Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Patch 1.1 adjusts difficulty, adds an intro skip, performance related fixes

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire devs Obsidian pushed out the first major patch for the game yesterday. Among early discussions that found several parts of the game too easy, the patch mostly focuses on rebalancing a ton of skills as well as reworking the difficulty of the "Path of the Damned" mode. There are also a few interesting feature additions, such as the ability to skip the narrative intro to the game as well as performance related fixes for areas that originally ran poorly, like Queen's Berth.

As a footnote, a free DLC was also released yesterday to add 7 new hair and beard styles to the game. 

We've included the first part of the patch notes below, but there are far far more at the link above. 

New Features & Updates

• Intro Skip Added
  • There is now a Start & Skip Intro button that brings the player directly to the second level of the game.
  • This feature becomes available after you have played through the intro once, or loaded a save (after getting the update).
• Veteran & PotD Balance Improvements
  • Armor and Penetration now scale up on PotD.
  • Many encounters have had units swapped out for tougher versions.
  • Some encounters have had units added or set to ambush the party during the encounter.
• Additional Custom AI support and updates:
  • All Conditionals have now been categorized in the Custom AI menu.
  • The AI Toggle button on the ability bar now supports cycling through: Attacking while using Abilities, Attacking while not using Abilities, and Not using AI.
  • The following actions can now be conditionalized in Custom AI: Using Consumable quick slot items, Activating Modals, Switching Weapon Sets, and Basic Weapon Attacking.
• Ship Resupply
  • A  new "Refill Ship Supplies" button can now be used to conveniently purchase ship supplies from any storefront that sells Medical Supplies, Cannon Shot, and Repair Supplies.
• World Map Legend Added
  • A new Map Legend has been added that allows all icons on the World Map to be filtered by category.
• Character Appearance Improvements
  • Character Appearance can now be changed in-game via the Appearance button on the Inventory screen (Player and adventurers only).
  • Character Hairstyles are now rendered naturally with some Hats.
  • Eye Color customization has been added.
• Graphics options expanded
  • Six new toggles have been added to the Graphics menu to enable/disable certain visual features including Weather Effects, Lights, and Combat Text.
• News Feed Updated
  • The News Feed on the Main Menu has been revamped to include links to the latest articles, DLC, and social media.