#Deadfire Q&A Twitch Stream with Josh Sawyer and Lead Designer Bobby Null

[Aarik D]

Greetings all you amazing adventurers! 

 

We got another live stream coming your way about #Deadfire , with Josh and Bobby Null! This is a great opportunity to ask Josh and Bobby design questions! 

 

If you would like your question to be answered live on stream, let us know by tweeting us at WorldofEternity and make sure you use the hashtag #Deadfire. You are also free to list your questions here, but please note that we may not get to all of your questions, but we'll do the best we can. 

 

[ShadySands]

Yay! I got 2 questions asked

Edited February 24, 2017 by ShadySands

[blotter]

1. Are there any notable monastic orders that we'll have opportunities to interact with while we visit the Deadfire Archipelago?

2. Are we going to have more options for dealing with prisoners (assuming we still have the option to take them?)

3. Will we see any examples of NPCs pushing the limits of their classes' abilities in ways akin to Concelhaut's magical research and Llengrath's transference of knowledge? Will we encounter or hear about Cipher or Chanter equivalents to archmages, for example?

4. Will there be any Watcher talents that are selectable at level up or gained through optional quests as opposed to those which are awarded through the events of the main quest alone?

5. Will the racial talents of Godlike be revised so that the benefits they provide are more proportional to the loss of helmets?

6. Will we have the opportunity to learn more about the Watcher's past lives?

7. Will soulbound items in this game have greater variability in features based on the wielder's class than they did in the first Pillars of Eternity?

8. Are there any plans for multiclass talents along the lines of the Practiced Spell Caster feats in D&D 3e/NWN2?

9. Will the deaths of companions in this game potentially trigger interactions or attitude changes among surviving party members based on the nature of the relationships between them?

10. Will there be opportunities to use class abilities, spells, powers, and so forth (such as Whispers of Treason, for example) during dialogues or will such opportunities remain limited to combat and scripted interactions?

Edited February 22, 2017 by blotter

[algroth]

Hey! I'll be writing down some questions as I think of them. The first one that comes to mind right now is...

 

On the boards there've been many doubts and speculations about sidekicks and how they differ from regular companions. Any chance we may hear more on this distinction? How fleshed out will they be (compared to, say, the characters in PoE 1)? Will they interject in our conversations or comment in our travels? Will they engage in banter with the rest of our companions? Will we be able to talk to them?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

How, if at all, are chanters and ciphers going to be changed with the move to per-encounter abilities with empower(or whatever the per rest resource is)?

 

There was a thread on the forums about how the "evil" actions netted more permanant attribute bonuses than "good" actions for quests. Will there be an attempt to balance this out, not taking into account powergaming for all attribute bonuses?

 

IIRC, the weapon group Knight in PoE had one weapon less than the other groups, will you add a new weapon in to balance this?

 

Will we be able to the starting class for companions with two base class options, like select whether Eder is a rogue or fighter?

 

Multiclassing will result in a class power level that is roughly class level + ((char level-class level)*. IIRC. For spellcasting classes will this affect spell slots and spell level, so that a 10Fighter/10Wizard has the same amount of spells as an 18 Wizard? Or will it just affect caster level?

 

With a level cap of 20 will we see 10th level spells?

 

If there is an expansion, will 20+ be similar to the epic levels of D&D 3.x with epic feats and such?

[Silent Winter]

Can we have a 'sell-all' button? (or even 'sell-all non-special') - or at least a drag-selection to move lots into the trade area at once?

[Xaratas]

Can we have a 'sell-all' button? (or even 'sell-all non-special') - or at least a drag-selection to move lots into the trade area at once?

That was in one of the last weeks Videos already answered.

 

 

 

Questions:

Can and will the performace gain of PoE 2 be backportet to PoE 1? When?

If the „sidekick“ goal is not met, can you release your questeditor instead?

[Silent Winter]

 

Can we have a 'sell-all' button? (or even 'sell-all non-special') - or at least a drag-selection to move lots into the trade area at once?

That was in one of the last weeks Videos already answered.

Great - what was the answer?

[Xaratas]

Can we have a 'sell-all' button? (or even 'sell-all non-special') - or at least a drag-selection to move lots into the trade area at once?

That was in one of the last weeks Videos already answered.

Great - what was the answer?

If i remember correctly they want to get stacking working, so its one stack of Xaurip spears and not 20 to sell.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Xaratas

[theBalthazar]

1) BOBBY : Will there be visual exoticism in this game ? (Things that make difference with the first game. In the trailer, we saw palm trees, and more foliage for example)

 

2) JOSH : Much has been said about multi-classes, do you think that a "19/1" will be viable with your system?

 

3) Subsidiary question, with your system and five party members (five role well defined), will we go to a total advantage to take a pure class (non-multiclassed) ?

Edited February 22, 2017 by theBalthazar

[Madscientist]

I copy my question from the other thread. Thanks for making another Q&A.

 

1.) You said the world will be more open than the first game.

     Does this mean you will have automatic level scaling?

 

I do not like the word "level scaling" since playing Oblivion. Having hard battles against goblins and rats after killing hundrets of demons ruined my fun, made me quit this game forever and made me hate level scaling. I liked how gothic1+2 did it. In the beginning somebody told you to stay on the road and go to the next town. But you could go anywhere you want if your char can survive it (and even a lone wolf is a challenge for a lv1 char with no combat skill and a wooden stick).

 

2.) How do you desings stretch goals?

2a) Do you have a list of things you like to have but you cannot efford it or

2b) or does your team say "Oh, looks like the campaign goes better then expected. We should make a brain storm and dicuss what to announce next."

 

3.) PoE1 had one of the best class balance of all single player CRPG. Each class felt different and useful.

How do want to keep the balance with 11 classes  (and 3 sub classes each) and 55 multi classes with a varying amount of levels from each base class?

NWN2 gave you endless possibilities, but there were some very powerful combinations (e.g. Kaze No Kama and Obsidian Sorcerer) while it was also possible to make very weak chars and the rules were hard to understand for beginners.

 

4.) Will there be changes in the basic stat/combat system? If yes, what do you want to change?

The basic rules of PoE1 were easy to understand. Every attack was accurency - defense + 1d100. All damage was base * (1+ modyfier1 + modyfier2 + . . .) - DR. You also tried to make every stat useful for most chars and the result was much better than the IE games.

I think Tyranny was a step backwards. The to hit formula became more complicated so you need a table in the combat log to see when you graze/hit/crit. The finesse stat was more useful than the others because it gave accurency and deflection. In one of the updates you said that the armor penetration vs DR system gets more complicated.

Why do you make everything more complex? I think the PoE1 system was one of the best RPG systems ever because it was relatively easy to understand (e.g. compared to DnD) without being dump.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Cutlasses. Will they be Added as a weapon type since the location is turning to the high seas.?

 

Water/Aquatic Godlikes.... will we encounter them in game?

 

Will there be a whore ship like the Salty Mast? Amazonian pirate whores with guns and cutlasses? Oh my.......

 

Will there be a weapon maker who makes/improves more weapons like Cromwell?

 

Who really is Josh Sawyer?

 

Will there be a Clue-like murder mystery to solve as a side quest?

 

Will there be any stuck up Valian guards who fart in our general direction? Seriously... will there be?

 

Last but not least..... will there be a wizarding school of magic?

[ushas]

1. Can you tell us more about all kinds of skills and what do you plan to do with them?

2. What kind of technological and scientific advancements can we look forward to in the times of Deadfire?

3. In the update it was said that Maia Rua's companion can scout outdoor environments both in and out of combat. Can you tell us more about what birds' scouting capabilities are, and about scouting options in the game in general?

4. Is it possible to precast a spell and then wait for the right occasion to unleash it, or will we have to place the spell's effect right at the moment when the casting finishes?

5. Are you going to set a long cast times across all spells or will it vary? Likewise, what about abilities which are pre-encounter spammable already - like Flames of Devotion, will those become more situational or have some other drawbacks?

6. On the Neketaka's map there are things like type of government, import/export lists and the population composition -- will it change in the course of the adventure?

7. Would you like to do another Q&A sessions like this further down the road of development?

Edited February 22, 2017 by ushas

[draego]

I copy my question from the other thread. Thanks for making another Q&A.

 

1.) You said the world will be more open than the first game.

     Does this mean you will have automatic level scaling?

 

They have answered this a couple of times. They said i believe that there will be optional level scaling at the beginning of the game i think. and its not oblivion style it in a range for encounters.  

[Ark Evensong]

Now that there's multiclassing, what will you do with the class derived base stats such as Health, Accuracy and Deflection?
How will a Rogue/Fighter not be inferior to a Fighter/Rogue, which has more Health and Deflection?

 

[EDIT] ↓ Ooh, must've missed that. Thanks!

Edited February 22, 2017 by Ark Evensong

[MaxQuest]

Also curious about the above ^ question.

But it was already asked:

 

Q: How do class power sources interact with the growth of secondary stats that were class dependent in Pillars 1? Like Accuracy, Health, and defenses.

JS: That's something that we're still trying to figure out, to be honest. That's something that the system designers and I have had various debates about but we're not settled on anything yet, 'cause it is a tricky thing to figure out.

Source: link

 

 

Tbh I see 4 variants:

 

1. derived stats of first class are used

2. system automatically calculates them based on first_class/second_class proportion

3. on each level-up, you get +x acc, + y hp (similar to hit die from NWN2)

4. all classes have the same base hp/acc/def

 

 

---

Main questions:

- 1. If empower adds a flat +3 to power_level... won't its relative effect become much weaker in the late game?

- 2. What are the thoughts on balancing carnage with multi-classing in mind? We know it will scale But how will it scale? (as it's not just about the damage; but also about hit count)

- 3. Is the flat Damage Reduction completely gone?

- 4. What is the reasoning behind penetration coefficient values of: 30%, 100% and 130%? As players we like to have meaningful choices. But with such a big difference (30% and 100%) making sure that we always have the required penetration is a no-brainer. I.e. adding this extra decision layer doesn't seem to make the system deeper at all. (By the way are these penetration coefficients additive or multiplicative?)

 

 

Optional questions:

- 1. Will PoE:Deadfire be more mod-friendly? Will we get a /mods folder where we would be able to put our modifications WITHOUT overriding original files?

- 2. Do you plan to add powerful talents/abilities on max-level and only available to single-class characters? In order to balance class-dipping?

- 3. Will there be talents like Zen Archery from NWN2? Imagine a priest who could use resolve instead of perception when casting spells.

Edited February 22, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Doppelschwert]

Will there be a (monk) subclass that is closer to the traditional DnD monk (or the BG2 fighter kit kensai) that focuses on wearing robes in melee and not getting hit in the first place?

 

Making a character that wears robes in melee did not feel very fun in PoE (even though it was viable with additional effort).

[Khaghan]

1) Would it be possible to get an auto-save after the dialogue finishes at the start of major boss fights?  At the same time as the initial auto-pause.  I ended up fighting Concelhaut more times than I care to remember and it got annoying having to deal with the conversation every time.

 

2)  Will we see the difference in the Vailian and Rauataian ships?  From the conversation between Pallegina and Kana it sounds like the Vailians use something like the Portuguese great ships of the India/China/Japan trade, and the Rauataians use lighter and faster ships like the English race-built galleons or even xebecs and I was curious if that would actually be shown in the game.

[Xaratas]

Will we find the big, scary, deadly, ship sinking sea monsters which were written about in the PoE books?

[algroth]

How are you guys approaching the random encounters and uncharted islands? Will each of these be generic encounters and locations in the style of Storm of Zehyr's worldmap spawns, or are you planning on making each encounter and location unique and (in the former's case) one-time-only?

Edited February 22, 2017 by algroth

[Leferd]

You got the overhead sailing interface. You got the boarding-action with swordfighting. Will we also see a dancing mini-game to win the affection of the Governor's daughter?

[Gromnir]

You got the overhead sailing interface. You got the boarding-action with swordfighting. Will we also see a dancing mini-game to win the affection of the Governor's daughter?

at the very least, perhaps amentep adopts virginia mayo as his board avatar.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Aarik D]

Will we find the big, scary, deadly, ship sinking sea monsters which were written about in the PoE books?

This was asked in the last stream and the answer is yes!

[Aarik D]

7. Would you like to do another Q&A sessions like this further down the road of development?

Indeed we will!

[Nail]

Question 1:

Why no multiplayer / co-op?

Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter etc. had at least co-op, and it and it was hilarious experience to play with buddies.

Deadfire intend to be the best RPG ever created, but in my estimation, it won't w/o such thing as co-op or some kind of pvp 

just because there will be Divinity: Original Sin 2.

And with ships announcement I just see such picture: 

Two different parties on ships controlled by two players encounter each other in open sea, 

battle without pauses with improved AI, so you can make a certain template what to do in battle for each party member 

when you're not controlling them yourself, something like in Dragon Age Origins, but using PoE 2 rules.

It would give so much replayability to the game!

 

Question 2:

So far in PoE 1 Fighter has the highest accuracy and deflection parameters

is it so fighter will be the best choice to multi-class due his starter deflection / accuracy stats?

eg.:

level 1 fighter / 19 barbarian (+5 accuracy +15 deflection +Constant Recovery)

level 1 fighter / 19 rogue (+15 deflection +Constant Recovery)

or there will be much higher bonuses to keep level 20 strict class?