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Great idea for character migration into Deadfire from PoE I


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Hey I have what I think is a great idea after listening to one of the interviews about Deadfire with the developers. I think it was Josh who said he was thinking about what happens when your keep is destroyed and your character is left almost lifeless, back to level one. He was speculating about whether class or race would be carried forward to Deadfire. And it sounded like he favored race not changing, but you could change your class.

 

My idea: no matter what new class you choose, have your Deadfire character start with some trace fragment of your old class talents! You are a watcher after all, so it makes sense that after being pummeled by a god your soul essence might still remember something from your past class.

 

As an example...In practice this might mean: if you played a paladin in PoE 1, maybe one of the abilities your character starts with in Deadfire is Lay on Hands. Or chain healing, or a paladin aura. Perhaps you could even let the player choose from a restricted set (restricted in the sense they have been vetted for Deadfire game balance) of Pally abilities, which pally skill they will get to bring into Deadfire as one of their watcher type abilities. Even if they decide to be a rogue, they would have this old memory and old class talent.

 

If you played a wizard in original PoE maybe you remember Arcane Veil or blast or some such wizard skill. If you played a Druid maybe you get a shape change.

 

Details of exactly how strong the talents are in Deadfire could be adjusted... getting a full power level 16 class skill starting at level one would probably be unbalanced. But that could be worked out. To make it simple and more easily balanced the devs could pick just one talent from each class that carries into Deadfire (whether or not your character actually picked it back in PoE 1 or not). Maybe everyone who played a pally in PoE 1 gets a smaller version of Chain Heal, which scales in power as they level up, as a starting ability in Deadfire... whatever new class they choose.

 

Comments, reactions? I love this idea, if I do say so myself!

Edited by amazeing4art
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I will be fury incarnate if I cannot continue with my exact same character from POE1.

 

That said, this idea is an interesting option for people who want to start with something fresh while staying connected to their POE1 character. Hm, but in that regard it might make more sense to carry over story decisions made in POE1, character background choice, something like that. And it could be tricky to balance additional abilities that are outside of the class/power structure.

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You didn't know until now? There have been tons of discussions about that in this forum with thousands of arguments why it's good or bad.

 

My question would be: "How on earth is it a good idea to let the character start at higher levels?"

 

One reason why it's a bad idea to start at higher levels is t hat new players would have to level up a char from lvl 1 to 12 or something without knowing the mechanics and what the talents/abilites do - it would be a boring and tedious work.

 

Another reason is balancing and keeping it real: what enemies would you confront the party with when they already slew dragons and archmages in PoE? Is the Deadfire Archipelago a place where only epic and powerful creatures live? How would you even make the game interesting?

 

In my opinion there are more good arguments for starting at 1 than starting at higher levels. It's just a matter of the explanation why you dropped back to lvl 1.

Edited by Boeroer
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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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I'm sorry but getting nerfed back to level 1 is incredibly lame.

 

It would be better to simply start Pillars 2 with a fresh new protagonist rather than a nerfed Watcher.

 

Your argument about "keeping it real" makes no sense. There's no reason combat in Pillars 2 can't revolve around high level encounters with a higher tier of enemy. Baldur's Gate 2 pulled it off effortlessly. There was no need to go back to kobolds and goblins because liches, dragons, and vampires were keeping us busy. Baldur's Gate 2 would not have been the great game that it was if the designers had said to themselves, "Hm...new players are too stupid to learn the system so we'll just make Irenicus a level 6 mage who spams magic missile."

 

Pillars 2 should revolve around the Watcher's epic levels. Revisiting low levels is utterly redundant and stupid. There's no reason to move backwards to level 1 instead of forwards to level 40. 

Edited by Hebruixe
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Baldur's Gate 2 didn't face nearly the same problem that PoE2 would have to if they carried on from the same level as PoE ended at. At the end of BG1 were you fighting dragons, legendary arch mages and immortal leaders of ancient cults that literally created the gods? No, you fought a level 13 fighter (Sarevok), some midlevel demons and some werewolves. As such Baldur's Gate had plenty of room to expand on the challenge.

 

Given where PoE ended up, if you were to continue from level 16 PoE2 would essentially be Throne of Bhaal level content. I enjoyed ToB, but it was short, and had it been much longer it would have felt incredibly silly.

 

All that said, it's rather irrelevant since Obsidian are reducing the Watcher back to level 1, and even more so than the change in party size I am fairly certain they will not change their minds on this.

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Seriously? They're going to roll back our characters to level 1? How on earth is that a good idea?

 

They're making massive systemwide changes to the mechanics. There probably isn't an unambiguous way to transfer a level 12-16 character over.

 

There are other good reasons to reset to level 1 as well. With the expansions, your endgame level can plausibly be anywhere between 10 and 16. Balancing the game for that wide a level spread would be hard, even if you'd use GM's fiat to get rid of all the crazy-powerful items. Gameplay was starting to break down by that point anyway; adding levels up to 40 would have been complete mayhem.

 

From where I'm at, the questionable choice isn't the level reset with Transparent Plot Device as justification, as much as the decision to continue with the same protag. But then the BG1-2 precedent is probably too strong to ditch that.

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Maybe a not so controversial solution would have been to use the watcher's soul, reborn in an heir and being awakened again. You would have had the memory of the original PoE watcher, it would have been plausible to start at lvl 1. You could still have transferred some items because you would have lived in Cad Nua where all the stuff was exhibited, you could have known Edér and friends, but you could have chosen a different class and also race (an heir doesn't have to be a biological child). 

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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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Maybe a not so controversial solution would have been to use the watcher's soul, reborn in an heir and being awakened again. You would have had the memory of the original PoE watcher, it would have been plausible to start at lvl 1. You could still have transferred some items because you would have lived in Cad Nua where all the stuff was exhibited, you could have known Edér and friends, but you could have chosen a different class and also race (an heir doesn't have to be a biological child). 

 

Yeah, it definitely is a thematically appropriate alternative, but I'm not sure it would've been less controversial, necessarily. Doing this would introduce other complications and concerns that could be fairly polarizing: How long did the Watcher manage to live after the events of Pillars 1, for example? If generations passed before they die, then it may introduce pressures to change cultural dynamics and things like technology in ways that a) may run counter to the developers' intentions or b) strike various subsets of the audience as unacceptable. On the other hand, if they kill the Watcher off early enough to avoid that, then that's likely to spark a fair bit of outrage as well.

 

There's also the matter of integrating the whole Awakening angle into the narrative. I suspect that'd be a less contentious issue, but it still runs the risk of being swept under the rug too quickly or aggravating the audience by belaboring things that they already know.

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