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Regarding the difficulty touch-up, I think the fact that we have only heard Josh mention it once in a stream, and him not wanting to commit on a rough point in time when it may be ready, means that they haven't even tried to estimate how much work it will be yet. It must be just something he knows he will get to, when other issues are cleared. I doubt it will be more people than him and 2-3 other designers going through all the encounters in the whole game. I imagine the rebalance will arrive around September with the first DLC. But yeah, it's just a speculation.
You were digging in the files a bit, how does level scaling work?
Do the enemies get appropriate abilities or just the per level defenses+accuracy? Just giving them the same stuff you have at higher levels would likely be enough to fix stuff, before any time consuming encounter redesigning.
Sawyer spent years talking about the importance of proper tuning and balancing to ensure a consistent level of challenge throughout. He then made PoE, an RPG where you can't even make it halfway through before hitting the level cap.
Sawyer spent years condemning RPG romances as masturbatory fantasies. Then, when taking on the role of narrative lead, he brought us Deadfire's romances, surpassing even Dragon Age 2 in the amount of player-sexual romances.
What Sawyer says rarely lines up with what he actually implements in his games, even when given full control.
He whined specifically that great swords/sabers being overabundant was the result of backer designed items, he was fuming while speaking about it, promised the DLCs will bring in diversity.
Played a bit, patched, PoTD, all level scaling on, no priest, me druid/fury (little evil orlan bandit girl) so no heals on druid. This is quite recommended setup for having more fun. I even use potions.
Ambushed eothasian caravan and slaughtered everyone. Eder ignored this. Eh.
Oh I remember that shit.
I can't believe they let it that way. It's like, Edér is your only potential companion here. This is the very first world map CYOA sequence, supposed to showcase these little scenes to the player.
If the player is at least a minimum curious, he'll see that Edér is not only "pro-eothasian" but also "anti-anti-eothasian" or some shit.
It's truely baffling. At least put reactivity here, and pretend that it's how it's gonna work for the rest of the game. It was a super obvious occasion to do that.
I suspect their design philosophy is "let's not hurt the player's freedom of choice with nonsense like consistency or this companion system we introduced. And promoted."
What the fuck.
It's only bad if you've been feeling overpowered since level 10 and you keep getting more and more op. If you've been running with a full party all the way through, BG1 lets you hit level cap at very-late-game, I usually hit it in the lower levels of Durlag's Tower. That is also a solution. High level challenges are good and can get very creative due to the diversity of tools at your disposal. PoE1 didn't do this, however, with very few exceptions. Deadfire also doesn't. Where's the balance, Sawyer?
Played a bit, patched, PoTD, all level scaling on, no priest, me druid/fury (little evil orlan bandit girl) so no heals on druid. This is quite recommended setup for having more fun. I even use potions.
Ambushed eothasian caravan and slaughtered everyone. Eder ignored this. Eh.
I hit the level cap a lot later than other people seemed to, but then I saved bounties and Caed Nua for endgame so I'd have plenty of soulbound fodder. The bounties especially shower you with an insane amount of xp
So this assassin in Delver's Row, has anyone hired him ?
Can he be used for the vendetta quest ? For rauatai last quest before El Dorado ?
Who are his potential targets ?
I think you can only use him for the quest down there? I killed him, he has a pretty sweet stiletto and an epik chase sequence (Which... bugged out for me, so I ended up killing him before I started the scripted chase sequence)
You were digging in the files a bit, how does level scaling work?
Do the enemies get appropriate abilities or just the per level defenses+accuracy? Just giving them the same stuff you have at higher levels would likely be enough to fix stuff, before any time consuming encounter redesigning.
It's two properties, specified in an object which defines a CharacterStats - MinLevelAdjustment, and MaxLevelAdjustment. In the same object, there is a property called BaseClassLevel which takes a number.
Aside from CharacterStats objects, all "characters" in the game also have a BaseStats objects. The BaseStats object for a creature contains its, I guess, starting (at BaseClassLevel) defenses, its starting Accuracy for Melee and Ranged (these can be made to be different), its starting HP and its HP per level.
Each ability has a MinCharacterLevel and MinPowerLevel requirements, two properties of type Number.
That's the data we can see, but how is it used by the game? I guess when you load the game it will adjust their level according to yours if you have scaling enabled, and will scale down or up their defenses, accuracy, HP, and Power level. Since possible abilities are determined by power level, new abilities should be unlocked, or locked out when the power level is adjusted, according to the MinLevelAdjustment/MaxLevelAdjustment.
So, the short answer is, I'm pretty certain upscaled enemies will use higher level abilities. It's also highly likely that AI scripts are tied to level - would make sense, given that there is some info on AI in the gamedatabundle files, and that creatures gain new abilities with level. Until Obsidian release documentation (provided they ever do it) we'll have to ask them to confirm.
You've already lost Darth Roxor, one of your favorite people (anyone who even remotely likes AoD is automatically one of your favorite people ), to this nefarious game.
What are you gonna do if Vault Dweller likes it - leave again, or commit seppuku with your signed physical copy of Dungeon Rats?
Arkemyr should really do something about his security system on ng+. Grand Heist on lvl 5 was complete success. Used one consumable to bust Ydwin mechanics in vault itself but otherwise his shop and manor is just free loot.
That's the data we can see, but how is it used by the game? I guess when you load the game it will adjust their level according to yours if you have scaling enabled, and will scale down or up their defenses, accuracy, HP, and Power level. Since possible abilities are determined by power level, new abilities should be unlocked, or locked out when the power level is adjusted, according to the MinLevelAdjustment/MaxLevelAdjustment.
So, the short answer is, I'm pretty certain upscaled enemies will use higher level abilities. It's also highly likely that AI scripts are tied to level - would make sense, given that there is some info on AI in the gamedatabundle files, and that creatures gain new abilities with level. Until Obsidian release documentation (provided they ever do it) we'll have to ask them to confirm.
I've created a level scaling mod and while testing it I noticed that a same creature would get different bonus levels when spawned at different locations. The only logical explanation I have is that the amount of bonus levels enemy gets above its base level depends on the difference between the current player's level and the current location level (where the creature is spawned) rather than on the difference between the player's level and the enemy's base level.
Arkemyr should really do something about his security system on ng+. Grand Heist on lvl 5 was complete success. Used one consumable to bust Ydwin mechanics in vault itself but otherwise his shop and manor is just free loot.
Yeah I still have a couple of locations I didn't explore, but it would just be a bore with shitty combat.
I'm thinking about trying a non-priest party, or maybe a non-healer party altogether. That might make the game enough of a challenge until the patches hopefully beef up the difficulty.
Maybe the DLCs will be epic level romps with culminating fights as difficult as Twisted Rune in BG2.
I like the idea of characters reaching their ability peak (max level) while still having to fight progressively tougher encounters. Some characters might not even be able to reach epic levels, just because they don't have the potential.
Anyway, having played maybe half of 2nd playthrough, a lot of quests have nicely open-ended design. Arkermyr's mansion can be approached in like 7 different ways, the same goes for family feud quest and many of the others. It's not just side with these guys or with other guys, there's variables within the quest chains themselves.
Excellent story, Sherry. For myself, my character is Promethea, a female elven wizard who hails from Rauatai. She thirsts insatiably for knowledge (I found that this character trait dovetailed nicely with the first game's theme of the quest for knowledge invariably being frustrated) and I make a point of always selecting the dialogue option that is a question if one is available. She is more interested in the acquisition of knowledge than its dissemination, so at the end of the game she considers herself privileged to have the extremely rare knowledge of the true nature of the Gods, and felt no need to share it with anyone. In the first game she became close friends with Zahua, whose quest for enlightment via suffering mirrored her own suffering on the path to her own enlightenment. In the five years between games she studied the ways of the Nalpazca and is now closer to enlightment than ever thanks to her constant use of various drugs. I am maybe halfway through the game, judging by the play times given by other players who have completed the adventure, and I don't know yet what the Deadfire has in store for Promethea, but I know that even if a piece of her soul had not been stolen, and even had she not being charged by the gods with hunting down Eothas, she would be questing to find him all the same, for one simple reason: he is something she does not know.
Nice to meet you 2house2fly you are always welcome aboard! It is very important to me too having a good character background to maintain a role-playing standard throughout the game and with dying and being brought back to life Cipher seemed to fit that multiclass option where before I thought using Druid as the multiclass-class would do. After going through that intro when it came time to recreate my character Cipher won out over Druid. And gosh is a Witch lots of fun to play. Let me introduce you to Orange Windrippler! okay? Okay!
Level 5 Witch
Boreal Dwarf
The White that Wends - Explorer
Barbarian (Corpse-Eater)
Cipher (Soul Blade)
Might 15 (+15% Damage and Healing, +10 Fortitude)
Constitution 11 (+5 Health, +2 Fortitude)
Dexterity 12 (+6 Action Speed and +4 Reflex)
Perception 11 (+1 Accuracy, and +2 Reflex)
Intellect 21 (+110% Area of Effect, +55% Ability Duration, and +22 Will)
Resolve 11 (-3% Hostile Effect Duration, +1 Deflection, and +2 Will)
Her base damage is +15% from her might because she is tough from The White That Wends along with her new Cipher ability Biting Whip, grants +30% damage along with an additional +15 damage from two-handed specialization and her Barbarian ability Carnage offer 33% of Base Weapon Damage in a nice 110% Area of Effect from her intelligence! Her two weapons of choice is dual-wielding wands for range combat when she needs to eat to heal from her Corpse Eater subclass otherwise sticks with her two-handed pike to support the line with massive damage and critical strikes so she can continue to feast in battle to heal herself.
So with all the experience I have from playing Pillars of Eternity to play DEADFIRE I picked expert mode veteran because in Pillars I opted not to see the choices in dialog I was missing out on and instead role-played only the options available so that is what I am doing this time around again because it just feels a lot more natural to play the game this way and veteran is for veterans of this type of game so if you are not familiar with these sort of role-playing games it is okay if you pick something that is not going to be so tough on you or unforgiving right?
There are lots of fun dialog choices that Orange makes use of too so things have gone very well for her since being brought back to life. I take screens too during the story so I can share a few here with you from the beginning of the game but they will be put in those spoiler tags because I do not want to spoil any of the fun for anyone else who has not started yet.
gosh this response was so perfect upon waking back in my body and Orange whispered it just loud enough for that Benweth to hear!
And I lied with this because Orange did not like what they were doing to the Adra and did not want Clario to continue the research.
But even with all the fun and exploring available this still bothers me sooooooooo much because if you look at my Pillars choices not once did Orange ever, ever hurt a dragon but instead always helped them so this is p. bad to read this so pretty upsetting I just hope in my future a dragon does not swoop down and block my path claiming I killed its sister in Pillars and then forces me to fight the dragon when I am an ally to dragons and never hurt one of them in Pillars.
And Sherry the boat!!!! :D
This weekend sometime in the evenings Orange will be set to explore Neketaka! Very excited.
Okay that is all and played an extra 7 hours today too which puts me at 30hrs of playing at Level 5 (Restarted and got Orange back to Neketaka for the weekend session) so thank-you for sharing your story about Promethea she sounds well thought of for a long role-playing session.
Anyway, having played maybe half of 2nd playthrough, a lot of quests have nicely open-ended design. Arkermyr's mansion can be approached in like 7 different ways, the same goes for family feud quest and many of the others. It's not just side with these guys or with other guys, there's variables within the quest chains themselves.
Yeah, pity the "secret" underground access is so easily available, and without any warning, but yeah, the game really rewards stealth approach, for those who like to scout ahead and find holes in security.
A 21 intelligence is about six higher than the 99th percentile for dwarves. Jesus Christ, how could anyone make such a Mary Sue? Are you roleplaying as Sherry while playing this video game?
It is very important to me too having a good character background to maintain a role-playing standard throughout the game and with dying and being brought back to life Cipher seemed to fit that multiclass option where before I thought using Druid as the multiclass-class would do. After going through that intro when it came time to recreate my character Cipher won out over Druid. And gosh is a Witch lots of fun to play. Let me introduce you to Orange Windrippler! okay? Okay! 
:D
