About the July 12 Q&A livestream

[Sedrefilos]

'twas cool.

 

Yeah, too sleepy to write something; I just opened this topic so we can post stuff about the newest Q&A information here instead of spreading around in multiple topics. So someone interested only in the newst "news" can check out/discuss here.

Yeah you get my point

 

Edit: btw, the steam is here at the moment: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158677319

Edited July 13, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Lamppost in Winter]

Good idea.

I'm pleased to hear that companions will react to one another's deaths depending on their relationship (and not just because it was my question  ). I'm trying to really commit to rolling with the punches and leaving companions where they lie if I lose one this playthrough, but it's tempting to reload just because nobody even notices; I just lose some content.

[MaxQuest]

Haven't watched the full stream yet. Twitch seems to lag for me atm. But have cached a few things:

 

- It was confirmed that Serafen has a unique weapon - a hand mortar - and it's an AoE weapon. But Josh has omitted the most important thing: does the full AoE damage count towards the focus generation, or only the damage inflicted to the main target.

 

- When importing a save into Deadfire, we will re-create the character's appearance. Well that's a no-brainer) provided how different the character models/ragdolls look)

 

- There will be "systemic level scaling". In PoE1 for example there was a problem that a player could go to different locations in different order: like you arrive to Defiance Bay, and can go to Copperlane, Ondra's Gift or other district. And it was hard to balance the enemies level because of that. Interesting, does this new system mean that enemies will scale with our level?

 

- Clothing/outfit variety will go up (from like 8 in PoE1 to 32-40 in Deadfire)

 

---

There was also one thing mentioned that I find quite important: the crowd-control spells scaling. We already knew that damaging spells will have their damage scale with power_level. Spells that fire several missiles, will have the projectiles count tied to power_level. Now we also know that cc duration will scale with power_level as well. And this is a big change.

In PoE1 a level 1 and level 16 ciphers would both have the same base duration on their cc powers: 10s for Whispers of Treason for example. And in Deadfire it will scale, meaning that debilitators will be weaker at the start of the game. But hopefully cc will still be relevant in the early-mid game.

 

Arghh, can't wait to put my hand on the actual numbers

Edited July 13, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Quillon]

Not the QA stream but in the backer update video ogre hits the character with a giant as* hammer and the character doesn't even flinch. Besides there should be more visual impact-more blood/flinching; giant as* hammer-big weapons-titan's attacks etc should have very high interrupt rating, I think.

[Sedrefilos]

Not the QA stream but in the backer update video ogre hits the character with a giant as* hammer and the character doesn't even flinch. Besides there should be more visual impact-more blood/flinching; giant as* hammer-big weapons-titan's attacks etc should have very high interrupt rating, I think.

I think we can assume that many aspects of the game are work in progress, so, unless the devs state "look this is exactly how this is gonna be", especially graphics/technical-wise, we shouldn't assume what we see in the video is final.

[Quillon]

Yeah, just feedbacking

[MaxQuest]

Wow, around minute 40-41 Josh talks about reloading weapons. In essence reload will get affected by recovery coefficient. I.e. it will start benefiting from stuff like speed enchant, but will also take longer in heavier armor.

[Quillon]

I like that characters(with appropriate weps) won't literally wait out recovery, instead they'll be doing something>reloading.

[draego]

I am glad to hear stealth mechanics getting some love. So their will be a hearing radius as well as vision cone.

[Razpatory]

Not a fan of not being able to turn off the party members' attribute scores added to the Watcher's to pass checks during dialogue/scripted interactions.

What if someone's Watcher is of the bossy and arrogant leader of the group sort, the one that doesn't take any advice and rather does things suboptimal and her/his own way than to rely on any assistance whatsoever?

 

I also feel that not giving the monk class (and/or the monk-subclasses) the ability to chug alcoholic beverages midfight for a bit of "drunken" style fighting would be a huge missed opportunity.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXBH-bWUobQ

[smjjames]

 

Not the QA stream but in the backer update video ogre hits the character with a giant as* hammer and the character doesn't even flinch. Besides there should be more visual impact-more blood/flinching; giant as* hammer-big weapons-titan's attacks etc should have very high interrupt rating, I think.

I think we can assume that many aspects of the game are work in progress, so, unless the devs state "look this is exactly how this is gonna be", especially graphics/technical-wise, we shouldn't assume what we see in the video is final.

 

Yeah, in my question about the Engwithan Titan not looking as impressive as it did in the fig update, he said that it's still a work in progress as there were some things not working correctly at that time.

 

 

Not a fan of not being able to turn off the party members' attribute scores added to the Watcher's to pass checks during dialogue/scripted interactions.

What if someone's Watcher is of the bossy and arrogant leader of the group sort, the one that doesn't take any advice and rather does things suboptimal and her/his own way than to rely on any assistance whatsoever?

 

Well, you aren't forced to choose those dialogue options and there's a difference between 'we can't do it' as in it's not possible, to 'we won't' as in they aren't doing that for various reasons.

 

As for the drinking alcohol midfight, you might be happy with the nalpazca monk subclass which increases consumable duration, though wound threshold increases.

 

Also, the fact that there will be loads of ships, including some secret ones, is pretty cool.

Edited July 13, 2017 by smjjames

[hilfazer]

Wow, around minute 40-41 Josh talks about reloading weapons. In essence reload will get affected by recovery coefficient. I.e. it will start benefiting from stuff like speed enchant, but will also take longer in heavier armor.

Yeah, i was positively surprised he has answered my question. Now i can die happy.

[MaxQuest]

Zero-recovery, zero-reloading, here we come!  (hope it will be balanced enough through)

[Boeroer]

I guess zero reloading will not be possible.

[MaxQuest]

I do not really expect it either

It's rather an indirect note to lurking devs, that this is something to keep an eye on. Because it's unclear from Q&A if this is evident or not.

 

A: Speed enchant is considered by Pillars 1 equally good for all weapons while being much less powerful for weapons with reload animations. Is Deadfire going to address this issue?

JS: Yes. We're trying to make weapons with reloads—meaning Crossbows, Arbalests, and the various guns—integrate a little bit better into the whole speed economy, so that things that speed up attacks and Recovery are also going to speed up reloads, in general.

That's something we've been looking at more recently to make it flow naturally. Making Recovery the things that — instead of having a recovery buffer that goes into the reload, having the reload itself be affected by the Recovery value. Heavy armor makes reloading take longer; light armor makes it go by faster. Stuff like that. We're trying to make it seem like it works like the other mechanics.

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by MaxQuest

[smjjames]

Easy enough to test it in the dev sandbox with no armor (or basic clothes that don't have armor and no penalty to speed if they don't feel like testing the characters naked) and load up on as many speed enchantments and buffs that they can stack.

[Archaven]

Oh my Dmitri spill the big spoiler lol

[injurai]

Oh my Dmitri spill the big spoiler lol

 

Hush you!

[FlintlockJazz]

They answered two of my questions, I feel speshul!   I like the explanation for why they let players kill important NPCs even at the cost of story, which is that they realise they are working in an interactive medium, not trying to make a film or book where they cram their story or message down your throat like certain other devs do.  They are approaching the game like GMs to a tabletop RPG game, not like directors to a hollywood film.

 

+Jazz Approves.

[Archaven]

One thing i dislike is they are making the priest spell list smaller? And people find it difficult and confusing? I mean seriously?

[injurai]

Priest is confusing. There are certainly spells I never used. But with the AI system I feel that gives you more time to look through and parse all your options. So I'm not sure why they would make the set smaller. But maybe some of those spells won't have much of a purpose given some of the other changes.

[blotter]

So I'm not sure why they would make the set smaller.

 

Part of it may relate back to having the priests of different deities have their own associated lists of prohibited spells, which we've heard about before, but I'd expect that to be balanced out by the deity-specific spells that such priests gain access to.

 

I also feel that not giving the monk class (and/or the monk-subclasses) the ability to chug alcoholic beverages midfight for a bit of "drunken" style fighting would be a huge missed opportunity.

 

The benefits from the Nalpazca subclass could easily extend to alcohol consumption. [Edit: On second thought, I don't think the sentence that used to be here was particularly helpful.]

Edited July 13, 2017 by blotter

[rjshae]

Perhaps the priest spells lists will expand as you increase in level? I.e. later on you gain access to previously prohibited spells for lower levels?

[injurai]

Perhaps the priest spells lists will expand as you increase in level? I.e. later on you gain access to previously prohibited spells for lower levels?

 

Hmm that's interesting. Spell level then becomes more of a tool to denote spell strength and resource management. As opposed to group by level, which is kind of an arbitrary grouping anyways. Makes spell navigation less than ideal.

[Lamppost in Winter]

I remember possibly from one of the other Q&As is that the Priest spells will be doled out in smaller packages, and that different deities will have access to different spell lists?