JerekKruger

The pros in my case are mainly that it coincides better with my next pay cheque and it gives me more time to weigh up exactly which tier I will back at and what extras I might want. Beyond that I am generally a procrastinator when it comes to this sort of thing, though that's not so much a pro as simply an aspect of my character.

You can have your islands when you pry them from my cold dead hands... or towards the end of the campaign, your choice.

The later enchantments don't even need to be more powerful, they just need to be varied and interesting enough that, upon finding a new enchanted weapon, it's not a simple matter of which one is better or worse. For example, which is better: a sword that allows the wielder to turn invisible once per encounter for 5s or a sword that allows the wielder to blink 15 yards once per encounter? It might be that, after lots of testing one becomes clearly better than the other, but at the very least if I have one of those and I pick up the other I will pause to consider which I prefer, and perhaps even try both out for a while. I completely agree. I want to actually spend some time playing with my fancy toys rather than be given them with only a handful of fights remaining in the game.

I feel like the solution is not to enforce a ceiling on how high early equipment can be enchanted, it's to ensure that the variety in unique enchantments is sufficiently wide so as to make later items still be appealing. I think the problem with vanilla PoE was that none of the unique enchantments were particularly exciting (there were better ones and worse ones, but they were all pretty bland), and whilst the White March I improved this a lot, this suddenly meant that a lot of the most interesting items were available fairly early on, pretty much ensuring that later items would all feel disappointing.

As one of the procrastinators, I can confirm that I will probably be backing right near the end of the campaign.

Agreed. It's a strange world where I find myself impressed by the Temple of Eothas Bell Puzzle because, unlike almost every other game, it split the solution between several incomplete books rather than simply having a single note saying "the solution is XYZ". I know that hard puzzles can be frustrating for many, but for some they are fun, and we live in the world of the internet where if they're really too frustrating a solution is never far away.

I can assure you I haven't boned PoE once But yeah, attributes aren't all that important. That said, it depends on how Berath's blessing works. If it gives you five extra points to be distributed as normal, subject to racial maximums then that's not that big a deal*; but if it allows you to go beyond the racial cap using those points then, for example, starting with 25 Intellect as a Barbarian is pretty damn powerful. All this said, people have been suggesting rather large numbers for the bonus attribute points. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you only get +1, or perhaps there are six different blessings each which give +1 to a specific attribute. Pure speculation on my part of course. *It's still equivalent to one of the +10 Fortitude/Reflex/Will defence talents in your lowest defence, which is nothing to sneeze at.

I can understand this feeling, but I suspect it'll be easier to resist spending blessing points on additional attributes that, say, deliberately spending less than your full allocation of 78 attribute points. The latter feels like you're deliberately leaving something out, whereas the former will (hopefully) feel like you adding something in.

Whilst I definitely agree that it's stupid, it has been a problem in a surprising number of games for a surprisingly long time.

Yeah, I suspect this will quickly become the standard format in the builds subforum. After all, people can always choose to modify a build themselves with Berath points, but it's a lot harder to unpick exactly where someone might have spent Berath points and remove them.

If this is something that bothers you, then you are always free to not meta game. If you find you can resist the temptation to meta then either it doesn't bother you as much as you think, or you need to work on your impulse control. Either way, what other people are, or aren't, doing should have exactly no impact on your own enjoyment of the game.

That's the system I'd prefer to see Gangich, but as you say it's unlikely to be the system Obsidian are going with.

By that reason you should hate all CRPGs since you don't start at max level with all the best gear.

I suspect the first part will simply be a tutorial skipper in the style of Dungeon Be Gone from BG2. Tutorials don't usually have any significant choices, and it's usually a simple matter to simply put all equipment available directly in the player's inventory and give them the experience they would have received. A more in depth content skipper would, as you say, be rather more complicated. For the latter, at least for me, there will be almost no difference between choosing my favourite weapon to keep from a list or from the ones I got in a previous playthrough, since I pretty much always get every single item in the game (and I am a terrible hoarder). That said, it actually specifies Soulbound, and I suspect it's not just about being able to start with the item but also start with it fully unlocked.

One thing that's perhaps being overlooked: assuming, as is likely, that this system will run on local data about achievements (in order to allow non-Steam/GoG users from missing it) it will likely be very easy to give yourself the maximum number of Berath points, either by modifying game files, downloading maxed saves or using console commands. Whilst some might be annoyed that you still have to do this, at least this would provide a method to experience this content without having to complete at least one playthrough.

To be fair, limaxophobiacq did say that this stretch goal was "kind of making me wish they somehow don't hit 2.6 million." Maybe not drama per se, but a pretty extreme view to take on the matter. Anyway, if this does get backed (very likely) then I expect Obsidian will make sure it's available without being logged into Steam or GoG's Steam equivalent. You have to be logged into Steam to get Steam Achievements for a game, but there's nothing stopping the game also tracking achievements internally (as someone else suggested).

I checked, the head is on floor four. It's possible to kill Maewald without seeing the hand, which is past the spider queen fight. If you did this, the only sign of the statue would be the finger tips grasping the chapel in Caed Nua, and it's not clear to me that you'd guess they were finger tips without seeing the hand as well. Of course most players will have explored at least a few floors of Od Nua so will have figured out that it contains a statue, and for any who didn't, they'll soon find out.

Given that PoE allows you to have unspent attribute points when creating a character, I'd imagine Deadfire will allow you to leave these "blessing points" unspent as well. I might be wrong but I'd be surprised if you're forced to take them.

Honestly, I got a little bored. I reached finished Act II plus all side quests and it was pretty clear to me that, other than the signature fights, nothing was going to be challenging anymore and I didn't feel like finishing it off.

In which case I guess I'll go with Concelhaut's Skull

I feel like three Islands is the limit below which it will feel incomplete (law of three and all that).

Interesting. I assume it means you can choose to begin with Aloth, Edér or Pallegina. It would be cool if I could bring along one of the other companions, but I suspect it doesn't since either that forces Obsidian to write a bunch of dialogue most players won't see, or it means those companions will be largely mute, making them little different from a custom companion. Also, since some of the companions from PoE are, apparently, going to appear as cameos it also means Obsidian will have to make sure to remove them if you choose to start with them, further complicating matters. I'm interested to know how soulbound items will be imported. It sounds like there are going to be changes to various mechanics in Deadfire so presumably the soulbound items will have to be changed to reflect these. This suggests that each one will have an entry in the game files allowing unscrupulous players (completely unlike myself) to console them all in

There's actually a very easy way to balance this, it's just most players wouldn't like it. What you do is only give experience rewards for the main quest chain, having side quests reward the player with gear (not necessarily more powerful, just more varied) and the reward of more content. This way characters can't out level the main quest. Personally I'd love such a system, but I recognise that I am very much in the minority here.

Yeah, to make it worthwhile I think you'd need much faster attack animations as well. I think an alternative method, like making Bash an automatic retaliatory attack when an enemy misses or grazes or having Bash do something interruption related, is the way to go.

Yeah, it always seemed odd that a lying Watcher was, by definition, terrible at lying, since everyone seemed to know they were a liar.