Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

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

entr0py

Scholar
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
100
Location
Always a step ahead of you...
So, I just finished The Forgotten Sanctum (and all dlcs and every content in the game) and there is no sign of this new spirit sidekick Ryona. What the hell happened? Its not in the game for sure.

I have just finished the Forgotten Sanctum as well. Haven't heard anyone mentioning that at the third time you have to put history books on pedestals it seems like those are actually about the future, lots of interesting stuff and lore in Forgotten Sanctum, wish the whole game was as well-paced and unique as this DLC.
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
At a guess, Ryona was originally going to be in the Beyond in Beast Of Winter but was replaced by the pale elf in the central area, and Vatnir was promoted to sidekick. There's a line in Forgotten Sanctum where the head librarian says "we actually have one of Ryona's boots here" and you can respond with something like "um... ok?" I wonder if that's a writer having a laugh at a couple of people confidently stating Ryona would be a companion

Anyway, I wonder if there's enough if her data in the game to be able to use her as an "animal companion" or a summon. I had an idea for a class that was a ranger but your choices of animal companion included Eder, Aloth or Pallegina if they died in the first game("Memory of Eder, Memory of Aloth" etc) but I couldn't get the game to display them only under those cconditions and I couldn't figure out how to make them level up so they were just stuck at level 1 forever
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Since Pallegina is a Paladin, with a unique order to boot, making a sidekick Paladin with a generic order seems redundant. Maybe that's why they didn't include her, or maybe corporeal ghosts who can wear armor is lore-bending. She also has to be immune to all sorts of physical afflictions, making her OP.
 

TT1

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
1,479
Location
Krakow
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
I miss weird companions, actually. A vithrak, a imp (even nemnok could be a companion), a xaurik, vampire, lich... I dont know. We had good oportunities for companions in the game: Copperhead, Nemnok, the Oracle of Wael, Laugherfish motherbrood...

The DLCs did an amazing job being completely different from the base game. It was a pity that they didnt add any companion (Vatnir is different, for sure, but still kith).
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,156
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I miss weird companions, actually. A vithrak, a imp (even nemnok could be a companion), a xaurik, vampire, lich... I dont know. We had good oportunities for companions in the game: Copperhead, Nemnok, the Oracle of Wael, Laugherfish motherbrood...

The DLCs did an amazing job being completely different from the base game. It was a pity that they didnt add any companion (Vatnir is different, for sure, but still kith).
Excuse: it would be bad for the
rating_sawyer.gif
.

Real reason: it would be too much work.
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
Probably less work than implementing a full companion with all the relationship system guff. But yeah, a non-kith companion would need a whole other progression table since they use different animations so the same abilities as kith might not work, may not be able to use the same weapons, people would complain that every conversation with a random NPC didn't start with "bwaaah is that a vithrack?!" etc
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
I miss weird companions, actually. A vithrak, a imp (even nemnok could be a companion), a xaurik, vampire, lich... I dont know. We had good oportunities for companions in the game: Copperhead, Nemnok, the Oracle of Wael, Laugherfish motherbrood...

The DLCs did an amazing job being completely different from the base game. It was a pity that they didnt add any companion (Vatnir is different, for sure, but still kith).

It's just like that, but with sexual orientations instead of race.

:hahyou:
 

TT1

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
1,479
Location
Krakow
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
So I just finished the game with all 3 DLCs. While they are not as good as White Marsh, they are all good DLCs. I like arenas, so I even really like SSS, with all funny and challenging battles.

Deadfire has good itemization, but this time its clear to me that there is some lack of endgame items. Weapons are ok, but all the rest is just meh. Boots, rings, gloves and necklaces could be much, much better. I will try to create more of them on the next days.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,277
Tekehu "Nice to meet you let's have buttsex".

If you can see past that (most of which is easily avoidable by romancing someone else), Tekehu is a really good character overall.
Isn't that part of his personality, he is flirty to everyone, no matter the gender or race. Bring him along the city and you run into a dozen people he has a fling with.

Generally speaking I like Deadfire's new companions better comparing to the returning ones. The returning ones didn't get nearly as fleshed out as the new ones in the second game, and Pallgenina seems to have a pretty big change of heart.
 
Last edited:

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
So I just finished the game with all 3 DLCs. While they are not as good as White Marsh, they are all good DLCs. I like arenas, so I even really like SSS, with all funny and challenging battles.

Deadfire has good itemization, but this time its clear to me that there is some lack of endgame items. Weapons are ok, but all the rest is just meh. Boots, rings, gloves and necklaces could be much, much better. I will try to create more of them on the next days.
It's kind of strange that there are so many unique weapons but comparatively few other equippables. You don't even need to make a model for boots, rings, gloves, necklaces or trinkets, just get the artist to spend an hour on a drawing and you have a new item. I remember Pillars 1 feeling much the same at launch, but got a lot better with the expansion
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
Really hoping the next patch includes soulbound sketches for the Weyc's Wand and Robes, also. It feels sad to see them without sketches- a sign of how low the budget got towards the end, and a sign of the designers' work ethic that they didn't just use the sketches for a soulbound shield and greatsword that already exist
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
Today, it seems :P

https://www.pcgamesn.com/pillars-of-eternity-2/pillars-of-eternity-2-turn-based

Pillars of Eternity 2 is going turn-based, eight months after launch
Many games get DLC after release, but few of them enter new genres

pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-deck-combat-900x506.jpg



Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire players are no strangers to choice. But when you boot up the game from January 24th onwards, your first decision will come even before character creation – real-time or turn-based?

Since the inception of the series, Pillars has been firmly rooted in the wonderfully messy but deeply tactical real-time and pause paradigm of the Infinity Engine games. That wasn’t a decision the dev team made, so much as a duty they fulfilled to nostalgia-driven Kickstarter backers. Now, though, Deadfire is fully playable in a new turn-based mode. It’s the most fundamental and far-reaching change Obsidian has made to any of its games after release.

“Even the work I did on the mod for Fallout: New Vegas after it came out, those were tweaks,” director Josh Sawyer tells me. “Teeny things here and there. This really does change how the game is played tremendously.”


It has involved an extraordinary amount of work, rebuilding the UI, finding a neat way to display turn order, rebalancing encounters throughout the game – all for a free update. It’s a wonderful gift for fans, but what could possibly be the financial argument for making it?



First of all, it’s worth noting that Deadfire’s turn-based mode is partly inspired by – and greatly resembles – the combat in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Larian’s game became a fixture of Steam’s top sellers list upon its launch in September 2017, and had sold a million copies by the end of that year. It’s the kind of mainstream success Obsidian probably wouldn’t mind partaking in with Pillars.

THIS REALLY DOES CHANGE THE GAME TREMENDOUSLY

Josh Sawyer

Director

Secondly, the mode tackles an issue Sawyer has noticed in his long career of working on RPGs. “As time goes on, no matter how good the DLC or expansions are, the attachment rate goes down pretty sharply,” he says. “If you release content a year after the game comes out, it usually doesn’t matter how good it is.”

You might be familiar with this kind of mechanic fatigue yourself – when new challenges and stories aren’t enough to offset the lack of anything new to grapple with in combat or character development.

image-183x103.jpg

FOREST FOR THE LOGS
Even with its combat log, events in real-time Pillars battles could get away from you. “We had this big focus on clarity, but even so, people would still get overwhelmed and lose track of who’s doing what," Sawyer says. "Turn-based mode makes it very obvious.”

“It’s a big game, so if you’ve played it for 40 or 80 hours it can be hard to jump back in, even if you have a really cool new character concept you want to try out,” Sawyer says. “Hitman has its special modes that add new challenges, like Escalations – it’s playing through the same mechanics but there are new constraints on you. Stuff like that rewards the people who have already established system mastery. It’s not like they have to throttle the knowledge they have, but it shapes their mind a little bit so they have to engage with it in a new way.”

Once you’re fighting that opening boat battle in Deadfire, given time to stare around at your pirate opponents and the pistols they’re brandishing, it’s true that you see the game in a new way. In testing, Obsidian has noticed that turn-based players tend to lean into micromanagement, embracing flanking and positioning. You might suddenly realise that knockback abilities are perfect for pushing enemies into the range of AOE fireballs, for instance, or that the rogue’s ability to switch places with another character can change the course of a fight. You might even – whisper it – find yourself caring about armour ratings for the first time in your life.

Related: Roll the dice with the best RPGs on PC

“Not a lot of players slow down and look at all the armour ratings on enemies in real-time,” Sawyer says. “But in turn-based, if you’re a ninth-level wizard and have every element to cast from and the time to look around the battlefield, there’s a lot more deliberation.”



Turn-based combat, then, is an opportunity to see Pillars through new eyes, and perhaps unlock some of its less penetrable systems. But most pertinently, it utterly alters the rhythm of Deadfire. In a game intended to stay in your life for weeks or months, that’s no less significant than a tempo change in a favourite album.

IF YOU RELEASE DLC A YEAR AFTER THE GAME COMES OUT, IT USUALLY DOESN’T MATTER HOW GOOD IT IS

Josh Sawyer

Director

“One thing that RPG designers can get caught up in is the idea of a design on paper, but what really matters at the end is how it changes the feel of the game,” Sawyer says. “There are certain battles in Deadfire that were intentionally fatigue wave fights, and in turn-based mode you just see a long queue of skeletons, so that’s a slight negative. For us it’s about finding a pace that we know the players who enjoy the slower-paced combat are going to appreciate.”

It’s important to note that Obsidian has retained the ‘fast mode’ incorporated into real-time Pillars, a sanity-saving measure for those longer fights. Turn-based combat might not suit every single one of the game’s battles, but it will delight those RPG fans who will be turn-based ‘til they die. A faction which includes, surprisingly enough, longtime real-time designer Josh Sawyer.

“I’ve always preferred turn-based,” he says. “Because of my tabletop background, and because I prefer closer examination. When I play real-time with pause, I micromanage so much that it might as well be turn-based.”
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Last edited by a moderator:

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
If they want their own one, they should make one. I don't know whether any substantial amount of people care about DF to find out about this new feature and buy it for it.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
It will sell 10 more copies to codexian oldfags.


Also i can't imagine deadfire being a good TB games,the system is not compatible.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom