be reverted back to MIG if one of these changes is made to RES, obviously)

Just bring back MIG, and give RES +5% Inspiration Duration (Received/Cast), +5% Affliction Duration (Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received) to make it more attractive.

Just bring back MIG, and give RES +5% Inspiration Duration (Received/Cast), +5% Affliction Duration (Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received) to make it more attractive.

I wonder if companions listed as having no subclasses have access to the subclasses the player can choose from? I remember in one of the multiclass updates, Xoti's monk subclasses were shown, and all of the player subclasses were listed as well as her unique subclass. As excited as I was for multiclassing as a feature, the fact that we can't freely multiclass the companions took some of the wind out of my sails. I'll probably keep the three returning companions in their original classes, and explore multiclassing with the new companions.

Hold up, do you believe that because the orlan baby has been confirmed to appear in Deadfire, she will appear whether or not you kept her? Because I think it's pretty obvious that only one of those choices is going to affect Deadfire. ...do you honestly believe what you did with Raedric is going to be relevant in Deadfire? Why??? I'm genuinely curious, where do you expect that to come up?

Let’s be honest, how much reactivity can there be - if there will be 20 references to minor choices from PoE1 I will be impressed, and that would be easy to set up within minutes. +1. Reactivity is one of my favorite facets of game design, but expecting a game to reference EVERYTHING is foolish. I've played the Dragon Age series, and I use the Dragon Age Keep. There are plot points in the Keep that I believe are "red herrings" - they won't ever be recalled, but it makes the fans feel good to see it, and hey, better safe than sorry.

If it's just the backer beta I'm out. Show us the companions in action!

I feel like anything NOT accounted for in the custom save state editor is probably so inconsequential that it will only bother you if you're autistic/OCD (if you even realize it's missing in the first place!) As much as I loved the first game, it's LONG, and I don't want to replay just to change a couple minor things, so I'm going to put my faith in the save state editor.

Josh Sawyer was asked this in the most recent Q&A stream. He said that the vast majority of decisions you made in the first game that will impact the second game will be included in the custom save state builder. So, there may be a few small things that will be caught if you import vs build your own, but the biggest reactive points will be accounted for.

I support this too, but I'd like it to be reactive for the returning companions based on decisions you made in the first game. If you got the "Night Market" ending for Eder, why can't Fighter/Priest be one of his class options? Even for a new character, like Maia who only has one class, it would be cool if choices you make involving her open up a specific multiclass option.

I have another request!

I'm not expecting an animated miniature of our hero, more like a wood-textured static table-top figurine, either a generic one, or a texture applied to our character model so it's unique. I really like the idea of the world map as a map on a table, with wooden figurines of our ship and hero being moved across the map to show our progress. Dragon Age Inquisition had a really beautiful world map in that style.

Issue I noticed since before Update 1: The "Deadfire Archipelago" culture page has a scroll bar, but the scroll bar does NOT appear: Dragging the cursor on the page makes the scroll bar appear. This is not intuitive AND hides the attribute bonus. Issues that are new to Update 1: Some of the female elf hairstyles use the same icon: ...and there are new faces for male wood elves, but: This is a leveling up bug rather than character creation, but I might as well add it here. This is also new to Update 1. Sometimes when leveling up, you will be able to select more than one skill. This has happened to me on two different multiclassed characters, at level 4 (where you are able to select a skill from each class) If you switch to your "secondary" class and pick a skill from that class FIRST, and then hit "next," you are taken to your "primary" class's skill page and prompted to choose a skill from there. Then you are taken to your "secondary" class's page and prompted to select ANOTHER skill. You cannot unselect the skill you initially chose.

Ha ha. Lets assume you want to write scripted interaction with option of physical strong character doing something. Please give me different attribute to use... Easy. Athletics. That is LITERALLY what Athletics is.

With the new AI system, I'm hoping I can set it up so that if I'm dual wielding a rapier and pistol: IF being attacked in melee: defend self with rapier IF target is at range: fire pistol once, then run in with rapier ...or something like that.

With the CURRENT state of AI? No. I'm excited to see how this new AI system serves though, because I vastly prefer having less to micromanage so I can let combat flow in real-time and not be paused every 2 seconds so my brain can keep up...

Bumping this because I would like to know as well. I tried the Rogue-only dialogue option but that only allowed me to kill Sul with an advantage.

I was expecting to alternate between the two when dual wielding so I was disappointed. A rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other LOOKS rad, but how it works right now is not worth it at all. I have to manually move my character RIGHT NEXT TO the enemy to get her to use her rapier - and usually there's a delay while she reloads her pistol anyway! I got tired of it and just switched them to different weapon sets. It definitely needs to be reworked.

Especially for the casual audience. Not everyone who is going to play the game (or backed it) is posting here about decimal point differences in attack damage between stats. We're special.