Ganrich

Yup, I'm about to do that now.

Sometimes a companion that doesn't fit the setting is a good thing. It makes them feel unique within the setting. Having everyone fit nice and neat can become a bit bland. Sometimes you need to spice it up.

It's a little weird that they put all three of those into one goal, when any one of them would probably have produced quite a bit of hype from the community. Not that I am complaining. Yup, I noticed that too. I really think they were noticing the humdrum reactions to the past few stretch goals, and changed this one to me more content driven with another sublcass and extra levels. The orchestra is icing on the cake. If I were them, I would have had another simple stretch goal plus localization for $2.8m, and gone ahead and posted this update for $3m. We will be at 2.8 in no time, I think. Also, with the weekend here, they could rest easy. I'm sure they have more info that I do, and they know what they are doing. Either way, it's a great stretch goal. I'm really excited for the 3rd subclass and Orchestra, and a level 20 cap is definitely cool.

New stretch goal is awesome. 1 more sublcass per class, level 20 is the new cap, and orchestrated soundtrack.

An idea I've had, and sorry I didn't read through the thread to check if it has been said already, is to do another 2 part Expansion like TWM. Part 1 happens mid campaign, and although it is side content it ties in somewhat to the main story. Then Part 2 picks up after the main campaign because your actions in finishing it, but is more a continuation of the first expansion. This gives a little of both, but the story of the first expansion needs to tie in to the main campaign somehow.

Someone asked Feargus in the Fig comments if we could have another Stretch Goal Companion, and he said, "Yes, but when?" This was after Xoti was funded. So, we already have one unknown companion, and another stretch goal companion means we have two (if we hit that goal). I definitely see a Dwarf being one based on the region and their populations there. I just hope that IF we see 8 companions in total that they have a Pale Elf. Doubling up on races isn't necessarily bad, and a Pale Elf could bring some interesting story elements to the table that Aloth doesn't. We know very little about them so we could see them being fleshed out a bit, they tend to not travel north so that sets up a good basis for their story by explaining why they are in the Deadfire, and they are Elves with beards. Lol

​Probably because we are getting a pale blue elf. *Crosses fingers and does dance on back porch in pajamas* I would like a Pale Elf Companion. The question is what class? Classes we won't have available from companions as best we can guess are: Barbarian, Druid, Chanter, Cipher. The Amaua with the arquebuss is likely a ranger, and it's a tough call on the Orlan. He could be a rogue, a Chanter, a Cipher, or maybe a Barbarian subclass that focuses on ranged weapons (not likely)? I doubt we will get another Orlan Druid, Rogue is less likely because of Eder, and the Barbarian subclass is wishful thinking. So, he is most likely a Chanter or a Cipher. He looks like a Pirate, and it would be a neat concept for a Chanter that is looking for riches like a less friendly Nathan Drake that knows a lot of history of the Deadfire/shipwrecks/ancient treasures/etc. He could basically be a greedy Chanter looking for get rich quick scenarios. Xoti is either Priest or Monk, Eder is Fighter or Rogue, Pallegina is Paladin, Aloth is Wizard. So, to recap Chanter or Cipher are most likely for the Orlan, and I think Chanter would be more interesting for a character given the locale. However, Cipher is just as likely. That leaves barbarian and Druid for the Pale Elf. Or, it could be an either or character like Eder and Xoti. Which would be amazing, imho.

​What if your keep was actually a "hidden cove." And you start with a crudy rickety ship. During ship combat you can commandeer an opposing ship and take it for yourself. Swinging onto the new ship. Or you can simply sink it, take prisoners, take loot, etc. You have to spend money to "refit" a ship if you steal it, otherwise you can't use it to head back into port. I'd be fine with that too. I think scripted interactions would be great for boarding an enemy vessel, and then you could load onto the deck of that ship for a quick combat. Sounds like a winner to me.

I switch between hard or PotD depending on my mood. Sometimes I just want to play through the game, and not deal with HP and defense stat bloat on enemies. On PotD Chanters are fine, but on any other difficulty they rarely do much other than Chant. On hard you will get to use Invocations on big fights, and maybe on some smaller fights if you screw up, get a damage dealer CCed, or what have you. Which the latter is rare if you've been playing the game long enough. I expect summons to get better accuracy, defenses, damage, etc. They need to become stronger, and maybe increase the number of creatures summoned with certain Invocations. What is the point of increasing their Duration if the class is backloaded on casting and summons disappear after combat? It would be fine on PotD, but on every other difficulty increased Duration would be useless for a Chanter in their present state.

Stronghold in Deadfire is a ship, it's upgradable, and there is ship combat when traveling between islands. You would have a couple ocean maps for variety. Some just water in both shallow and deep water, some with islands here and there, and some are rocky areas where you would expect shipwrecks and the like. Those maps need only be traveled once as you travel to an island for the first time. I would enjoy some random encounters after that, but I know a lot of people don't like random encounters. So I could go either way.

Are you going to use Empower on a summon after you've whittled the enemies down to 2 when there were 6-8 on the field at the onset of the fight? Especially if that summon is going to disappear after combat? If Invocations come that late then Empower will likely be fairly unused by the class. Whether it fits design or not doesn't matter. Especially if that design is poorly implemented as to change the value of the class based on difficulty. A class should always be able to use its abilities in nearly every fight throughout the game. I'm not against the idea of a less active caster, but I am against the idea of a less active caster that becomes significantly more useful depending on the Difficulty Setting being higher. It should be equally useful in all difficulties by being able to use more than half its kit.

So, in the latest Twitch Stream Josh spoke on Empower. He said all, or nearly all, active abilities scale. Everytime you level up you gain 3 of your specific Power Source (Spirits for Chanters), and most Power Levels are about 6 Source points apart. From here on out PS refers to Power Source, PL refers to Power Level, and for clarity CL is class level. PL seems to be the controlling factor in scaling. At level 1 you will be PL 1 as it takes 2+ PS points to get there and you will have 3 PS, and PL 2 is required 8+ PS. So, you will have to gain CL 3 with your chanter to gain PL2, and each PL from their on out requires 2 CLs. Empower, if I understand it correctly, increases your PL by 3 for a single cast. So, using the Wizard as the example, your level 3 Wizard who is Power Level 2 when using Empower will boost his spell to PL 5 (the equivalent to a CL 9 Wizard for that single Empowered cast). I use the Wizard because each odd CL is a new Power Level, and that keeps things simple. The effects of this will be based on how the sell/ability scales. Damage and accuracy are likely to be the most common effects from higher level spells that have scaled, but there could be other things that are added to spells as they scale. So, with that system only boosting active abilities, what will Chanters (in their present state) need Empower for? Their Invocations come too late in battle to waste Empower on, and those are their only actives unless you pick up active Talents like Envenomed Strike. Will Empower be designed to boost the next Phrase in your Chant? This seems unlikely since Josh didn't mention passives or modals. This is another system that could allow Chanters to lag behind. So, I figured I would mention it.

Yeah, I agree. I don't see why they don't talk more about the details. List the afflictions and inspirations, and give a rough idea of what they do. Give us some more subclasses to talk about. Show gameplay (just a single combat encounter would do). Tell us about how classes have been changed. Show us some examples of spells/abilities and how they scale. Do they just get more powerful, or do somethings get added effects like CC and the like. Everything has been kind of vague.

No, I am including investment. In fact I think investment is the ONLY reason they will get to the same numbers as last time. IIRC, they only had 28 days for funding. We current have just over 14 days left. We are dead center of the campaign, and at $2.476m. Then there is the remaining $800k (just below that number now) of investments that haven't been attributed to the total because we have hit the $2m cap for investments already. So, technically the campaign is at around $3.25m or so right now, but we aren't seeing those investments that havent been updated/approved. Which leaves 14 days to make up the remainder to hit $4m like PoE1 did. 14 days to get some $700k+. Anyone that has contributed to Crowdfunding knows that the first two days and the last 2 days are the big ones. I can't see how we will miss beating PoE1 with 14 days left. It may not hit those numbers though. I'm admittedly being optimistic, but it's going to be close. We will likely see a jump when PayPal kicks in too given as many times as I have seen people ask about it on these forums and on Fig's comment section. There are probably more waiting on PayPal than have asked. The last time I believe that PayPal was around 200-300k? Even at half those numbers we will still be looking good.

No it's the opposite. It's going too slow and hence there's not a need for an urgency to post a new one. With all the stretch goals being mediocre (my opinion of course), the only interesting ones are subclasses and xoti. Berath blessings and NPC portraits, those didn't really add anything interesting for me at all other than just fillers in trying to bloat the funding amount. Even they release 2.8M stretch goals, i doubt it be any interesting. They probably keeping the big ones for the funding near 4M i supposed. This campaign is moving around the same speed (if not faster) than PoE 1 did. They are averaging $50-$100k a day. 30 hours ago they were at $2.4m dollars even. Now they sit at $2.475m. In 30 hours they made $75k. That isn't slow compared to most campaigns. They still have around $800k coming from Investors that hasn't been added to that $2.475m. If we round that up to $2.5m and add that $800k we end up with $3.3m. That beats WL3 on fig, and it's only about $500k from Psychonauts (Which ended around $3.8m). $3.3m, and they have just under 15 days to the end of the campaign. I expect they will beat PoE1 in funding, but they may not. PayPal usually rakes in an extra $200k or so in most Crowdfunding campaigns of this size. There are a good many people that have PayPal but no credit card, or they don't use it for this sort of thing. There are also a portion of people that don't like Fig. I've seen and talked to my fair share of people that don't like Fig for a list of reasons. I agree they are keeping the good stretch goals for the end because they will max out on the amount they are accepting from investors by then. The end will be 100% carried by pledges, and they plan to make use of it. Feargus was coy about a late campaign companion stretch goal. When asked "Can we get and 8th companion for a stretch goal?" He responded with "Yes! But when? :)" Or something to that effect. Close enough as to not matter. Also, Josh said in an interview that there is a Stretch Goal for the Stronghold replacement. I expect that will be a late campaign stretch, and it might be the final stretch too. I think that stretch goal will be the "OMG WE HAS TO HAVE IT!" stretch goal. We will see.

​Still, there is only so much micro-management that can be done over perceptions. Once a stretch goal is achieved, it's onto new pastures. Plus most people don't let themselves get caught up by the gripes of others. Even the most vocal people against a stretch goal, tend to be people who have already backed or are going to back. They put their skin in the game, and now are grieved that they can't hype themselves over the back numbers rolling to the next goal. They have to wait for something that gets them salivating a bit more. Further, I think a lot of people are a bit hyperbolic in order to be heard and enact a change. You're right about how opinions can sometimes reach a critical mind-share, but I doubt it's going to do too much harm here. "Most" people might be a little strong. People are easily convinced that something is bad based on the opinions of others. Pier pressure is a thing. If a large portion of the feedback, vocal minority or not, is negative then it could sway people who were neutral that way. Happens all the time. A lot of people are easily swayed by perceptions of popularity or the lack their of. Also, your use of "onto new pastures" is what I am saying. Perhaps, Obsidian is trying to come up with ideas that will be seen in that very light. A greener pasture. It isn't that there are one or two stretch goals that have been met with grumbles and moans. AI scripting, Watercolor Portraits, Berath's Blessing, and UI customization have all had their fair share of criticisms. Some more than others, but that is every stretch goal since the new companion. $800k worth of Stretch Goals to be precise. A delay like this either means they weren't ready to get to this amount of money so soon, or they are scrapping what they had and quickly getting something else in place. I can't think of another reason they wouldn't get the update posted quickly. However, I can easily miss that sort of stuff. If they did scrap what they had then I can't think of very many reasons why unless they are looking at it the same way I am. They are trying to generate as much funding as possible, and if the comments section (including those within the updates, the general comments on Fig, and these forums) are not excited then that can impact this campaign. It can stop people from getting more add-ons, or from pledging altogether. The more negativity surrounding the Stretch Goals the more it will swell. If they drop a great Stretch Goal then it will let them go a few more with middling ones. If they keep releasing goals like we have seen then it could slow down the march to the next goal and diminish with every goal after that.

I've seen just as many people excited for Berath's Blessing as people unhappy with it. The unhappy ones are just a bit...louder. I know, but you typically want everyone happy about a stretch goal. Vocal minorities in a crowdfunding campaign can cause issues, and could very well grow into something that isn't a minority. There are a lot of people looking for content stretch goals, and complain each time the new one is something like VO, AI scripting, etc. I used the term lukewarm for a reason. Some liked it, and some didn't. It was a very middling success for a stretch goal. I like Berath's Blessing myself, but to each their own.

Like I said, spell components of the optional variety. Things that might bolster magic if used, but would most likely have competing applications as potion or crafting ingredients. That's clearly different from how they're used in D&D, so the association and condemnation on its basis doesn't hold. Wouldn't that just be the Empower system with inventory management. I played Ultima Online for 4-5 years (and other games that have used similar systems) and have no issue with components/reagents, but this idea is just like Empower. The one differences are a bunch of stuff in your inventory vs camping supplies, and reagents/components would be Spell specific vs a Empower being a catch all for every active ability for every class. As an aside, Josh specifically mentioned Empower being useable with every "Active Ability" (because they scale with level. What about the class(es) that are mostly passive like the Chanter? Will Phrases not work with Empower? If not then my thread on them needing a redesign just got another reason to exist. Edit: Perhaps Empower for Chanters will just let the Chanter cast an Invocation by reducing Chant requirements by 3. That way they can cast level 1 Invocations at the start of combat, or if they have the Chants built up it then boosts damage. I don't know.

I wonder if they hit the drawing board because of some of the negative feedback from the past few stretch goals. Berath's Blessing was hit with luke warm reception at best, and the VO update was semi-controversial too. Maybe they are trying to ensure more favorable reactions, and are doing a second pass on ideas. I'm not upset about the delay on the stretch goal update or anything but it's noticeable. We got such a good update yesterday (not including the stream) that I really can't complain. Tim Cain Cookbook, P&P source book for the franchise, and that sand animation that shows environments will effect gameplay... Not a single thing to complain about with that update.

I'm starting to think we won't get a stretch goal update again today. It's been 24 hours since we crossed $2.4m, and still no $2.8m goal. I'm wondering if we are going faster than they were anticipating, and they are having to scramble a bit.

Empower?

I'm fine with us being able to rename the class combos, but as I have said on another thread I want their official names for simplicity purposes. If I run across an Ogre Fighter/Wizard then it will look better if it says "Ogre Battlemage". Then when I hover over the Ogre I can MAYBE see something like 8F/5W to clarify. This gives me a solid idea of what it's capable of at a glance, but if I want (and Obsidian wants to allow it) more details then I can hover my cursor on the enemy. If they don't want us knowing exactly what the level makeup of an enemy is at least I have an inkling of an idea.

They are overhauling the afflictions system, and giving every affliction and opposing inspiration. All inspirations give a positive status effect that a corresponding affliction counters. I'm sure that while doing this that they will make these inspirations stack atop modals or allow afflictions to work against them. You are right, it won't work well otherwise, and I'm sure they know that.

@Flouride - That's my thinking as well. It keeps the campaign chugging along. I expect it will continue like this until we near the last 3-5 days and all the investments are posted on the main page, but we will see. It makes good business sense to not let the campaign die during the mid-campaign lull.

It's an interesting change, though it'll need to balanced carefully to make it effective but also avoid it being hugely frustrating. If executed well though, this could add quite a bit of tactical thinking to when to cast spells. It might no longer be the case that you want to immediately cast your best spells at the start of combat, nor cast a new spell immediately after finishing the previous one. This will also make fast cast spells like Wizards Double more appealing as they should be harder to interrupt and should hopefully provide some protection against interruption for the next cast. It fits well with Obsidian's desire to make AI scale to difficulty too, in that at higher levels the AI could actively make enemy archers switch to target spell casters who are casting spells whilst on lower levels they may not. Ironically, it could make something like Wizards Double more desirable on non-Gish builds to lower the chance of being hit with an interrupt. It wouldn't be a bad opener for a wizard if they are going to be targeted by the AI, and then they can rain down death and destruction for a bit in relative safety. Those defensive self buffs might end up pretty important to the more conventional wizard.