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Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
Joined
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
Chris Avellone is stalking Infinitron to correct bits and pieces of misinformation and to add proper background. A Sisyphean task.

Is there any information on how important is the original IP of POE to Feargus and Obsidian? It seems Deadfire underperformed to say the least, will the studio develop it further even when it's a sink of funds?
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2018
Messages
323
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
I am really liking it so far. Playing on Veteran as a straight-up Cypher, with my only multi-classed character being Aloth. The combat is significantly easier than the first PoE. Has anyone multi-classed any of your companions? How did it go?
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
Eh don't shit your pants yet. Torment was a "disaster". Tyranny did better and was merely a "disappointment". Before its first weekend this game already has more concurrent players than Tyranny ever had.

If it does somewhat worse than the first game then eh, so be it. Baldur's Gate 2 never got a sequel either, maybe it was meant to be.

I think this is what you're saying, but the reason BG2 didn't get an immediate sequel wasn't due to sales, it was more b/c BioWare was sick with dealing with Black Isle and Interplay by that point (and maybe Atari, too).
Could you elaborate on why exactly BioWare was sick with dealing with Black Isle and Interplay? I'm guessing Feargus' children were either unborn or too young to put them on the payroll like he tried at Obsidian, so it must have been something else that pissed BioWare off.

Also, do you think Obsidian wasted the opportunity they had to launch a strong IP by making a Baldur's Gate spiritual successor?
 
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FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
The one original IP they had and it's a derivative setting. I mean I am as big of a fan of early modern period as you can get but the possibilities were endless. I also think it plays to none of the strengths of the studio and all the weaknesses.
 
Developer
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Jan 30, 2005
Messages
460
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Moblin Villige
Well, well: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Scokel

From what I gather even Codexers seem to agree that Serafen is the only half-decently written companion. Gee, it's almost like hiring people with an actual background in working on (tabletop) RPGs yields better results than hiring all those Tumblrinas that now make up the majority of Obsidian's writing staff.

Tony's a good writer and designer, and it helps that he went through the companion process before (as far back as MotB, not to mention his lead work on SoZ), so he understands the structure pretty well. (He was contracted for companion writing in PoE2, like Eric.)

I don't know if Tony should be blamed/tarnished by DA2, Infinitron, he always worked hard, and I would doubt that DA2's release schedule was up to him.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
Although I do enjoy the game I'm thinking of holding off on finishing it for now until it's patched and the DLCs come out. I don't see a reason not to have the best possible experience with it, and that will obviously happen further down the road.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
Eh don't shit your pants yet. Torment was a "disaster". Tyranny did better and was merely a "disappointment". Before its first weekend this game already has more concurrent players than Tyranny ever had.

If it does somewhat worse than the first game then eh, so be it. Baldur's Gate 2 never got a sequel either, maybe it was meant to be.

I think this is what you're saying, but the reason BG2 didn't get an immediate sequel wasn't due to sales, it was more b/c BioWare was sick with dealing with Black Isle and Interplay by that point (and maybe Atari, too).

I'm sure both Black Isle and Iplay wanted another BG3, but I don't think BioWare wanted to do a 3rd game with them (although they did finish off the series with ToB, and did let Black Isle continue to license the Infinity Engine).

Apparently, even the negotiations for BG2 were pretty... strained, but BioWare was in a position to negotiate better terms, so they did for BG2, but I don't know if they needed Black Isle/Interplay anymore (or the D&D franchise) to go off and do RPGs on their own and make their own ip.

Also, I think BioWare wasn't happy when Black Isle did Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (I don't get the impression BioWare were consulted about the name or the game at all, it was a surprise to them). While BioWare didn't own "BG," they were still tied pretty heavily to the name, and they had some concerns Dark Alliance could hurt the brand. BIS did have the rights to use BG, however.

I don't think that was the cause of the split, however, it was just more evidence of the cracks appearing in Interplay and Black Isle - the cancellation of Torn and the resultant layoffs didn't help, either.
After BG2, BioWare had every reason to avoid dealing with BIS and Interplay again:

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frajaq

Erudite
Joined
Oct 5, 2017
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Brazil
Yeah I was surprised by how much I liked Serafen, everything about him fit the setting and tone of the story really nice
 

Sentinel

Arcane
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Ommadawn
Although I do enjoy the game I'm thinking of holding off on finishing it for now until it's patched and the DLCs come out. I don't see a reason not to have the best possible experience with it, and that will obviously happen further down the road.
I'd heavily recommend it, but I'm not sure they can fix the game's flaws via patching unless they completely rewrite a lot of stuff.
 
Developer
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Moblin Villige
So that's not very good then. I wonder if this is something Obsidian were expecting or are they surprised by it. No way to know though.

If number of Steam owners factors in the Backers (it should), then PoE2 had a challenge out the gate if there was a Backer disparity between PoE1 and 2 (73K vs. 33K). Still, the amount people pledged/Backer would make a difference.

While it certainly funded well (and they should be congratulated for that), I do wonder about the marketing push from Fig and in terms of profits, the % that Fig takes before/after/during the campaign - or what % they take after the product is released (I don't know how the payment works vs. Kickstarter, but I'd be curious to know).

You're already losing about 30% to Steam anyway (that's the price of admission and getting eyes on your game), but the Fig part of the equation is more of a mystery to me, and that would set it apart from PoE1, potentially.

I imagine when it comes to paying Fig's share as well, there'd also be some issues with Fig and board members being technically paid a % of the crowfunding of their own games outside what their company gets, but I'm not sure how that works, either. (If someone knows based on Fig policies, I'd love to know.)
 
Developer
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Jan 30, 2005
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Moblin Villige
I'm really confused why they even made sidekicks in the first place, all they do is blue-ball you into thinking "damn I wish some of these were full companions instead"

That was the challenge with Storm of Zehir, too - if you don't have the resources for full companions, that's understandable, but you do risk defeating player expectations no matter how hard you try and explain the concept of Sidekicks.
 

Pizzashoes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
444
If Obsidian had contracted Chris for Ydwin, we would have gotten a proper waifu. Instead we got bisexuals, monsters, and furballs.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Level Scaling + XP tweak: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/24
- There's a Level Scaling mod on the Nexus that increases the range by which enemies scale upwards to +10 bonus levels. Supposedly the Scaling is currently working correctly on patch 1.02 (the only patch released so far), but I haven't tested this myself yet.
- It will only take effect on areas you haven't spawned/visited yet, obviously. Why? Because OBS tied levels to locations instead of to something else.
- Other than that, this same dude who did the Scaling mod also has another file that reduces XP gain by 30%, which some might find useful.

UnityConsole GUI mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/2
- UnityConsole cheat mod now allows freely changing of classes and sub-classes, as well as a GUI for Attribute changing and tons of other things like removing/adding Abilities and removing/adding Effects/Enchantments to gear. Those are the most useful mods I've found so far on the Nexus.

There's another mod, a tweak pack, which allows lots of cosmetic changes like changing racial heights but that is of no interest to me. I've purposefully have been playing only every couple of days because I'm waiting for the 1st balance patch.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
Ultimately I've just seen people confused by the concept of sidekicks since most of them didn't follow the game's development and are not aware there is a distinction between companions and sidekicks, so they end up disappointed about sidekicks having no interactions whatsoever with anybody. Ultimately I think the sidekicks were kinda pointless as they just occupy the role of custom adventurers you could create yourself, and in the case of Ydwin, everyone was just disappointed because she had potential to be a good companion.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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17,978
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People are confused by the dumbest fucking shit. How difficult is it to understand that they're just companions without enough funding to fully develop?

I'm starting to understand why product makers will cut a feature; I would just cut out the half-developed companions instead of rebranding them as sidekicks just to save myself having to hear people whining.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
I think there is nothing wrong with having companions that only have backgrounds and a bit of introductory and side dialogue. They likely take very little to develop but add a lot of flavour to game and the universe.
 

Pizzashoes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
444
People are just dumb. I wouldn’t want to deal with the bitching. But on the whole, yeah the sidekicks are better than nothing.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
I think there is nothing wrong with having companions that only have backgrounds and a bit of introductory and side dialogue. They likely take very little to develop but add a lot of flavour to game and the universe.

I don't disagree. I think people forget about most of BG/BG2's companions being similarly developed. Not everyone is Jaheira in BG2.

Or... most of the people who have been playing PoE/Deadfire didn't play IE games.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
That was the challenge with Storm of Zehir, too - if you don't have the resources for full companions, that's understandable, but you do risk defeating player expectations no matter how hard you try and explain the concept of Sidekicks.

What needs to be explained? You create four fourth level characters and get to optionally recruit companions in the game-world (2 if one of your created characters has the Leadership feat).

The companions have the odd flavor interjection and comment on the area you're in. That's good enough, but SoZ should not have had companions at all; it was meant to be more like IWD.

Plus, I don't like the relationship sim aspect of RPGs; that's not what D&D is about.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,123
I actually think reducing XP gain would work. Because combat is actually balls of fun when you push yourself to kill all the bosses on random islands as early as possible. The first 7-8 levels I played were blast. It's just that eventually you outgrow all the content and if you know what you are doing, it happens basically at level 11-12.
 

Pizzashoes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
444
Jaheira's Gate 2 is awful. She's an aggressive bitch. You'd have to be some whipped sack of soy to even be able to get along with her. Same goes for dealing with our fair lady, Lilura.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
I remember she got over Khalid fairly quick if you flirted with her.
 

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