Itemization is great this time around. We need more

[aphotic]

I liked PoE I well enough (to finish it on PotD), but Deadfire surpasses it in just about every important aspect. The introduction of multiclassing and a quick leveling curve (especially when playing solo) makes coming up with new builds very entertaining. The game is almost like an action RPG (like Diablo, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn etc.) in its diversity of builds.

 

Part of this is facilitated by the great variety of mods found in unique items. It's clear the team put in the effort to build a very powerful item mod system and examples like Hand Mortar, Tuotilo's Palm, Pukestabber, Deltro's Cage, Reckless Brigandine, Whitewitch Mask (all off the top of my head) are testaments to the flexibility on display. 

 

However with the strength of the itemization some things stand out:

• Some item types are disproportionally underrepresented (Wands, clubs, crossbows, etc.).
• A total of five soulbound items in total
• Lacking any enchantment options, Magic items have no use at all

The first two points are easy enough to fix: just add more! More items, especially with an eye for enabling new or exclusive character builds, can only benefit the game. I might as well make the suggestion when there are two more DLCs still in the process of hatching.

 

For the third, I recommend taking a page out of Diablo II (not I, not III)'s book -- where magic (blue) items had exclusively powerful +skill mods that still kept them relevant in some cases -- and provide magical items with a diverse pool of enchantments that also happen to be somewhat stronger than the mods on unique items (that is, numerically). Let magic items have more aggressive scaling from Skills, or have higher proc rates for on-hit/on-kill/on-engage abilities, or have a higher stack count for stacking bonuses, etc. that sort of thing.

 

I stress that the existing Deadfire game is much more interesting than Pillars 1 as it is, partly owing to the itemization. But I absolutely believe that it could be much more.

Edited July 25, 2018 by aphotic

[Ophiuchus]

Agreed. Adding multi-classing to the system opened up an ocean of possibilities but the end result feels flat and unfinished. I wonder if PoE1's enchanting system - modified but not removed - could have helped in this regard. Imagine adding a 20 percent recovery bonus on Priest spells to your Cleric's platemail, for example.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Ophiuchus

[MortyTheGobbo]

I was honestly unsurprised when it turned out some weapon types are massively more represented with uniques. It's not even a Pillars problem, since the dame damn thing happened in Baldur's Gate ages ago. Which does mean the devs should have seen it coming.

[Verde]

I agree that itemization is much better. Except Grimoires are a huge step back.

[anathanielh]

We definitely need more wandos/arbalesticles/crossbuoys, and I think grimoires would be better if they all provided some type of bonuses/maluses. For example, a weathermage grimoire should power up shock and water magic (or maybe add a keyword weather/storm to some spells to power those up), and perhaps decrease the power of fire spells. (This would give incentive to using the more mundane grimoires and encourage grimoire swapping in some situations).

Edited July 26, 2018 by anathanielh

[Tanlaus]

My thought- which admittedly may be terrible- would be just to keep POE1 generic enchanting to help empower builds using underrepresented items...

 

I love the idea of grimoires having specific bonus/penalties.

 

I guess the big picture problem right now with multiclassing and unique items is the synergy that allows for some fairly overpowered builds. Adding these variables would probably exacerbate that.

 

Not that I’m really against it. I’m a crap player anyway.

[Manveru123]

Five soulbound items, all of them trash.. I really hope DLC fixes that.

[M4xw0lf]

Five soulbound items, all of them trash.. I really hope DLC fixes that.

Yeah, uniques are now cooler than soul bounds. They need to be reworked, re-imagined even. Let them react not only to our class, but even more to our dispositions and maybe even faction relations.

[LordofBones]

Too many sabers, not enough everything else. 

[Dorftek]

Yeah the soulbounds are very disappointing. I also do not like the "5% chance to bla bla bla on hit" effects on weapons, better in that case to make procs that always trigger on crit or some other conditions that u can have more control over.

[grasida]

Five soulbound items, all of them trash.. I really hope DLC fixes that.

 

All of the soul bounds except the arquebus are pretty good, though, and have unique, powerful effects you don't see anywhere else. I haven't really used the arquebus, but it looks thoroughly unimpressive. And the soul bounds in PoE were generally unimpressive too, they were just more interesting than most uniques.

 

That's not to say I wouldn't agree with a rework of how soul bound equipment works. Uniques became a lot more interesting in deadfire while soul bounds didn't change much. Their primary advantage now is that they upgrade for free. It would be more interesting if, as M4xw0lf said, they reacted to dispositions, or had other exotic properties.

Edited July 26, 2018 by grasida

[Hassat Hunter]

I massively agree itemnisation is greatly improved.

PoE1's loot was MASSIVELY dissapointing since every item was just a sum of parts you could craft yourself. Nothing unique to find, interesting to find. When a dungeon ends with "oh, just saved some crafting components... meh" rather than "Ooooh, cool new item" you failed.

So I'm very happy PoE2 departed from that, even if enchanting the existing items could do with a big UI upgrade so I don't need to reload 4 times, make 4 screenshots and compare those outside of the game to make an educated decision which to pick. Which I'm not really interested to do often...

 

As such I won't really support re-adding that system again to non-uniques.

 

 

 

Modwyr is incredibly useful to berserkers.

I've yet to find a better sword (65 hours in), while I got her around the, what... 15 hour mark.

50 hours use of a sword? How much better do you want it than that?

Edited July 26, 2018 by Hassat Hunter

[arkane83]

Five soulbound items, all of them trash.. I really hope DLC fixes that.

You just hurt Modwyr's feelings. You really dont want to get her mad. (She is a bit insane)

 

Seriously though, this is nonsense. Modwyr is incredibly useful to berserkers. Lord Darryns Voulge is also really strong in the right build.

 

Saying they are all trash is an exaggeration. They are somewhat situational, but definitely not trash.

[Manveru123]

Modwyr becomes Unique after you finish its quick and easy quest. Lord Darryn's Voulge used to be great but got nerfed (thnx OBS). There is no exaggeration in saying that every one of these weapons is worse than at least one of their Unique counterpart. Just look at the facts. Blightheart straight loses to both Dragon's Dowry and The Red Hand, Magistrate's Cudgel effects are useless, and Marux Amanth is a clear downgrade from Pukestabber because its effects have very low proc rate (becuz baluns).

[Takkik]

Problem of soulbound is the lack of customisation compared to uniques that have now unique enchantments. Each soulbound item could get a generic upgrade aviable to all classes and a specific class upgrade. When upgrading you can choose between the generic or class specific.

 

Another problem with multiclassing is that the game ask you to choose the class you want to bind... If you don't go on a wiki it's a blind choice. Overall all soulbound items are a bling choice if you don't 'cheat' with a wiki (who will benefit the most of the weapon?). For MC, player could get the choice between each class choice he have.

 

You could get more soulbound type, like armor, helm etc... Like in poe1 3.0.

[grasida]

Modwyr becomes Unique after you finish its quick and easy quest. Lord Darryn's Voulge used to be great but got nerfed (thnx OBS). There is no exaggeration in saying that every one of these weapons is worse than at least one of their Unique counterpart. Just look at the facts. Blightheart straight loses to both Dragon's Dowry and The Red Hand, Magistrate's Cudgel effects are useless, and Marux Amanth is a clear downgrade from Pukestabber because its effects have very low proc rate (becuz baluns).

Lord Darryn’s Voulge is no longer unquestionably superior to every other two hander when used well, but it’s still very good on the right build (berserkers, tempests, maybe some wardens, etc.). Magistrate’s cudgel applies a marked effect that boosts gives +10 accuracy to everything you do to it’s target. That’s really powerful! And it has stun (or paralyze, I forget) on crit for ciphers. And the mace modal is quite useful. It’s a really solid weapon in the right hands. Marux Amanth falls short of Pukestabber, but is still a good weapon. It’s not possible for all your characters to all wield Pukestabber all at once. Even if you don’t count Modwyr, and notice the “even if”, the soul bounds are all pretty good, except for the arquebus, which seems underwhelming.

[Verde]

Too many sabers, not enough everything else.

Yeah it's obnoxious lol. Oh hey ANOTHER unique saber!

[M4xw0lf]

At least not 'everything is a sword', amirite

[hilfazer]

I massively agree itemnisation is greatly improved.

PoE1's loot was MASSIVELY dissapointing since every item was just a sum of parts you could craft yourself.

 

You've been tricked.

Easily over 90% of unique weapons had something you COULDN'T enchant yourself.

[anathanielh]

Modwyr becomes Unique after you finish its quick and easy quest. Lord Darryn's Voulge used to be great but got nerfed (thnx OBS). There is no exaggeration in saying that every one of these weapons is worse than at least one of their Unique counterpart. Just look at the facts. Blightheart straight loses to both Dragon's Dowry and The Red Hand, Magistrate's Cudgel effects are useless, and Marux Amanth is a clear downgrade from Pukestabber because its effects have very low proc rate (becuz baluns).

For rogues it may be bad, but when I put it on my priest, the chance to doublecast spells was cool as sh*t

[acbatchelor]

Modwyr becomes Unique after you finish its quick and easy quest. Lord Darryn's Voulge used to be great but got nerfed (thnx OBS). There is no exaggeration in saying that every one of these weapons is worse than at least one of their Unique counterpart. Just look at the facts. Blightheart straight loses to both Dragon's Dowry and The Red Hand, Magistrate's Cudgel effects are useless, and Marux Amanth is a clear downgrade from Pukestabber because its effects have very low proc rate (becuz baluns).

 

Modwyr becomes unique if you remove her soul. If you don't, then it stays soulbound.

 

Also, soulbounds are not trash just because there is a better alternative. Something can still be good even though there is a better alternative. Trash means that they are terrible.

[gkathellar]

 

I massively agree itemnisation is greatly improved.

PoE1's loot was MASSIVELY dissapointing since every item was just a sum of parts you could craft yourself.

You've been tricked.

Easily over 90% of unique weapons had something you COULDN'T enchant yourself.

Facts. PoE1's unique items were not necessarily compelling, but they were unique.

[Haplok]

Well, Hours of St. Rumbaldt (or to a lesser degree Tall Grass) in the hands of a crit Barbarian (preferably with some party - mainly Priest - support) was a sight to behold...

Edited July 27, 2018 by Haplok

[hilfazer]

Well, Hours of St. Rumbaldt (or to a lesser degree Tall Grass) in the hands of a crit Barbarian (preferably with some party - mainly Priest - support) was a sight to behold...

 

A sight Obsidian didn't like

[Rheios]

 

I massively agree itemnisation is greatly improved.

PoE1's loot was MASSIVELY dissapointing since every item was just a sum of parts you could craft yourself.

 

You've been tricked.

Easily over 90% of unique weapons had something you COULDN'T enchant yourself.

 

And the biggest loss of the ability to self enchant basic items was that now, without as much of the unique variation (there's almost 2 of every one, depending, but certain characters may just not make the right decisions/find them), you're often stuck with a basic lash-less/target-less weapon if you try and dual wield say - battleaxes. (Whether for rp or jut cosmetic appearance of some weapons).  I mean, that's a contrived example for a me, but the point remains that in the old system if one of the particular uniques/soulbounds didn't work for you, you could just make your own. You'd miss out on some cool unqiue stuff, so you almost never wanted to - until you *did* and then in Deadfire its sorely missed. But maybe that's just me.