Yenkaz

Damn, forgot about that one. He... er... the number of gods with a grudge against me grew that day.

Haha, when I finally got there I was so overleveled (I think about level 10-11) that I looked at all the convoluted ways to get to him, shrugged, then barged through the door and murdered everyone without bothering with any of the convoluted planning.

Just gathering these from people. I'd have to say Nemnok the Devourer and A Paradise for the Mind did it for me with the setup of the isolated locations and the storytelling. Meanwhile, Family Pride did well early on to showcase how the slides and abilities could be used to resolve a quest, it's a bit of a shame there aren't more of this type.

I'm still just sticking with the one standard grimoire until Ninagauth's, then I never bother switching because it's sort of pointless (I'll have picked the best 2-3 choices at each level for myself). Does *anyone* habitually switch them out?

I'm playing a pure CC/mass nuke wizard and my answer is yeah, it's good. I'm not a huge fan of how grimoires work, but 2-3 spells selected from each level plus 2 works out well. The power levels mean that I'm still sometimes casting fan of flames, chill fog and good old fashioned fireballs at high levels. The debuffs are still devastating and set up my two part time rogues (Edér and Maia) to start murdering. Edér has everything optimised in my case to be a striker and focus on damage and he's still not up to my MC in terms of pure damage, even if I'm a bit lazy on spells on easier fights and cast as many debuffs as nukes. Also, watching your blinded and confused enemies scatter before you never gets old.

I actually liked the POE system mostly because it gave more of an "we're a actually exploring and should visit the Inn now that we're in town anyway." feeling. I don't mind so much when sailing, obviously you're supposedly sleeping in teams so fatigue there wouldn't make sense.

Yeah he's stayed in the cargo for a long time for me. Like, I can imagine it being a decent combo but... Cipher spells are so bad they might as well just keep hitting things with the damage bonus? Having Pallegina as a Herald is more fun. Having Xoti hold a lantern, cast some buffs, then do Kong-fu one-handed is more fun. having Maia snipe everything with sneak attacks is more fun. Edér isn't more fun in terms of gameplay, but he's a beast in terms of damage as a swashbuckler and he's also my main bro who I'd never leave behind.

Oh yes. Those are nice. By the way: Thank you all very, very much for a thread that points out the many great things about Deadfire, without the usual complaints and whining. It's a great game. Maybe the best I ever played. Can't tell at the moment, as I didn't finish it yet. Of course there are things I don't like, but those things are in every game. Deadfire comes incredibly close to the perfect RPG for me. My favorite thing is how the factions and companions are designed. They are so believable and you have lots of reasons to either like or dislike them. Like real ****ing people. Nobody is just plain good or bad and you don't have to decide too early with whom you want to side. In PoE1 my decisions where always the same, no matter how much I tried to roleplay different characters. I cant wait to play Deadfire again to make totally different choices. The companions all have kind of a Durance side, where they are just complete ****ing ***holes or idiots, but on the other hand they are completely OK in some way. The companions I thought I would dislike have some aspects to them that make them still interesting (Even Imoen Xoti), while the ones I thought I would like (Aloth for example) can be just plain ****, depending on where you take them, whom you take with you and what you decide to do or say. More of that please! Cuious. While I agree about factions, I have completely opposite feeling about companions. They didn’t feel like humans at all, and had very little to them outside robotic responses to what they like in reputation sheet, without much explaining what motivates them or what they believe with. In PoE they acted as “sound board” strenghting and amplifying stories wider themes, showing individual humans affected by revelations. In Deadfire they are just combat meat, who get upset if you not support the faction they have been attached too, with their personal quest having little to do with anything, and being of little consequence, story and character wise. They feel like what I hoped sidekicks would feel like - a basic character concept with little exploration and development. To be fair, Maia is a soldier and through side quests can start openly questioning her side, meanwhile Pallagina literally derives superhuman power from sheer belief in patriotism. I really don't see them as robotic as you say, though in general I'd have liked it if they simply scrapped the disposition system and replaced it with arguments if you cross the boundaries of the character. Obviously a soldier won't accept that you willingly harm their home country, for instance.

A lot of speculation either way here. A little concerning that they haven't been forthcoming with sales, which they often would with a huge success, but let's wait for official numbers before giving in to despair?

I don't know about the faction system being "too political". Absolutely none of the factions are truly supposed to be easy to pinpoint as the "good" one. - The Vaillians start out represented as the more benevolent faction, but quite quickly it becomes clear that the initial impression is cherry picking with serious infighting in the faction, as well as others pointing out that they are only there for profit and will leave areas without such financial interest alone. - The Rauatai are militarists and imperialistic (both militarily and culturally)... but unlike the Vaillians, they are far more interested in other things than simple profit, and the Huana they are culturally invasive towards have customs that included a caste system and at times just outright stupidity (eating the whole fruits including the seeds on a starving island...) - The Huana are the local culture being invaded by outsiders and they have a social distribution of wealth... which doesn't work very well and their local culture, as noted, is hardly presented as without fault. - The pirates are pirates. I got nothing and never bothered working for them yet. The only good pirate is a dead pirate*. *The watcher is not a pirate, he/she is a privateer. Totally different.

Eh, I wish a few more dungeons could be more quality over quantity, but it's nitpicking. Each one has an atmosphere.

I never noticed this... Until I didn't bring Xoti to one dungeon. Aaah, why is this deep cave so da... oh.

I'm sad I turned off level scaling upwards. I used to be critical of it but I really need it in the late teen levels.

Do yourself a favor if you get the random encounter in the city where you can get the Griffin sword and check out its enchantments. It made my otherwise rather straightforward sceptre-wielding wizard go all dual-wielding Gandalf until I found the Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff.

Arkemyr's Capricious Hex is pretty good when facing a spread out or chaotic enemy formation due to its huge AoE. The randomness does draw it down, but it's a good go-to debuff spell that hits *everyone* and for me sets up Edér and Maia to go nuts with sneak attacks.

They merged my thread with yours and they used my title. Hylea, is that you?

There is no resurrection magic in this setting that doesn't somehow anchor your soul either to an object or to your decaying body.

Add to this, there's a lot of good melee weapons that add to wizard abilities on the side (Griffin's Blade, Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff). It's certainly workable.

I agree about companions, one minute Edér was telling me that he almost couldn't stand to be within 10ft of Xoti (though they had positive relations?), next they're bonding over how cute imps are. It made me happy to bring both Edér and Pallegina because they were less overall erratic and their banter was more that of old friends with a frankness to their conversations (like Edér reaching a mid life crisis and talking about life goals and children with Pallegina). I don't expect every character to act like them (they're the oldies this time around), but other than Maia I found most characters very difficult to get a feeling for. Xoti, who I also brought along, had some... Severe amplitude in her behaviour, though I did sort of like bringing her simply because she's so much an opposite of everyone else.

I can confirm there being some on Poko Kahara.

Am I the only one finding contemplative to work pretty well? Throw 1-3 decent buffs depending on the severity of the encounter then either start dropping pillars / iconic projections or smacking people with one fist?

Apple is probably still reviewing the patch before putting it on their App Store. This can take a few days. Why is this a thing people tolerate?

Did Xoti explode at Pallegina? Don't worry, you can talk them down, especially with diplomacy. Often the overreacting part will even admit being out of line if you talk to them after. Mind you, their major differences of personality will clash often, but I find that pretty interesting.

The voicing was added as a late measure, like, a few weeks in advance.

No, I mean, once I've *done* the quest, will it matter at any point how many souls the watcher themselves has taken along?