Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

I would genuinely love a rework of the boat combat interface to incorporate wind direction and 45-degree-angle tacking.

long guns one side and double bronzers the other. could go all double bronzers, but am liking longs to disable sails as early as possible. still, two salvos from a junk with all double bronzers will sink everything. HA! Good Fun! Ok yeah that is definitely the most efficient strategy. I did that for a while in my veteran playthrough -- row of imperial long guns on each side o fthe junk, jibe blast jibe blast, etc. You're absolutely correct that that's the best return on investment strategy, especially if you're just trying to max out the game as quickly as possible -- as you say, take the Berath's Blessing gold and you can probably do this by level 10 or so, which isn't hard to get to without combat. Once he finishes that though he'll just be in the same place he was before, except even worse -- even more money and higher level, and what to spend it on? Your proposal isn't spending, it's an investment!

As for the first bit, you can of course keep tossing more and more factors into the mix - lots of things that you can do to buff duration, and lots of things that could inhibit duration. Point being that the base duration in the skill description on level up isn't terribly indicative of how long CC from that skill will actually last. The opacity of the descriptions is not helpful here. I clearly feel that hard CC is much more powerful than you do, and that a 1.5x base duration:cast time single target hard CC is a perfectly good spell in this system (or will be once the busted stuff is pulled out) - but even that is a much higher power level than the spells that currently exist, with a few exceptions. Well, I have my reasons. I think people's instincts on hard CC balance are still calibrated mostly around the first game, where it was a *lot* more effective, and often for reasons that were not intuitively obvious. For example, paralyze noticeably froze you for a fairly long while (relative to cast speeds and action times), which was obvious, but then also debuffed your dex down to zero and penalized Deflection and Reflex by -40, all of which wasn't as directly visible unless you were looking for them. Net result, first game, you'd get paralyzed THEN you'd get beaten to a pulp, and it felt like getting rocked by a combo move. This game, though, in Deadfire, most of those secondary, less-direct side effects have been taken out. The debuff effects of paralyze are much ,much less potent (-5 dex and 50% incoming hit to crit conversion). More importantly even than those changes, though, everyone's action cycle takes a lot longer, so while eight seconds (base duration for mental binding in the first game) of paralyze might mean, functionally, about two combat rounds (see https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attack_Speed; an average attack took about 4 seconds total base ) the current six second base duration of Mental Binding in Deadfire will usually only be enough time for about one action cycle / combat round. Net result, if we think in terms of (admittedly approximate) combat rounds or action cycles, rather than in seconds, the new six-second duration is, functionally, not three-quarters of what it was in the prior game, but rather about half - you're missing one "combat round" or action cycles when paralyzed, instead of two. And during that round, while you're still debuffed ,it's not *anywhere* near as badly. But folks still have the learned reflex of the first game, where eight seconds of paralyze was an eternity and a lethal eternity to boot. It's just not as bad as that. Double the duration of mental binding in Deadfire -- two twelve seconds -- and you're functionally still just freezing someone for approximately two action cycles, roughly as effective as MB was in the first game in terms of CC (but still much less effective as a debuff).

Sure it's a party game but on new PotD you're generally outnumbered 2-1 or even 3-1. 5 vs 10 becoming 4 vs 9 is a bad trade for the party. 3 v 8 is even worse. Especially when you could swap in for a damage dealer (say, an Evoker) and just *delete* that enemy in a similar timeframe. Net result, a lot of abilities become only worthwhile on boss fights, which are like 5% of the total game. Functionally speaking the game doesn't really have paralyze effects of any significant duration -- they're all limited to six seconds max, which is basically one average action cycle. They aren't hard CC, they're just interrupts. The only real *hard* CC remaining in the game are Cipher charms (where the math is different because you get a damage dealing ally for the duration, but which also mostly have 20+ second durations, actually a little too long).

This kind of math doesn't really hold because there are a lot of additional things that can effect the duration of a spell effect beyond Int. For example, almost all effects have a miss and graze rate which together are going to reduce the expected duration of the effect by about a third, and then past that, high-resolve enemies will also reduce the duration of your hostile casts. Once you start adding in dex and int bonuses you need to also adjust for all the other things that could effect durations and cast times and at that point you aren't using a rule of thumb any more. I think the rule of thumb should be that non-damage spells should have a minimum base duration equal to double their base cast+recovery time. Yes, even AoE's (in most fights, and especially most fights on PotD, the party is initially outnumbered, so stunning three enemies for six seconds while also immobilizing yourself for six seconds and burning a spell cast without doing damage is not, usually, all that good a trade. Yeah this is fair. They seem to have decided at some point in early development that status debuffs and CC were "too strong" in Pillars I, so they systematically nerfed all of them in like three or four different ways -- partly by moving to the afflictions/inspiration system (a good change overall), but also by reducing the impact of most debuffs (compare PoE 1 paralyze with current paralyze), dramatically shortening all their durations, etc. All those changes together ended up being dramatic overkill with the result that most of the effects they focused on are now worthless trap options. Then other changes they made, like lengthening cast times across the board, indirectly nerfed CC and debuffs (because CC is trading your time for the enemy's time, and if you have to trade more of your time, it's a worse trade), etc. And then finally all three (illusionists, tricksters, and ciphers) suffer from the lack of a general positive balancing pass to make sure that every ability in the game is actually functional and useful -- Sawyer stated recently that this most recent 1.1 patch was "the first" generalized balance pass the game had gotten, and it was wholly negative. This isn't as big an issue for classes that have a wider selection of abilities to pick from -- a generalist wizard can just pick the spells that work -- but classes with more limited ability rosters, like ciphers and illusionists, end up having to pick between crappy powers and suffer as a result. Part of the solution is a generalized positive balance pass to make sure all abilities are useful (and as part of that the durations on a lot of hard CC powers and spells need to be dramatically lengthened, or their cast times dramatically reduced, or both). I'd also suggest just letting subclassed wizards cast any spell from any school so long as they're using a grimoire. Limit the restriction to what they can pick on level-up, not to what they can cast. Reasoning is the same reason they removed the subclass restrictions for priest spells in the beta.

Except in this case, something isn't being taken from someone who works and given to someone who doesn't. Look, when it comes to the Bardatto vault, property is clearly theft

Probably because it's got significant new art assets in it and isn't just code fixes.

See, I had to spend all this time being SO ANGRY

Am I the only person who thinks Driving Echoes is the best buff to your party's casters in the game? By a landslide? Yeah, but that's just one good power, and by the time you get it, the game is mostly over. The last three tiers are all like that -- one good active power and a bunch of dead buttons that aren't worth pressing. Tier VII, Stasis Shell is the best option and it's basically just a crappy paralyze for paralyze-immune targets. Tier VIII, Time Parasite is good, reaping knives should be redundant if you've built correctly (spending 80 focus to get back focus is usually a bad trade), and defensive mindweb is nerfed into the ground Tier IX, Driving Echoes is good, Haunting Chains is worse than a fifth-level wizard spell, 1000 cuts is . . .well, not awful against a boss, but compare vs. any wizard damage spell? The class is playable. It's not utterly broken. But the current implementation is always gonna be the weak link in the party.

So do Explosives no longer scale based on Explosives skill? What does Explosives skill accomplish then?

aww =) I am curious because before that patch I found ciphers to be hilariously broken (at least the ascendant). Very solid CC, good buffs/debuffs. I won’t be checking 1.1 before it s finished, but I was curious because from my experience ciphers were in a need of a major nerf. To answer your question more specifically, Ciphers are in a weird place post-1.1 where they're basically a one trick pony (that trick being the Charm powers -- whisper, puppet, ringleader). There are a few other useful tricks in their repertoire (pain block, amplified wave, time parasite is still a bit absurd if it still stacks with itself) but overall they just have a really short list of powers and most of the powers on that list, especially from Tier 6 on up, are situational at best (screaming souls) to literally useless (Ancestor's Honor). Said another way, you can still make a perfectly functional cipher, especially if you multiclass, but overall there aren't enough good powers above Tier 6 to justify playing a single-classed Cipher; you're pretty much always better off multiclassing instead, focusing on the other class, and then just grabbing Ringleader in passing. I made a detailed list of suggested changes to the class here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101756-cipher-class-general-feedback-discussion/?p=2049921 Goal isn't so much to increase CIpher's power as to give them added versatility and allow them to fill addtional roles in the party beyond "charm bot."

I think that should be the number one concern , fixing bugs on companions , story , etc .... But looks like im wrong and making the game harder is more important , in a RPG , well what do i know ... If you play the beta patch this stuff is much improved, Xoti no longer tries to jump directly into your pants, etc. I think it's still getting tweaked a bit though. I think the issue is a lot of conversations are front-loaded and the companion quests are fairly short.

The current implementation is mostly good but yeah it needs a bit of further systematization. It's not just Brilliant that's missing; most of the top tier inspirations don't seem to be available in game for most parties. As it is now: Energized: chanters get a self-buff. I think that's it. Robust: Druids get a PB AoE party buff; Ciphers and paladins get a single-target-ally buff; barbarians and paladins get a self-buff. Intuitive: fighters get a self-buff. Brilliant: Nobody gets it in any variation. Courageous: Paladins get a self buff. So most top-tier buffs are self-only at best and it's really rare to have party AoE top tier inspirations -- Robust is really the only one, with Druids.. Which is just weird, especially considering how short the high-level powers list is. What I'd suggest: There are basically four party-buffing classes: Priests, Druids, Chanters, and (to a lesser extent) Ciphers. Priests already have mid-level party Strength and Resolution inspiration powers. Give them the ability to upgrade those powers, at high level, to top tier party Energized and Courageous inspirations. Maybe a single-target Robust too, since they have single-target Fit at lower levels. Druids could get Robust, Energized, and maybe Intuitive. Chanters could get Intuitive, Brilliant, and maybe Courageous. Let Ciphers have a party Brilliant and a party intuitive. That's just like a back-of-the-napkin spread but you get the basic idea -- spread the top tiers out over the classes, with some overlap, so you don't HAVE to take Chanters for Brilliant, etc.

Well, the thing to spend your money on first is all the skill trainers. But I assume that a 14th-level character has already done that. Eh, I generally avoid those due to the problems with respecs. Most checks are generous enough that you don't really need that extra point, not if you plan your party out for good party assist bonuses.

Apologies if I'm beating a dead horse, but thought I'd cross post the list of suggestions I wrote up over in the Somethingawful discussion:

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Sky_Dragon_Wurm

I think the best thing to spend money on first is 1) Figure out *exactly* what your endgame weapons are going to be 2) get them raised to legendary. That will give added penetration, damage, accuracy, etc., and probably make more difference in combat than anything else you can do. That said it's going to be expensive so pick as many top tier legendary weapons as you can to begin with first.

I hope that when we get to the New World in Eora . . . . there are dinosaurs.

Chanters are kings at summoning and (in deadfire) at countering debuffs and AoE buffs. I don't know why they also get the best paralyze effect; used to be they were at best on par with Ciphers for that (Killers Froze Stiff had the same duration as Mental Binding in the first game, and a small close-range AoE, but was less spammable due to phrase cost; now it lasts (I think?) twenty seconds while MB lasts six). Not sure what you mean by "double buff" for Ciphers. Used to be that Ciphers were kings of crowd control (Charms, AoE debuffs, a fast paralyze, a strong AoE prone, etc) and then scondary-strong at damage casting (via disintegrate, detonate, etc.); there were a few strong buffs and debuffs but they were closer to Wizards than to Priests or Druids, more offensive than support. In Deadfire, they still have the charms but pretty much everything else is gone (prone and paralyze are much weaker effects now; most cipher buffs have been nerfed to the ground) or dramatically less effective relative to other casters due to everyone else moving to per-encounter casting (a wizard can dump six different minoletta's versions in the time it takes a Cipher to build focus for and cast two Disintegrates),

The hearth orlan "minor threat" bonus states that it gives a bonus hit-to-crit chance whenever attacking the same enemy as an ally. This works fine with weapons and with damage spells (you'll see the "minor threat" pop in the combat log) but as far as I can tell, it never applies for non-damage spells (i.e., say, mental binding, curse of blackened sight, etc.) Despite not doing damage, those spells *can* critical hit for bonus duration, . Either the "minor threat" description should be changed to specify "damage only," or "minor threat" should give bonus criticals to non-damage spells.

Good thoughts. A few responses: Mind wave: Low damage, average cast/recovery, small aoe, overshadowed by higher tier damage powers, use time to auto attack instead. Suggestion: ??? It's a decent power at the level you get it, mostly because it's got an interrupt and does raw damage. The problem is the damage is low and it's completely outmoded by Amplified Wave. Ciphers do have some utility in having some low level powers just to conserve Focus costs, though. Valorous Echoes is quickly rendered redundant by other class choices, which is a big deal since Ciphers get limited power slots. If a cipher's going to spend a power slot on a buff or a debuff, it needs to be pretty strong (ideally a max-tier AoE, like eyestrike) or else someone else in the party is pretty quickly going to make it redundant. I agree antipathetic field should effect the target as well, although it didn't in the first game. Alternatively make it Foe-only damage. The benefit of eyestrike over chill fog is the Foe AoE so it's easier to script. Still, inferior to Curse of Blackened Sight that wizards get at the next level. Mental binding needs its duration doubled at minimum. Ectopsychic Echo is a very solid power but could use an upgrade at later levels a la Chanter's upgradeable hel-hyraf's. I don't think Wild Leech is salvageable unless it starts giving rank 3 inspirations/afflictions and even then it's eehhhh. I don't think I've ever taken it in any runthrough of either the first or second game and I certainly have never heard of anyone at all taking it and using it / liking it. Body Attunement got badly nerfed in the patch; I'd suggest that it become an AoE debuff and/or give the cipher the Robust inspiration (without both those changes, it's inferior to Expose Vulnerabilities, a lower level wizard power). Screaming Souls: I'm not sure it's fixable but at minimum it should effect everything with a *bonus* against spirits and vessels. Defensive mindweb: needs to only pop on *critical* hit, or take multiple hits, or both. Time Parasite needs to not stack with itself but otherwise don't change it. Haunting Chains: AoE Terrified, Paralyzed, long duration. I think your point re: direct replacement is well taken. TAke a cue from chanters and add upgrades for some of the physical damage powers, and that alone would flesh out a lot of the too-short power lists. When you go power by power breaking it down like that though what really jumps out is how little revision Ciphers have gotten between the first and the second games. Every other caster got fundamentally reworked -- moved to per-encounter casting, priest and druid schools, wizard grimoires, etc. Even chanters clearly got a ground-up power-by-power rebuild. Ciphers just sort got sideswiped by everyone else's changes, and that's pretty much been it.

Oh lord, does the patch not fix Time Parasite stacking with itself? That's hilarious.

Yeah, in Deadfire. My Serafen is like a level higher than my PC, I can post screenshots later if you want. I've actually had it happen on two different playthroughs. What i did was: Do as much of the starting island as you can with a minimal party, on PotD. Sneak past the Gorecci Street looters and do the beating quest before recruiting Xoti, etc. Go to neketaka, do all the noncombat neketaka quests, do Fort Deadlight, do Serafen's personal quest. edit: here are screenshots when first arriving at Queen's Berth docks -- note that Serafen has markedly more XP than the PC: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/927059856605229049/D1D35B06B86B170F32E06B9B30FBE342F200508B/ https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/927059856605229775/0D0B4A09D3246AAA7B9C9517DD6F5C8F28962688/

99% of changes are good and were needed but at the moment I find myself waiting for a cipher rebalancing. I like the added difficulty overall and think most of the changes were needed. If I were a fan of wizards or chanters I'd be playing happily instead of posting. As someone who mostly plays the ciphers, well, here I am.

galaxy brain: skip them both for ringleader, especially on a respec