Backer Beta Update 1: Patch Notes

[Sking]

Hey you bunch of affable gamers,

 

Our update is now live! To gain access to the Backer Beta, visit this (Forum Link) for step by step instructions. This is a Beta and will most definitely contain a few issues. Please report any issues you find here (Forum Link). 

 

Backer Beta Builds where and when?

Mac: Steam and GoG are live now

Win: Steam and GoG are live now

Linux: Steam and GoG are live now

 

We have some pretty hefty patch notes for you. Below you will find; New Content, System Changes, Bug Fixes, and Known Issues.

 

NEW CONTENT

Prepatch (Build 4) saves are not compatible and will not be available in the Save/Load Menu with this patch (Build 21). We are still ironing out some save/load issues on our end and don't want you all to run into unnecessary issues.

 

A new uncharted Island - A new island has been added to the world map.

 

Custom Party AI - Our complete AI system will be available. This system still has some rough edges but should be functional. Hit it and tell us what you think.

 

Mac/Linux versions both on GoG and Steam - These builds are very 'fresh' with many unexplored pieces. We would love some feedback/bugs on these.

 

Walk Toggle - The long awaited walk toggle has been added. RP your hearts out J

 

SYSTEM CHANGES

We listened closely to all of your feedback over the past month, and are rolling out some changes to improve gameplay.

 

Injuries:

Updated Injuries so that only some Injury types will reduce Max Health. When they do, they'll reduce it by 15%, rather than 25%. Players will still die when gaining their 4^th Injury, even if none of the Injuries they have reduce MaxHealth.

 

Here are the Injuries that affect MaxHealth:

• Fatigued
• Frail
• Major Injury
• Critical Injury
• Maimed
• Severe Wound

Here are the Injuries that don't:

• Acute Rash
• Bruised Ribs
• Concussion
• Frostbite
• Burned
• Smashed Hands
• Sprained Wrist
• Swollen Eye
• System Shock
• Twisted Ankle
• Wrenched Knee
• Wrenched Shoulder

Interrupt:

Modified a couple of abilities whose primary purpose is to interrupt targets, so that they will Interrupt on Graze or better, rather than Hit or better. This affects the following abilities:

• Fighter: Knockdown and Mule Kick
• Monk: Force of Anguish, Wave of Force, and Skyward Kick
• Ranger: Concussive Shot and Concussive Tranquilizer
• Rogue: Sap and Perplexing Sap

Other interrupt abilities `either always hit, or applied an Affliction and so already got a benefit for a

Graze. They still require the character to have Grazes from another source (Fighter Confident Aim, Aware Inspiration, etc.)

 

Movement:

Reducing movement speeds to 85% of their previous amount.

 

Attributes:

In Pillars 1 and Deadfire (now), the Might and Resolve attributes affect the following:

• Might - All Damage, All Healing, Fortitude Defense
• Resolve - Concentration (Pillars 1 only), Deflection Defense, Will Defense

Players have noted the following over the past few years:

1. If you're a caster, there's often not much reason to invest in Resolve (especially in Deadfire).
2. From a *~ roleplaying ~* perspective, it feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs.

So we are making these changes for the next Backer Beta build:

• Strength - All Weapon Damage, Fortitude Defense
• Resolve - All Healing, All Spell Damage, Deflection Defense, Will Defense

For ease of use, "Weapon Damage" means anything that's an equipped weapon, from a sword to a bow to a gun to Kalakoth's Minor Blights.  This also means there's a benefit to making a high-Strength wizard (i.e., being a psycho melee "gish" wizard).

 

Spells:

Slow cast spells will use the Fast (2s base) recovery time instead of Average (3s base). The Very Slow cast spells (typically summons) will now use the Very Fast (1s base) recovery time.

 

Penetration:

Modified the Penetration system slightly, along with how Penetration displays in the mouse-over tooltip in combat.

 

When your Penetration is below the target's Armor, there is now a gradual reduction in damage. The current values are (and may be tweaked as we play with them a bit):

• -1 Pen = 75% Damage
• -2 Pen = 50% Damage
• -3 or more Pen = 25% Damage

It's still 100% damage up until you are at double Pen, and then 130% damage from there.

 

Along with this change, Penetration will now ONLY display on the combat tooltip when you are either BELOW Pen, or you don't yet know the target's Armor value for the damage type you'll deal.

 

Attack Speed:

Updated the attack speed of most 1H weapons to use an Average (3s) recovery time, instead of Fast (previously 1s). Fast recovery times are now 2s, rather than 1s. The overall result of these changes is that combat will have a slower pace as recovery times for 1H weapons is increased.

 

Here are the 1H weapons that will have a Fast (2s) recovery time. All other 1H weapons are Average recovery:

• Stiletto
• Hatchet
• Dagger
• Rapier
• Club
• Flail
• Monk Fists

As part of this change, we also looked at the overall damage ranges of weapons, with the goal of making 2H weapons a viable choice compared to 1H weapons.

 

Recovery:

Base recovery time for a Slow recovery attack is now 4s, instead of 5s. Very slow is now 7s instead of 8s.

 

More importantly, we updated the recovery penalty from armor, as follows:

• 20%: Light Armor (Leather, Hide, Padded)
• 35%: Medium Armor (Scale, Breastplate, Mail)
• 55%: Heavy Armor (Brigandine, Plate)

Graze:

All attacks can inherently Graze. We updated the Aware Inspiration to grant 50% Graze to Hit conversion, and fighter Confident Aim also grants 50% Graze to Hit (meaning Fighters who have both will hit a lot more). Grazing will reduce damage and status effect / affliction duration by 50%. We might consider having graze downgrade Tier 3 & Tier 2 afflictions, like an inherent Resistance.

 

Rogue:

• Rogue Escape ability. It now costs 1 Guile to use (previously it was 2). It is no longer removed when you choose Shadow Step/Shadowing Beyond, but it is a requirement in order to gain either of those abilities.

Ranger:

• Ranger abilities Wounding Shot, Accurate Wounding Shot, Hobbling Shot, Concussive Shot, Concussive Tranquilizer, and Stunning Shots will now work with melee weapon attacks.

Priest:

• Priests will now receive an automatic spell when they reach every new Power Level. For a single-class Priest, that's at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, and 19.
• Updated Priests so that they no longer lose access to spells based on type. IE: Eothas Priests no longer lose access to Protection spells.

Fighter:

• Mule Kick is now a standalone ability, not a Knock Down upgrade. It requires Knock Down to learn, but doesn't replace it. It now does bonus damage and will Disorient the target, and will cost 3 points to use.

Ranger:

• Wounding Shot - Since Wounding Shot and its upgrades were reduced to 1 point, tuned down the bonus Raw damage a bit.
• Marked Prey - As with Sworn Enemy, Marked Prey will now work correctly w/ ranged & AoE attacks.

Paladin:

• Paladin Orders like Priests, players were required to pick a Paladin Order during character creation. We've removed the drawbacks from picking the various Orders. 
• Lay on Hands -Greater Lay on Hands and Hands of Light are no longer upgrades to Lay on Hands. They require Lay on Hands, but do not replace it. Their effects remain the same.
• Sworn Enemy - has been updated to work correctly with ranged & AoE attacks

BUG FIXES

Thanks to all you wonderful gamers providing tons of feedback/bugs. We spent this past month addressing as many of it as we could; here are some of the highlights.

 

General Issues:

• (FIXED) Mild to severe drop in frame rate on first load. We are still in the process of optimizing our game.
• (FIXED) Some machines may crash on a black screen on first 'New Game'
• (FIXED) A few different creatures (Imp, Beetle, etc..) are missing audio
• (FIXED) Some NPCs will have abilities that activate after each transition
• (FIXED) Party will spawn halfway below the ground after destroying the Adra Pillar in Poko Kohara

Class Specific:

• (FIXED) Chanter phrase count is not updating after Save/Load
• (FIXED) Multiclass Barbarian/Priest (Shaman) lose passives
• (FIXED) Wizard/Druid/Priest 'aggressive' AI preset will mainly auto attack
• (FIXED) Mercenary Wizard is currently listed as a dwarf and gains 'Hale and Hardy' but visually is a Human

UI:

• (FIXED) Some menus are cut off in certain resolutions
• (FIXED) All tooltips regarding Action Speed, Recovery Time, and Reload Time are incorrect (Don't trust them)
• (FIXED) HUD elements may flicker/phase out of existence after a save/load cycle
• (FIXED) Adra Pillar in Poko Kohara disappears after Save/Load
• (FIXED) Player character portrait doesn't fill red to show damage after Save/Load 
• (FIXED) Loading Error that kicks to the Main Menu transitioning after Save/Load

Spells and Abilities: 

• (FIXED) Spell Levels in Ability Trees and Grimoires do not match
• (FIXED) Bull's Will Passive can be obtained twice for Multiclass Players

Miscellaneous:

• (FIXED) Off screen Character Position Portraits all display the 5^th slot party member
• (FIXED) Animation controller issue with Blights and Spores. If you Knock Down/Up either of these enemies they will be put into a bad state and combat will not end.
• (FIXED) Players can obtain infinite money or debt by buying hammer and chisels from Vektor

Combat:

• (FIXED) Mule Kick makes enemies untargettable and stuck in combat
• (FIXED) Enemies sometimes duplicate on save/load
• (FIXED) Weapon Recovery speeds are inconsistent
• (FIXED) Skeleton Sorcerers attack themselves in Poko Kohara
• (FIXED) Weapon Focus Barbarian ability is combat only (Currently being worked on)
• (FIXED) Kith (humanoid) enemies will sometimes attack themselves

KNOWN ISSUES IN THE CURRENT BACKER BETA

These issues are still a priority for us, but there is only so much time in a day and we didn't want to keep you all waiting any longer.

 

All Platforms:

• Mercenary Priest level up summary has much larger text than other characters
• Items can be duplicated in rest menu
• 'Broodmother's Fury' Loading an autosave before starting the quest will block the quest from turn in at end
• Some machines may crash when quitting to the Main Menu from within the game
• The Game doesn't boot in native resolution after installation
• Ranger 'Ghostheart' summoned spirit companions will sometimes blend into the background
• Chanter will not have audio for their abilities (Chants or invocations)

Linux:

• Loading a save outside of Tikawara and returning to Tikawara will open Character Creation
• Encounter between Ravine and Tikawara reappears
• New Game takes forever to launch character creation

Mac:

• Crash when loading an encounter autosave from a different scene
• New Game takes forever to launch character creation

[dunehunter]

Yeah update!

[aartz]

Patch day!

 

[Heijoushin]

That all sounds amazing! Thank you so much!

 

(And I enjoy the term "affable gamer")

[-dib-]

Neutral characters have blue circles! :D

[DexGames]

It feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs.

 

Made me laugh, Thank you.

Feels weird indeed, if you think about it. 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS OBSIDIAN ! 

Edited December 21, 2017 by DexGames

[Heijoushin]

On one specific note, I love the new portraits and faces!

 

EDIT:

 

For those who don't have the beta, the new portraits are:

Males

- 1 x coastal aumaua (chanter)

- 2 x dwarves

- 1 x wood elf

- 2 x pale elves

- 1 x fire godlike

- 3 x nature godlikes

- 5 x humans (2 with hoods, 2 in armor, 1 cipher)

 

Females

- 4 wood elves (1 looks like a druid, 1 a ranger, and 2 mages)

- 3 new orlan females

 

A lot more males. I wonder if there will be more females released later? Or if there were just more male backers buying portraits?

 

Humans now have 3 faces to choose from, one of which is all scarred and badass. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Lamppost in Winter]

Was there not supposed to be a Cyclopedia entry on Afflictions this update?

[Doppelschwert]

So, what happened to the hotly debated big change regarding proficiencies and general talents?

Is that in, or has it been postponed / scraped? I don't see it in the changelog.

Also, is the Devoted Bug fixed that just applied the devoted bonus to all weapons?

 

Won't be able to look into the beta myself until after work, which is in 10 hours (your update schedules aren't very kind to people in europe...).

[AndreaColombo]

Great stuff!

 

Won’t be able to check it out myself for some time ‘cause I’m on holiday, but—HOLY MOLE blue circles for neutral NPCs! :D

[Heijoushin]

So, what happened to the hotly debated big change regarding proficiencies and general talents?

Is that in, or has it been postponed / scraped? I don't see it in the changelog.

Also, is the Devoted Bug fixed that just applied the devoted bonus to all weapons?

 

Won't be able to look into the beta myself until after work, which is in 10 hours (your update schedules aren't very kind to people in europe...).

 

Devoted bug is not fixed (annoyingly) and general talents remain unchanged. Although I think a couple of abilities have been added, like the rogue's smoke bomb. (Or was that there before? I forget.)

 

I really appreciate that the shop now sells all weapons and armour. Makes it easier to create a full party. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Heijoushin

[IndiraLightfoot]

X-Mas is saved! Yay!!

[AndreaColombo]

Was an Unarmed proficiency added, by any chance?

[dunehunter]

Was an Unarmed proficiency added, by any chance?

 

Nope.

[AndreaColombo]

Oh well.

 

Still a lot to like in this update judging by the notes. Also, “Hello, 0 recovery in heavy armor for the Lady of Pain!” ;D

[dunehunter]

Hmmm both Sneak attack and Backstab is working weird, neither works with attacks from invisibility. Lay on hands is working weird too, I picked a Bleak Walker and cannot target myself with LoH.

[Jojobobo]

I always thought that Might in PoE 1 while it could be about physical strength it could also about metaphysical potency, and so it was never really a case of, "It feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs," as they could be potent without being physically muscle bound. It also seems to have made Might a dump stat for a lot of spell casting classes (though some, i.e. those using summoned weapons a lot, will still take it), whereas in PoE 1 it seemed like the original ethos was no dump stats and I think that was achieved to a reasonable extent.

 

I don't know, I guess by only tying healing to Resolve and not spell damage it would again only be relevant on tank characters, and the concept of Might effecting spell damage in a sort of metaphysical way isn't a concept some players can easily wrap their head around - so it's probably for the best. Still, it seems like there's more cut and dry situations where a stat is dumped compared to PoE 1 where an even spread was often desirable - even if some characters mainly avoided dumping Resolve just to avoid being interrupted all the time and not for any other benefit (and obviously from the class builds thread, some still did).

[Andronidas]

I always thought that Might in PoE 1 while it could be about physical strength it could also about metaphysical potency, and so it was never really a case of, "It feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs," as they could be potent without being physically muscle bound. It also seems to have made Might a dump stat for a lot of spell casting classes (though some, i.e. those using summoned weapons a lot, will still take it), whereas in PoE 1 it seemed like the original ethos was no dump stats and I think that was achieved to a reasonable extent.

 

I don't know, I guess by only tying healing to Resolve and not spell damage it would again only be relevant on tank characters, and the concept of Might effecting spell damage in a sort of metaphysical way isn't a concept some players can easily wrap their head around - so it's probably for the best. Still, it seems like there's more cut and dry situations where a stat is dumped compared to PoE 1 where an even spread was often desirable - even if some characters mainly avoided dumping Resolve just to avoid being interrupted all the time and not for any other benefit (and obviously from the class builds thread, some still did).

Couldn't you argue that metaphysical strength = resolve though?

[JerekKruger]

I always thought that Might in PoE 1 while it could be about physical strength it could also about metaphysical potency, and so it was never really a case of, "It feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs," as they could be potent without being physically muscle bound. It also seems to have made Might a dump stat for a lot of spell casting classes (though some, i.e. those using summoned weapons a lot, will still take it), whereas in PoE 1 it seemed like the original ethos was no dump stats and I think that was achieved to a reasonable extent.

 

Agreed. Other than some clunky dialogue options that equated Might with physical strength (a problem solved in Deadfire by having skills like Intimidate) this was never a problem for me and was an interesting feature of Pillars.

 

I don't know, I guess by only tying healing to Resolve and not spell damage it would again only be relevant on tank characters, and the concept of Might effecting spell damage in a sort of metaphysical way isn't a concept some players can easily wrap their head around - so it's probably for the best.

 

I don't agree. It's a big problem for me that my imported spellcasters will have to suddenly change their fundamental physical and mental capabilities if they want to keep the same role they had in Pillars. If the system had never been as it was in the first place it would have been fine, but now it just makes Deadfire not feel like a sequel to Pillars. I really hope Obsidian change their mind on this and go with another solution to Resolve being a dump stat (which it still is for non-spellcasters by the way, and for spellcasters Might is now).

Edited December 21, 2017 by JerekKruger

[TheisEjsing]

Seems like christmas came early this year! Yeeeeeeeah!

[Sedrefilos]

Anyone gonna youtube footage from new build/area? I'd love to see, so if one does can you be so kind as to post it here somewhere? Thnx

[MaxQuest]

I'm glad that grazes are back. Even if you didn't succeed in landing a lasting cc, you at least get a x0.5 time-window to recast it. (imho it's better than downgrading, provided that you want to keep hard-cc viable; because hard-cc requires a certain degree of reliability)

 

Also it's nice to see having recovery values and penalties brought closer to those of PoE1. Although casting durations on summoned weapons and some of the spells and powers is still atrocious. E.g. Whispers of Treason: [6s + 2s] in Beta2 vs [2.8s + 0.27s] in PoE1. Speeding these up x2 wouldn't hurt.

And it won't even feel that fast, because of the Slow mode and pauses.

 

Regarding [MIG + RES] vs [sTR + RES]. Personally I like both directions. Although both of them have their own shortcomings, I think that balance related problems can be mediated for both of them via additional tuning and talents. So it all comes to what we want?:

- weapon damage dealing casters to be also able to deliver decent spell damage | (high MIG/PER/DEX)

- cc-focused offtanks to be also able to deliver decent spell damage | (high RES/PER/DEX)

Edited December 21, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Awww maaaann! I'm not at home - stupid holidays!

[SChin]

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS OBSIDIAN ! 

 

Merry Christmas, Dex!

[AndreaColombo]

Had a quick look on my dad’s computer. I was honestly disappointed that summoned weapons still have a 6s casting time. Until they are made fast cast, they’ll remain entirely worthless.

 

Pretty great not to have the flickering UI issue anymore though

Edited December 21, 2017 by AndreaColombo