DozingDragon

I think this is probably right. Eothas wanted to break the wheel in a way that requires mortals to fix it or get rid of it. He explained that this was really the only way to ensure that the actual nature of the gods was revealed.

Perhaps the proficiency type could change based on the different upgrade paths?

Did you kill Arkemyr? Arkemyr’s Discoveries, which is a quest reward, only contains one of his unique spells.

A couple of observations: 1. The Engwithans were apparently inspired by Superman 3 when they designed how the gods would replenish their power. 2. There is some support for “The Wheel” being a kith-created concept in Pillars of Eternity. The souls in the Endless Paths refer to the individuals Od Nua worked with as “the Children of the Wheel.”

Here’s what I have found so far: Weathered Grimoire (Starting Grimoire for main character): Arcane Assault Unique Grimoire from Map Shop in Neketaka: Snakes as a Summoned Weapon Ninagauth’s Teachings (Arkemyr’s Vault): Ninagauth’s Death Ray and Shadowflame Iron-clasped Grimoire: Concelhaut’s Draining Missiles and Crushing Doom Arkemyr’s Grimoire: Arkemyr’s Brilliant Departure and Arkemyr’s Mercurial Madness Llengrath’s Grimoire (not the exact name, for sale at the Dark Cupboard): Llengrath’s Superior Elemental Bulwark

I reforged the blade in PoE1 but I'm not seeing anything about it so far. Do you find it washed ashore or something? Check inside your ship's cabin.

Try turning off telemetry, and see if that helps. I noticed some minor hitching like you described, but then I turned off telemetry and it seemed to fix the problem. Additionally, if you are using any kind of overlay (Steam, GeForce Experience, or Windows 10 Gamebar) try running the game with the overlay disabled and see if that helps.

Chances are it’s in a grimoire. Notice how Shadowflame has been shown in videos, but it isn’t in the ability list? Same deal I suspect.

Hopefully the devs will consider nixing spell restrictions after release. Just give wizards without subclasses a set list of bonus spells ala priests and druids. I think everything would just about balance nicely with just those two changes. But yes, as mentioned above, most of the wizard subclass bonuses are a little underwhelming.

That's all valid, but I could see a lot of DLC's just because the game's structure (islands and ships) is so particularly suited to endless DLC's. Just another island on the map . . . Definitely! More islands would always be a plus, as would be taking a Valian diving bell to the seafloor. More systems for hunting sea monsters, fishing, trinkets, etc. would also be great. I just think it will come down to what the owners of Obsidian believe will give them the best return, and some hesitance about an ongoing DLC business model is understandable considering the minimal attach rate for the White March.

Honest question: why do you assume that they would port PoE 1 to PoE 2's engine? What would be the point of that? I can't help but think it'd be a considerable waste of time with zero return. Sawyer mentioned it in one of the streams as a one-day-be-nice type thing. It seems to be something fans of the genre expect now given the EE editions of Baldur's Gate franchise, forgetting there was a fourteen-year delay in between. If there's a PoE 3 and then ten years from now there's an EE version with the PoE 2/3 mechanics for PoE 1 . .sure, it'd be fun to try multiclassing my way through Dyrwood one day in the future. I am fairly certain some other devs have mentioned porting PoE 1 to the Deadfire engine as well. Personally, I would prefer if Obsidian focused on new projects. With that said, I can see the potential appeal in porting PoE 1 from a business perspective. While I am sure a port would require a substantial amount of work, it would not exactly require a full team of writers or designers. Throw in some budget to get every line voiced, and maybe Obsidian turns a profit on the remaster and also gives PoE 1 better "long tail" sales.

My guess is that Obsidian will not be doing a full size expansion after doing this round of DLC. Even if Deadfire's sales are phenomenal, the time that would be spent on a large expansion could instead be used on: (1) getting a sequel out faster, (2) a same engine spin-off in the spirit of Icewind Dale, and/or (3) porting Pillars 1 to the Deadfire engine. And that is assuming Obsidian does not need to use members from the Deadfire team for Tim Cain's unannounced project or some other project.

Okay, lore questions: does the term “maeg” in maegfolc refer to the “might” of those people, or is it being used in the sense of “kinsman” or “kinswoman,” setting up a dichotomy between “kith” and “kin.” Also, to clarify, eoten and ogres are merely “wilders” and not maegfolc, right? Are the Ethik Nôl a remnant of a system of religious practices that predate the dominance of the Engwithan pantheon? If so, are their practices representative of the types of behaviors that causes deep concern for the Engwithans?

If Deadfire's anything like Pillars that's basically worthless. Money was never in short supply. I think you mistake my point entirely, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

A modest proposal: copy the IE games and make resolve give a bonus to buying and selling from merchants.

Yes, but I don’t think cutting resolve will happen, it would throw off the inspiration/affliction system, etc. And even if resolve became valuable to crit specific builds, it would still be useful for “tank” builds, and others. Your concern about perception and resolve interacting, while valid, is not that far from how annihlating builds functioned in PoE. Even if someone pumped per, res, and dex to the detriment of other stats, they would still be increasing a lower base damage due to low might or lower base duration due to low intellect.

Not a bad idea! The interaction with perception might become weird though, since they synergize so well with each other. Maxing, one while dumping the other could result in a bad build. Maybe, but one might still crit even with a low per because accuracy and defenses scale with level, empowering provides bonus accuracy, and some abilities and inspirations providevhit-to-crit conversions. So, I think there would still be value in having better criticals even with a low perception. And high perception with a low resolve would still provide some benefit, just a reduced one.

Ok, assuming that there is a group of people that hate strength/resolve, let’s assume that resolve needs a buff to support the reversion. Right now, crits do less in Deadfire than in PoE. Instead of adding in another mechanic with random empowers, just scale the magnitude of crits up or down depending on resolve. 10 resolve could be a base of 25%, and go up or down by 3% per point of resolve. Every build would be impacted, and it prevents resolve from being a dump stat. Any thoughts?

In the current beta, literally every combat plays the same way. So it is hard to gauge just how fun of a system this will be, where we cannot modify our crew, our ship's equipment, or even choose which ship to use. Similarly, the tactical depth just appears to be around distance and positioning, which, kind of just seems a little dull. I mean, I get it, pirates, ships, but why not throw in some more elements that bring out the flavor of the setting. Right now, you can go up against a Vithrack captain in the beta, but he(?) functions exactly like every other captain. Bounties in PoE were fun because they were hand-designed and each one was unique. Same thing with nearly every scripted sequence. Here, naval combat seems to function a lot like a generic scripted sequence, except without the benefit of being able to use special abilities where appropriate. If anything, the current system reminds me a lot of the incredibly basic "adventures" you could send your companions on from Caed Nua prior to 3.0. While the system here is definitely more developed, as it stands the pre-3.0 adventures and naval combat are equally interesting from a thematic perspective, as neither presents any clever hooks or meaningful stakes beyond loot and experience.

So, random damage/cc/duration spikes (or drops) with resolve? I just do not see the appeal. Josh said the strength/resolve fix was unpopular, is that true around these parts? It seemed like everyone was just rolling with it, with the exception of the concern about how it impacted ciphers (who needed help to begin with) and some multiclass characters.

In the beta, you have no choice but to have a nearly full crew of 13(?) sailors on a medium sized ship. While it is a feature not present in the current beta, I suspect that you will be able to substantially mitigate the resource management side of exploration by running your ship with fewer sailors, using a smaller ship, or both.

During my latest playthrough of the beta, I noticed that the Engwithan Titan's grabbing animation is not compatible with characters who are transformed into Ogres through Form of the Fearsome Brute. The Engwithan Titan will animate as if it is grabbing the character, however, it will lift up an invisible object while the target remains stationary on the ground while in Ogre form. Assuming that this is an issue with the animation not being compatible with non-kith targets, I think adding a line to the Engwithan Titan's AI to only use the grab attack against kith targets would fix this problem.

It might be a bit on the nose, but it's possible the snake symbol is for the Naga.

As opposed to adding a flat accuracy bonus, which could result in more crits, why not convert 50% of misses with a fireball (or other long casts without a DOT effect) to grazes? Is that effect even possible with the current beta?

The good: Stealth has drastically improved, and I love the synergy with the explosives skill. Stealthing, and then luring enemies away from groups or to traps with explosives feels great. The improvements to the game’s visuals are very nice, but terribly optimized at the moment. I am running the game at 1440p with a gtx 1080ti and an i7-7700k, and I regularly see FPS drops into the 20’s, sometimes even on the overworld map screen. I suspect the various lighting and weather effects are to blame, but I sincerely hope these issues are under control at the time of release. Subclasses and multiclassing are very good, but there are still some particular issues that need some tuning before release (some subclasses are too weak, stacking rules could be clearer). The bad: Casting times can still be a little too long for some spells when considering the duration of their effect or their damage. I just ran a party of five wizards, with only one character specialized as a frontline wizard, through the exterior of Poko Kahara on Classic, and I was able to get through every fight without any knockouts. The fights were much longer than my other playthroughs, but rationing empowered abilities while using CC abilities and defensive buffs made the fights manageable. So, something probably needs to be tweaked one way or another with casters. Also, I am fairly certain my party would be have eaten alive on Path of the Damned, at least with the current state of the game. Plenty of others have commented about penetration, but I understand that some more changes are coming soon, so I suppose we will wait and see. However, I have to say I appreciated the DR system in PoE, and I think something like penetration might have been better as a situational effect, but I suppose that ship has sailed. And finally, weapon proficiency modals need another pass. They are either too situational, or the penalties are too high to make them worthwhile.