Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

Yeah I've been on the "make the arquebus do crushing damage" train for a while now. Maybe the pistol too. That said, war and hunting bows are pierce/slash now, with the somewhat comical result that arrows are more effective against skeletons than guns are.

I'd also add the change from 50% crits to 25% crits, since that also reduced effective spell and CC durations. CC spells are caught in a bind; you can't increase their durations much longer than they already are because then if players get hit with them they freak out. Problem is with the increased cast time it's often pointless to cast them now. Mathematically casting Whisper of Treason takes you out of the fight longer than the charm effect will take out an enemy.

Yeah, you could, but it would be . . . suboptimal, not least because with arquebus/blundy you're limited to piercing damage only while with scepters you have crush/slash.

Yeah, it's got a role -- they're a great choice for opening salvos or pulling shots from your tanks. You wouldn't ever want to use it with a ranger though, or as a primary weapon.

From what Josh has said recently I get the impression that they're going a route that doesn't directly map onto the system in the first game. Like, a given weapon might have two separate upgrade "paths", which lead to discrete benefits, but both of which are still relatively unique to that weapon. One thing he mentioned specifically in the stream is that (for example) there might be only a small number of weapons in the whole game with a "burning lash" type enchantment. We really don't know enough yet to make any predictions based on that system.

Yikes, the Arquebus seems genuinely bad relative to the other ranged options. Hopefully it gets tweaked a bit to bring it in line. Guns are just more fun than bows, I hate when they aren't a mechanically competitive choice.

Ok, that's why I asked -- the attack roll calculations are slightly different in Deadfire Beta 2. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807509&pagenumber=360&perpage=40#post479234971 Your numbers will still be roughly accurate but the added critical at 100 might shift things around a bit, as you say due to the relative value of accuracy; basically they gave everyone an additional +1 accuracy.

This argument appears over and over again, and I really don’t get it. I imagine that when you create a multiclass character you want his skills to supplement each other, not overlap. You won’t create a mage/fighter, who will focus on DPSing with weapon while DPSing with spells, rather one who locks enenemies down with fighter abilities to DPS with spells, or CC with spells to DPS with weapons, or cast magic weapons/buff yourself to DPS with weapons etc. The difference is that with Might, you have the choice to make (for example) a fighter/cleric who is good at both fighting and healing, or a fighter/wizard who can both cast damage spells and fight with a blade. You *can* specialize if you want --- and make, say, a summoned-weapon fighter -- but it isn't directly encouraged by the system and the failure to specialize isn't penalized in the same direct way. With Str/Res, though, you're limited; you can make a fighter/cleric, but you'll need to choose between fighting and healing; you can make a fighter/wizard, but you'll have to choose between offensive spells and offensive weapons. \The game appears to be allowing you to make more diverse and open character builds by implementing multi-classing, but if you actually try to make a character that's good at more than one thing, you'll get penalized due to the stat system. People get excited about multi-classing because they want to make more diverse and varied characters, not because they want new ways to get locked into the same narrow roles. It's similar to the argument for allowing all classes to pick open talents; in some ways, despite multiclassing, Deadfire has made some moves that effectively restrict build diversity (I'd specifically point to the Str/Res change and the elimination of open talents). In the original game, it was relatively easy to take any single-class character and build them to fit multiple roles (fighter and healer; crowd control and offensive damage; weapon damage and spell damage; etc.) . If Str/Res and no open talents remain in Deadfire, it'll be harder, despite multiclassing. Said another way, a PoE 1 Cleric with stacked Might and some weapon talents looks likely to be better at both fighting and healing than a PoE 2 Fighter/Cleric with points split between Might and Resolve looks to be at either. Of course the Deadfire Fighter/Cleric can choose to specialize in either offensive damage or healing . . . but then they lose effectiveness with the other, and functionally end up less of a hybrid than their PoE 1 predecessor. There have been a lot of people posting that they just want to re-produce their characters from the first game in the second, and Deadfire was marketed & fig-campaigned on the premise that you'd be able to do that. A certain amount of change is inevitable and to be expected of course, but I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect the fundamentals to be broadly similar.

To answer my own question -- I'd suggest an interrupt bonus.

How did you calculate the damage adjustment for the accuracy bonuses and penalties? It's interesting to think about because the natural response to low gun accuracy is to stack accuracy to counterbalance -- but 1) accuracy is a lot harder to stack now than in the first game, and 2) the blunted critical effect means there's diminishing returns from stacking accuracy. Seems like Arquebus is the choice if you want to plan on overpenetration via critical. Blunderbuss might have a nice interaction with the small shield modal.

I'm not sure what you mean by online/offline - this is a single player game? Keep in mind the beta is still very much a real beta, not a publicity beta. All that's available in the beta is a small slice of the game and a lot of features are not yet implemented, buggy, or imbalanced.

None of that stuff is out yet except the beta. That's all normal. I'd suggest emailing support rather than posting so many threads on this -- if you haven't gotten a response it's probably either hit your spam filter, or it's because they're out for the holidays. The installation instructions for backer beta GoG users arehere: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94318-welcome-to-the-deadfire-backer-beta-live-tomorrow/

Well, there is a big advantage in dual damage types; there are a number of enemies in the beta that have either very very high Piercing resistance or are pierce-immune (which is the big problem with going arquebus/blunderbuss cipher). I feel like the real standout is the Rod -- two damage types, plus an excellent modal. Bows or the Crossbow seem like the preferred weapon for high-crit builds, guns for builds wearing armor.

Overall this is brilliant and the best new feature so far in Deadfire. Needed: 1) Autoattack as a listed function you can control with the scripting 2) switch weapon sets 3) activate weapon modals 4) target casting enemies (for use with interrupts).

Yeah, I looked at the attack formula and basically it looks like it's just cancelling out the critical damage bonus entirely. Guns don't currently benefit from critical hits at all.

What should the modal be then?

Here are screenshots of ranged weapons in the current beta: https://imgur.com/a/fC2wr I don't know what "blunted criticals" means right now because as I understood it criticals only give +25% damage anyway. I've also got a pet thing that the Arquebus should do blunt damage rather than piercing but that's a side thing

A charmed enemy can't use abilities while it's fighting for you; a Dominated one can. You want it using its abilities because it's using them on your side, against the enemies. I feel like they decided CC was too strong in the first game, so they cut it back in a few different ways: 1) The affliction system makes the debuff effect of each CC much weaker (for example, Paralyze no longer gives a deflection penalty at all, just hit to crit, and I'm not sure it Interrupts any more either). 2) The affliction system makes CC much easier to counter (resist Dexterity afflictions makes you paralyze-immune) 3) The reduction of the critical hit bonus from 50% to 25% makes for shorter-duration CC overall 4) Dramatically lengthened cast times not just for spells generally, but for CC specifically (whisper of treason was a "fast" cast in the old game; now it's 6 seconds, which I think is "average") without lengthening the effect or otherwise changing the spells in any way. Result is that casting a lot of cipher CC literally takes you out of the fight longer than it takes out your target, statistically ( six seconds of casting, two of recovery, ten second duration, but adjust for misses and grazes, statistically that ten drops to about six; adjust for stats helps a little but not enough). Thing is you only really needed 1 & 2. 3&4 were overkill. Prone seems like the one ability they couldn't fit into the Affliction system, and since it didn't fit, they just made it really weak. This really hurt a lot of staple abilities and I hope they find a way to amend that.

Keep levelling your guy up more, you can take him/her up to 6. Hired people are limited to one level below your character, so until you level up, you can't hire a full crew of higher level people, and at level 1 you can't hire anyone (this confused me too at first). If you bring up the console with ~ and type "iroll20s" you can enable codes to let you add levels to your party and add gold for recruiting -- do a forums search you'll find the codes.

Yeah, pure multiplicative might is a small issue, but I'd argue that str/res doesn't really fix that issue, it just spreads it around; Str Barbarians are just as problematic as Might Barbarians. MaxQuest's proposed breakdown of bonuses into additive categories, which are then multiplied, is the best solution I've seen to that issue ( https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94949-should-might-stay-multiplicative-or-return-to-additive/page-4?do=findComment&comment=1963575 )

Without looking at the one-handers, just here, there's a reason the greatsword needs to be 25% damage superior to the other two handers -- it's got lower Penetration. Now that being down a point of Pen means a 25% damage loss, without the 25% damage penalty on all the other two handers, when you run the math really counter-intuitive results start popping out vs. various AR ranges. If you moved the Estoc down to the same damage as the quarterstaff, for example, the Estoc would be clearly superior vs almost all damage ranges because it would hit overpenetration bonus damage much faster. I think the appropriate "fix" would be to move the quarterstaff into "group three," collapsing the calculation into two "groups," and just consider "+25% base damage" one of the Greatsword's two perks. Every weapon gets two perks, for the Greatsword it's two damage types and bonus damage, for the Estoc it's double extra penetration, etc. for the quarterstaff it's reach and accuracy, etc. edit: I'd probably collapse a lot of the one-handed weapon groups too, there are just too many tiers and it's too confusing. That problem is more complicated though Comparing the polax or Morningstar with the great sword. All have dual damage types, the great sword does 24.5% more damage compared to +2 penetration. Being one penetration short gets you -25% multiplicative damage which sort of equates to one of the two extra penetration. This makes the band where the great sword is not the best choice very small. Where Great Sword has adequate penetration it does a massive 24.5% extra base damage which gets multiplied by all the rest of the damage adders. When missing by one you'd do the same damage, when missing by 2, 3, or 4 penetration it'd be better for the poleax and anything greater than missing by 5 would be better for the Great Sword. This is not considering a situation where slash/pierce is better than slash/crush or pierce/crush. An Estoc would hold the bonus for values where the greatsword missed penetration by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. As it stands now, barring a roleplaying choice, metagame knowledge of elite loot, or an overwhelming fascination with their weapon modals, choosing a Great Sword is a no brainer versus a polax or a Morningstar. An Estoc has enough extra penetration to expand its niche to a large enough range to make it a better choice than the other two. If the 24.5% difference was more like 12-15% it'd be a better balance in my opinion. I also agree that the Quarterstaff is weirdly placed between the two and should be in the same group as the polax, Morningstar and estoc. Ok. Hrm. I see your point. I'm not sure we can completely ignore the benefit of crush damage, but setting that aside, I think it would depend on the distribution of armor ratings. If 50% of the monsters in the game have an AR rating of 7, then a morningstar is excellent, etc.

You could even do that in lore with Soul Whip. It's just kludgy. For one thing, you lose any reason to play a high-Might cipher; you're just swapping out which stat is the dump stat. For another, then everybody else who wants to play a hybrid (i.e., a summoned weapon mage, shifter druid, etc.) is going to feel compelled to dual-class Cipher so they can take the kludge button and make their characters efficient too.

You can make a lot of arguments for re-arranging the function of most of the stats, but ultimately the argument against doing so is one of the stronger arguments against the might->str change specifically: This game is a sequel and people are going to want to import their characters from the prior game with a minimum of re-adjustment. I mean, a generalized stat rebalance could make for a great mod. Maybe even a superior mod to the base game. I just suspect a lot of players are going to want to transfer their characters over without any major surprises.

Yeah, if we're changing things I'd just say "let's cut Resolve from the game" but this game is a sequel and that matters, in the same sense & for the same reasons that PoE 1 had to follow the Baldur's Gate games.

Well, that depends a bit on how you define the problem -- if the problem was "fights are over too fast and spells dominate with no room for tactical decisionmaking or spell countering," then the problem is the overall speed of combat, and lengthening cast times is part of the solution. I could go with 1s instant /2s fast /4s average/ 6sec slow /10sec "ritual' as the speed categories if the results of spells were scaled appropriately. Summoned weapons need to be instant; most low level powers should be fast or better; crowd control needs to be fast or better because you can't lengthen the durations without making them too powerful; anything that takes longer than six seconds to cast better be fight-determinative if it isn't countered or blocked or interrupted. Yeah, I agree here too. There's two progression issues; power selection progression, and casts per level. Everybody but wizards is Waaaaay more limited in their power selection than they were in the old game, which means you can't really adapt to different situations; you have to have one consistently effective strat instead. Giving a few more power selections on level up would really open up build variability,. Casts per level for the ex-vancians should maybe be split off into a different issue. Probably needs some kind of tree progression so that instead of just 2 casts/spell rank you get more casts of lower level stuff and fewer casts of your top level stuff.