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

[Infinitron]

Oh that's nice, they're doing these streams on YouTube now:

 

[Lacrymas]

Never forget a ragtag team of interns did better job of making a DLC for POE and a random system designer added more interesting subclasses than what Sawyer and his legion of funkillers did.

How does a certain DLC called The White March figure into this equation

Seems to me the pattern is more unambiguously "DLC > base game" than "interns > Sawyer".

Why not both? Was Sawyer involved in White March?

Base PoE1 is mediocre, White March is very enjoyable. It seems that similar pattern is following with deadfire as well, except this time around Sawyer is even less involved leading into even more disparity.

There's also the possibility of the DLCs being much more focused than the base game. SSS is a perfect example of that. Base PoE1 is terrible, it had an awful development cycle and it needed a mountain of patches to get it to a somewhat playable state, which is still bad, but WM seems to be a microcosm of the base game and it works better. Not only because WM1 doesn't concern itself with the god nonsense, but also because it's not stretched so thin. Yet, it's still a collection of ideas like base game. If PoE + WM was twice the size of only WM and just as good, it would've been a pretty good game and not one which is either hated or tolerated only by specific people.

 

[FreeKaner]

Never forget a ragtag team of interns did better job of making a DLC for POE and a random system designer added more interesting subclasses than what Sawyer and his legion of funkillers did.

How does a certain DLC called The White March figure into this equation

Seems to me the pattern is more unambiguously "DLC > base game" than "interns > Sawyer".

Why not both? Was Sawyer involved in White March?

Base PoE1 is mediocre, White March is very enjoyable. It seems that similar pattern is following with deadfire as well, except this time around Sawyer is even less involved leading into even more disparity.

There's also the possibility of the DLCs being much more focused than the base game. SSS is a perfect example of that. Base PoE1 is terrible, it had an awful development cycle and it needed a mountain of patches to get it to a somewhat playable state, which is still bad, but WM seems to be a microcosm of the base game and it works better. Not only because WM1 doesn't concern itself with the god nonsense, but also because it's not stretched so thin. If PoE + WM was twice the size of only WM and just as good, it would've been a pretty good game and not one which is either hated or tolerated only by specific people.

I do agree with this but whose fault is it if not the director? Them trying to do so many things in plot at once, general disconnect between acts, emphasising worst parts of the setting they themselves created, losing focus and just being uneven, story trying to be deep and philosophical, but also a grand journey, at the same time attempting to be low fantasy adventure and just falling flat as well as other problems are fault of whom?

Joshua "League of Legends is Apex of Video Game Design" Sawyer is a boring person who is not as deep as he thinks. He can do system analysis and genre deconstruction which are useful skills in game development but not for directing, he can also provide historical and materiel detail about history & arms and armour, he should be the Team Autist.

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's simply a matter of them learning and improving on feedback.

 

[Lacrymas]

I do agree with this but whose fault is it if not the director? Them trying to do so many things in plot at once, general disconnect between acts, emphasising worst parts of the setting they themselves created, losing focus and just being uneven, story trying to be deep and philosophical, but also a grand journey, at the same time attempting to be low fantasy adventure and just falling flat as well as other problems are fault of whom?

Joshua "League of Legends is Apex of Video Game Design" Sawyer is a boring person who is not as deep as he thinks. He can do system analysis and genre deconstruction which are useful skills in game development but not for directing, he can also provide historical and materiel detail about history & arms and armour, he should be the Team Autist.

For the first game, perhaps nobody is at fault, I understand why PoE1 base game is the way it is. For DF, however, you are right. Base DF could've easily been better than it is and perhaps it's Sawyer's fault for not seeing where the strengths of this franchise and his team lie.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Any game could have been easily better in hindsight. Game development is a lot messier than you guys pretend.

 

[2house2fly]

They can't all come out as smooth and polished as Pathfinder Kingmaker

 

[FreeKaner]

There is also the problem of Sawyer's combat philosophies, which makes it amount to synergies and attrition at grand total with alpha strikes being the only game changers. This likely has to do with Sawyer's visceral hatred for hard disables (probably his obsession with eugenics) and hard counters (probably about Eastern Front), Pillars combat could be improved greatly by only adding few hard disables and few rock & paper & scissors mechanics.

They did improve the general combat in second game overall, both affliction & status effects and more interesting spells but this time around Sawyer made the trees for classes a lot more like MMO to tame the multiclasses, itemisation is fairly good in both games. However still, I think combat is the greatest improvement over first one, except for again Sawyer's streamlining obsession making item types all have same baseline along speed and only diverge minimally from this basis. So you have a flail and a dagger essentially act as a same weapon only marginally differentiated by modal abilities (but not by far). Everything else is a side step at best.

 

[Roguey]

I do agree with this but whose fault is it if not the director?

Feargus, same as always. He interferes with the main games, leaves expansions/DLC alone.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They made a big mistake in putting so much content into the DLC. Why would I buy the game before the 'complete edition' comes out with all DLC bundled together? They released an unfinished game and expected people to buy it, then buy the rest of the content as it's made.

 

[TemplarGR]

Any game could have been easily better in hindsight. Game development is a lot messier than you guys pretend.

That's nonsense, any random member of rpgcodex could design the best crpg ever made if given the resources.

 

[Lacrymas]

Are challenges only unlocked when you beat the game once? If not, how do you turn them on?

 

[Quillon]

Hidden at the bottom of the main menu, last I saw.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Click on the owl head (magran) in the main menu. Its eyes will light up when you mouse is over it.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Are challenges only unlocked when you beat the game once? If not, how do you turn them on?

It's a little hidden on the main menu - click on Magrans skull underneath the main panel with "New Game", "Continue", etc.

edit: Ninja'd by Quillon and Safav Hamon

 

[Lacrymas]

It's like they didn't want anybody to find them, lol. Anyway, is it still a good idea to get the reduced xp gain mod? Any other mods that are must-haves?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

They made a big mistake in putting so much content into the DLC. Why would I buy the game before the 'complete edition' comes out with all DLC bundled together? They released an unfinished game and expected people to buy it, then buy the rest of the content as it's made.

In my case at least it's because it wasn't too far off 'complete edition' pricing for what I spent on it. Figstarter with good boy discount was $24, then I bought the season pass on sale for $16, so $40 and I played the game at launch and then sat on my ass until the DLC was done to play it a second time and see if it got any better. Not as cheap as it'll ultimately be of course but it seemed reasonable enough at the time, even if I almost skipped the DLC and said fuck replaying it entirely.

 

[2house2fly]

They made a big mistake in putting so much content into the DLC. Why would I buy the game before the 'complete edition' comes out with all DLC bundled together? They released an unfinished game and expected people to buy it, then buy the rest of the content as it's made.

This is the first time I've seen someone suggest that the DLCs had too much content

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They made a big mistake in putting so much content into the DLC. Why would I buy the game before the 'complete edition' comes out with all DLC bundled together? They released an unfinished game and expected people to buy it, then buy the rest of the content as it's made.

This is the first time I've seen someone suggest that the DLCs had too much content

Really? You've never seen complaints that developers are cutting their games up and simply selling them to you piece by piece to make more money?
This image dates to about 2012:

Spoiler

 

[Quillon]

The final god challenge is called - The Ultimate

So a combined & d challenge is probable after all(?)

 

[Safav Hamon]

I don't think it's a combined challenge. It's something else.

 

[2house2fly]

Really? You've never seen complaints that developers are cutting their games up and simply selling them to you piece by piece to make more money?
This image dates to about 2012:

Spoiler

the DLC content in Deadfire is clearly not cut content they decided to sell separately

 

[Ulfhednar]

Haven't finished it yet, but I think Forgotten Sanctum is gonna have some of the better content in the game. The area designs have fairly large maps that interconnect, the enemies use (some of) their class abilities, and the writing is serviceable. I can't get into the "restricted" part of the library, and I can't tell if my game is bugged, or if I'm just missing another entrance to the map, so I'm stopping there for now.

 

[Quillon]

I can't get into the "restricted" part of the library

You'll need the invisibility cloak for that.

 

[MajorMace]

Never forget a ragtag team of interns did better job of making a DLC for POE and a random system designer added more interesting subclasses than what Sawyer and his legion of funkillers did.

It'll make for a nice story, let's agree on this lie.