Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Lacrymas]

What glitches?

Welp, the game is bugged up the butt again. When I go back to Vilario's rest to talk to the governor's people about getting my boat up to snuff, Eder's intro dialogue triggers and I can even choose what class I want him to be again. And it just loops like that.

And nobody has a solution or a console command to trigger or skip this dialogue. So I have to restart and hope I don't run into it again.

 

[MajorMace]

My second playthrough makes me realise that deadfire doesn't lack much attention to details, but its design turn these little details into absurd pieces of dialog.
It does show some lack though, as some quests are scripted in the most irritating way, such as the food shortage, which can only be fixed by the authorities if you trigger the right dialogs beforehand with some other dude.
On the other side of this spectrum, I appreciate the little things like the possibility to tell the wrong dude - ie. the police - that you got permission from Don Corleone to go down to the pirate's hideout (unfortunately, without actual consequence®, "that's fine, move along").
Or asking Don Corleone directions to the Delver's Row, who goes like "yeah you know where it is alright, since you murdered the lot of them", again without actual consequence - "that's fine, move along".
It's a shame because I really dig this kind of things, makes it interesting to explore dialogs & interactions with factions, but deadfire got its butt on the fence on this aspect as well, so it ends up feeling half-baked.

You could at least put an easy diplomacy/bluff check to give the illusion that something could have happened - if you really don't want to trouble the player's routine with gameplay...

I still have no clue what the reputations window is about in the character sheet. I got people in my party who supposedly hate each other (-2 both towards the other) but nothing happens (?)
The 8 dispositions below that are yet another mystery. Why haven't they opposed cruel vs benevolent, honest vs mischief, stoic vs passionate to at least pretend there's some sense in it ?

 

[FreeKaner]

I think you should shut the fuck up. If anyone knew the answer to your question, they would have answered it. If you're getting so frustrated with not knowing the exact truth behind a few semi-irrelevant Watcher abilities, take the few minutes to save-reload the game and experiment with the results yourself, and then you can enlighten the Internet yourself.

You can't experiment and save-reload because you only get the upgrade hours later, also how the fuck is whether fallout is a good game or not relevant to this fucking thread? I am not frustrated by people not knowing the answer but apparently no one in this thread even plays the game or reads what their abilities do because they don't even know what I am talking about.

How the fuck is this even possible? Between first thread and this there are 300 pages on this game, how is it that no one has any idea of something so basic and common? What a retarded useless thread.

 

[MajorMace]

Nobody knows because the game's not interesting enough to be tinkering with these things ?
The fact these abilities pop in the player's toolbar without notice could be another explanation.
Or the fact that these abilities are shit anyway.
Or the fact that the player already has billions of active and modal abilities, and couldn't be damned to check if their watcher shit frightens or weakens.

I wouldn't get too upset at getting no answer to your questions : I sit on an average of 50% questions answered in the last weeks. For stuff as mundane as : are the big beasts from the base game still designed for level 13 - as displayed in the bestiary ?
This thread has turned into an arena between retarded fans and retarded counter-fans who bash each other with great swipes of "%, X and Y" and other nonsense shit, don't expect info from it.
The sad thing is that the playerbase of deadfire also means you won't have much more elsewhere. I tried to find some wiki of the game to get info on the dlcs a week ago : it barely had the title of the first two, an image for the first one, and no info at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[FreeKaner]

Aren't you the guy who brings up social issues and Christianity etc in all the threads?

No? Are you still upset about the Outerlands thread? Let me explain to you what happened there:

1. Some guy talks for 2 pages about "the gay agenda"
2. I tell them to stop being butthurt and doing alt-right social critique on cultural marxism on a game that didn't even come out yet
3. You get butthurt and tell me to not bring politics to the thread, when last 2 pages has been politics
4. You also bring it to this thread, while it's completely unrelated.

Meanwhile, nobody in this thread plays the fucking game. Nobody even knows about the fact that watcher abilities change depending on your dialogue with the gods in main quest.

 

[FreeKaner]

Aren't you also the guy whose every other post is how Sawyer is a nazi?

Yes but that's at least relevant to why game's plot is the way it is. While fallout isn't. I also had to wait to play the game because I didn't have the DLCs but it took me literally 6 hours into the game to notice your watcher abilities change and 1 restart to notice that it's due the conversation with gods in main plot. Because they are basic abilities (they are pretty useful too) that every single PC gets. Which means nobody even plays or pays attention to the game they have been talking about for 300 pages. Because if you play the game once and use your abilities once you should notice this, it literally takes finishing act 1.

 

[Alpan]

Nobody even knows about the fact that watcher abilities change depending on your dialogue with the gods in main quest.

Citation needed. Anyway, come on, mate. Not even the fanboys over at the Obsidian forums have a definite idea about the mechanics of this particular outcome.

Also, the Watcher abilities are not particularly useful, at least the ones I got weren't (Visage and Mien), even in PotD. That may change in a Woedica+Eothas playthrough, but in an ecosystem where the resource use is planned on a per-encounter basis, they are mostly flavor.

 

[FreeKaner]

Nobody even knows about the fact that watcher abilities change depending on your dialogue with the gods in main quest.

Citation needed. Anyway, come on, mate. Not even the fanboys over at the Obsidian forums have a definite idea about the mechanics of this particular outcome.

Also, the Watcher abilities are not particularly useful, at least the ones I got weren't (Visage and Mien), even in PotD. That may change in a Woedica playthrough, but in an ecosystem where the resource use is planned on a per-encounter basis, they are mostly flavor.

The Death's Herald one often gives you the highest inspiration of the particular stat you get it. Meaning not only is it basically affliction removal on demand that also puts affliction on someone, it's also a quite good buff because the 3rd level inspirations are very good.

The Sympathy of the Lost souls that I got yesterday was healing for half of people's HP while also putting affliction on every in the area, on such a short cast time too, that's basically a very useful defensive spell especially if your party doesn't have a single class that heals.

For example if you get "Wit of Death's Herald" as a Wizard (Which I am playing and which is the reason for my inquiry in the first place), you get a short cast time Brilliant inspiration, which restores power resources every 3 seconds. Basically you can keep casting your spells all the time, especially useful early on where you only have like 5 casts total.

 

[FreeKaner]

I am assuming you get them based on the which dispositions you choose in the first conversation with Gods, however it's not only that and I think the last dialogue option is also of particular importance. Wit of Death's Herald is likely from the clever dialogue options but I am not 100% sure because there are dispositions that doesn't exist and many of the dialogue choices have no dispositions attached to them in the first place. Similarly when you talk with Eothas earlier there is no disposition options but what you do changes the ability. You get No Pity For the Lost if you reach out for your own soul (which is the worst ability also), you get Chorus of the Lost if you yell at him and you get Sympathy for the Lost if you reach out for the souls which I think is best if you are playing a frontliner.

 

[Lacrymas]

I like how you can get the most powerful buffs and debuffs by the end of the prologue island and everything goes downhill after that.

 

[Delterius]

I like how you can get the most powerful buffs and debuffs by the end of the prologue island and everything goes downhill after that.

more like

downstream

ehh ehhhh

 

[aweigh]

FreeKaner

- I stopped playing the game in order to wait for all of the DLCs because this isn't the kind of game that one wants to start over or replay.

- Now I stopped playing again because the turn-based mode will require beginning again (Dead Money best DLC) so there's no use in continuing to play my All DLC-run.

I'm sure it's the same for most people. Check back in 6 months, maybe then people will be playing this again, in TB.

 

[FreeKaner]

I am p. sure that turn-based mode is not coming before console release and will also likely require further tuning and bugfixing regardless. You'll wait until 2020 to play this game? It's not good enough to justify such edging.

 

[aweigh]

it gives me time to finish Pathfinder and DQ 11.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think you guys are underestimating how soon this will be released. It's completely finished as far as I can tell.

 

[FreeKaner]

I don't think it's coming before the console release.

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's perfectly functional already, but we don't know how balanced it is yet.

Obsidian should release a beta test for PC gamers so we can provide feedback before consoles.

 

[Safav Hamon]

From the details we know, it's a very good system. Much better than InExile's crap.

 

[aweigh]

The TB combat in Wasteland 2 was actually pretty good. I highly doubt this half-baked implementation in Deadfire will be better than Wasteland 2's TB combat.

 

[Safav Hamon]

WL2's combat is horrible. Initiative without rounds? Bleh!

 

[TemplarGR]

You can't experiment and save-reload because you only get the upgrade hours later, also how the fuck is whether fallout is a good game or not relevant to this fucking thread? I am not frustrated by people not knowing the answer but apparently no one in this thread even plays the game or reads what their abilities do because they don't even know what I am talking about.

How the fuck is this even possible? Between first thread and this there are 300 pages on this game, how is it that no one has any idea of something so basic and common? What a retarded useless thread.

The vast majority of codex users are here for the drama and to be niche rpg hipsters. They don't actually play most games they comment on. I highly doubt most people here own Deadfire or Kingmaker, yet they have concluded Deadfire is garbage (because it is more widely known with a stellar metacritic score and was even nominated for game awards best rpg category), and Kingmaker is the best game ever made because it has a garbage metascore, it is archaic and buggy as hell.

Just realize this and don't be upset. Their opinion don't matter, anyway. The best posters here that write accurate assessments of games, all have the dumbfuck tag. Makes you think...

 

[TemplarGR]

Enjoy whatever you want, but Fallout is objectively a better RPG than any of the infinity engine games.

Fallout doesn't even come close to Infinity Engine games. There is no comparison, really. Fallout is a mediocre RPG that somehow developed a cult following, mostly because of the setting and the fact that it was one of the few CRPGs with guns.

As an RPG Fallout was garbage. Yes, it did feature a few dialogue options that could change the end slide you got with a slightly altered paragraph/picture, yes you could solve some quests in different ways, but it was a small scale game, with combat that was the very definition of garbage, and a skill system that was useless and retarded.

It took Bethesda to make skills like Repair and Science actually useful...

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The TB combat in Wasteland 2 was actually pretty good. I highly doubt this half-baked implementation in Deadfire will be better than Wasteland 2's TB combat.

Something I just realised after experiencing ATOMs antiquated combat. I actually thought to myself that combat would be a lot better in ATOM if it only was a bit more like in WL2.

 

[FreeKaner]

Okay so after doing some tests, I think it's based on your first and last conversation choices. If you say nothing to both of those you actually get no upgrade on your watcher ability.

 

[MajorMace]

Which means nobody even plays or pays attention to the game they have been talking about for 300 pages.

I have clear memories of the talks back at the release, where people were confused that their magic resistance didn't work against vampires charms & dominations. They therefore reported yet another "bug".
It took me a few posts to make them understand that vampires abilities are gazes (like liches' or dragons') - that there's a whole mechanic around gazes (which I actually find very cool) = you can't gaze or be gazed while blinded, you get a unique shield on the xaurip island which can be upgraded to get immunity to gazes or reflect them, they're instant abilities since it's just a fucking gaze which is why vampires dominate you in an instant - that gazes aren't considered magic, as magic usually entails casting time and specific keywords (Inspiration, Condemnation for priest spells, Element keywords for elemental spells etc) and are usually tied with the wizard/priest/druid/cipher classes.
Then I was met with "but what is magic then, that's dumb" even though that's exactly how it worked in IE games and no one seems to care about praising the latter's while shitting on deadfire in this regard. What the actual fuck.
You have no idea how little understanding people have of deadfire's systems, which as you say they've been discussing to death itt. There were a lot of people who didn't understand why dragons & krakens alike felt super lackluster, which just revealed that they were apparently not interested enough to simply open the bestiary and check the details.
I think Roxor realised after 20 or 30 hours of playtime that he could slow down the speed of combat to make it more readable. Then again, the game never explains nor gives a tooltip about this particularly discrete UI element.

Even I who inspected the systems back then still had no clear idea about how recovery is calculated. In my current playthrough, it remains a mystery, since when I take my buffs and debuffs into account, it adds up to +45% malus and -42% bonus, yet the final score shows me a bonus of -0.5s of recovery (???).
And even though I suspected the watcher abilities to depend on your responses during the gods' conference calls, I never felt the urge to check which option gives what, and couldn't be damned to even look it up on the net, because as people have said itt : they're superfluous and flavour-ish.

Bottom line is : when people are in this situation, I'd rather blame the designer than the players. I may have the wrong attitude in this regard, but these things showcase how either unreadable/unintuitive/uninteresting the systems are perceived. Which is different from how they actually are, mind you (see the gaze mechanic).
So whether it comes to watcher abilities or other gameplay details, people have no clue, since you are kinda overwhelmed with information, and everything is stored in the rather thick wiki ingame, which makes it even less likely to be read (as it's kind of a chore, and unnecessary to progress anyway).