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

[Desiderius]

I did a lot of experimenting with characters builds soon after release (clinical case of restartis here) and went through Port Maje 20+ times. I wanted to do complete run to try out SSS and Forgotten Sanctum, but thought of doing it again (and Neketaka quests) fills me with dread.

I always had this problem with DLCs, loading half-year old save to play some new content is almost impossible for me.

Yeah, I had planned on finishing PoE (which I liked) with DLCs before starting Deadfire. Couldn't get into old save (pre-White March) at all, restarted and bogged down at beginning of WM2 with all the big battle stuff still to be done.

 

[Sharpedge]

I did a lot of experimenting with characters builds soon after release (clinical case of restartis here) and went through Port Maje 20+ times. I wanted to do complete run to try out SSS and Forgotten Sanctum, but thought of doing it again (and Neketaka quests) fills me with dread.

I always had this problem with DLCs, loading half-year old save to play some new content is almost impossible for me.

You aren't missing much, I had to actively force myself to finish the forgotten sanctum the zone was so bland and even that is not as dull as the "mega bosses." Hauani o Whe may be the worst boss I have seen in any game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Out of their more recent games, I think the boss fight I enjoyed the most was actually the King of Shadows in NWN 2. The game itself wasn't too great (although the expansion was good) but having multiple boss phases with different mechanics you had to react to was actually a significant step up from anything in Pillars. Too bad the fight wasn't actually difficult, but it had the potential to be with numbers tweaking.

I've always found these sort of boss battles a bit ...MMOish for lack of better word. I've always preferred bosses who have unusual or stronger abilities and smarter AI, perhaps coupled with an unusually tough selection of minions at their disposal. Having distinct phases is a bit game-y and, if not requires, then heavily encourages repetition of actions to get through a phase. I've found PoE's bosses to have the right idea, just not the best execution, especially when it comes to AI or the system in general. Many of this franchise's bosses rely on a single trick to surprise you with, but given how the system actually works, i.e. being able to stack defenses and ignore mechanics because of it, it wasn't very successful. It's no wonder people cite early-game bosses as some of the toughest in the games, like at-level Raedric or the Drake fight in the ruins; you can't stack defenses so high to be virtually impenetrable and to shrug off enemy abilities. I guess there are some builds in PoE2 that can do that, like the aforementioned Paladin/Wizard that relies on Wizard's Double, but that just proves my point how you have the possibility of manipulating the system to ignore encounter design, it just depends on at what level or build we are talking about.

From what people have been saying about super bosses, they kinda sound like JRPG (bonus, optional) bosses where the trick is to find a way to outlast the humongous HP pools than anything else. That's not bad in of itself, that can be a nice challenge once in a while, but copying it for every boss is lazy and boring. It's also not bad for some bosses to have phases once in a while, maybe not at certain % HP, but seemingly at random, so you can't always be prepared for the next phase just before it happens. I guess my point is that well thought-out boss encounter design that logically combines (and exceeds) the toughest challenges faced by the player up to now is the best case scenario, while at the same time having some variety to spice things up a little and catch you off-guard.

 

[Sharpedge]

Out of their more recent games, I think the boss fight I enjoyed the most was actually the King of Shadows in NWN 2. The game itself wasn't too great (although the expansion was good) but having multiple boss phases with different mechanics you had to react to was actually a significant step up from anything in Pillars. Too bad the fight wasn't actually difficult, but it had the potential to be with numbers tweaking.

I've always found these sort of boss battles a bit ...MMOish for lack of better word. I've always preferred bosses who have unusual or stronger abilities and smarter AI, perhaps coupled with an unusually tough selection of minions at their disposal. Having distinct phases is a bit game-y and, if not requires, then heavily encourages repetition of actions to get through a phase. I've found PoE's bosses to have the right idea, just not the best execution, especially when it comes to AI or the system in general. Many of this franchise's bosses rely on a single trick to surprise you with, but given how the system actually works, i.e. being able to stack defenses and ignore mechanics because of it, it wasn't very successful. It's no wonder people cite early-game bosses as some of the toughest in the games, like at-level Raedric or the Drake fight in the ruins; you can't stack defenses so high to be virtually impenetrable and to shrug off enemy abilities. I guess there are some builds in PoE2 that can do that, like the aforementioned Paladin/Wizard that relies on Wizard's Double, but that just proves my point how you have the possibility of manipulating the system to ignore encounter design, it just depends on at what level or build we are talking about.

From what people have been saying about super bosses, they kinda sound like JRPG (bonus, optional) bosses where the trick is to find a way to outlast the humongous HP pools than anything else. That's not bad in of itself, that can be a nice challenge once in a while, but copying it for every boss is lazy and boring. It's also not bad for some bosses to have phases once in a while, maybe not at certain % HP, but seemingly at random, so you can't always be prepared for the next phase just before it happens. I guess my point is that well thought-out boss encounter design that logically combines (and exceeds) the toughest challenges faced by the player up to now is the best case scenario, while at the same time having some variety to spice things up a little and catch you off-guard.

I think the one redeeming factor of MMOs is boss design. Pretty much everything outside of boss design is poor, but bosses that have many mechanics and take effort to learn them is a positive thing, so long as it is not overdone. Not every fight needs to be a mechanically challenging boss fight, but if there is sufficient narrative buildup and the story is working towards a major encounter, the boss should have enough weight behind it to live up to the intended level of drama. The boss doesn't necessarily need to have phases or be a massive, hulking figure either, it could just be a humanoid mage for example, but use magic outside of what is available to the player, in creative ways that force you to keep on your toes. More importantly, I feel there should be some correlation between the complexity of the fight and the length. If a fight is intended to be simple, it should be short. The PoE megabosses are an example of the opposite of this. I would probably be fine with most of them, under the condition they have a smaller HP pool but very quickly into the fight you realize you have seen all the mechanics that boss has to offer and then it just becomes repetition.

 

[gestalt11]

I always skip Gorecci Street, but can confirm that the ruins fights are soloable using an Arcane Knight (though I had resolve dumped) if you use choke points correctly. The biggest threat there is not the panthers or the drake, it's the boar.

The entire game is soloable even with every single extra challenge enabled:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109912-the-ultimate-discussion-thread-pt-2/page/1/

 

[Lacrymas]

I think the one redeeming factor of MMOs is boss design. Pretty much everything outside of boss design is poor, but bosses that have many mechanics and take effort to learn them is a positive thing, so long as it is not overdone. Not every fight needs to be a mechanically challenging boss fight, but if there is sufficient narrative buildup and the story is working towards a major encounter, the boss should have enough weight behind it to live up to the intended level of drama. The boss doesn't necessarily need to have phases or be a massive, hulking figure either, it could just be a humanoid mage for example, but use magic outside of what is available to the player, in creative ways that force you to keep on your toes. More importantly, I feel there should be some correlation between the complexity of the fight and the length. If a fight is intended to be simple, it should be short. The PoE megabosses are an example of the opposite of this. I would probably be fine with most of them, under the condition they have a smaller HP pool but very quickly into the fight you realize you have seen all the mechanics that boss has to offer and then it just becomes repetition.

MMO bosses have 2 things that differentiate them from single-player ones. The first being the requirement of coordination between quite a lot of people and the second being their intended farm-ability. In single-player RPGs, you lose the former aspect because you can't really coordinate with yourself in the case where pause is available at any time or it's turn-based, hand-eye coordination is not important or a necessity. The latter aspect forces the design to a sort of puzzle that once you complete, you can easily repeat because you already know the solution and you are just doing it for items at that point. There's no need for that in single-player games due to not having a bunch of other people with you raging every time the battle is different and takes 4 hours. You *need* AI to play a significant role so it can adapt itself to your party, rather than the other way around, due to the very nature of the party and character build systems. Otherwise you not only run into the risk of having wildly different difficulty curves simply due to party composition (which PoE is guilty of btw), but also of balance issues that can spread to other sections of the design and invalidate a whole swath of builds or even classes and roles.

 

[Sharpedge]

I think the one redeeming factor of MMOs is boss design. Pretty much everything outside of boss design is poor, but bosses that have many mechanics and take effort to learn them is a positive thing, so long as it is not overdone. Not every fight needs to be a mechanically challenging boss fight, but if there is sufficient narrative buildup and the story is working towards a major encounter, the boss should have enough weight behind it to live up to the intended level of drama. The boss doesn't necessarily need to have phases or be a massive, hulking figure either, it could just be a humanoid mage for example, but use magic outside of what is available to the player, in creative ways that force you to keep on your toes. More importantly, I feel there should be some correlation between the complexity of the fight and the length. If a fight is intended to be simple, it should be short. The PoE megabosses are an example of the opposite of this. I would probably be fine with most of them, under the condition they have a smaller HP pool but very quickly into the fight you realize you have seen all the mechanics that boss has to offer and then it just becomes repetition.

MMO bosses have 2 things that differentiate them from single-player ones. The first being the requirement of coordination between quite a lot of people and the second being their intended farm-ability. In single-player RPGs, you lose the former aspect because you can't really coordinate with yourself in the case where pause is available at any time or it's turn-based, hand-eye coordination is not important or a necessity. The latter aspect forces the design to a sort of puzzle that once you complete, you can easily repeat because you already know the solution and you are just doing it for items at that point. There's no need for that in single-played games due to not having a bunch of other people with you raging every time the battle is different and takes 4 hours. You *need* AI to play a significant role so it can adapt itself to your party, rather than the other way around, due to the very nature of the party and character build systems. Otherwise you not only run into the risk of having wildly different difficulty curves simply due to party composition (which PoE is guilty of btw), but also of balance issues that can spread to other sections of the design.

Having an AI which uses many mechanics to react to you instead of an AI which uses a few mechanics to react to you by definition makes the fight more interesting. Note: I am not advocating for MMO boss fights in the sense that everything is a pre-determined puzzle, those are not difficult to complete once you learn them. I am advocating for MMO like bosses in the sense that they have a multitude of abilities which you must react to in different ways.

I always skip Gorecci Street, but can confirm that the ruins fights are soloable using an Arcane Knight (though I had resolve dumped) if you use choke points correctly. The biggest threat there is not the panthers or the drake, it's the boar.

The entire game is soloable even with every single extra challenge enabled:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109912-the-ultimate-discussion-thread-pt-2/page/1/

I haven't watched any of the completions of the ultimate challenge since watching other people's gameplay does not entirely appeal to me, but as far as I am aware they are skipping many of the early game encounters in order to keep the child alive. These fights are not on the list of required fights to complete the challenge and I wouldn't risk doing them were I interested in sinking 100's of hours into this game for a virtual trophy (I am really not).

 

[Lacrymas]

MMO bosses have no AI at all, what they do is always in some sense controlled by the players with aggro mechanics and knowing what to expect when, and even when not knowing that, it's still a predetermined set of actions. MMO bosses are set pieces, I'd even call them a part of the scenery, which are very artificial, almost like platforming challenges. There is no adaption to you or they "thinking for themselves" and "reacting", it's all a hamster wheel. Just having more mechanics to a boss fight isn't the same thing as an MMO boss.

 

[Sharpedge]

MMO bosses have no AI at all, what they do is always in some sense controlled by the players with aggro mechanics and knowing what to expect when, and even when not knowing that, it's still a predetermined set of actions. MMO bosses are set pieces, I'd even call them a part of the scenery, which are very artificial, almost like platforming challenges. There is no adaption to you or they "thinking for themselves" and "reacting", it's all a hamster wheel. Just having more mechanics to a boss fight isn't the same thing as an MMO boss.

That is exactly what I said, I called them puzzles. Once you learn the solution to a puzzle, the fun from it is gone. Say however, you were to take the individual pieces of the puzzle and you allowed an AI to decide when to use them, the fight becomes a lot more interesting (if also a lot more challenging). MMOs are very good at creating a boss atmosphere, the bosses feel like a boss and have a wide enough array of powers so that the player is engaged in the fight for a longer period of time. They don't do a very good job of keeping the fight interesting beyond a single attempt, but they illustrate that an extended boss fight should have more than 1 or 2 powers. Dorudugan for example does not feel like a boss, neither does Thaos, or any of the PoE 1/2 bosses. The King of Shadows has the correct atmosphere. Another example would be the fight with Jon Irenicus in BG 2 SoA, right at the end or alternatively Amelyssan in ToB. In P:KM the Lantern King also fits the occasion.

What I feel could work is introducing 6 or 7 of the bosses mechanics in earlier stages of an RPG (this is strictly for these types of showpiece fights) so that the player is aware of how they are supposed to deal with them, then sticking those + 2 or 3 more into the showpiece fight and allowing the AI to decide when to use them to react to player powers. This way the fight does not necessarily have the repeated hours of frustration an MMO might have with repeated failures, as the player knows many of the fight mechanics already and how they have to react to them, but the fight is still more engaging than your 3-4 mechanic fight as you need to react to much more.

 

[Efe]

Desiderius id start by turning off rapid shot and rush essence bow from port maje...
i suggested the combination cos you liked it hard... go rogue//x if you want it easier

 

[Desiderius]

Desiderius id start by turning off rapid shot and rush essence bow from port maje...
i suggested the combination cos you liked it hard... go rogue//x if you want it easier

Not criticizing, genuinely curious how you play it out. So you open with Imbue to get a quick essence?

 

[Efe]

you hit big with imbue when shot chains by weapon or skill and thats pretty much it.
+ you have high arcana, go go consumables

for garrote, just threw it in there for you.. i doubt it will be more useful than any other paladin.

 

[Desiderius]

you hit big with imbue when shot chains by weapon or skill and thats pretty much it.
+ you have high arcana, go go consumables

for garrote, just threw it in there for you.. i doubt it will be more useful than any other paladin.

Could use Garotte on whatever pet/essence dudes are attacking to help them do more damage or CC to protect yourself/casters.

I’m playing around with a Skald/Kind Wayfarer Herald that’s a decent tank who gets to fire off a Shout, Greater a couple times per fight and has an AoE heal on Flames of Devotion.

 

[Elex]

is possibile to use a single character for complete poe1+2? and by that i mean the same exact build.

 

[Lacrymas]

It depends on the build. The most interesting things were gutted (my beloved Skaen Priest) and require multiclassing for it to work the same way it did before (or similar), some things can have analogues. I'd say the rule of thumb is if the build is pretty straightforward, then yeah, but if it's something actually interesting, then no.

 

[Haplo]

Also can't recreate a Carnage focused Barbarian.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

The ultimate collector's edition of Deadfire for consoles comes with a bunch of cute stuff!

 

[Silly Germans]

The ultimate collector's edition of Deadfire for consoles comes with a bunch of cute stuff!

What is a METALSTICKER ? Is there a GRINDCORE alternative ?

 

[Lacrymas]

Why would you subject yourself to PoE2 on a console.

 

[Delterius]

what matters is the keychain

 

[vortex]

It has to come with statue of Eothas Woedica breaking the Wheel.

 

[Roguey]

Are there people who would seriously pay $130 for that..? Woe, would you?

 

[Lacrymas]

I recently found out some guy spent 1.2 MILLION dollars on a Chinese MMO (which is pay to win, obviously), so people paying $130 for that wouldn't surprise me. It's not worth it, but one man's trash etc.

 

[RaptorRex888]

Sorry, but I want that statue.

 

[Starwars]

I'm gonna replay this for a bit, what are people's experiences with the God challenges? I've only tried the one that makes ship stuff harder.

Thinking of Woedica's challenge in particular. I enjoy per-rest focused games way more than per-encounter but does it actually feel BALANCED and worthwhile for Deadfire? Does it feel good to play or just tacked on?

Might also go for the Skaen's challenge.