Pathfinder vs. Divinity 2 vs. Pillars 2

[Iluvcheezcake]

you had me at

No

but then lost at

tried the TB mode for both Pillars and PKM, PKM went much faster

But its true. In PKM you can greatly accelerate animation speed and the enemies are far less bullet-spongy (then some of them in Deadfire). Plus martials have multiple attacks per round and melees can proc attack chains via Outflank/Seize the Moment/Greater Trip. A well placed nuke can finish some encounters almost on its own.

PKM TB IS much faster.

comparrison to game I havent played with non standard mode does little to me.
Also if something is very slow, saying that another thing is way faster doesnt imply that its reasonably quick.

Well, i dont know what games you played.
Hm... Best comparison of PKM turn based combat for me is Blackguards. Similar size of characters, not too bullet spongy, can gang up on someone, etc

 

[gurugeorge]

Eh, again these fake news. Why do you think stats have little impact in Deadfire?

Wizard 1 - Why your fireball is stronger than mine?
Wizard 2 - I work out every day. Din't you know? It is magic 101. More muscle mass means deadlier spells, deadlier projectile with firearms and more healing if you are a cleric.

That is the Pillars Logic. Might increases damage from everything, INT the AOE from everything(...)

Yeah, I rather like it. Now all stats have a meaning. Int also increases effect durations, btw. And the aoe radius increase from high Int is party friendly.

I like it too, it's logical. All the stats in a game should do something, nothing should be a "dump stat" unless you're deliberately creating an idiot or a fool, for example. The restriction of single stats to power level is what's resulted in the absurd proliferation of "classes" in these games.

Conceptually the term "Might" is a bit of a problem though - or rather, not conceptually, but simply in naming terms; if they'd called the statistic the more abstract "Power" or something, they wouldn't have gotten as much flak for it.

The best solution to this conundrum I've ever seen was in Cryptic's Champions Online, where, again, all the stats did something useful and had particular utility to the various hero archetypes, but you could choose any one stat as your "Super Stat" to boost your damage (and conceptually that's easy enough to finagle). I wonder how you could do the same thing in a fantasy genre (perhaps have it a "God touched" stat or something of that nature)?

Also, it should be noted that magic using hero archetypes in literature and myth haven't always been gangly nerds. Gandalf mainly lays about him with a sword and staff, for example; or in the Vancian stories that partly inspired D&D, many of the magic users are quite physically capable. Similarly in myth - generally magic using characters aren't necessarily weedy physically, they might not be as good a fighter as a dedicated fighter, but they could hold their own physically with the equivalent of trash mobs, for example. Similarly in Japanese anime and manga - the nerds aren't weeds, they're pretty tough physically too.

In the historical olden days upon which fantasy themes are based, if you didn't pass a certain level of physical capability you probably wouldn't have survived to learn magic in the first place

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Eh, again these fake news. Why do you think stats have little impact in Deadfire?

Wizard 1 - Why your fireball is stronger than mine?
Wizard 2 - I work out every day. Din't you know? It is magic 101. More muscle mass means deadlier spells, deadlier projectile with firearms and more healing if you are a cleric.

That is the Pillars Logic. Might increases damage from everything, INT the AOE from everything(...)

Yeah, I rather like it. Now all stats have a meaning. Int also increases effect durations, btw. And the aoe radius increase from high Int is party friendly.

I like it too, it's logical. All the stats in a game should do something, nothing should be a "dump stat" unless you're deliberately creating an idiot or a fool, for example. The restriction of single stats to power level is what's resulted in the absurd proliferation of "classes" in these games.

Conceptually the term "Might" is a bit of a problem though - or rather, not conceptually, but simply in naming terms; if they'd called the statistic the more abstract "Power" or something, they wouldn't have gotten as much flak for it.

The best solution to this conundrum I've ever seen was in Cryptic's Champions Online, where, again, all the stats did something useful and had particular utility to the various hero archetypes, but you could choose any one stat as your "Super Stat" to boost your damage (and conceptually that's easy enough to finagle). I wonder how you could do the same thing in a fantasy genre (perhaps have it a "God touched" stat or something of that nature)?

Or instead just use the system that already works lol...

 

[gurugeorge]

Eh, again these fake news. Why do you think stats have little impact in Deadfire?

Wizard 1 - Why your fireball is stronger than mine?
Wizard 2 - I work out every day. Din't you know? It is magic 101. More muscle mass means deadlier spells, deadlier projectile with firearms and more healing if you are a cleric.

That is the Pillars Logic. Might increases damage from everything, INT the AOE from everything(...)

Yeah, I rather like it. Now all stats have a meaning. Int also increases effect durations, btw. And the aoe radius increase from high Int is party friendly.

I like it too, it's logical. All the stats in a game should do something, nothing should be a "dump stat" unless you're deliberately creating an idiot or a fool, for example. The restriction of single stats to power level is what's resulted in the absurd proliferation of "classes" in these games.

Conceptually the term "Might" is a bit of a problem though - or rather, not conceptually, but simply in naming terms; if they'd called the statistic the more abstract "Power" or something, they wouldn't have gotten as much flak for it.

The best solution to this conundrum I've ever seen was in Cryptic's Champions Online, where, again, all the stats did something useful and had particular utility to the various hero archetypes, but you could choose any one stat as your "Super Stat" to boost your damage (and conceptually that's easy enough to finagle). I wonder how you could do the same thing in a fantasy genre (perhaps have it a "God touched" stat or something of that nature)?

Or instead just use the system that already works lol...

"Works" in what sense? Thematically, mechanics, lore, etc? It's not as if D&D-like systems have ever been considered to be problem-free.

 

[Cryomancer]

"Works" in what sense? Thematically, mechanics, lore, etc? It's not as if D&D-like systems have ever been considered to be problem-free.

D&D stats aren't problem free but are far better than stats that contradicts the game lore(in the case of low int WIZ builds) or wow style stat stickie itemization where everyone without a gear is a clone like dos2.

 

[Anonona]

wow style stat stickie itemization where everyone without a gear is a clone like dos2.

What are you talking about? The main source of stats comes from the character themselves in D:OS2. While weapon do increase those stats, is usually a relatively small amount. Add to that that many skill, spells and weapons require a minimum stat or skill level, and skills themselves have secondary effects that also contribute to your character build (scoundrel grants you Crit, Necromancy allows you to steal health, etc), and you end up with character builds being defined more by the characters themselves than gear, specially because of the randomized loot. Add shit like feats and the like and each character is unique. Because of the way stats work, it isn't good to "dip" into too many different skills or you may end up falling behind on DMG, defense, etc, so a degree of specialization is also expected.


You should stop talking out of your ass.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Conceptually the term "Might" is a bit of a problem though - or rather, not conceptually, but simply in naming terms; if they'd called the statistic the more abstract "Power" or something, they wouldn't have gotten as much flak for it.

It's not just a "naming" issue though. In scripted events where you have the option to use Might clearly indicates that Might actually means physical strength. Like using the Wizard to push over a wall or something. Like the lore itself actually contradicts the attribute. I'm not sure I understand how you're okay with this...

 

[Sharpedge]

The funny thing about items in D:OS 2 is the most memorable item in the game is a pair of teleportation gloves you acquire at level 2. Aside from those, I cannot remember another one of the "unique" items in the game.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

The funny thing about items in D:OS 2 is the most memorable item in the game is a pair of teleportation gloves you acquire at level 2. Aside from those, I cannot remember another one of the "unique" items in the game.

Hey that spear belonging to that dark lord is kind of memorable...Now, what's his name?

 

[Cryomancer]

The funny thing about items in D:OS 2 is the most memorable item in the game is a pair of teleportation gloves you acquire at level 2. Aside from those, I cannot remember another one of the "unique" items in the game.

That is the problem of wow style itemization...

Compare to BG2, where you can find a lot of cool items

BG2 items

Stat stickie itemization is the WORST type of itemization. A ring which allow me to summon a Djinni but can be destroyed if the Djinni is destroyed is cool. Risk vs reward, limited high power since i got it before i could cast a similar spell and usign has a cost of opportunity since i could sell the item for a good price.

The staff of command has a very powerful effect "Staff of Command is a Quarterstaff +2 which gives the wielder the ability to cast a powerful Domination effect on a target at the cost of one charge. The domination has a range of 40', lasts 12 hours and has no save" https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Staff_of_Command

That staff saved me when i got caught unprepared in a encounter...

 

[JohnSmith24601]

For me it’s the Flail of Ages and that cloak that reflects spells 100% back at enemy wizards. Good times.

Oh and the unbroken circle of zerthimon in Planescape Torment cuz feelz...

 

[Yosharian]

Pillars' attributes are too abstract. They don't feel real as a result.

Not to mention that it's ridiculous how low you can make an attribute, it's quite easy to get a score of 2-3 in an attribute which is absurd

 

[DalekFlay]

Kingmaker's the best (and as of yet, the only) one to try adapting the clerical minutia of an existing tabletop game, and is all the more fun for it.

This is a double-edged sword. I personally don't give two fucks about pen and paper games, and found a lot of Kingmaker's mechanics to be silly. However I think it's cool they made a game for people into that, and good for them.

 

[Haplo]

The best part is you can activate and deactivate it with one click of a button so you can mow through the trash encounters in RTwP but when a challenging encounter comes up you go turn based.

And Arcanum had this feature 19 years ago. Eh, progress I guess

Because Arcanum sure had a complex and interesting combat system...

Conceptually the term "Might" is a bit of a problem though - or rather, not conceptually, but simply in naming terms; if they'd called the statistic the more abstract "Power" or something, they wouldn't have gotten as much flak for it.

It's not just a "naming" issue though. In scripted events where you have the option to use Might clearly indicates that Might actually means physical strength. Like using the Wizard to push over a wall or something. Like the lore itself actually contradicts the attribute. I'm not sure I understand how you're okay with this...

Okay, so you get 3 odd tests in a 100+ hour game. Tests that you can ALWAYS solve in different ways, like using a prybar or hammer and chiesel or... a spell (!), yet you insist that these few odd tests prove the system doesn't make sense.

Yeah, I think the devs could have named it differently to avoid flak from autistic traditionalists. Power sounds good.

 

[Jedi Exile]

I've been thinking about these three games too and their strong and weak points. For me the best is Pillars 2. I had lots of fun with DOS2 and trying to get into Kingmaker recently, but Pillars had most of the suff I really like - stealing, sneaking, quests with C&C etc. It's the least combat-focused game among the three and this is the reason I like it. And of course, the best RPG I've been (re)playing recently is Arcanum.

 

[Haplo]

Stealing is frankly a little bit OP in Deadfire. Not so much pickpocketing (although you CAN pickpocket the best headgear for a mage and the best ring for a ranged character), but robbing shopkeepers from extremely valuable possessions.

The "least combat focus" had me scratching my head, though (not that the other 2 are suffering from lack of it).

 

[Fengas]

I only played Deadfire and DoS2, but Deadfire felt like it really allowed me to build a character I want, even if it doesn't really makes sense for a wizard to pry open steel bars with this bare hands due to high might, but over character building was fun, some fun items to play around, combat seemed fine, visually game looks gorgeous, music was nice too, but the rest of it wasn't as fun,

Ship battles were so tedious, ramming, boarding, killing, pillaging and repairing afterwards seemed like most efficient way to do it, exploring islands were a really fun concept but sometimes you'd find a heirloom item and sometimes you'd find fuck all, not even a quest, none of the factions were interesting enough to warrant support, but at least game lets you ditch them all at the end and go face Eothas on your own, but it wasn't very interesting journey story wise (at least personally) so I don't even remember much of it, apart from finale felt like waking up next to ugly obese chick after a night out, confused and having more questions than answers.

But I feel like the worst were companions, I wanted to drown every single one of them apart from Eder, there seemed to be cut companions that turned into sidekicks? Like Zeke, guy hails from a land with only one god from what I understood, so I was curious to find out how does that work but no, here, have a gay fish guy that won't shut the fuck up.

And DoS2 visually looked great, awesome music but itemization was really boring, source abilities just felt weird and I would often get gangbanged and my source sucked out by enemies before I could put it to use, combat was fun until point where every enemy had 5 mobility skills and would jump around like ADHD ridden children, there were some nice and unexpected things you could do but overall, I liked Lohse's companion story more than the main game.

Haven't played Kingmaker yet though, never got to it, but one thing that worried me was if Kingdom part becomes obnoxious and do I need dlc to fully enjoy it?

 

[NJClaw]

Haven't played Kingmaker yet though, never got to it, but one thing that worried me was if Kingdom part becomes obnoxious

You can just set kingdom management to effortless in the difficulty settings: you will very rarely fail your kingdom problems and events and you shouldn't have to fear a game over due to bad kingdom management. Just stay in the capital 14 days before the curse timer ends in each chapter and you are all set.

do I need dlc to fully enjoy it?

Absolutely not:
- Varnhold's Lot is an additional module. It's linked to the main campaign, but it's definitely not needed;
- Beneath the Stolen Lands adds a big dungeon to the main campaign and a new game mode, but the game still has plenty of content even without it;
- Wildcards adds a race and a class: they are fun, but the base game already has enough races and classes to sustain hundreds of hours of gameplay.

 

[Fengas]

Haven't played Kingmaker yet though, never got to it, but one thing that worried me was if Kingdom part becomes obnoxious

You can just set kingdom management to effortless in the difficulty settings: you will very rarely fail your kingdom problems and events and you shouldn't have to fear a game over due to bad kingdom management. Just stay in the capital 14 days before the curse timer ends in each chapter and you are all set.

do I need dlc to fully enjoy it?

Absolutely not:
- Varnhold's Lot is an additional module. It's linked to the main campaign, but it's definitely not needed;
- Beneath the Stolen Lands adds a big dungeon to the main campaign and a new game mode, but the game still has plenty of content even without it;
- Wildcards adds a race and a class: they are fun, but the base game already has enough races and classes to sustain hundreds of hours of gameplay.

I see, thanks, might as well give it a shot, hope I can fill my Kingdom with brothels and profit from sex tourism

 

[Elex]

Parhfinder is the best one.
Divinity is the commercial succes.
Pillars 2 is only a sad game at this point.

 

[NJClaw]

Parhfinder is the best one.
Divinity is the commercial succes.
Pillars 2 is only a sad game at this point.

PoE 2 remains the most good-looking out of the three. D:OS 2 is gorgeous, but pre-rendered hand-painted backgrounds are still unmatched in terms of beauty:

Spoiler

I vastly prefer Kingmaker, but it looks bland (when not outright ugly) compared to Deadfire.

 

[Haplo]

Ship battles were so tedious, ramming, boarding, killing, pillaging and repairing afterwards seemed like most efficient way to do it (...)

I understand its not a great minigame and some people may even hate it. I guess Obsidian eventually understood it also, as they now allow you to move directly to boarding or directly attempt to flee, skipping the minigame entirely.

Although, ackshually, if we're speaking most efficient, they way to do this is to quickly invest in Double Bronzer cannons, only recruit gunner sailors with qualifications in Cannoneer only (no stars in other skills), gather some fast & free xp by sailing and easy prey/easy contracts to reach master canoneer qualifications on them ASAP, proceed to dominate low level bounties, afford a Dhow ship, proceed to dominate all seas and win all naval bounties... below level 10.
Naval battles tend to be much faster (and safer!) then boarding actions - if you know what you're doing and are properly equipped and skilled.

exploring islands were a really fun concept but sometimes you'd find a heirloom item and sometimes you'd find fuck all, not even a quest (snip)

Maybe it happens sometimes but not really much. I think nearly all isles with visible points of interest have something interesting/valuable. Exploration IS very rewarding in Deadfire.

 

[NJClaw]

Ship battles were so tedious, ramming, boarding, killing, pillaging and repairing afterwards seemed like most efficient way to do it (...)

I understand its not a great minigame and some people may even hate it. I guess Obsidian eventually understood it also, as they now allow you to move directly to boarding or directly attempt to flee, skipping the minigame entirely.

Although, ackshually, if we're speaking most efficient, they way to do this is to quickly invest in Double Bronzer cannons, only recruit gunner sailors with qualifications in Cannoneer only (no stars in other skills), gather some fast & free xp by sailing and easy prey/easy contracts to reach master canoneer qualifications on them ASAP, proceed to dominate low level bounties, afford a Dhow ship, proceed to dominate all seas and win all naval bounties... below level 10.
Naval battles tend to be much faster (and safer!) then boarding actions - if you know what you're doing and are properly equipped and skilled.

Why do not having stars in other skills matter?

 

[Fengas]

I understand its not a great minigame and some people may even hate it. I guess Obsidian eventually understood it also, as they now allow you to move directly to boarding or directly attempt to flee, skipping the minigame entirely.

Although, ackshually, if we're speaking most efficient, they way to do this is to quickly invest in Double Bronzer cannons, only recruit gunner sailors with qualifications in Cannoneer only (no stars in other skills), gather some fast & free xp by sailing and easy prey/easy contracts to reach master canoneer qualifications on them ASAP, proceed to dominate low level bounties, afford a Dhow ship, proceed to dominate all seas and win all naval bounties... below level 10.
Naval battles tend to be much faster (and safer!) then boarding actions - if you know what you're doing and are properly equipped and skilled.

I might try that if I replay it, but I guess I overall thought it might be slightly more fleshed out than it was just because of the setting, at least sea shanties made up for that

Maybe it happens sometimes but not really much. I think nearly all isles with visible points of interest have something interesting/valuable. Exploration IS very rewarding in Deadfire.

I remember hauling back a lot of stuff from those but it rarely was something exciting, though finding a really good heirloom rifle in some bog out of nowhere was pretty nice, it's just overall, Deadfire felt very forgettable which really sucks and I hope if they do third game it does better, hopefully Micro$oft shekels

 

[gurugeorge]

PoE 2 remains the most good-looking out of the three. D:OS 2 is gorgeous, but pre-rendered hand-painted backgrounds are still unmatched in terms of beauty. I vastly prefer Kingmaker, but it looks bland (when not outright ugly) compared to Deadfire.

I dunno, I was just musing about this in another thread. I mean, sure, 3-d NWN vs. 2-d BGII there was no comparison, but lately, with D:OS2 and even PFK (and I'm thinking here also of DA:I's Frosbite too, where you can zoom in and out), 3-d is catching up to the extent that it's really just a question of art design talent and inspiration, and high enough resolution textures. And I'm starting to find the trade-off to be at the point where I prefer being able to spin around and zoom in and out in these sorts of games now.

I think with the 2-d backgrounds, each area can look more unique because with 3-d you have to have lots of re-used assets, but that's really the only difference now, and that's get-overable too, with enough time and resources (and again, inspiration).