Preview Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 2 Screenshots at PC Gamer

[Infinitron]

Tags: Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity; Pillars of Eternity: The White March

The lucky fellows at PC Gamer have gotten their hands on the first batch of screenshots from the second part of the Pillars of Eternity: The White March expansion, which is due for release in less than three weeks. Along with the screenshots they also received a description of the location featured in them, a temple of the goddess Ondra called the Abbey of the Fallen Moon. Behold:

Ask the denizens of the White March if they've heard of the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, and they will tell you they have. Ask them for directions to it, and you'll be met only with blank stares.

When someone wants desperately to forget something, they pray to Ondra, goddess of the sea, to take it from their memory. The abbey is thought to be one of Ondra's most sacred sites and to be home to some of her highest ranking clergy, but so little about it is known to outsiders that many have supposed the goddess has used her dominion over memory to protect knowledge of its whereabouts and activities.

The abbey's name is thought to originate with an old folk legend. The story tells of Ondra's unrequited love for the moon, and how in her frustration, she once reached out to touch it, causing a piece of it to fall into her, and resulting in widespread catastrophe. It is said she continues to pursue the moon, and this serves as the most common explanation for the tides.

One persistent rumor among lower level Ondrite clergy is that the abbey houses a number of important and powerful holy relics. Of particular appeal to Ondrite Giftbearers is a pool known as the Salt Well. Giftbearers are faithful servants of Ondra who travel from village to village, helping people to forget painful memories. They accept memento objects that represent these memories, and deposit them into deep water for Ondra to accept into her keeping. Bearing these memories, while a relief to their original owners, takes an emotional toll on the Giftbearers over time. It is said that if one is to bathe in the Salt Well, however, then they have their burdens washed clean—even Giftbearers.
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Of all the gods of Eora, Ondra was probably the least involved in the story of the base game, so it makes sense that she's a focus of the expansion.

 

[Paul_cz]

Wait, there is a God called Ondra ?

lol

 

[Dorateen]

And Realms of Arkania (the Dark Eye setting) has a god named Rondra. What's the problem?

Part 1 of the White March already included Ondra-related content, which was pretty well done.

 

[Thonius]

Does it looks sexy? Yes.
Am I wiling to restart game ( create new hero ) to play side quest addon? I think not.
(I don't have close to end but not end saves)

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

As someone who bought the signed CE and was massively underwhelmed(I ignored most codex criticism during beta b/c Kodex) when PoE was first released(I quit playing at the beginning of Act the 3), has Obsidian actually improved the game with any of the post release content/updates such that it is now demonstrably worth playing though?

 

[Gord]

In terms of difficulty and combat diversity, the game has a low in chapter 2 but picks up again in 3. Also there have been some balance passes since release.
Haven't played since they released the big 2.0 patch, however. I guess I'll wait for the release of both expansion parts.

 

[oldmanpaco]

They fix the stronghold yet? Assuming it can be fixed.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

I played the beta 3.0 last night and I must say I remembered how much fun I had with vanilla. Looking forward to Part 2. With all the criticism and expectation is still is a really good game. I remember now the big skeleton that is seen in the screenshots when they announced the expansion and wasn't yet divided into 2 parts.

 

[Havoc]

Stronghold in PoE was a steaming pile of shit. Did they fixed it in WM1?

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

Stronghold in PoE was a steaming pile of shit. Did they fixed it in WM1?

not really, but along with the patches now the Stronghold can be invaded and we will even get a new quest when 3.0 hits.

 

[Invictus]

The fixes since patch 2.0 have been very good, having the AI for the companions speed things a whole lot since you dont have to micro manage everything all the time. I must say that even though I dont consider the game to be bad by any means it IS the most underwhelming game I have backed in Kickstarter so hopefully this closed the game up with a proper punch

 

[Tigranes]

They set this up in WM1 with the quest involving giftbearers, which was interesting. The nice IWD look continues and the memory schtick is cool. The 2 part thing sucks, though, it does make plaything through it all harder on day 1.

In the larger scheme of things, the quicker they're done with this the faster they can move on to POE2, and hopefully larger structural improvements.

 

[Shadenuat]

Just half a year or a year more and I'll play the game again and go through whole expansion instead of playing first part and then, like in Telltale games, completely forgetting what it was all about when another part comes out. Game would be better and cheaper by then too, probably.

 

[Prime Junta]

My copy is on GoG so I haven't played the 3.0 beta, so I can't comment on that other than from hearsay.

However, the changes between 1.0 and 2.0 have been on the whole really good. In particular, combat is a lot more dynamic because of better AI. They target more smartly and use abilitiies more actively. Engagement has also been rebalanced so that it's no longer as dominant of combat as it was before. Enemies disengage actively so you can't just stick your tank in front and have it completely block movement. Disengagement attacks have been nerfed: they're still really nasty e.g. if a squishy gets engaged, but if you want to you can build a party that's almost as mobile as in the IE games (several ways actually). Immunities also force you to vary your tactics; it's no longer possible to get through the game repeating a good-enough tactic. Items have also been improved a lot, receiving more unique characteristics. (Not hugely impressed by the Soulbound weapons though; good idea but poor execution IMO.)

Some of the enemies introduced in WM1 were pretty good too and make for materially different combat challenges, not just more powerful versions of existing ones.

The difficulty curve is still problematic. If you do the stuff "out of order" you'll out-level a lot of the content fast, moreso if you do White March early, and the optional level scaling is a ham-fisted and partial solution.

As to 3.0, the stronghold has received some love but I doubt any amount of tweaking can truly salvage it. Classes have been rebalanced (again); from the sound of it chanters have gotten some much-needed attention, while ciphers have gotten a big nerf that's got the Obsidian boards raging. I understand they've also pruned some of the trash mobs which is extremely welcome especially for Path of the Damned. Since I haven't played it I don't know how much has changed on that front.

 

[Surf Solar]

Simply beautiful.

Can't wait to finally play PoE again proper with both the expansions installed. Same for Witcher 3. Damn does no one have time for that

 

[orcinator]

Did they remove all the trash mobs too?

 

[Daedalos]

Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

 

[Delbaeth]

Ask the denizens of the White March if they've heard of the Abbey of the Fallen Moon

Black Raven Monastery.

 

[duanth123]

but so little about it is known to outsiders that many have supposed the goddess has used her dominion over memory to protect knowledge of its whereabouts and activities.

At least they finally came up with a proper explanation as to why (near) fully intact dragon/drake skeletons still litter the landscape

This I like.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Did they fix the unique items in the game? Or are legendary weapons still shitty generic crap?

 

[thesheeep]

I guess I could be bothered to play through it all once more with some more content at the end, some more balancing, etc.
Nothing will ever fix the blandness of the character system, though.

 

[aweigh]

did they optimize performance? the WM pt 1 areas ran like utter ass.

 

[Prime Junta]

Did they fix the unique items in the game? Or are legendary weapons still shitty generic crap?

They've improved the items somewhat. It seems there's more of that in 3.00, e.g. some items bestow immunities.

That said, I've changed my mind about the itemisation to a certain extent. Many of the unique properties on the items which don't seem all that interesting at first blush become so when you start thinking exactly how you could best use their unique properties. For example, consider Spelltongue, a rapier which extends your buff duration a little bit every time you score a hit. Not so spectacular, you'd think. Give it to a barbarian with high INT, DEX, and PER however, and you'll find that his buffs won't ever run out at all -- with Carnage he'll score so many hits that they'll stay up the whole fight, even the really powerful ones which normally last for 6 seconds or so. (Credit to Boeroer on the Obsidian forums who came up with this one, and a great many other clever builds as well.)

I've had a lot of fun building characters and parties around item properties. It gives them unique twists and makes for unusual builds and strategies, and hunting down the items is quite engaging as well. I built one party entirely around weapons with the Marking property and related feats, for example (+10 to Accuracy for the closest friendly attacking the same target). Or consider Gaun's Share, the flail which drains Endurance on hit. Pretty boring, but give it to a priest of Eothas with a nice shield and a couple of suitable talents, and you've suddenly turned a fragile back-row caster into a competent front-line off-tank/damage dealer who can also crowd-control, buff, debuff, and counterspell like a boss.

This is a lot subtler than just making a Paladin to use Carsomyr, a fighter-cleric to use Crom Faeyr, or a backstabber to use Celestial Fury though.

The Soulbound weapons have some spectacular special properties attached to them. I'm not a huuuge fan of the execution however; they're too easy to acquire and upgrade, and apart from one of them (the Stormcaller hunting bow) not that interesting to build around (although they are fairly spectacular in their own right).

So those uniques actually are unique, once you start looking at them, and there's a lot of mileage to be had from them, especially the less-obviously-powerful ones.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Looking forward to play this a lot after release.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Classes have been rebalanced (again); from the sound of it chanters have gotten some much-needed attention, while ciphers have gotten a big nerf that's got the Obsidian boards raging. I understand they've also pruned some of the trash mobs which is extremely welcome especially for Path of the Damned. Since I haven't played it I don't know how much has changed on that front.

I'll have to check this out again sometime after the second part drops. Ciphers really needed a nerf. They were stupid powerful.