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

[Lacrymas]

I'd say richness and complexity is what PoE's combat system lacks in general. That's why you have a working tactic that you can recycle for 95% of the encounters, making combat rote busywork, just like casting Prayer against Imprisonment against the fish people. It wouldn't be that much of a problem if the other aspects of the game offered something, but sadly they don't. Just look at M&M 3-5, most of the time you are falling asleep on the A button, but it's campy, it's light-hearted and good-natured, making it relaxing and joyful to just explore and find cool stuff.

 

[chuft]

Note in POE you can spam spells because you don't have to memorize them. The counter for Paralyze is always available when you need it. That trivializes the strategy part. Not so the D&D counters.

Also, in POE you can't buff in advance, and scouting sucks. So you are quite likely to get paralyzed before you get a chance to cast a counter even though you can spam the prayer.

 

[Roguey]

And do Pillars/Deadfire have tactical/strategic combat?

Yes.

Whenever I encountered these enemies I either came back when I was higher level and simply brute forced it, or used pull tactics to abuse the encounter, etc.

 

[Jimmious]

Note in POE you can spam spells because you don't have to memorize them. The counter for Paralyze is always available when you need it. That trivializes the strategy part. Not so the D&D counters.

Although let's be honest, in the BGs you only needed to press a rest button and have your spells back.
So basically per encounter spells just skip this pointless issue. It's debatable if it's a good decision, both systems have flaws the way they are implemented

 

[Shadenuat]

I never believed in PoE magic. Not in how it was integrated into the story, or how it worked. For fantasy genre which lives and breathes magic it's damning.

Perhaps it's why I never liked PoE.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

I beat Deadfire today. It was a 40 hour campaign. Beat the main story, reached level 15, didn't do any of the DLC, did three of the companion quests, and probably around 40% of the total side content available in the game. Oh and i played on Veteran difficulty with the MC being a rogue.

Things I liked:

• RTwP combat. I haven't really made my mind about PFKM's combat (need to play more of it), but so far this is a contender for best RTwP implementation i have ever seen.
• Game's AI, path finding and behavior editing: by far the biggest issue with PoE 1 was how dumb the AI was at pathfinding and acquiring targets. This game fixes this in the best possible way.
• Lore: The lore of PoE is really interesting and unique. I found the pantheon, the spirituality, and the cultures of the game very fascinating. They are not all equally well done, but it's a positive average.
• Itemization: I really enjoyed this aspect of the game overall. Highlights are ubiquity of unique gear, crafting, soulbound items, enchanting/upgrades etc. I'd say it's done great all across the board. I never had to use a potion or scroll, but the option was there, and i'm sure they'll become important on higher difficulties.
• Questing: Almost all the quests in the game offer multiple solutions and choice of allegiance. Often they involve the game's factions and that means playing the sides against each other/choosing who to help and who to fuck over. The quests are also well written and engaging.
• Encounter design: This game has almost NO filler encounters. They are all well thought out.
• How unique each class is. Before deciding on the rogue i tried out the other classes, and it is my understanding that each class feels wholly unique and will change how you approach the game.
• The ubiquitous CYOA events that factor in your party unique skills and abilities.
• The same as above but in the dialogues.

Things i was MEH on:

• Main quest: It's interesting alright, but it feels disconnected from much of you do in the game, and the fake urgency writing into it feels awkward in relation with the side content. It's also very very short. People have beaten it in less than 30 minutes...
• Ship management: I never bought a shipped or even bothered with upgrading it. It's wasted potential.

Things I Hated:

• Companions. Almost all of them end up being single-issue and boring - if not downright annoying. I liked Xoti and Tekehu and ABSOLUTELY HATED Aloth, Eder, and the Furry fuckboy (i don't hate you if you are furry fuckboy, just this particular one).
• Ship-to-ship combat. Yeah i never did it even once after i realized it's text-based.
• Wordiness. This game, while much more sensible than its prequel, can still come off as too wordy, resulting in you skipping stuff once they get too boring. Too much wordiness gives me what i call "The Cthulhu effect" which is when i feel i'm slowly going mad having to read paragraphs after paragraphs of highly detailed, descriptive text. Most of the dialogue in the game is voice acted too, and by a narrator no less, so if you hate the voices you are specially going to have a bad time. Thankfully i did not mind the voice actors and thought they are done well overall.

Overall i think this is a GREAT game, kept from being excellent due to having poor companions, being too wordy and at times too obtuse and confusing, and a few horrible systems such as the entire ship system.

 

[Rivmusique]

I was thinking of Deadfire, but ok

Another aspect is that Chaotic Commands lasts for 1min/level, whereas that spell only lasts 20 seconds

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Aged_Shark_Meat

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Shark_Soup

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Captain's_Banquet

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Luminous_Lobster

 

[gurugeorge]

On that difficulty topic, there are several factors interacting with each other aren't there? Mainly, immersion is sometimes at loggerheads with gamey-gaming.

This is also related to issues like saves v. permadeath, or quicksaving v checkpoints, and that sort of thing.

If you're in it for the immersion and the story, then being stopped in your tracks by something you never even had an inkling existed, and having to re-load, or even worse, having to "learn" an encounter, is just irritating. But from the gamey-gamer's point of view, that's just meat and potatoes.

From the immersion point of view, you want your experience to be continuous and you don't want to have to "jump out of the system" into the meta (i.e. the fact that you're just sitting in your mancave playing a videogame), you want to stay in that world. So ideally, what you want is to have the possibility of gathering information about things, being prepared, etc., in that world. If you lose and have to re-load, it has to be because you made a stupid mistake, not because the developers just plonked you an unwinnable situation without warning. On the other hand, the gamey-gamer just sees that as an opportunity to beat the game - to get the muscle memory or the knowledge necessary, and feel the thrill of achievement once the encounter is beaten.

I think most of us have a bit of both, but as individuals I think we lean more towards one side or the other. (For example, I only got into games with Doom, when the graphics became "realistic" enough for me to immerse myself in them, but over time I came to appreciate the more gamey aspects of videogames. And from the other point of view, I think most gamey game players have had moments when they've "smelt the roses" in a videogame, at least on their first run-through.)

So yeah, I think with CRPGs, I would like to be able to gather information about the world from within the world (e.g. go to a map shop, buy a map; learn from locals what the local monster population is like, have hints about what the most dangerous ones are, and about their neat tricks and how I might be able to counter them). Or perhaps have someone on the team (Bard, the Wizard, etc.) who has lore and knowledge about the world, or who can magically "assay" encounters, etc. But that level of virtual world detail has little ROI for developers (since there are more gamey gamers than immersioneers by far).

 

[chuft]

But that level of virtual world detail has little ROI for developers (since there are more gamey gamers than immersioneers by far).

Is that true? I thought the general reduction in difficulty in games in recent years meant the opposite. POE certainly was not aimed at gamey-gamers (unless the “game” is trying to understand wtf is going on with the system/combat, even when you’re easily winning).

 

[Tigranes]

I think the IE games have pretty broad appeal because players at most skill levels can find a mode that makes the games really fun for them, because they are inherently fun games to play.

Right, and solving these encounters e.g. finding the right spell to counter the Confusion spell, is fun to me, and satisfying.

There is no spell that 'solves' Lagufaeth paralyze in the sense of stopping the paralyze from affecting your party. Whenever I encountered these enemies I either came back when I was higher level and simply brute forced it, or used pull tactics to abuse the encounter, etc. I never had the satisfaction of 'Aha, this spell stops paralyze, and now I can beat on these guys with impunity!'

Uh.... there is a spell that 'solves' Lagufaeth paralyse in the same way. Meaning if you actually read spell descriptions, you'd have played in a more strategic way despite the many flaws of POE that remain. Jesus, man.

The joke is that POE1 originally veered away from BG2 style hard counters for whatever stupid reason, and then they began to progressively make their way back - and Lagufaeth / paralysis was one of the key places where that happened.

I actually think that the 3 defences system, and the idea of, say, buffing Will instead of specifically casting Protection from Normal Weapons, is a legitimate and potentially very interesting system. The real culprit here is not that there isn't an "anti-paralysis" spell, but that protecting yourself often results in getting grazed by paralysis for 0.03 seconds or getting a lower-grade not-really-paralysis adding to the soupy mess.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

since there are more gamey gamers than immersioneers by far)

I dunno, seems the other way around to me.

 

[Shadenuat]

I actually think that the 3 defences system, and the idea of, say, buffing Will instead of specifically casting Protection from Normal Weapons, is a legitimate and potentially very interesting system. The real culprit here is not that there isn't an "anti-paralysis" spell, but that protecting yourself often results in getting grazed by paralysis for 0.03 seconds or getting a lower-grade not-really-paralysis adding to the soupy mess.

"Add X against These Effects to Will and count all Grazes as Misses"

 

[_Vic_]

I think TB is the best thing that happened to this game.

And the thing that killed it was the pirate theme. You have a big problem if a CRPG game favored by the widely known critical role has so little sales.

 

[Lawntoilet]

And the thing that killed it was the pirate theme.

I don't think that's true, I think PoE1 failed to engage a lot of the people who bought it, so they were never interested in a sequel in the first place.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

And the thing that killed it was the pirate theme.

Purely subjective. I for one loved the pirate theme and wished the Ship-to-ship combat system was better so i could RP even more as a pirate.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I was thinking of Deadfire, but ok

Another aspect is that Chaotic Commands lasts for 1min/level, whereas that spell only lasts 20 seconds

I consider this to be a massive improvement. Stacking stupid amounts of long-lasting prebuffs is dumb.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Note in POE you can spam spells because you don't have to memorize them. The counter for Paralyze is always available when you need it. That trivializes the strategy part. Not so the D&D counters.

Also, in POE you can't buff in advance, and scouting sucks. So you are quite likely to get paralyzed before you get a chance to cast a counter even though you can spam the prayer.

With regards to BG, exactly where is the strategy?
e.g., Chaotic Commands provides such a ridiculous amount of immunities and lasts for such a long time that the only reason to slot anything else at that level until you get extra slots is if you're dragon hunting at a low level and abusing resist magic.

 

[chuft]

Since it’s a fifth level cleric spell, it’s not available for pretty much all of BG.

It only affects one person. Even in BG2 many clerics won’t have that many 5th level spell slots, there are other potent spells (like Slay Living, smartbomb Greater Command, Flame Strike, and Iron Skins), and of course it can be dispelled. It’s hardly a panacea and memorizing multiples of it is not optimal if you don’t know what you’re up against.

And no I don’t try to rest after every encounter. That’s a flavor of cheese I don’t like. But I grew up playing PNP where no DM would allow that.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

there are other potent spells (like Slay Living, smartbomb Greater Command, Flame Strike, and Iron Skins),

Those other spells provide zero utility that can't be found on another non-divine party member, sans iron skins which isn't even a cleric spell. Complete immunity from nearly every full CC in the game at 1 turn/level is absolutely top-tier.

and of course it can be dispelled. I

Yep, but you'd be screwed here either way without using the same sort of mitigation tactics.

It’s hardly a panacea and memorizing multiples of it is not optimal if you don’t know what you’re up against.

Chaotic Commands prevents Chaos, Charm, Confuse, Enfeebled, Held, Dominate, Maze, and Stun. The only full CCs it doesn't protect against are Panic, Imprisonment, and Petrification.
There's a really, really high chance that any fight you enter in BG2 will feature an enemy using at least one of these abilities. Pretty much guaranteed if you use SCS.

 

[chuft]

I still think, running a party of six characters through multiple fights against unknown foes, that a spell which protects one person for 10-20 minutes of playing time against mental attacks, while certainly useful, is not going to be the only spell I memorize.

In any case, given that the corresponding spell in PoE is AOE and can be cast every battle without having to choose to memorize it over something else ahead of time, there is hardly any basis for comparison.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I still think, running a party of six characters through multiple fights against unknown foes, that a spell which protects one person for 10-20 minutes of playing time against mental attacks, while certainly useful, is not going to be the only spell I memorize.

In any case, given that the corresponding spell in PoE is AOE and can be cast every battle without having to choose to memorize it over something else ahead of time, there is hardly any basis for comparison.

The spell in PoE1 also only lasts a very short duration, provides far less immunities comparatively, and shares the same spell level as very important spells like Revive The Fallen and Salvation of Time.
Additionally, PoE1 spells were not per-encounter, they were per-rest with a much more limited rest system.

As for your argument about having to memorize it — this is merely a limitation of Baldur's Gate and has nothing to do with D&D(e.g., UA.) BG2 was never that faithful to AD&D 2E to begin with though.

 

[chuft]

If I recall correctly, enemies in POE do not respawn, so running out of camping supplies simply means a tedious return to a town to get more, with no danger on the way out of the dungeon/area, nor on the way back in to where you were. Also, resting does not incur any risk of enemies attacking while you are trying to rest, unlike BG.

Yes, POE spells are not per-encounter, but you can select the best spell from a given level pool in each battle with no need to prepare it in advance. Kind of the opposite of strategy. Tactics, but not strategy.

95% of my D&D experience is with AD&D 1st Edition, where clerics certainly did have to memorize spells. I thought 2nd edition was the same, but I always played mages, not clerics, and it's been a long time.

I remember house rules some DMs would use that clerics could cast Healing spells instead of a memorized non-Healing spell, using up the memorized one in this way, but the non-Healing ones always had to be memorized. I thought there was a mod for one of the IE games that did this, but the memory is hazy. In fact I think 3rd edition used some variation of this old house rule. People used this rule because otherwise clerics always memorized healing spells, since unlike everything else, they were guaranteed to be useful.

I'm not sure what you mean by "UA," I pulled my copy of Unearthed Arcana off the shelf, but it says nothing about clerics being able to cast spells at will.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If I recall correctly, enemies in POE do not respawn, so running out of camping supplies simply means a tedious return to a town to get more, with no danger on the way out of the dungeon/area, nor on the way back in to where you were. Also, resting does not incur any risk of enemies attacking while you are trying to rest, unlike BG.

Yes, POE spells are not per-encounter, but you can select the best spell from a given level pool in each battle with no need to prepare it in advance. Kind of the opposite of strategy. Tactics, but not strategy.

95% of my D&D experience is with AD&D 1st Edition, where clerics certainly did have to memorize spells. I thought 2nd edition was the same, but I always played mages, not clerics, and it's been a long time.

I remember house rules some DMs would use that clerics could cast Healing spells instead of a memorized non-Healing spell, using up the memorized one in this way, but the non-Healing ones always had to be memorized. I thought there was a mod for one of the IE games that did this, but the memory is hazy. In fact I think 3rd edition used some variation of this old house rule. People used this rule because otherwise clerics always memorized healing spells, since unlike everything else, they were guaranteed to be useful.

I'm not sure what you mean by "UA," I pulled my copy of Unearthed Arcana off the shelf, but it says nothing about clerics being able to cast spells at will.

After checking it myself I realized I actually misremembered and thought it was in the original UA.
Spells & Magic(as a side note, one of my favorite supplements) has what is essentially spontaneous casting rules in the form of fixed & free magic.

 

[Reinhardt]

Casting same spell every 20 min > casting same spell every 20 sec. Especially if you need to cast 20 more "spells" with every party member each lasting 3,4-4,1 seconds.

 

[Haplo]

I'm not sure what fights you fought that required using 20 abilities with each character?