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

[Lacrymas]

The modals are pretty shitty, though, I wanted Aloth to use the rod modal, which (I think) spreads Rogue afflictions around, but the recovery penalty is so steep, it's not worth it at all and is worse.

 

[FreeKaner]

The modals are pretty shitty, though, I wanted Aloth to use the rod modal, which (I think) spreads Rogue afflictions around, but the recovery penalty is so steep, it's not worth it at all and is worse.

Modals are really uneven, some are fairly good (rapier, sabre, bow, mace etc.) amongst others while some are just so situational to be only useful if you make a specific build around it (flail is most obvious).

I thought rod model is p. good though, especially teheku with his unique item.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've given Tekehu's rod to Aloth (and this sounds too sexual not to mention it), but Aloth is so slow while using the modal, especially in a game where killing individual opponents fast before they overwhelm you is very important.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've found the tower shield modal to be pretty useful.

BTW, I am really looking forward to TB Deadfire. What annoys me most about the gameplay right now is very long battles where I spend the majority of the time paused. The lack of readability is also a problem, though after so many hours, not as big in my case.

 

[FreeKaner]

I don'T care much for tb in deadfire. Now I do prefer TB over RTwP but there are so many TB games out there these days it's not like I couldn't play a good one plus I am not super hopeful with their conversation to TB. Besides I think the RT is a nice change of pace every now and then.

 

[Grunker]

Forgotten Sanctum is incredibly good, can't even compare to previous DLCs.

This whole dungeon is very well designed. I think I barely scratched it and it already has great encounters and REALLY fun boss fights. Don't remember the last time I had this much fun in a videogame.

Two years from now Grunker will write a retrospective calling Deadfire + Forgotten Sanctum one of the greatest RTwP RPGs and everybody will get mad at him again

Haha, low odds of that sadly. Nearly done with Deadfire and nothing in it gets close to White March levels (though I still enjoyed the game quite a bit). Overall I think I prefer the original + expansion. So even when Darth Roxor praises PoE, I seem to disagree with him

 

[AwesomeButton]

Beast of Winter felt better for me than WM.

 

[Grunker]

Beast of Winter was the low point of Deadfire for me - and not just because of the last fight. I wasn't challenged by a single fight in the entire DLC up to that point, it was just large bags of HP that dealt no damage :/

In contrast White March had the Ondra Monk fight (one of the best fights in both games), a fantastic dragon fight and even a lot of the trash fights were very compelling - I love the Laguafeth fights as much as my enjoyment for them have become a meme.

On top of that, the puzzles of BoW were just pointless timewasters, not challenging changes of pace.

I did enjoy some of the story beats though, but not as much as White March.

 

[MajorMace]

I remember the encounter under Neketaka's watershapers' guild to be underwhelming, played it at level 11-ish and it felt much better.
Very cool encounter, especially when you aim for a specific outcome to the quest.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the Ondra Monk fight (one of the best fights in both games)

My experience was the opposite - mash pause really quick and heal yourself faster than the monks can damage you.

 

[Prime Junta]

the Ondra Monk fight (one of the best fights in both games)

My experience was the opposite - mash pause really quick and heal yourself faster than the monks can damage you.

Sounds inefficient and un-fun. If you’re using a lot of heals generally speaking it means your strategy isn’t working and you ought to try something else.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It goes without saying that you must also cause damage faster than them. PoE's combat is hopeless.

 

[FreeKaner]

I am really enjoying the steel garrote so far, what a beautiful concept. Both the steel garrote and priest of woedica has made the PoE1 run where you follow through with Thaos' plan more meaningful.

 

[BING XI LAO]

The lore regarding the Engwithans, who spread fake religions to the other races, has clear anti-semitic connotations. When are people going to finally realise Sawyer is a fascist and boycott his hateful games?

 

[FreeKaner]

The lore regarding the Engwithans, who spread fake religions to the other races, has clear anti-semitic connotations. When are people going to finally realise Sawyer is a fascist and boycott his hateful games?

No, you see the lore regarding Engwithans and their creation of Gods is quite alike the genesis of Gods in Pagan religions. Where Gods do not predate the universe but take form under it and are very real and tangible.

Sawyer, being an Atlanto-Hyperborean Germanic extremists, intended to give the clear message here that while the Pagan Gods of the old might have been invented by people, they had clear purpose and utility, they kept order and made common people have meaning in their lives and follow their ritual and duty. Sawyer implies here that Nordic Neo-Paganism and occult still has a purpose, especially to keep deviants and undesirable at the bay. Think Himmler, no wonder the Pale Elves the most fair and elegant of races are speaking German. Not to mention that the oldest and previously strongest Kingdom who has strongest traditions and a reverence of Woedica and Magran, host of Leaden Key is made of white people and elves in an union.

 

[pomenitul]

Are you not following in Thaos's footsteps in your current playthrough?

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Steele Garrote is an eternal lewk, sis! Can't wait to play it on my main (again and again) for the turn-based Deadfire Switch version! (ugh I was soo looking forward to it coming out this winter but I can wait for early next year I guess)

Speaking of Deadfire, Alex Skokel wrote a super big super extensive thing on how Obsidian plans out its companion interjections and he shows off sooo much of the super cool Obsidian dialogue tech trees on his tumblr:



https://less-than-hash.tumblr.com/post/181338252510/pardon-my-interjection

So much love and care goes into this series from Obsidian!!! Sigh, its totally bittersweet that The Forgotten Sanctum is the last dlc with some of these amazing companions...

 

[AwesomeButton]

Sailor Woedica is Alex Scokel, confirmed.

 

[Tigranes]

I thought it was Sherry.

 

[FreeKaner]

Alex Scokel is a good writer.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

fake religions

A god that used to be a mortal is still a god.

 

[Jenkem]

fake religions

A god that used to be a mortal is still a god.

found the mormon!

 

[AwesomeButton]

"If the gods didn't exist it would be necessary to invent them" :D I haven't commented on this before, but the "revelation" being made in the first game of a series, that "the gods are fake", "it's all a conspiracy", is one of the most notorious instances of a story writer shooting himself in the foot. That's first.

Second, educated people in this "low-key fantasy"(!) world behaving as if revealing this conspiracy would bring about a societal crisis, a breakdown of institutions or even major outrage, rings false in every way imaginable:

An unprejudiced recipient of this story expects that characters would behave rational within the reality of this fantasy world, and expecting aforementioned crisis to happen as a result of simply airing the message "the gods are fake" would be a highly irrational expectation for a character such as Thaos to have, let alone for others who are in on the big secret.

I find it really mind-boggling that anyone with a good general knowledge of history wouldn't laugh his ass off at such a proposition for a main plot hook. Let's see, what is realistically expected to happen if someone starts shouting at the top of his lungs that the gods aren't real, in an actual low-key fantasy setting:
1. People will make fun of him in taverns and on the streets
2. Should he gain enough traction, churches will persecute him for heresy and he will be considered a danger to all for his speeches "angering the gods"
3. In the best-case scenario, from the perspective of this fighter for truth, he would become the leader of a heretical cult.

So, no societal breakdown, no crisis, no angry mobs in front of temples. From what I remember of Pillars' development history, I think the story was chosen after they spent lots of time tinkering and couldn't decide what to run with. Read: it was one more aspect of the game that was half-assed due to kickstarter promises and time/budget constraints.

I could go further into why such a plot hook is absurd, but I really don't think there is a need for that.

 

[FreeKaner]

Thaos isn't trying to prevent people from believing Gods are fake. Sure there is an aspect of keeping the secret of their origins in leaden key but the plot is Thaos is harvesting souls to funnel to Woedica so she might again take her place as the queen of gods. He just pins the blame on animancers as well so that they might not dig too deep. Thaos' primary motivation is that he believes Gods are good and necessary, that they judge motivations and bring order to chaos. Him trying to also hide the fact that they are artificial is only incidental to this.

 

[2house2fly]

Thaos wasn't scared of people saying it, he was afraid of people finding out the truth. Yes, just saying it would do fuck all, which is why you have no option to tell anyone about it in the second game, outside of the sidekicks in the DLC conversation trees

E: your 123 scenario is exactly what happened to Iovara in the first game