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You literally get no new merged spells past like mythic rank 6 (plus merged caster levels are being weird), this has been a known issue since patch 1.2 launched a month ago and they have done nothing about it. This outright breaks Lich and Angel, but hey, they released a funni April Fools patch notes today after half a month of radio silence so its all okay, right?

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over 2 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by rowleybirkin

But this isn't how merged spellbooks have worked since the launch of the game and arguably isn't really merging spellbooks anymore. u/OwlcatStarrok confirmed the current behaviour was a bug in this thread a couple of weeks back:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/tfddcm/patch_121g_is_out_with_new_content_and_fixes_for/i0vbigj/?context=3

So it seems again we need another clarification (sorry for the ping again Starrok but this is a core gameplay mechanic and this post directly contradicts your earlier confirmation).

If the discord post really is how they're going to change it then merged spellbooks are dead in the water. I find it very difficult to believe that this new behaviour is 'correct' and the old progression - which is a core mechanic that's been very well known in game since launch day - was a bug. The 'fix' wasn't even in any of the patch notes - it just changed in 1.2 without warning.

Hello! I'll check with my coallegues tomorrow and come back with an answer.

over 2 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by rowleybirkin

Thank you - really appreciate it. There's quite a bit of community interest in this, especially as it's been so long without a fix.

Heya again! I've discussed it with my coallegues. It's been a rather complicated matter. After we received a number of reports from you guys that there was a problem with the spellbook, the QA team went for a major investigation.

Here's what they discovered:

There was a major formula bug in the merged spellbooks which led to some odd things such as some levels not providing spells, game not considering some spells belonging to domain where they should have, sometimes the spellbook completely stopping to respond or behaving in other odd ways. A part of this formula bug was the incorrect calculation of spells as class+mythic level instead of class level, which apparently was never intended to work that way (team double-checked it with the design documents when it was discovered). Seems that it wasn't noticed earlier because it led to power increase and the players never reported it, thinking it was a feature.

I'm sorry for the confusion I created - it was indeed a bug, and I confirmed earlier that the work was underway, but details were not discovered at the time yet. We realize that this bit of resulting power loss isn't very fun, but it would require a major rework of the system to preserve this particular bug intact while keeping others fixed. So after a discussion between game designers a decision was made to stick to the intended design in favour of a more bug-free game rather than reverting the change and keeping all the related bugs untouched.

over 2 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by rowleybirkin

Thanks for the detailed and prompt response - it's greatly appreciated, and no apologies are necessary. There are a couple of factors that are worthy of more discussion here, if you'll indulge me.

First is that, if the 'old' method really wasn't what was intended, you guys really need to make some kind of announcement clarifying the new position - not just posts in the discord or a one-line patch note, but a blog post in Steam etc. There are a lot of players who have been holding off playing for a month or so (since 1.2, basically) on the assumption that the 'new' method was a bug that would be fixed, and most of those won't see this thread or hunt down posts in discord.

Second is that while absolutely necessary, said announcement is likely to provoke a fair amount of backlash, and you guys will need to figure out how to manage that. I've got tons of respect for you guys and love your game, but even I find it a little hard to believe that a bug of this scale on one of the most talked about aspects of character builds somehow got missed for the six months since launch (and likely long before that - did no one at Owlcat with knowledge of the original design play a merged book this whole time?). Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt (and on reading your post, I do - albeit grudgingly), most won't, and mismanagement of the response when taking away something most players love could result in disaster.

Thirdly - I urge you to pass on to the developer team how much the players have become used to and enjoy this particular 'bug', and to encourage them to undertake that major rework that would allow it to be kept while the other bugged aspects are fixed. This late after launch, the 'old' method is almost canon and mechanically speaking, losing that power spike arguably defeats most of the point behind merged books - not to mention the way the new system works can result in players getting better/worse results depending on when they time their mythic levels, which is really unintuitive and likely to result in annoyed players.

If there really is no way to return to the old method, then I would encourage the devs to look for a middle ground that could mitigate some of the loss without requiring tons of dev time.

Finally, there may also be something odd going on with unmerged books, depending on whether they're tied to a specific stat (as implied by a list on the discord) or use the highest casting stat regardless (as implied by Fextralife wiki etc.). E.g. I have an Inquisitor (WIS caster) Aeon (CHA mythic book per the discord list) with 10 CHA. On his mythic book, I get a warning that I can't have higher level spells due to low CHA, but I can still cast the ones I have and the warning is still present if I respec the character to 16 CHA. Is the warning bugged? If the mythic books do rely on a specific stat, it would be helpful to state that in the info provided when selecting mythic power type.

Thanks again for taking the time to investigate and clarify the situation, even if it wasn't the answer most of us were hoping for (and apologies for the wall of text, lol).

Hi again! It may feel very different from your side, of course, but the numbers available to me indicate that the issue may not be as big as it may feel. According to the bug database, there's just around 15-ish reports about it total since 1.2. If you look intently at the threads about this issue, they are also not too big (point me if I'm wrong) in comparison with others.

That's very minor. For comparison, some bugs, even mythic-specific (which means it's just a minor % of the playerbase), have a history of gathering multiple hundreds or sometimes even thousands of reports.

Being a player of many games and knowing how a nerf feels, I can feel your pain here, but currently stats don't really justify a serious investment of resources into this matter =(

over 2 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by rowleybirkin

That's fair enough, thanks for responding. One concern though is that the notes only mention Oracle/Angel, but Lich and other merged books are affected. I've not played a merged Oracle but their spell mechanics are quite different iirc - are Lich and other merged books affected in the same way (i.e. spells on character level up are no longer CL+ML, just CL)? Were they intended to be?

Also, any thoughts on the unmerged book issue?

Sorry if I'm taking up too much of your time!

It should be there for all similar cases, as far as I'm aware. Issue was global. If there's any evidence of Lich etc. being different, please let me know.