Shake Appeal

Or they just decided to let players go wild ;-) Yeah, there is almost certainly some intent to let players off the leash with cash towards the end. I was actually impressed by how balanced Deadfire's economy was for so long compared to other CRPGs, although it probably helps that I don't loot any chests that wouldn't make sense for my character to loot (e.g., chests in kith's homes are offlimits, as are barrels and crates on a dock).

That's how I play with them already anyway. The real change will be that now I'll fret a lot about "wasting" charges etc. It's similar to the way some people hoarded per-rest resources in the first game. It's a psychological thing. I don't use figurines that often but when I do use them I don't want to fret about maybe needing them worse later in the game. Yep, I struggle intensely with using anything consumable in RPGs, and always end up with an endgame stash flooded with items I was saving for "a harder fight."

The second I read the thread title I knew what fight would be mentioned. I did this last night, and it was weird/hilarious. They should probably move it down to outside the bottom part of the Temple of Berath, or something. It didn't help that the end of that fight was my party gathered around the (three red skulls) construct chipping away with single-digit damage for what felt like five minutes because it was so hard to stack any debuffs on it.

In case any 118 year-olds want to hunt a soul-stealing god through the Deadfire. Don't be ageist.

My guess is that's way too much of a moving target to be reliable, which means people would ultimately complain when something missed, which means they won't do it.

Gregorovitch, when he said: But there's also a broader point to be made about who the game is designed for, and how important high-level difficulty balancing is. It's more important for a traditional CRPG with a niche but fervent fanbase, but if Obsidian want to make ends meet, the bulk of their time is not going to be spent, at least pre-release, on tweaking numbers for optional side content on a difficulty setting that a tiny proportion of users ever try.

I would love Obsidian to drop some telemetry data about how many players attempt Veteran/POTD, let alone complete those settings even one time. The overwhelming majority of users never finish one run of the game, let alone return to it time and again. I would guess the hardcore POTD playerbase (into which I include myself), is likely a single-digit percentage of the player population. Maybe one in twenty users is even giving things like "level scaling" any thought. You are fooling yourself if you think Deadfire's possibly sluggish sales are related to the game being "too easy." I would wager most users find the default difficulty too hard and confusing.

Damage-dealing ciphers seem pretty weak, yes. Multiclassed ciphers that emphasize charm, crowd control and general utility are extremely powerful. For all the complaints about cast times, Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors, Body Attunement, Pain Block, Borrowed Instinct, and more are all 0.5s casts. The charm spells take a while to get off, but they last forever! Whisper of Treason is the most powerful first-level ability in the game on POTD, as far as I can make out. On the other hand, the level 7 abilities are all pretty bleh.

Every delay is hugely expensive. The game was in good shape. And tens of thousands of players grinding dozens of hours of gameplay each help find bugs and balance issues faster than Obsidian ever could alone.

Different parts of the team likely work on bugfixing (and quest sequencing) as opposed to combat balancing. The balance team, for all we know, is taking a small break after sprinting to get us 1.1 out in amazing time. Lastly, you're being rude.

It's also currently impossible to match the shade of hair coloring in this portrait: Believe me, I have tried.

Yeah, I am currently very concerned about the balance of attributes, classes, etc., and I'm not even a minmaxer.

So am I missing something, or do Ciphers now benefit from every attribute that isn't Constitution and desperately need high Str, Int and Res? Because that seems like an unfair burden compared to more straightforward classes. It also screws my PoE1 character, assuming we can't re-roll attributes on import.

This solves a mystery bug I experienced where some of Pall's equipment got torched when I was juggling my party at Caed Nua. I must have had it in Kana's slots.

I think at the point where Easy isn't easy enough for you, you should just activate cheats and do what you need to get through the story.