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

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
poe2 stretch goal $5.5M - use better engine

Should have been this.
Hire better programmers maybe. Unity is shit, yes, but it isn't unsalvageably shit.
 

AW8

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
1,852
Location
North of Poland
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I still haven't played this yet. Thinking of doing so soon(ish). Is turn-based actually good or just stick to how it was designed?
I've only played the first couple of fights in turn-based, but my impression from that limited testing is that combat is too slow in turn-based mode. The first fight in the game stood out as being painfully (and pointlessly) slow and not tweaked for turn-based at all.
 

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
Side note, I’m not fond of D&D’s alignment system, finding it both reductive and limiting. (”Neutral” is not valuable as a description of an individual’s ethics or goals.)
You have two sliders with 9 total possible values. Not only is it a useful system in the mechanics of the TT game, it's also very easy to implement in a computer game. And please explain how [Benevolent: 3, Cruel: 3] is a better descriptor of an individual's ethics or goals than "neutral".
Llengrath: Team Long Term Stability

Tayn: Team Shake Shit Up and See What Happens

Arkemyr: Team Status Quo

Maura: Team Rightfully Royally Pissed

To which I’d add Fyonlecg: Team Screwed Over and Upset About It, But Probably For the Wrong Reasons
The patriarchy of quantification is so repressive.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
The D&D alignment system comes with an omniscient objective judge. That omniscient objective judge happens to be the conventional, mainstream Western morality. You see where I'm going with this.
 

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
The D&D alignment system comes with an omniscient objective judge. That omniscient objective judge happens to be the conventional, mainstream Western morality. You see where I'm going with this.
That's pretty much what he says in his blog post that he links to. Then he replaces Good/Neutral/Evil and Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic with Creative/Sustaining/Destructive and Orderly/Pragmatic/Chaotic, respectively.

What he doesn't do is compare the quadrant system from D&D to the weird array system from Pillars. Then he lists a bunch of character descriptions that neither system is particularly good at conveying, but the overall tone of the post seems to imply that somehow the Pillars team did better than D&D.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
The problem is not the words used to describe the alignment, but the ever-present judge that actually exists in-universe and even judges the gods in such a way (some gods are evil, some good). I'd dare say alignment is the actual god of D&D settings. That judge, however, is the already mentioned conventional Western morality. There is also the problem that the spectrums of Lawful - Chaotic and Good - Evil don't exist separately like the system is implying. I was having this exact conversation with a friend of mine recently, where I mentioned that Paladins have it extra tough because it's never clear what the "lawful" part of Lawful Good depends on. The two can frequently be at odds if lawful refers to the laws of the country you are in. If it doesn't, however, and it only refers to personal rules the Paladin follows, then the good part becomes ...flexible. "I will never kill another living creature, but I'll use any means necessary to extract knowledge that will help me battle evil or preserve the good" means you will torture and keep alive a goblin for however long it takes, which is arguably worse than outright killing it. I know the lore says if there's ever doubt between Good and Lawful, a Paladin must take the Good option, but it's more of a band-aid than anything and shows the weaknesses of this system.

So, yeah, the two sliders don't exist separately and there is a problem however you look at it. If there wasn't a metaphysical power that watches your every move, maybe it'll be a little more satisfying and useful, but as it stands now, it comes with a lot of baggage, including real life baggage that can't be separated in a video game. I feel like this has been talked about since the alignment's inception in D&D, though.
 
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Rinslin Merwind

Erudite
Joined
Nov 4, 2017
Messages
1,274
Location
Sea of Eventualities
That omniscient objective judge happens to be the conventional, mainstream Western morality. You see where I'm going with this.
mainstream Western morality
There no such thing, as "mainstream Western morality" since principles "do not kill, do not steal and etc." isn't unique to Western culture, it's basic shit for ANY culture. Personally I consider D&D alignment system as broken crutch that simply doesn't work properly, but let's not blame whole culture because some lazy ass decided not to make decent fraction system.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
There no such thing, as "mainstream Western morality" since principles "do not kill, do not steal and etc." isn't unique to Western culture, it's basic shit for ANY culture. Personally I consider D&D alignment system as broken crutch that simply doesn't work properly, but let's not blame whole culture because some lazy ass decided not to make decent fraction system.
Do not kill and do not steal are too basic rules for this conversation. That doesn't even include alternative lines of thought within Western philosophy/politics, the most famous being extreme nationalism, or colonialism, or even meme examples like Stirner. More fringe examples includes Hegel's pronouncement that good and freedom is the right to obey the law. So, yeah, there is a thing that exists that can be called Western mainstream morality. Even then, these basic rules aren't set in stone, stealing isn't considered an evil action in D&D, it's a chaotic one. While every character ever kills because it's a combat game. The whole rule should be "do not kill innocents", but that is also flexible because of the very famous example of killing lizardfolk babies. They are innocent, but they will grow up and be a threat to other innocents, what happens then?

When we add the whole "what does chaotic mean?" question, the shitsoup gets its cherry on top.
 
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eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
I still haven't played this yet. Thinking of doing so soon(ish). Is turn-based actually good or just stick to how it was designed?
I'm pretty far in turn-based mode, and it has greatly improved my experience. That said, the further you get, the longer battles get and the more outrageous HP bloat becomes. I would wait until a balance patch drops before starting, but I'd imagine that will be fairly soon.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I would wait until a balance patch drops before starting, but I'd imagine that will be fairly soon.

They're obviously planning to release it alongside the game's console port. There's been no update on that for a long time. I hope it's not in development hell.
 

Thonius

Arcane
Joined
Sep 18, 2014
Messages
6,495
Location
Pro-Tip Corporation.
Dunno guys. Game has some cool graphic and okay combat with sometimes cool encounters. Had fun with it despite weak story. It will be nuclassic in few years for generation fortnite. Zoomers who played it would be smug about it.
 

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
It's about a million times better than PoE 1, and with some turn-based balancing, I'd say it could become a modern classic, yeah. I've had so many really satisfying edge-of-my-seat moments in turn-based mode. I can't speak much for the story, because I'm not that far into it yet, but the exploration is very enjoyable and I do like the various factions and am looking forward to seeing how they play into potential choices I can make later.

I'm leaning towards supporting Rauatai, because they don't make their peasants eat trash thrown off the edge of a cliff. We'll see how the god stuff plays out, I'm not far enough yet to know what's going on, but the god stuff was the only part of PoE 1 that I enjoyed.
 

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
The problem is not the words used to describe the alignment, but the ever-present judge that actually exists in-universe and even judges the gods in such a way (some gods are evil, some good). I'd dare say alignment is the actual god of D&D settings. That judge, however, is the already mentioned conventional Western morality. There is also the problem that the spectrums of Lawful - Chaotic and Good - Evil don't exist separately like the system is implying. I was having this exact conversation with a friend of mine recently, where I mentioned that Paladins have it extra tough because it's never clear what the "lawful" part of Lawful Good depends on. The two can frequently be at odds if lawful refers to the laws of the country you are in. If it doesn't, however, and it only refers to personal rules the Paladin follows, then the good part becomes ...flexible. "I will never kill another living creature, but I'll use any means necessary to extract knowledge that will help me battle evil or preserve the good" means you will torture and keep alive a goblin for however long it takes, which is arguably worse than outright killing it. I know the lore says if there's ever doubt between Good and Lawful, a Paladin must take the Good option, but it's more of a band-aid than anything and shows the weaknesses of this system.

So, yeah, the two sliders don't exist separately and there is a problem however you look at it. If there wasn't a metaphysical power that watches your every move, maybe it'll be a little more satisfying and useful, but as it stands now, it comes with a lot of baggage, including real life baggage that can't be separated in a video game. I feel like this has been talked about since the alignment's inception in D&D, though.
Sure, the discrete -1/0/1 values on each slider will not perfectly match any semantic continuum of interpretation/judgement in the wordplay you overlap on the system. Even if the two axes are not perfectly orthogonal, though, one advantage the system has is that you can assign a defining trait to your character at creation, and then clarify that trait later through nuanced gameplay.

The pillars system assigns all characters a starting disposition of [0,0,0,...] so that every character is a tabula rasa at level 1. Doesn't matter if you're a Kind Wayfarer or a Priest of Skaen, you have the same starting dispostion. And dispositions that are clearly opposed to each other (Benevolent, Cruel // Passionate, Stoic // Honest,Shady) are tracked independently, making them nonsensical. What's tragic about it is that almost the same system works very well in Tyranny where it tracks faction/companion reputations rather than your personal disposition.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
In a tabletop setting, the alignment can be bent however you wish and take into account the needs of the group. In a video game, however, there can't be such a thing and it very much relies on the moral views of the developers/writers. The system in PoE was trash from the moment it was conceived and it was made worse by the implementation. The best way to handle morality in a video game is to not have a slider, but have the world react naturally to your actions, which is, of course, very difficult and labor intensive. Also, the writers must detach themselves from their own ethics, that's why I always go on and on about video game writers needing to read different kind of books, especially political philosophy when wanting to write about morality, not only the 2 fantasy and sci-fi titles they know. They'd quickly be surprised how morality and politics skirt dangerously close to one another, if not outright being one and the same.
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
It's about a million times better than PoE 1, and with some turn-based balancing, I'd say it could become a modern classic, yeah. I've had so many really satisfying edge-of-my-seat moments in turn-based mode. I can't speak much for the story, because I'm not that far into it yet, but the exploration is very enjoyable and I do like the various factions and am looking forward to seeing how they play into potential choices I can make later.

I'm leaning towards supporting Rauatai, because they don't make their peasants eat trash thrown off the edge of a cliff. We'll see how the god stuff plays out, I'm not far enough yet to know what's going on, but the god stuff was the only part of PoE 1 that I enjoyed.
The god stuff is a lot better in the DLCs. Eothas is likeable though at least
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
I've seen him during his Black Isle days, when he looked like an RPG developer.

1487986056578.jpg
 

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