I don't think going to Veteran is going to make anything harder. The dev said they didn't balance it yet and I take it to mean it is pretty much the same as classic. That is actually why the challenge achievements, like complete game on POTD, aren't in the game right now.

If you want hard, put your character in cloths, never upgrade their weapons nor use anything past power level 2…

There seems to be a mod that removes ship damage on ramming.

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/4

Obsidian should also include it in the next patch.

I tried ramming last night and 4 out of 6 crew members were injured and couldn''t participate in the boarding. My main character was targeted and wiped in a couple turns by about 10 enemies. Yeah, so maybe I should run away form these pirates before I make it to the big city?

Why are people ramming? I never used that. Just full sail until you are in boarding range and board them. Unless the ship is way higher level than you*, it shouldn't be too hard to deal with the opposing crew.

*you can only see that in the adventure window, under the ship captain's avatar. Might change in a patch, devs wants to show levels on the map instead of skulls.

People don't know better. And like I said, a mod removes ship damage from boarding, just goes to show what people think of the whole ship2ship non-sence.

@Trasher - generally speaking, avoid enemies with more than 2 swords, goes for both ships and all other encounters. 1-2 swords could be a good way to challenge yourself, if you want to. 3+ is probably not technically impossible, but not worth the bother.

Btw, changing the skull/swords would be quite stupid, so I expect they'll do it.

I didn't see any swords. Well, will try again, otherwise will try to sail away from them. They are floating right next to where my ship ins anchored on Cavern of Xaur Tuk-Tuk island, so I may be trapped. So, not so easy anymore. Good!

When you mouse over enemy ships, there are the swords (or skulls, but that's how I'm calling them) noting relative difficulty, compared to party level.

Also, not impossible to avoid them - in your situation, just wait on land until they are out of sight. All the ship follow a rather long, fixed path.

Going by some Josh's comment, prepare yourself for the nerf.

The bastard didn't move.

Like I said: I always board instead of ram. Just do 1 -> 1 -> 1 -> 1 -> board. Win the fight. The fights can be tough at low levels, in particular if your main character is squishy, as they'll get targeted. However, it's a breeze once you gain a few levels, so the whole ship aspect can be totally trivialized.

New backer update. It talks about what will be in patch 1.1 (early June):
- revamped Veteran, POTD and level scaling
- new character customizations
- skip intro option
- hundreds of fixes

and beyond which include Magran's Fires which is like the opposite of Berath's Blessings. Also, looks like the Rum Runner's Pack, available today, won't be the only free DLCs. I wonder if they will reach 16 like The Witcher 3 did, lol.

My character is in medium armor and no extra points into consitution and level 5. Got focussed fire and killed in two rounds. Doesn't seem doable to me.

Looks like I'll play it in June then…. though, if I wait that long, may as well wait until the first DLC lands in July… but what about the second and third DLCs?!?

Maybe I'll just play some more Factorio instead.

@Trasher your enemy ship haven't moved away yet? That's so weird. Did you try sinking it instead of boarding? (cannonballs, check canon range, oh and when you turn halt for one turn to increase accuracy).

Some telemetrics from Josh.
People are missing out on OP chanters before they get the nerf-scythe.

Finished the game. A few thoughts:

1) Ship to ship combat is ridiculous. All you do is press 1 to move forward until you can board the enemy vessel; that's it. That's the "strategy" …
2) Ending was satisfying, in its way. I won't give spoilers but I thought things wrapped up pretty nicely. I sided with the Huana faction.
3) Loved the sandbox nature of the game, I finished it in around 65 hours and that was with looking at pretty much everything, doing every side quest I could find, etc. I'm sure I still missed some things; my map was not complete when I finished.

All in all, I cool little game. I'm not sure I liked it as much as I liked PoE 1 but I can't put my finger on why. I think I liked having a "home base" fortress better than I liked the nautical theme of this game, but that could just be my preference.

Are there branching story lines that make it impossible to do the full game in one pass (not necessary a bad thing if done right) ?

Yes, at some point you have to choose between 1 out of 4 factions, but at the very end of it. Technically, you can do everything, except this very last quest, and then do them one at a time. Also, not all companions are "compatible" with all factions.

This is odd definetly and not because of chanters. btw I don't think chanters are OP, it's just that with the whole ruleset and existing heals/buffs/summons through stuff and by various classes, chanters feel kinda not needed in any party as everyone else can cover for them.

Cypher single not being one of most picked trio, priest being the rarest singleclass and monk being neglected and paladin not lowest everywhere… I'd never think that can happen.

Depends what you mean, if you are asking for something like The Witcher 2 than no. Doing what Polyester says is not going to allow you see all permutations of the endings either though. Some stuff is related to earlier quests than just who you sided with at the end.

Also, some side quests have 2-3 different possible resolutions (I know one with 5). Some of these resolution can cause companions to ditch you (I'm not talking about faction choices here or personal quests). You can also be blocked out of side quest resolution options based on your disposition (i.e. shady, cruel, honest, etc). Finally, POE1 ending state affect how Aloth, Edér and Pallegina react to certain things. For example, banished Pallegina and not-banished Pallegina do not have the same tolerance for final faction choices.

Personally, after playing once through the game, I think making your character as pro-faction X at the start instead of trying to please everyone all through the game would make for a better role-played storyline.

heals, buffs, summons?

I was one-shooting same level enemy ship troops with my chanter at level 13 (outside enemies above stairs, AOE can't climb stairs)…and by one-shoot, I mean killing everything with a single invocation at the start of combat without controlling where enemies are. It's even foe only. Wizards have to force stack enemies and clear allies from the area to get the same results.

I don't think the point of the game is to oneshot shipbattles, but…
For oneshot everything with any class and any level just enchant blunderbus to have bonus "bullet". If you won't abuse blunderbus enchantment, go sage, buff yourself, debuff hostiles (unlike blunderbus abuse on groups works also against single bosses) and next thing is oneshot. Monk is so OP he can solo the game easily. Etc…

I didn't say chanters are underpowered. I said chanters are not needed. Won't go call them a filler class, but almost.
Sadly I have to disagree on this since pleasing everyone is not mutually exclusive till the game finale. Eternity 2 factions are not Gothic nor Risen factions and siding with one will not change the game style nor you'll get faction specific "overpowered" equipment. Also, learning what you can about each faction by pleasing them can make you show the middlefinger to everyone and proceed on your own without backing any faction into the finale.