Update #60 - Patch 4.1 - Turn-Based Mode Beta

[Rezbot]

I really enjoyed TB mode so far. I'll wait for the beta to end so I don't get burned out though. The extra time each battle takes can be a bit tedious at times, but the level of detail that battles are now fought at is a good throw back to older games like Final Fantasy Tactics, which is a whole ball of wonderful to me.

 

While it's true some builds are really broken, and some classes have some advantages/disadvantages in this mode, the overall experience is still great. balance will always be hard, I mean, the original game on PotD is meant for 5 people, but can be solo'd or duo'd with the right set up and prep. So balance is always going to be difficult.

 

Things I'm personally seeing so far that need review:

 

Black Jacket -- The thing that needs attention here is that the Black Jacket can change weapon sets on OTHER peoples turns. So during the mage's turn you can click over to your Black Jacket and change to the shield set if you forgot to do so on your actual turn. This seems to be an unintended effect. 

 

Druid -Shapeshift/Spiritshift -- If you lose spiritshift or shapeshift while casting another spell, it will INTERRUPT the current spell cast and waste the Druids turn. I don't think this was intended?

 

Dual Wield vs 2H -- I touch on this below in this post about how aoe is a problem for Melee heavy teams in PotD. The damage reduction of Dual Wield (-35%) is somewhat offset by being able to full attack each round, but it's still a slog to get through even 1 on 1 melee in TB. When my level 5 assassin/devoted saber rogue is only swinging (hits) for ~50 on one target, and my Evoker wizard is using fireball for 50 dmg to 5 targets (not counting the evoker 'double-cast' procs) in the same round, it's hard to not bring a heavy magic team.

Maybe this could be offset by raising the damage of melee and ranged weapons by ~25%? Or somehow reward melee/ranged that has high dexterity/attack speed and/or low initiative.

 

Armor -- I'm sure you're aware of this, but armor is kind of an issue. There really isn't any downfall to wearing med/heavy armor for the whole team, unless your party build REQUIRES you to go first. Usually, you'll spend your first round buffing/debuffing and letting the enemy get closer to you. And since spells will finish in that round, or first in the next round, there isn't a penalty to bulking up your team in heavy gear. Even when I have a lightly armored mage that goes first in combat, I'll delay their turn so the enemy will move closer and group up.

 

I love a melee heavy team in the normal mode, but TB mode brought mages back to the forefront for me. Granted they require a lot more protection and strategic placement as the AI is MUCH better in TB mode about interrupts. However I find mages are much more fun to play now.

Circling back to balance, it seems that mages may need a little more tweaking in this department, since they essentially get off 1 spell per round, it is a little difficult to bench a wizard or two that can cast lightning bolt or fireball 3 times in the same time span as an Assassin rogue getting 3 dual wield attacks. 

I'd love to bring a physical team back into the fold, but it's really difficult to pass up on the insane AoE dps mages can produce in just about the same time span as a melee DPS. Looks like this is mostly due to the changes to Initiative, and recovery time(attack speed). Since you can't focus on stacking attack speed to get as many swings as possible.

 

Fextralife made a couple interesting points that in TB mode, the focus has shifted from maxing dps in as short a time frame as possible, to more of a crowd control focus (the example they use is Divinity: Original Sin).

 

Are there any plans to bring Melee back a little bit? Maybe something like 'Action Surge' from DnD that allows the melee classes an extra action on their turn, once per combat, almost like an empower. My main issue currently with bringing a Melee team in PotD is that there isn't really an answer for swarms of mobs, Barbarian + Mob stance isn't enough especially with the higher armor and deflection of PotD.

 

Anyways, just my two thoughts. I'm really liking TB mode, and look forward to your adjustments once it leaves Beta.

Thanks folks

Edited March 15, 2019 by Rezbot

[Mico Selva]

I was always fine with RTWP, since that was the first way I experienced isometric RPGs with Baldur's Gate. However, turn-based mode in Deadfire is a good addition and I actually prefer to play the game this way now, even though there are still some weird quirks here and there as leftovers from conversion from RTWP. Hopefully a couple more patches will be enough to deal with those.

[Enurale]

Please, say, when you relase next bugfix patch? Actually there is nothing for long looong time and this keeping us away from playing this game again! Items not working, inspirations/afflictions and most other mechanics (you can see on technical forum) not working, any working team on the Deadfire atm? if not we are not deserve this. Please, respond.

[Wormerine]

Please, say, when you relase next bugfix patch? Actually there is nothing for long looong time and this keeping us away from playing this game again! Items not working, inspirations/afflictions and most other mechanics (you can see on technical forum) not working, any working team on the Deadfire atm? if not we are not deserve this. Please, respond.

My guess would be that they work on finilizing the turn based mode and, hopefully, fixing existing bugs. Would be nice to have ETA, but the silence would suggest that they are not ready to announce it just yet. 

[Enurale]

 

Please, say, when you relase next bugfix patch? Actually there is nothing for long looong time and this keeping us away from playing this game again! Items not working, inspirations/afflictions and most other mechanics (you can see on technical forum) not working, any working team on the Deadfire atm? if not we are not deserve this. Please, respond.

My guess would be that they work on finilizing the turn based mode and, hopefully, fixing existing bugs. Would be nice to have ETA, but the silence would suggest that they are not ready to announce it just yet. 

 

They can say "we are working", many player feels forsaken. They are not responding.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Enurale

[Wormerine]

 

My guess would be that they work on finilizing the turn based mode and, hopefully, fixing existing bugs. Would be nice to have ETA, but the silence would suggest that they are not ready to announce it just yet. 

They can say "we are working", many player feels forsaken. They are not responding.

All true statements, and a stalemate which could be resolved only if there was a patch ready to be released. If there is no such patch, then there isn't much more to do, then for Deadfire team to focus on their work, and for us to occupy outselves with something else for a while. 

[Ghilteras]

This is why I'm staying away from Deadfire for now. I have 60 hours poured into the game with no way to convert them to turn based and if I start from scratch the bugs are just making turn based unplayable. Hope they will polish it soon.

[arkteryx]

They are presumably focusing on the console port which should be coming out any time now (was originally listed as march 31st, now TBD). Hopefully that will include fixes and the non-beta version of TB that then will also appear in the PC version.

[draego]

Obsdian isnt developing the console port so that shouldnt hold them up much

[Wormerine]

They are presumably focusing on the console port which should be coming out any time now (was originally listed as march 31st, now TBD). Hopefully that will include fixes and the non-beta version of TB that then will also appear in the PC version.

Obsidian is not developing the port, however they do need to finalise the game for the port to happen (send the final code of the game to the party responsible for the port so they can finish and release it). There was no official announcement as to when console port could be released, so it could take a while, depending on how much work there is still to do with DF.

[Enurale]

 

They are presumably focusing on the console port which should be coming out any time now (was originally listed as march 31st, now TBD). Hopefully that will include fixes and the non-beta version of TB that then will also appear in the PC version.

Obsidian is not developing the port, however they do need to finalise the game for the port to happen (send the final code of the game to the party responsible for the port so they can finish and release it). There was no official announcement as to when console port could be released, so it could take a while, depending on how much work there is still to do with DF.

 

I just want to know if they still care this game or not, if not, ill delete the game, i cant play this game at this state, many things are broken, so im writing for any respond.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Enurale

[xzar_monty]

I would say you are unlikely to get a response, although I would be happy to be wrong.

 

Apparently, the game has been a financial disappointment, perhaps even a disaster. That may have something to do with how things are going now. However, the game has been out for almost a year now, and it's still quite buggy, and this may have something to do with the fact that it has been a financial disappointment, perhaps even a disaster. Perhaps people have lost faith in Obsidian? Who knows.

[Boeroer]

I talked to SChin today and he told me that they are currently doing a lot of work on Deadfire (basically, with other words).

 

It seems that they are stuffed with work and that the next patch would be pretty big.

 

Deadfire was in an ok-ish state before TB mode was introduced. Most of the current, most annoying bugs emerged with that introduction.

 

Even if Deadfire was a disappointment for them - they introduced a big, free feature as beta.

 

That doesn't indicate that they abandon ship... like... at all. Why would one think that?

 

Take the radio silence as a hint that they are drowning in work right now. Makes more sense than the assumption they suddenly dropped the potato - out of the blue.

Edited April 14, 2019 by Boeroer

[house2fly]

They said in January that the team was very small now, which is to be expected 8+ months after the release of a single player game. So yeah, I'd expect the team that's left is busy

[Enurale]

I talked to SChin today and he told me that they are currently doing a lot of work on Deadfire (basically, with other words).

 

It seems that they are stuffed with work and that the next patch would be pretty big.

 

Deadfire was in an ok-ish state before TB mode was introduced. Most of the current, most annoying bug emerged with that introduction.

 

Even if Deadfire was a disappointment for them - they introduced a big, free feature as beta.

 

That doesn't indicate that they abandon ship... like... at all. Why would one think that?

 

Take the radio silence as a hint that they are drowning in work right now. Makes more sense than the assumption they suddenly dropped the potato - out of the blue.

Thank you for your effort as an envoy and i hope deadfire will be enjoyable again, hopefully, soon.

Edited April 14, 2019 by Enurale

[Mico Selva]

Lack of any word from Obsidian is a bummer, but if patience is what I need to get a better and less buggy turn-based mode, that's fine.

[QuiteGoneJin]

Yeah it's really disappointing.

[ABearIsHere]

From Obsidian's official Discord, courtesy of Aarik Dorobiala: "Hey friends! Apologies for the long wait. We're currently investigating a bug right now that is alluding [sic] us and we're having a hard time reproducing the issue on our end. We have super star Andy on the case."

[Enurale]

From Obsidian's official Discord, courtesy of Aarik Dorobiala: "Hey friends! Apologies for the long wait. We're currently investigating a bug right now that is alluding [sic] us and we're having a hard time reproducing the issue on our end. We have super star Andy on the case."

Im curious about this bug and im annoying about "discord only" news, this is the official site and there is nothing about their schedule, like time is frozen. Anyway thank you for this news, i appreciate it.

[Pillars of fan]

I stopped playing long time ago, turn based mode sparked my interest but I won't play it until they give us the option to play the expansions on turn based mode with either a new party or our existing one's after PO2 main story. Also, I would like to be able to switch turn based mode to pause and play mode on the fly during combat. If they don't do this, ill forever delete the game until they make PO3 with turn based mode as an option. 

[Boeroer]

Well bye then 

[Rezbot]

14 hours ago, Pillars of fan said:

I stopped playing long time ago, turn based mode sparked my interest but I won't play it until they give us the option to play the expansions on turn based mode with either a new party or our existing one's after PO2 main story. Also, I would like to be able to switch turn based mode to pause and play mode on the fly during combat. If they don't do this, ill forever delete the game until they make PO3 with turn based mode as an option. 

Lol This essentially boils down to "If you don't do what I want, then I'll quit and throw a tantrum" 
 

Pillars of Fan, you did realize from playing the Turn based mode so far, that the skills, spells and abilities changed, (drastically in some cases) between Turn based mode and standard mode? There would be no way to balance it. Many builds and talents work very well in the standard mode, but perform poorly in Turn based mode. Even if somehow they implemented the ability to switch between the two modes at will, your skill builds and strategies would differ completely between the two modes.

Your demand is a bit unreasonable...
If you're willing to quit on a great game like this for such a silly reason, then it really is your loss.
Hopefully we will see you again in POE3!    

[Ghilteras]

He has a point though about the fact that the devs have been silent and looks like Deadfire has been put on hold, right after going Beta for Turn Based, which makes little sense. Any words from Obsidian would be most welcome at this point. I think we all want Turn Based to get polished..

[Ethics Gradient]

41 minutes ago, Ghilteras said:

He has a point though about the fact that the devs have been silent and looks like Deadfire has been put on hold, right after going Beta for Turn Based, which makes little sense. Any words from Obsidian would be most welcome at this point. I think we all want Turn Based to get polished..

We got word the other day to expect a patch sometime next week.  No specifics, but the assumption is significant TB stuff and the final challenge.

This thread is where most of the update chat seems to be happening.

[draego]

18 hours ago, Ghilteras said:

He has a point though about the fact that the devs have been silent and looks like Deadfire has been put on hold, right after going Beta for Turn Based, which makes little sense. Any words from Obsidian would be most welcome at this point. I think we all want Turn Based to get polished..

They weren't silent they said they were patching bugs and finishing turn based. It has taken a while but they were not putting POE2 on hold