Extensive first thoughts after finishing Deadfire's first playthrough

[Yonjuro]

 

You guys really are a bunch of circle jerkers, aren't you.

 

What's the right answer to that?

 

 

 I think I'd go with  "yeah, you gotta problem with that" or maybe "yes, of course, stop harshing our buzz"? 

 

 We may need a poll to pick the optimal response to such insightful cultural criticism.

 

 No, I said "poll."

[Yonjuro]

....

Yes that was the intent, for better or worse. They're designed to fill the cracks of combat sound design and to be durable over 100 hours of potential gameplay. POE1 combat music was foreground music, PoE2 is decidedly background music.

 

 

 

 I think it worked (for me). The music set a mood, but didn't stand out (it's like the Funk Bros. showcasing the voice talent at Motown - except that it showcases the game play instead of Martha and the Vandellas - wow, there's an analogy stretched to its breaking point).

 

 One more thumbs up for the sea shanties.

[Excerpt]

 

 

 

Can I just say that the best music in the POE2 is hands down the ship singing tracks. I wasn't even expecting them to occur the first time which made it all the more thrilling and atmospheric. It actually made me want to stay on the ship longer lol.

Nice! Glad you like it Truth be told I was skeptical that people would like it, but I'm glad I was wrong.

 

 

It felt almost like an intermittent song from a pirate movie. One you might hear between scenes in a film with lots of ale clinking and swinging from ropes. I would love to have some additional similar tracks for one of the future DLCs. In particular, I thought a good place to have some kind of shipboard atmospheric track or sound effects would be during the storm events on the overworld map.

 

All around very good job with the music this go around, it is a massive improvement over the first's soundtrack (which was very repetitive in it's scope sad to say). I would like to echo the sentiments from another user about there needing to be a few areas that should have had unique soundtracks (such as the bathhouse). It might seem like a waste from a development point of view, but one thing that has always stood out to me in games that have become all time favorites is those areas where you get exclusive chills from epic music you've not heard anywhere else in the game. Some very good examples of this type can be found on late SNES early N64 video games. One of my all-time favorite games is Mario RPG (it is the first RPG I ever played to fruition back when I was 10). One of the things that still sticks with me about that game is some of the unique soundtracks for certain areas, from those with a sense of urgency to whimsy. While most areas still use the main soundtrack/themes.

 

Some other good examples of this can be found in Ocarina of Time, though not exactly an rpg they did well with the idea of "unique" tracks to select areas which make them stand out and help one reimagine those places decades later.

 

Just something for your consideration.

 

 

Thank you for that @Excerpt.  Glad you liked it.  The scope of the game and the amount of work required meant we had to de-prioritize certain plans, and the bathhouse was one of them unfortunately.  I agree with you though and I also would have liked to do something unique for this area.

 

As an alternative, what if I just persist the music from the exterior into the interior?  It might be more tonally fitting than the inn music.  

 

I like that idea of changing the music to the exterior music, I think it'd be more fitting personally. But I don't presume to speak for everyone.

 

I will tell you this though. I would be willing to pay for an additional music DLC if it was of the appropriate caliber, don't know if you guys have ever thought of commissioning work based on that premise or not. In particular something along the lines of customizable and/or unique battle/dialogue music based on class/reputation/disposition. 

 

Overall well done, and I really love and appreciate seeing the Developers interacting so much on the forums here with players/customers. It is an unusual and refreshing thing in the current age of game development.

[Nokturnal Lex]

 

 

- More 'evil' (cruel, aggressive) character would be great

 

It's too light, and everyone's so nice I can't even dare to be myself! (XDDD)

 

 

 

Yea when roleplaying an Evil Character in this game, there's a giant lack of evil companions. Even the Dastardly Pirate Serafen seems Neutral Good.

[Ninjamestari]

 

You guys really are a bunch of circle jerkers, aren't you.

Settle down doctor sarcastic. They worked hard on this. A few accolades from the fans are appreciated and deserved. 

 

 

It had to be said.

[Excerpt]

 

 

 

- More 'evil' (cruel, aggressive) character would be great

 

It's too light, and everyone's so nice I can't even dare to be myself! (XDDD)

 

 

 

Yea when roleplaying an Evil Character in this game, there's a giant lack of evil companions. Even the Dastardly Pirate Serafen seems Neutral Good.

 

 

I would like to see evil characters/companions/options added in future updates/DLC. It would be nice, I like to do multiple playthroughs and run the gamut in terms of morality.

[Justin Bell]

 

 

 

 

Can I just say that the best music in the POE2 is hands down the ship singing tracks. I wasn't even expecting them to occur the first time which made it all the more thrilling and atmospheric. It actually made me want to stay on the ship longer lol.

 

Nice! Glad you like it Truth be told I was skeptical that people would like it, but I'm glad I was wrong.

 

It felt almost like an intermittent song from a pirate movie. One you might hear between scenes in a film with lots of ale clinking and swinging from ropes. I would love to have some additional similar tracks for one of the future DLCs. In particular, I thought a good place to have some kind of shipboard atmospheric track or sound effects would be during the storm events on the overworld map.

 

All around very good job with the music this go around, it is a massive improvement over the first's soundtrack (which was very repetitive in it's scope sad to say). I would like to echo the sentiments from another user about there needing to be a few areas that should have had unique soundtracks (such as the bathhouse). It might seem like a waste from a development point of view, but one thing that has always stood out to me in games that have become all time favorites is those areas where you get exclusive chills from epic music you've not heard anywhere else in the game. Some very good examples of this type can be found on late SNES early N64 video games. One of my all-time favorite games is Mario RPG (it is the first RPG I ever played to fruition back when I was 10). One of the things that still sticks with me about that game is some of the unique soundtracks for certain areas, from those with a sense of urgency to whimsy. While most areas still use the main soundtrack/themes.

 

Some other good examples of this can be found in Ocarina of Time, though not exactly an rpg they did well with the idea of "unique" tracks to select areas which make them stand out and help one reimagine those places decades later.

 

Just something for your consideration.

 

Thank you for that @Excerpt.  Glad you liked it.  The scope of the game and the amount of work required meant we had to de-prioritize certain plans, and the bathhouse was one of them unfortunately.  I agree with you though and I also would have liked to do something unique for this area.

 

As an alternative, what if I just persist the music from the exterior into the interior?  It might be more tonally fitting than the inn music.

 

I like that idea of changing the music to the exterior music, I think it'd be more fitting personally. But I don't presume to speak for everyone.

 

I will tell you this though. I would be willing to pay for an additional music DLC if it was of the appropriate caliber, don't know if you guys have ever thought of commissioning work based on that premise or not. In particular something along the lines of customizable and/or unique battle/dialogue music based on class/reputation/disposition. 

 

Overall well done, and I really love and appreciate seeing the Developers interacting so much on the forums here with players/customers. It is an unusual and refreshing thing in the current age of game development.

My pleasure really. We make these games for you guys, and it's important that we talk! I kind of agree about the bathhouse music. I'll make the change.

[Multihog]

 

I like the white match combat music D:

 

I have to agree about deadfire's combat music being meh though. At least it wasn't offensive to the ear but it could've been much better.

As much as I like the non-combat music, I'll have to agree on this one.

 

The combat music sounds like it's a little bit subdued, afraid to go all out. To me, it seems like the idea was to have a sense of unity between the whole of the OST, so the combat music is kind of trying to stay in line with the non-combat music, which led it to having this neutral, almost relaxing vibe tonally. There's some darkness in combat #2, but that's about it.

 

Another thing about the combat music is that the tracks lack any remarkable progression in terms of form. They're all based on some sort of rhythmic motive that they keep up near-continuously throughout the track without much change. They're also tonally quite static, repeating the same ostinati, bass patterns, and chord progressions throughout, sometimes melodies dropping in and out. All of this leads to a lack of sense of progression and tension/release. The tracks sort of feel like intros that never go anywhere. 

 

To demonstrate my point about form. This track never really takes the listener anywhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EHwOgHlub4

 

This one has a definite sense of progression and feels dynamic, rising tension:

 

EDIT: typos

 

@Ninjamestari: You call this circlejerking?

[Mazisky]

Hello Justin!

 

I really like the Deadfire soundtrack, my favourites are the exploration tracks and those in the Neketaka districts!!! Very great mood

 

The only issue i have is a single combat music (the one a guy posted here), it really feels incomplete. Others are great.

 

Also i liked the "remake" of some Poe1 music, good work as always

[Shaani]

I am new on forum, but i have played both games and i enjoyed them a lot.

Now i have just finished Deadfire and some of my thoughts are similar. As much as i enjoyed improved graphics, lots of surprising solutions and mechanics, i am a tiny bit disappointed story-wise. I can't resist the feeling that story and companion quests suffered cause of attention given to all other aspects of the game. It is promising though, cause i imagine next game will have it all tested and maybe things will fit a little better.

 

I won't talk about bugs, cause i think i have encountered most of them and i can only blame myself for impatience and starting the game very first day

What was my observation similar to the one above, is that the immersion of the story got blurred cause of side quests not much related to what my original mission was. I imagine that if i was chasing a god who captured my soul i would focus on it entirely and if anything happened to me on the way (any issues to solve) it would be cause "i have to solve them" to progress.

As much as side quests were nice, i didn't feel like they shape the world around me too much. Also my main motivation is to get my soul back, so it felt a bit weird to get randomly involved in totally everything else. I like the size of the world, but not necessarily the feeling of random hunt for something to do. But it is just my personal preference, i am not a fan of open or semi-open worlds. 

Companion quests were really short and in my opinion not as meaningful as in POE1. Also Eder's quest idea felt a bit weird and forced. I hoped for more meaningful relations with companions, with a feeling of progress (in any direction), like my party evolves through things they experience together. As much as they all have their uniqueness, they also feel kind of detached and it is hard to say why do they even travel with the Watcher. I would like to see the main story more complex and party members more involved in it (like maybe their goals are somehow related to mine or they are part of my team cause of relation with me or with other party members), with more personal feeling. Maybe i just miss an old feeling of being on a mission, and defeating obstacles on my way :D Deadfire felt more like wandering around and looking for adventures, which is an awesome thing, just not my personal preference

 

Other stuff
- the game felt quite easy, most combats Eder could do solo, with little to no help from the rest of the party )) 

- the amount of unique items is breathtaking, but i didn't really need any of them after 1/3 of the game. I didn't add any effects to them cause they were more than powerful enough already

- I dunno it it is a bug but i could steal my bounty's head without killing him.. i mean.. HEAD :D

- blowing things up was an excellent idea
- I love the idea of ship battle and it was fun to do it, i am glad though there weren't too many such battles, cause it becomes a bit tiresome and repetitive after a while. However the idea is brilliant  

- music and especially shanties so great

- there is an absolutely stunning amount of things one can do, you can interact with so many things, it is really surprising

- i missed big dangerous locations with riddles and puzzles to solve, that you never know if you're gonna survive. There were some little puzzles here and there but super easy and didn't require much thinking

- maybe it is a matter of writing or some details, but i had a hard time to care about some quests, that were quite big deal. Again i think that it would be nice to get into things with some personal agenda

 

To sum it up, i will for sure get dlcs and do another walk-trough in few months from now, cause the game is real fun However for future games i hope for more intense main story, more personal, and maybe more and deeper interactions with my party, sth like we are allies in the battle that's gonna come

 

thank you

[Tanjaxxx]

 

 

 

 

 

Can I just say that the best music in the POE2 is hands down the ship singing tracks. I wasn't even expecting them to occur the first time which made it all the more thrilling and atmospheric. It actually made me want to stay on the ship longer lol.

Nice! Glad you like it Truth be told I was skeptical that people would like it, but I'm glad I was wrong.

 

It felt almost like an intermittent song from a pirate movie. One you might hear between scenes in a film with lots of ale clinking and swinging from ropes. I would love to have some additional similar tracks for one of the future DLCs. In particular, I thought a good place to have some kind of shipboard atmospheric track or sound effects would be during the storm events on the overworld map.

 

All around very good job with the music this go around, it is a massive improvement over the first's soundtrack (which was very repetitive in it's scope sad to say). I would like to echo the sentiments from another user about there needing to be a few areas that should have had unique soundtracks (such as the bathhouse). It might seem like a waste from a development point of view, but one thing that has always stood out to me in games that have become all time favorites is those areas where you get exclusive chills from epic music you've not heard anywhere else in the game. Some very good examples of this type can be found on late SNES early N64 video games. One of my all-time favorite games is Mario RPG (it is the first RPG I ever played to fruition back when I was 10). One of the things that still sticks with me about that game is some of the unique soundtracks for certain areas, from those with a sense of urgency to whimsy. While most areas still use the main soundtrack/themes.

 

Some other good examples of this can be found in Ocarina of Time, though not exactly an rpg they did well with the idea of "unique" tracks to select areas which make them stand out and help one reimagine those places decades later.

 

Just something for your consideration.

 

Thank you for that @Excerpt.  Glad you liked it.  The scope of the game and the amount of work required meant we had to de-prioritize certain plans, and the bathhouse was one of them unfortunately.  I agree with you though and I also would have liked to do something unique for this area.

 

As an alternative, what if I just persist the music from the exterior into the interior?  It might be more tonally fitting than the inn music.

 

I like that idea of changing the music to the exterior music, I think it'd be more fitting personally. But I don't presume to speak for everyone.

 

I will tell you this though. I would be willing to pay for an additional music DLC if it was of the appropriate caliber, don't know if you guys have ever thought of commissioning work based on that premise or not. In particular something along the lines of customizable and/or unique battle/dialogue music based on class/reputation/disposition. 

 

Overall well done, and I really love and appreciate seeing the Developers interacting so much on the forums here with players/customers. It is an unusual and refreshing thing in the current age of game development.

My pleasure really. We make these games for you guys, and it's important that we talk! I kind of agree about the bathhouse music. I'll make the change.

 

 

Hey, just wanna say, you did a really great job at polishing your game. Just found 2 bugs, as I said - glad you delayed a month even though I was upset bout' it at first lol. 

 

And well...the rest of my kinda review is on front but .....I sort of really want to repeat this; Why no evil companions? XD I get that 100% evil, isn't exactly fitting since it's all different shades of grey, but what I mean is; Maybe an aggressive, yet direct and honest bloodthirsty dumb barbarian? Or a poor, envious skaen priest companion? Would you consider making such a companion in PoE 3 perhaps? :D 

 

Because, right now, they're all very good natured or at the very least neutral. When I was trying to play the way I wanted to play, everyone was hating on me. XDDD *shocker* 

[Tanjaxxx]

It's almost as though you're trying to say being evil is wrong, and everyone will hate - ah, never mind. XD Really miss being kindish evil in video games, with similarly minded followers though! 

[Reverse2057]

 

 

 

I like the white match combat music D:

 

I have to agree about deadfire's combat music being meh though. At least it wasn't offensive to the ear but it could've been much better.

Understood and fair. I was trying to address criticism from the first game that combat music was too in your face, too repetitive, too attention grabbing. It's a process, maybe next game will strike the right balance.

The shanties were excellent though :D And yeah hopefully it'll be more balanced in the next games (or even in the dlcs if there's different music there).

 

Thanks! We even got one of the singers who performed the Black Flag shanties to coordinate our effort His name is Nils Brown.

 

Even the shanties were a bit controversial though we knew folks would enjoy them. That's why we have the sea shanty option to disable them

 

 

I KNEW MY EARS DIDN'T BETRAY ME!!!! I KNEW that voice was from Black Flag! I'm SO THRILLED you guys snagged this guy! He's the BEST shanty singer that I've ever heard and I loved Black Flag so dearly, I've got a pirate heart and I nearly screamed when I heard the shanties start up in POE II with this guy's voice! :D!!! Thank you SO FRIGGIN MUCH!!! <3

[Slotharingia]

You didn't address SO MANY of the problems with this game, with one of the biggest ones in my eyes just being ignored by your post: Quest triggers and spoilers.

 

In game, if you complete Xoti's quest as early as possible the journal entry about it gives away the ENTIRE PLOT OF THE GAME. And you can complete her quest before ever going anywhere besides the starter island and Neketaka. So without ever stepping foot on the main story line, the entire plot is given away.

 

And then there are all the quest mis-triggers. I had one quest for a faction line; i completed one step of the quest and was told to go back to get the next part. Once I got on my boat, the quest triggered the win condition because, being an open world, I had already done the thing for the quest I didn't yet have. So, i got the end conversation/win dialogue for a quest I hadn't yet picked up.

 

And that's one example of the 3 I can think of off the top of my head.

 

This game is clearly still in beta. There are problems with quest triggers, relationships not working at all let alone being so rudimentary as to wonder why they bothered, the open world ruining the story driven aspect (they should have picked ONE, not tried to do both), many of the items not doing what they say, many of the systems not being clear....

 

This game is so close to being good, but it feels like they just got to a point and threw up their hands "Good enough!".

What I don't understand is, the game was in beta for quite a while, so how are there still so many issues? Maybe it should have been released to backers for a final testing phase before being put on sale for everyone? Also, were all the beta testers people who paid to do it on the crowd funding? If so, maybe that's a problem. I find it a bit weird to pay to be a beta tester.

[Ninjamestari]

What I don't understand is, the game was in beta for quite a while, so how are there still so many issues? Maybe it should have been released to backers for a final testing phase before being put on sale for everyone? Also, were all the beta testers people who paid to do it on the crowd funding? If so, maybe that's a problem. I find it a bit weird to pay to be a beta tester.

 

Obsidian isn't very good at handling criticism, as evidenced by all the threads that criticized the game being deleted on these forums. The Beta was likely suffering from the same sort of dishonest and narcissistic managing. If you read up on what's been going on with the owners of the company, what they did to their most talented writer etc, you'll understand how corrupted a company Obsidian really is, and why it has never been able to develop a single product without vast issues. You cannot save Obsidian because the corruption there begins from the high-ups. The best you can hope for is for Obsidian to die and for a new, healthier and overall better company to salvage the talent. Also, who knows, maybe this new company could even get Avellone to write for them, resulting in better stories for everyone.

[Skazz]

 

What I don't understand is, the game was in beta for quite a while, so how are there still so many issues? Maybe it should have been released to backers for a final testing phase before being put on sale for everyone? Also, were all the beta testers people who paid to do it on the crowd funding? If so, maybe that's a problem. I find it a bit weird to pay to be a beta tester.

 

Obsidian isn't very good at handling criticism, as evidenced by all the threads that criticized the game being deleted on these forums.

 

Obsidian isn't moderating the forums. All of the mods are random volunteers.

 

Also, a small hint from a fellow human being: no matter how strong your argument may be, as a rule of thumb, people don't like being called "retards", "degenerates", and "shills".

Edited May 20, 2018 by Skazz

[Boeroer]

Threads get deleted because of insults and personal attacks, NOT criticism. In nearly every thread you walk into you will insult somebody who doesn't agree with you - most of the time you will tell them that they are dumb or lack morality - or both.

 

I criticized the first beta release so hard that it was even talked about in other forums like RPG-Codex or Reddit - that might have had negative impact on the image of the game - yet I never got a warning - and not a single post of mine was deleted. But usually I don't swear around, post hetz or attack people who disagree (it happens but at least I know how to reflect after a couple of hours and how to apologize).

 

The Beta was only a very small portion of the game for obvious reasons (leakage of content and so on). As far as I can tell the bugfinding and -reporting was very good and most issues (there were a TON) got addressed/fixed by Obsidian. The community Manager (Aarik) is superb. The QA-people in the bug section were very nice as well. Can't say anything about the quality of their inhouse-work but the communication with beta testers was good.

 

This game still has too many bugs, it's true. But I think it has less than PoE when it was released. Given that they redid the whole mechanics and added tons of new features it's normal to see a lot of bugs. Some like the import bugs are a bit embarrassing though. They shouldn't have passed QA.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Boeroer

[Skazz]

Threads get deleted because of insults and personal attacks, NOT criticism.

 

Admittedly, I kind of miss the gifs of majestic flying peafowl.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Skazz

[JerekKruger]

This game still has too many bugs, it's true. But I think it has less than PoE when it was released.

I think people forget what PoE was like at release and end up unconsciously comparing version 3.x to Deadfire's release.

[hedop]

We need waaaaaaaaaay better fast travel capabilities. It's getting really annoying if you have to leave the second level of a building. You go to the top level --> loading screen, You go outside --> loading screen --> you leave the part of the city and travel somewhere else --> loading screen. 

 

I'd really appreciate it if we could just travel to anywhere in the city from inside buildings so we don't have to go through all of that. It would also be nice if the Vallian Trading Company would get their own fast travel point. It just get's really, really inconvenient during quests where you have to traverse half the city.

 

I think it would also be advisable to lock certain parts of the map or certain parts of the city until you get the quests to go there as it seems to wreak absolute havoc with the internal game logic when you simply move along however you want. I personally am a gamer who collects a ton of quests, basically any I can get my hands on, and then does the sidequests first until they are all gone before I push on with the main quest. Now normally that works great, it doesn't in Pillars because you stumble into locations you shouldn't be which messes up quest flags, you also get incoherent mumbo jumbo half the time because the game assumes you did this quest first and that quest later and so on and so forth. So as bad as that sounds I think the game needs a harder structure that forces you to do things in a certain order and some quests should be not available until you have done others. 

 

The late game content, if you can call it that, is also fairly weak since basically there is none. If you are like me and gorge on sidequests first because you want to make sure you have seen and done whatever you can before pushing the main quest on, then you have nothing left in the end. Basically we are talking about 3 main quests here. Get to the Engwithan Dig Site and do something, get to Hasongo and do something and then get to Eothas and do something. Yes there are little pieces in between here and there but basically it feels all very rushed.

 

The faction quests do feel rushed too. I was expecting fairly long sidequests, yet the Principi one is basically two quests which involve a lot of slaughtering and then you are done. The The VTC sidequests is two quests as well as is the RDS. Yeah you have like 20 bounty hunter quests and you do have the local quests but man... that felt underwhelming. I enjoyed the characters in those factions and would have enjoyed having more of a chance to side with one of the two main players in each faction and maybe push them in certain directions. The Huana royalty I found thoroughly unimpressive, I would have much prefered to interact more with smaller Huana tribes because those quests seemed to be written much tighter and better.

 

I did enjoy the better combat A.I. I enjoyed Xoti and Serafen as new companions and I personally could have done without Aloth tbh. I don't know why he was even there... his sort of half story about the Leaden Key was just severely underwhelming. I personally would have prefered to have Kana Rua back, which would have made much more sense. I didn't need Pallegina there, but okay, makes sense. Maia is totally forgettable and might have been replaced with Maneha, who I enjoyed a lot. I personally felt fairly let down with the companion quests. None of them really made a lot of sense to be honest and they were over so quickly and without any emotional impact (besides Serafen and Xoti) that they might as well have left them out.

 

So yeah... I'm not sure how I feel about this. It somehow feels half finished tbh. It's good but... I don't know. It's a weird game. In a lot of ways it's more enjoyable than the first one simply because it's easier to handle, it's more polished looking, it has a story with deeper meaning, at least to me, and it does a lot of things right in the representation of it's conflicts but it's also somehow lacking. The quests in PoE where just more thick and nourishing. PoE felt like Stew, filled you up but sometimes so much so that you couldn't touch it for a couple of days and weeks, whereas this feels more like Soup. It tastes great and you always go back for another plate but it somehow never gives you the feeling that you are full and need to stop eating. 

[Purudaya]

Bringing the discussion back to the music, one thing I REALLY enjoyed was how cleverly the team adapted real life historical shanties to the PoE world. The twist on "Haul-Away Joe" was especially nice.

Also, there's a certain piano melody in Queen's Berth that really stands out; it presses all the right buttons and conveys the mood of the scene so well that I never get tired of hearing it. I agree that the combat music could have been a little more dramatic, but overall...great work

[Skazz]

Also, there's a certain piano melody in Queen's Berth that really stands out; it presses all the right buttons and conveys the mood of the scene so well that I never get tired of hearing it. I agree that the combat music could have been a little more dramatic, but overall...great work

 

Agreed on the piano! If there's one track in the game I can't get enough of, it's the Queen's Berth theme.

[JerekKruger]

 

Also, there's a certain piano melody in Queen's Berth that really stands out; it presses all the right buttons and conveys the mood of the scene so well that I never get tired of hearing it. I agree that the combat music could have been a little more dramatic, but overall...great work

Agreed on the piano! If there's one track in the game I can't get enough of, it's the Queen's Berth theme.

Seconded.

[Wormerine]

I finished my first Deadfire playthrough (Veteran, crit path upscaled) and wanted to share some of my thoughts.

 

Overall, I enjoyed the game a lot. I liked the variety of locations, quest types and level designs. The first Pillars felt a bit “under-designed” to me – a lot of great ideas, but with rather predictable gameplay loop and limited interaction. It had clear combat/dialogue/scripted interaction structure. Deadfire’s design is much more sophisticated, with different mechanics intertwining and complementing each other. It felt as if I was coming up with a solution to a problem, rather than following one of the few paths laid out before me (though obviously they were all pre-designed).

 

Items

I really loved the variety of weapons, and their unique enchantments. I often found myself struggling to choose what my characters will be using, and the wide range of them should allow for some funky builds and strategies. I am looking forward to replaying Deadfire and using weapons I didn’t get to use.

 

Combat

I do like the changes made to the system – cast per rest, cast time, interrupts, inspirations/afflictions. I think that the system has a lot of potential. However, the low difficulty of the game forbids those mechanics from shining. Most of the time I would worry about nothing else than enemy defenses and armor rating. Enemies did negligible damage (and I used plain clothing to medium armor). I would barely use protective spells and healed in prolonged boss fights only. The little danger from enemy spells meant that worrying about interrupting them just wasn’t worth it. I am not talking about a min-maxed party rolling over enemies (I used all single class characters), but the difficulty should be high enough, so player has to engage with game systems. I disabled all AI scripts, as I prefer to micromanage and I found out that most fights would end quickly enough just by using autoattack. 3 out of 4 epic monster fights were beat with a minimal use of skills, and no protective/debuff/healing spells. Game lacks in both regular and high challenge.

 

Unfortunately, I worry that a fine balance might be difficult to achieve. While entertaining, some subclasses might need a closer look. My PC was an ascendant cipher, and I found their subclass’ benefit to be insanely powerful. Being able to chain high level abilities without restrain was too powerful. Perhaps a discount on spell use, instead of the cost of 0 would be preferable? Current system, combined with high level ability that increases AOE with stored focus meant stunlocking/damaging entire screen of enemies at once for majority of fights.

 

Open-world/Ship combat

I feel those were – sufficient. I don’t think that that those systems are enjoyable by themselves, but I they did a great job in reinforcing the theme of the game. Most ship-to-ship combat revolved around constantly moving for evasion and shooting when ready. I tried to experiment with various cannons on different sides of my ship, but it just wasn’t worth it. As soon as things get damaged, AI seems to panic, and get “stunlocked” by moving crew around, bracing for impact and, overall, doing nothing of importance.

 

World map lost its appeal quite quickly, with its static ship movement, lack of ambushes and plentiful supplies. I really wish that the world map would be more systemic – with faction ships recognizing your allegiance, and chances to get ambushed. In the end it’s more of a menu, rather than a board of a game. Still, nicely enhances the theme.

Companions

Not terribly in love with any of them this time around. It might get better with future patches, but I feel that the relationship system breaks more, than it builds. PoE1 design allowed for clear arcs and well paced character development. If relationship system’s role was to make things feel more natural then right now it does the complete opposite. Companions seem erratic, sometimes getting upset or falling in love over very little (was too far into the game to comment if patch 1.2 fixed much). While PoE1 felt like people who went on the journey with my character and grew with him, here I still struggle to identify, who they really are. The commitment to writing more “interjected” dialogue is commendable, and I imagine lots of effort went into it, however, just like relationship system, I am not sure if it was the best way of doing it. It worked well in Baldur’s Gate, but in here I feel the world is too low-key for it to really work. I need to have a deeper, direct conversation with those folks to know who they are – unlike Minsc I am not sure what motivates some of them – and small comments aren’t enough. It’s especially jarring as romances are in, and I am not sure how I could ever try to ship my PC with anyone with so little interaction and knowledge about them.

 

Narrative and returning PC

This is probably my biggest disappointment. Not that the narrative is bad per say. Factions are interesting, and the world and political scene of Deadfire has a lot of nuance – clearly, a lot of thought and care went into it. However, PoE1, in spite of its pacing and flaws, was a focused game with clear goal and story to tell. Deadfire, feels more like an adventure and the main plot feels like a MacGuffin, an excuse to explore rather than game’s main goal. It doesn’t make the narrative bad or unenjoyable, but with the low-key nature of PoE’s world I don’t think that it really works. PoE1 was a slog at times, but the destination made the journey worth it. In Deadfire journey is the destination, and while it fares much better than its predecessor, in the end it feels hollow. I feel, however, that the story suffers the most because of the decision to continue Watcher’s story.

 

I am thinking on my 60 or 70 hours with the game, and I really don’t feel like the Watcher should have been the playable character. His unique abilities aren’t crucial to the story, and are used sparingly. His previous encountered with Gods and knowledge he acquired during the events of PoE1 are hardly of any importance. A game where we start as a new PC in Deadfire, and are given a reason to care about, before witnessing Eothas attack, might have been a more natural narrative. All the necessary information could be relayed by Eothas or returning companions (or imported Watcher himself!) throughout the game, making it more approachable to newer players. The game spends a lot of time referring to previous game, yet very little comes out of it. Deadfire doesn’t feel like a direct continuation of Watcher’s story and its themes. Any other character would do, and might require less introduction/explaining.

A random victim of Eothas’ first attack in Port Maje would do: You become Berath’s Herald, you are the only survivor of the attack, the adventure starts.

 

Edited May 20, 2018 by Wormerine

[Yenkaz]

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.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Yenkaz