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.

Yep. 89 hours logged on Steam and I'm still not quite done with my first playthrough. Still love the game. Still excited for multiple different playthroughs, balance patches, the expansions, a sequel...

My Aloth can no longer grimoire slam because of this.

Dear everyone, it doesn't matter what the personal feelings and beliefs of the offended party are in this case. Facts or opinions about her are not relevant. All she did was draw attention to something that Obsidian fully admitted should have been better vetted and not allowed in the game, even if she personally never saw it or was not offended by it. Independent of this person's tweets, the content in question could be found objectionable and hostile to people who experience hostility and prejudice every single day of their lives. Changing it was the appropriate and -- more importantly -- the kind thing to do. Obsidian made the right call. It's what any responslbe developer would have done. You need to move on, and stop being regressive jerks living down to the worst reputation of videogame and especially "hardcore" CRPG fans. This is not a issue of free speech or "self-censorship." This is not an issue of Obsidian "caving." This is not a front in your inane culture war. (But just to be clear, you are losing ground in that war every single day. History is leaving you behind.) This is about respecting the lived experience of humans other than you. Broaden your perspective.

You're all being very boring. I'm sorry your ideology is flawed and your worldview is crumbling in the face of actual social progress on issues like this, but at least try to be dignified about it.

Prove that they caved in. Put up or shut up. It's really not such a difficult concept. You will never ba able to prove this- This is ridiculous. However... Obsidian makes games and even controlled backer content and helped them with writing as well. Games gets released Some crazy person saw some messages that did upset her even though the meaning is not even clear She calls Obsidian out, she calls for a boycott. a Week or so later Obsidian removed the content with some PR messages behind it. Yeah the chances that they carved in is pretty high for me. They did what they should have done in the first place and rejected the content. That's not caving; it's doing the right thing. You may realize this one day. God, I hope so.

Agreed. People made their case on both sides of the issue. Obsidian listened and made up its own mind about how best to respond. Respect their decision and move on. The prolonged and irrational anti-"SJW" tantrum is effing infantile. No it is just freedom of speech. And a reaction to their behavior since its getting more and more stupid every day. And now the line is almost completely crossed for many people. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Pillars of Eternity is an owned property of Obsidian Entertainment, a private company, who can do with it whatever they please. Backer content was submitted with the understanding that it would be vetted by that same entity. No speech is being impinged here. You are very confused about what speech you are entitled to if you think otherwise. What I do see is another eruption from the videogame community that has, over the last year or so, revealed itself to be deeply regressive, deeply out of touch, and at times downright hateful. I'm sorry one of my favorite developers has to bear the brunt of another such eruption, but they owe you nothing. If you are offended by this, you are on the wrong side of history. At best, you can hope to look back on this and shake your head at your younger self. At best.

I'm deeply saddened by the reaction of the community to this. That's all.

You guys are doing an excellent job. Please don't listen to a minority on your forums. All games have bugs. The original IE games had lots of bugs and they took far longer to fix; I remember because I bought them at launch. Some of those bugs never got fixed and we had to wait for fans to do it. I remember Fallout 2 didn't even run for me the day I bought it; I had to go online and download a patch, and that was no minor thing in those days. Compared to the overwhelming majority of devs, you have handled the (relatively few) issues that have arisen speedily and with grace. A week's turnaround for several insidious bugs that are fixed retroactively is impressive, and I for one appreciate all the hard work.

I have some minor benefit from stacking on Eder and I don't feel offended. I'm looking forward to a patch, but I appreciate these things take time. I'm sure Obsidian are giving it their all.

The "C" stands for "Computer." Once upon a time, it was used to distinguish RPGs played on the computer from those played on a tabletop.