Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Prime Junta]

This is another worry of mine. Right now my party is lvl 10-11 and I'm already basically cutting through everything like hot knife through butter. I've heard that the White March gives you the possibility to scale up the enemies, but to what extend does it make the encounters more difficult?

If you scale it up at 10-11 and go in immediately, the tougher encounters ought to be pretty enjoyable. I say go for it. If you really liked it, then try again at a lower level without up-scaling.

 

[chuft]

I scaled it up. Kept getting TPK’d so I backtracked many hours to an earlier save before I entered the area and unscaled it. Still found it brutally unfair. But I don’t like to reload, I feel a player should be able to win a battle on the first try. Many here don’t mind reloading and trying again with the “inside information” they gained from their first defeat. So it’s a matter of taste.

 

[Lacrymas]

WM1 is definitely the high point of the series (I'm saying that as someone who hasn't played 2's DLCs or even finished DF). The upscale feature only bumps up the stats of the mobs. The true challenge is doing WM as soon as possible (or lvl 7 maybe).

WM is not unfair though, you do have to use your skills somewhat intelligently.

 

[chuft]

I could name very specific examples but the answer would be (and has been) “Oh that’s end game content, you should come back to those later.”

You have been warned.

 

[Lacrymas]

If you mean the dragon, yeah. But that's hardly unfair, it's just higher level content.

 

[chuft]

Any unfair content can be hand-waved away as higher level content.

But it’s not just the dragon (and friends!) encounter. Concelhaut area for example.

 

[Prime Junta]

But it’s not just the dragon (and friends!) encounter. Concelhaut area for example.

I beat Concelhaut on the first try. By the skin of my teeth, but I did it. (Turns out Maneha with twin Spelltongues is really, really, really, REALLY hard to kill.)

 

[chuft]

I never saw Concelhaut. Drunken monk guy TPK’d whole party.

 

[Prime Junta]

I never saw Concelhaut. Drunken monk guy TPK’d whole party.

Don't feel bad, happens to everybody.

That bit really is near-endgame content. White March is way lower level.

 

[chuft]

I will note one more thing. A lot of people who respond to these kinds of queries play the content the day it comes out. Typically in the months and years following, their little tricks and exploits are patched away, and the opponents made tougher. The people who play any new Pillars content - POE, DLCs, Deadfire - usually have played a far easier version than those who play it later.

 

[Prime Junta]

I will note one more thing. A lot of people who respond to these kinds of queries play the content the day it comes out. Typically in the months and years following, their little tricks and exploits are patched away, and the opponents made tougher. The people who play any Pillars content - POE, DLCs, Deadfire - usually have played a far easier version than those who play it later.

WM didn't experience much rebalancing, and I assure you I played the fully patched version.

 

[Parabalus]

I will note one more thing. A lot of people who respond to these kinds of queries play the content the day it comes out. Typically in the months and years following, their little tricks and exploits are patched away, and the opponents made tougher. The people who play any Pillars content - POE, DLCs, Deadfire - usually have played a far easier version than those who play it later.

Both PoE's were made easier with patches.

 

[Prime Junta]

Both PoE's were made easier with patches.

You sure? IIRC Deadfire was too easy out of the gate and received at least one patch early on that buffed some enemies. Could be I'm just confused though...

 

[Alpan]

I will note one more thing. A lot of people who respond to these kinds of queries play the content the day it comes out.

You appear to be assuming that a lot of those people are imbeciles -- imbeciles who somehow respond to queries made in 2020 with impressions dating from 2015.

 

[Nas92]

I never saw Concelhaut. Drunken monk guy TPK’d whole party.

Don't feel bad, happens to everybody.

That bit really is near-endgame content. White March is way lower level.

Yeah earlier I went to Siege of Cragholdt area, cue 30 minute battle with those two mercs who approach you right away. Barely managed to defeat them with a lvl9 party. Left afterwards, pretty much immediately knew this is not gonna work.

WM is not unfair though, you do have to use your skills somewhat intelligently.

I haven't really been building my characters with power gaming in mind though. Yeah, I know I could respec at an inn, but that's just lame.

 

[Daidre]

With impressions dating from 2015.

I am pretty sure that I was not the only person who replayed first PoE right before Deadfire releasein the beginning of 2018, to create a proper save for import at least.
(Not that it helped me. All C&C from imported saves was completely broken for months.)

 

[Parabalus]

You can start clearing WM on PotD as early as lvl 3-4. The ogres only have high Fort and can be abused because of that, but it is tough. Very rewarding though, the early soulbounds are rad.

With impressions dating from 2015.

I am pretty sure that I was not the only person who replayed first PoE right before Deadfire releasein the beginning of 2018, to create a proper save for import at least.
(Not that it helped me. All C&C from imported saves was completely broken for months.)

The 3.0x patch came out in late 2016 and nothing really happened in PoE anymore. There were some easter egg Deadfire items added but they're pretty minor all in all.

 

[Lacrymas]

I haven't really been building my characters with power gaming in mind though. Yeah, I know I could respec at an inn, but that's just lame.

The last time I played through PoE1, I used a party only of companions. Some of them are more overpowered straight out of the gate than any custom characters you can make. For example The Devil of Caroc is basically un-CC'able due to being a golem, and the furry midget's animal form is retardedly op compared to a normal Druid's (even those who have the cat form). The others are shittier though. Anyway, my point is that WM hardly requires min-maxing, it just demands a bit of thinking at first, and then when you have some more levels under your belt you become so overpowered you can switch off your brain again. There are very few battles which are noticeably tougher if you do them at the appropriate levels, like the 3 broodmothers fight and the shining brotherhood bounty (or whatever they were called). People have said Concelhaut or Llengrath are difficult, but both times I managed to one or two-shot them, so I dunno about that.

 

[Tigranes]

This chuft guy has a bunch of really really specific and weird opinions that combine forces to create a weird ass reality

WM is good, but sometimes the difference is overblown. If you hated to the death POE combat and you are already burning Sawyer effigies, then a series of well designed challenging fights that require you to know and use the system's tactical possibilities ... is just going to feel like a chore. If you thought POE could be good if it got some distance from its failed synthesis of gods/animancy themes & its encounters/dungeons were designed better, then WM will be great.

At release Deadfire POTD was quite difficult until leaving Port Maje, and then difficulty jumped off a cliff into an abyss into the heart of the sun. Honestly it still is like that, though some adjustments happened. Open world and all that.

 

[Lacrymas]

WM is good, but sometimes the difference is overblown.

I wouldn't say so, it truly is a tremendous improvement over everything else. It depends on what exactly you hate about base game, if you hate the extremely bland, extremely same-y content and maps, and the life-sapping writing, you'll more than likely find WM (at least the first part) to be quite enjoyable. If you hate the combat, WM won't do anything for you and you'll still hate it.

 

[Starwars]

The White March is a really excellent expansion but it is a bit unfortunate that it throws the campaign completely out of whack. Not just in terms of difficulty but just the pacing as well. Same thing happened with the New Vegas DLCs. Good experiences on their own but it just fucks up the level progression of the main game completely (which wasn't exactly great at its release either). But I guess that's the curse of of the type of expansion that gets dropped into the middle of an already existing game.

With Deadfire, it's pretty unfortunate and dumb that they did Seeker, Slayer, Survivor the way they did. Beast of Winter comes around in the midteen levels I think, fine. Forgotten Sanctum is sort of endgame-y which isn't exactly optimal given that you're probably doing it right before you head to to the final area of the main game. Sort of dumb but not the end of the world given that it *feels* like endgame content.

But, SSS comes way too late for what it is. Should've been an area that you returned to throughout the game, doing battles in the arena every once in a while. Starting early in the game, finishing the hardest ones late.
As it is, it's this huge combat chunk that shows up way too late in the game.

 

[chuft]

This chuft guy has a bunch of really really specific and weird opinions that combine forces to create a weird ass reality

Do a Google search for "White March too hard" to get a glimpse into this widely shared reality.

a series of well designed challenging fights that require you to know and use the system's tactical possibilities

He means nerding out over spreadsheety stuff like this, and enjoying fights where spirits suddenly appear behind you, or "abscond" with your squishies into other rooms where the spirits can slaughter them without interference from your front liners, etc.

I come from a land where dying and reloading is not considered a legitimate way to gather tactical intelligence on an encounter. That makes me weird to the reloader crowd, who think PotD is the only way to measure difficulty. (Winning on your first try - without being a spreadsheet math nerd spending his time looking for stackable percent bonuses - is my idea of difficulty.)

 

[Tigranes]

I come from a land where lots and lots of people played WM just fine without a spreadsheet

I have never even seen that spreadsheet and the only game where I ever felt the need to look at a spreadsheet was v1.0 Grimoire mainly because written prose alone could not describe the twisted conceptual architecture of a Neanderthal mind

 

[Prime Junta]

I come from a land where lots and lots of people played WM just fine without a spreadsheet

Same.

The trouble with Pillars is that if you don't play it at PotD, you can grind through it without all that much thought or understanding of the systems, which isn't all that much fun. If you do bump it to PotD, then you will either have to learn the systems, or reload, like, a lot.

If you really hate reloading -- which is a gameplay style I respect -- then going in blind on Hard would feel about right, you should get TPWs only pretty infrequently, and those will usually be telegraphed. Like, don't attack a giant fucking dragon unless you're feeling cocky.

But saying that WM is unreasonably or unfairly difficult even at PotD let alone at lower difficulties is just not true. You just need to understand how the system works and use it intelligently: use defences tailored to counter the strengths of the enemy, and attack their weak points. None of this requires foreknowledge or trial and error, only paying attention to what the game is communicating to you, reading your ability descriptions (specifically: which defences each ability attacks, and what status effects they apply).

Spoiler

Post 9999.

 

[Daidre]

Party composition matters too. PoTD with and without Priest for a blanket immunity to every form of CC, Crowns for the Faithful and lower level ACC buffs are 2 different difficulties. Well at least for a player who does look into spellbook and reads descriptions.