Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[IHaveHugeNick]

There's not much else to it.

PoE1 itemization in a nutshell.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Let's spawn twice as many enemies on the hardest difficulty, so they can run around the frontline! Let's give half the enemies teleport abilities, or spawn them behind the fight, or give them some other bs ability to jump on the backline (Ondrite Monks come to mind in PoE). Oh, and if that's not enough, I know, let's inflate their stats to the point that it takes 3 level 8 spells to kill one pleb cocksucker! Let's give dragons insta-gib breath, and 360 cone cc, and 30 ads, cause why not?

The end result of this shit is Sawyer somehow managed to convert the fun well organized DnD fights of Baldur's Gate into complete clusterfucks, half the enemies constantly riding your backline, everybody constantly pushed/pulled out of position, and non-stop CC spam.

You seem to be upset as fuck about the fact that AI behaves in an actually intuitive way - i.e. ignoring low threat tin cans and going straight for more dangerous glass cannons (though this is the case more in Tyranny than in PoE), which is what any human player would also do. When facing a group of multiple different mobs who are you focusing on in the first place - slow, low DPS, high miss ratio HP sponges, or rather low HP but more lethal backline of mages/ciphers/rogues? It's like you're butthurt because AI is not retarded.

This is bullshit logic. It makes sense that ranged enemies would target high priority targets behind the frontlines (if they can get close enough), but for melee enemies, it makes no sense. Do you know why? Because by going deep into enemy lines to pursue their backline, you are putting yourself in a really dangerous position. So no. If you ever watched real combat, you'd know frontlines exist for a reason, and people don't just ignore them. Also, unlike PoE, in most combat situations, everyone and their mother doesn't have magical teleports.

As for the dragon fights - they are supposed to be hard and all are optional, what the fuck else would you want?

Just because they are optional doesn't mean they should be retarded.

 

[Namutree]

PoE is not terrible or anything, but it has 2 major problems, imo:

1. Everything is overwritten. The plot itself is good (mostly), the lore is good, the base dialogue is good, but whenever 2 sentences would do, they write 5-6. So you end up with a lot of overwritten filter to read through that adds nothing but annoyance. If they pared every dialogue down to essential parts, it would significantly improve.

2. The combat, in a dumb nod to powergamers/munchkins, is horrible. It has many of the same problems as Kingmaker, they basically look at BG games, which had excellent combat, and think oh it's too easy for powergamers, let's make it a lot more challenging. And almost every way in which they make it challenging destroys fun. Old school RPGs had a nice organization to them, tanks in front, healers and mages behind, everything was smooth and fun.The new gen iso games (with some exceptions) have tons of mobs that ignore the frontline and have ways of getting to the backline. And all mobs in PoE can cc, many don't even need to take a dedicated action to CC, they just fucking CC out of their ass by being near you. So the end result is a fucking messy blob of shit in every fight, with enemies all over your backline, tanks next to useless, and the entire game coming down to CC or be CC'ed. This is not fun at all.

In all honesty, I must agree with the item n. 1 even though I find that (sometimes) a good thing in RPGs myself.
The item n. 2 seems rather incorrect.
a. It's not a *bad* combat AI where an enemy tries to target your backline all the while the PCs have much more similar means to stop such attempts. It's actually what RPGs strive for in general.
b. The beginning of the game tends to be rather inconsistent in PC-to-Enemy stats ratio. I give you that. But that lasts only for like 2 hours or so. So, yeah every other mob has got some de-buffing attack. However, if the PC is on the same or higher level, it's rarely a concern because a mob rarely even properly hits, much less conveys added effects with such grazes--if the PC's gear is at least at an okay level or better. Also, PCs have way more skills in that regard. And if the mob is higher at levels, well, what do you expect? Lvl 3 PC "I kinda know how to swing in three directions and I've learned how to throw a javelin the other day." beating fighters from a renown goblin tribe who have fought in plethora of skirmishes, using guerilla and team tactics, gobbling up potions for dinner for many years?
c. Tanks are not useless. Paying the price of engagement-break works, interrupts, action speed, assessing enemy assasins and glass-cannons and targeting them as soon as possible works, PC's CC work, PC's debuffs work, Mages casting Iron Skins, Priests casting Inspirations, Barbarians shouting -5 debuffs, etc., all that works. You are entitled to not like what PoE combat looks like, but the above seen accussations of the combat mechanics seem ignorant at best.

Which difficulty did you play it on? Maybe on storybook mode it's different, but on Hard/PotD, tanks are nearly useless. They can hold a few trash mobs, but because there are way more enemies (with enemy summons, you are routinely swamped with twice the number of enemies on PotD for example), enemies often run around the tanks and beeline for the backline, many enemies have abilities to teleport to the backline directly, if you try to bottleneck the enemy, the dumb AI often puts tanks out of position and enemies run through to the backline, etc. With enemies constantly cc'ing your entire party in a billion different ways, that also adds ways for them to get at the backline on the regular.

And before someone says something dumb, this is not about the difficulty, I am close to completing the game on PotD/Expert Mode, I completed similarly designed Kingmaker on one of the harder difficulties, I am just saying this approach kills fun. Different roles used to be distinct, combat was organized and fun, now it's all a giant clusterfuck every time, and the backline spends most of the time trying to escape aggro and casting cc spam.

I play the game on those difficulties too. Tanks are fine and useful. It's extremely easy to get enemies to target them and to make them almost unkillable. If YOU can't make use them it's unironically probably a skill issue.

 

[Namutree]

To be fair, tanks aren't very useful. I had a Paladin tank at one point and was constantly disappointed and wished it could do more.

I love Paladins, but, to make good use of them, you have to make your MC a paladin as they get more of a defense boost than NPCs do, and it usually works best with a multi-paladin team. So... two paladins all giving your team buffs, along with Chanters, summoning items, or maybe even some rangers. Generally, you want to spam low quality units as your multi-paladins buffs will make them decent.

Ideally tanks have a second utility outside of just tanking. Such as Paladin's Buff or Chanters summoning Phantom and then Ogres.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Didn't they nerf the paladins too? Deity bonuses on Charname if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Lacrymas]

Paladins do have the highest defenses regardless of whether they are the PC, but if played like tanks they are severely limited in what they can do. The whole tank thing is quite sus in general like I said.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

PoE is not terrible or anything, but it has 2 major problems, imo:

1. Everything is overwritten. The plot itself is good (mostly), the lore is good, the base dialogue is good, but whenever 2 sentences would do, they write 5-6. So you end up with a lot of overwritten filter to read through that adds nothing but annoyance. If they pared every dialogue down to essential parts, it would significantly improve.

2. The combat, in a dumb nod to powergamers/munchkins, is horrible. It has many of the same problems as Kingmaker, they basically look at BG games, which had excellent combat, and think oh it's too easy for powergamers, let's make it a lot more challenging. And almost every way in which they make it challenging destroys fun. Old school RPGs had a nice organization to them, tanks in front, healers and mages behind, everything was smooth and fun.The new gen iso games (with some exceptions) have tons of mobs that ignore the frontline and have ways of getting to the backline. And all mobs in PoE can cc, many don't even need to take a dedicated action to CC, they just fucking CC out of their ass by being near you. So the end result is a fucking messy blob of shit in every fight, with enemies all over your backline, tanks next to useless, and the entire game coming down to CC or be CC'ed. This is not fun at all.

In all honesty, I must agree with the item n. 1 even though I find that (sometimes) a good thing in RPGs myself.
The item n. 2 seems rather incorrect.
a. It's not a *bad* combat AI where an enemy tries to target your backline all the while the PCs have much more similar means to stop such attempts. It's actually what RPGs strive for in general.
b. The beginning of the game tends to be rather inconsistent in PC-to-Enemy stats ratio. I give you that. But that lasts only for like 2 hours or so. So, yeah every other mob has got some de-buffing attack. However, if the PC is on the same or higher level, it's rarely a concern because a mob rarely even properly hits, much less conveys added effects with such grazes--if the PC's gear is at least at an okay level or better. Also, PCs have way more skills in that regard. And if the mob is higher at levels, well, what do you expect? Lvl 3 PC "I kinda know how to swing in three directions and I've learned how to throw a javelin the other day." beating fighters from a renown goblin tribe who have fought in plethora of skirmishes, using guerilla and team tactics, gobbling up potions for dinner for many years?
c. Tanks are not useless. Paying the price of engagement-break works, interrupts, action speed, assessing enemy assasins and glass-cannons and targeting them as soon as possible works, PC's CC work, PC's debuffs work, Mages casting Iron Skins, Priests casting Inspirations, Barbarians shouting -5 debuffs, etc., all that works. You are entitled to not like what PoE combat looks like, but the above seen accussations of the combat mechanics seem ignorant at best.

Which difficulty did you play it on? Maybe on storybook mode it's different, but on Hard/PotD, tanks are nearly useless. They can hold a few trash mobs, but because there are way more enemies (with enemy summons, you are routinely swamped with twice the number of enemies on PotD for example), enemies often run around the tanks and beeline for the backline, many enemies have abilities to teleport to the backline directly, if you try to bottleneck the enemy, the dumb AI often puts tanks out of position and enemies run through to the backline, etc. With enemies constantly cc'ing your entire party in a billion different ways, that also adds ways for them to get at the backline on the regular.

And before someone says something dumb, this is not about the difficulty, I am close to completing the game on PotD/Expert Mode, I completed similarly designed Kingmaker on one of the harder difficulties, I am just saying this approach kills fun. Different roles used to be distinct, combat was organized and fun, now it's all a giant clusterfuck every time, and the backline spends most of the time trying to escape aggro and casting cc spam.

I play the game on those difficulties too. Tanks are fine and useful. It's extremely easy to get enemies to target them and to make them almost unkillable. If YOU can't make use them it's unironically probably a skill issue.

Ok, fanboy. This is why I beat these games on hardest difficulty settings first (see achievement screenshot posted earlier), to show moronic fanboys like you that it's NOT a skill issue. Stop shilling so hard, kiddo.

 

[Decado]

The low sales for PoE 2 come down to absolutely shit marketing

dont be dumb

people just didnt like PoE 1 enough, its crystal clear

I loved PoE1 , bought PoE2 played couple of hours and never came back, it just didn't felt like PoE1 sequel game to me. A lot of folks during production of PoE2, backers from PoE1 who were at that time backers for PoE2, on Obsidian forums, were saying that they don't like the way game is going, calling out some stuff, Obsidian didn't listen, they withdrew their backing.

I don't agree that PoE2 didn't sell well exclusively because people didn't like PoE1. Also have to say Versus Evil publisher marketing was bad reaching new players imo.

I'm thinking to start a new playthrough PoE1 PoTD+Expert after couple of years of non-playing, then gonna give a PoE2 another shot, who knows maybe I will like it this time .

Versus Evil is a terrible, incompetent publisher. Their whole shtick is "We publish indies! Fuck the corporations! Gnaaaa!" *left wing horseshit and foaming at the mouth*

Even their name gives it away, "Versus Evil" is supposedly them (virtuous indie publisher) against the "Evil Corporations." So everyone knows this and refuses to deal with them because nobody wants to put up with their horseshit. They have a reputation of being difficult to work with, they have terrible press relationships (even the shitty left-wing games press doesn't want to deal with them), and they have to recruit streamers on a webpage and invite them to fill out a form (lol) because they have no relationships with streamers and YouTubers. Everything about their operation is shitty and underpowered, but they have a good looking website so people think they are competent.

 

[Decado]

whats a good 2handed build for potd? was thinking of a fighter with greatsword, is it worth it to pump dex for attack speed?

Barbarian with a great sword (St. Rumbalt) was a great character but that was on hard, I don't know how well he'd do on PotD because of the damage. Barbs do tend to get the shit kicked out of them, at least in the beginning.

 

[Piotrovitz]

This is bullshit logic. It makes sense that ranged enemies would target high priority targets behind the frontlines (if they can get close enough), but for melee enemies, it makes no sense. Do you know why? Because by going deep into enemy lines to pursue their backline, you are putting yourself in a really dangerous position. So no. If you ever watched real combat, you'd know frontlines exist for a reason, and people don't just ignore them. Also, unlike PoE, in most combat situations, everyone and their mother doesn't have magical teleports.

It's a perfectly valid logic/tactic to run through low-threat tanks and aim for deadliest chars first, before they'll nuke you from the backline.

I'll ask again - what would you do in a fight with similar group - would you focus your resources on slow and harmless HP sponge in the front that cannot hit shit or hits for minimum dmg, or rather go straight to the backrow glass cannons that can decimate you or CC the shit out of you in matter of seconds?

As for mobs that can teleport/pull you - there are only few of them, mostly in the endgame/WM2, so don't act like it's a common thing through all the game.

As for the dragon fights - they are supposed to be hard and all are optional, what the fuck else would you want?

Just because they are optional doesn't mean they should be retarded.

They're not retarded - they're hard, but in a reasonable and fair way. If you know what you're doing you can beat them all on POTD after few attempts and getting to see how the mobs are positioned, who you should disable first, which type of defense to target etc. Like someone above said, you probably lack skill, hence all the complaining.

You're bragging how you finished it on POTD/expert and pasting potato stamps to prove it, but given all the whining above something tells me that you're just some low skill that somehow managed to slog through the game after reloading every fight several times and now has to blow off some steam by crying how the game is unfair or how dragon fights are retarded. Git gud.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Paladins do have the highest defenses regardless of whether they are the PC, but if played like tanks they are severely limited in what they can do. The whole tank thing is quite sus in general like I said.

Chanter was the strongest "tank" in the MMO sense in vanilla Pillars, but building an Engagement Fighter with Defender Stance was a very effective strategy on PotD, Paladins were the strongest party buffers, as Priests kind of run out of spells quickly.

 

[Decado]

Paladins do have the highest defenses regardless of whether they are the PC, but if played like tanks they are severely limited in what they can do. The whole tank thing is quite sus in general like I said.

Chanter was the strongest "tank" in the MMO sense in vanilla Pillars, but building an Engagement Fighter with Defender Stance was a very effective strategy on PotD, Paladins were the strongest party buffers, as Priests kind of run out of spells quickly.

Biggest problem with Paladins as tanks was their inherent lack of engagement abilities/opportunities. They do have super-high defenses but their ability to tie up enemies and control the battlefield is limited, plus they don't have access to things like Knock Down and Clear Out which are enormously helpful to survivability. That said, I'm sure there's a Paladin build out there that has solo'd the Adra Dragon on PotD or w/e, so what the hell do I know?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

This is bullshit logic. It makes sense that ranged enemies would target high priority targets behind the frontlines (if they can get close enough), but for melee enemies, it makes no sense. Do you know why? Because by going deep into enemy lines to pursue their backline, you are putting yourself in a really dangerous position. So no. If you ever watched real combat, you'd know frontlines exist for a reason, and people don't just ignore them. Also, unlike PoE, in most combat situations, everyone and their mother doesn't have magical teleports.

It's a perfectly valid logic/tactic to run through low-threat tanks and aim for deadliest chars first, before they'll nuke you from the backline.

If it was a valid/logical tactic, frontlines wouldn't exist in combat, everyone would just run straight at the backline, and yet (something your chicken brains can't seem to grasp) they do. Because in real life, you can't just run through the front-line, its purpose is to stop enemies from doing that. In PoE, they introduce a lot of bullshit to enable this kind of unrealistic behavior, like magical teleports, encounters having twice as many enemies as you so they can just swarm you, enemies having such stat bloat that taking disengagement hits is irrelevant, etc.

I'll ask again - what would you do in a fight with similar group - would you focus your resources on slow and harmless HP sponge in the front that cannot hit shit or hits for minimum dmg, or rather go straight to the backrow glass cannons that can decimate you or CC the shit out of you in matter of seconds?

It's not a matter of what you would theoretically do, but instead of what you are able to do. The frontline is in front of you and able to be attacked, everything else, under realistic conditions without PoE's bullshit, is not.

As for mobs that can teleport/pull you - there are only few of them, mostly in the endgame/WM2, so don't act like it's a common thing through all the game.

Stop lying. There is a shit-ton of enemies in the game that can teleport, displace your party members, use cc to get past them, and other bs.

As for the dragon fights - they are supposed to be hard and all are optional, what the fuck else would you want?

Just because they are optional doesn't mean they should be retarded.

They're not retarded - they're hard, but in a reasonable and fair way. If you know what you're doing you can beat them all on POTD after few attempts and getting to see how the mobs are positioned, who you should disable first, which type of defense to target etc. Like someone above said, you probably lack skill, hence all the complaining.

You're bragging how you finished it on POTD/expert and pasting potato stamps to prove it, but given all the whining above something tells me that you're just some low skill that somehow managed to slog through the game after reloading every fight several times and now has to blow off some steam by crying how the game is unfair or how dragon fights are retarded. Git gud.

Come at me, sparky.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Paladins do have the highest defenses regardless of whether they are the PC, but if played like tanks they are severely limited in what they can do. The whole tank thing is quite sus in general like I said.

Chanter was the strongest "tank" in the MMO sense in vanilla Pillars, but building an Engagement Fighter with Defender Stance was a very effective strategy on PotD, Paladins were the strongest party buffers, as Priests kind of run out of spells quickly.

Biggest problem with Paladins as tanks was their inherent lack of engagement abilities/opportunities. They do have super-high defenses but their ability to tie up enemies and control the battlefield is limited, plus they don't have access to things like Knock Down and Clear Out which are enormously helpful to survivability. That said, I'm sure there's a Paladin build out there that has solo'd the Adra Dragon on PotD or w/e, so what the hell do I know?

They are excellent as solo as you can stack all the best items just on them and you don't need to cast anything during combat or worry about Intellect. What made them kind of not top tier fighters in party was the need for Int to get range on the auras, so for them to be good they needed too many stats-Intellect, Perception, Constitution, Resolve.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Eder upfront, healer Pallegina in the middle, damage and magic dudes in the back.

This is the way.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The PoE PotD way is moar like:

Eder lying prone 200 meters in front of the party, where his dumbass AI and enemy pulls got him, Aloth and Kana unable to do anything useful because they are trying to escape the 20 guys aggroing the backline, and Durance not giving a fuck because he is wearing plate armor and being the actual tank.

 

[luj1]

PotD is just HP bloat

there is no encounter design in this game

 

[Goldschmidt]

Why are people talking about PoE 3? Last I heard it was extremely unlikely.

The low sales for PoE 2 come down to absolutely shit marketing and goofy design choices like a trillion sub-classes and a 5 person party. Fix that and some other things, and you're good to go. You'll at least have a better chance of getting back some of your older fans.

PoE 2 sales were not so low after all.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/697035912579891200/hello-i-just-finished-pillars-of-eternity-2-and-i

 

[Nikanuur]

I didn't want to patrononirize you or anything. I just wanted to show to other people reading this thread that there is point of view from which PoE is a good game/series.
Anyway, I wish you have fun with new games yet to come.

 

[ferratilis]

Why are people talking about PoE 3? Last I heard it was extremely unlikely.

The low sales for PoE 2 come down to absolutely shit marketing and goofy design choices like a trillion sub-classes and a 5 person party. Fix that and some other things, and you're good to go. You'll at least have a better chance of getting back some of your older fans.

PoE 2 sales were not so low after all.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/697035912579891200/hello-i-just-finished-pillars-of-eternity-2-and-i

Patient gamers always win. Even when they think they lose.

 

[Namutree]

I play the game on those difficulties too. Tanks are fine and useful. It's extremely easy to get enemies to target them and to make them almost unkillable. If YOU can't make use them it's unironically probably a skill issue.

Ok, fanboy. This is why I beat these games on hardest difficulty settings first (see achievement screenshot posted earlier), to show moronic fanboys like you that it's NOT a skill issue. Stop shilling so hard, kiddo.

Having the skill to beat the game, and having the skill to make effective use of tanks are two different things. I should note that I never ever use the AI to control my units, so maybe there's something to do with that why you don't know how to use tanks?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Or maybe you are just wrong, the tanks are indeed useless, and you keep coping to justify liking a shitty combat system? Just a thought.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Weird question but are there any mods that make the game less balanced? I always hated how samey POE is but I'm considering replaying the game

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE is ridiculously unbalanced.

 

[Nikanuur]

I like PoE and PoE II very much, but I don't play on PoTD because I don't like difficulties made through bloated HP and att+def boost to everything, common creatures included. It feels immersion-breaking.
Even "hard" is a bit like that. Everpresent +2 to defend or attack on the rolls in the combat log with the explanation "Hard" is like, "Oh man, this is kind of hamfisted "
Not that the combat isn't harder like this, it just feels an unimaginative and crude way to go on about it.

I mean, I am lvl 3 and Goblin is lvl 10. Okay, let him waltz over me. But if we are roughly the same lvl, I should be the one giving a proper trashing to his whole tribe with relative ease.
Difficulties should be made through stronger opponents being even stronger, raising the mob numbers, creatures using more variety or deadlier tactics (e.g. normal means your backline doesn't get attacked all that much, hard would mean you have to protect your dmg-dealers most of the time), mob groups would be enriched by stronger monsters more often (e.g. xaurips and their drakes, skeletons and their champions, etc.)
Of course, that would mean a lot of added work on the game and I suppose not every developer can afford that.

I believe PoEs actually do both approaches.