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

[Safav Hamon]

I never said it was well designed. I only took issue with you saying the fight is easy, despite getting your ass kicked (apparently for over 10 hours).

 

[Grunker]

I also recall you saying that there wasn't a single challenging fight in the DLC, but later revealing

So as some of you may recall having beat all other fights within the span of max 2-3 reloads

If a fight causes you to reload more than once, then either it's not actually easy or you have high standards for what's considered difficult.

That's in the entire rest of the game:

once I got past 10th level (keep in mind I'm still missing some megabosses + Forgotten Sanctum).

Which you'd know if you'd read the rest of the sentence, as you can see.

I didn't reload a single fight in the entirety of Beast of Winter except against the Ice Wraiths (which I later found out was 2 encounters I pulled together), and which was a fight I praised.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I actually initially missed the Bear-fight in BoW, and while I didn't have to reload, it was a better fight than most of the rest of BoW.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Even so, you spent over 10 hours getting killed by a boss that most people beat on their first try. Yet you still called the fight easy

 

[pomenitul]

Using unoptimized story companions is more fun as far as I'm concerned. My current party consists of a wizard protagonist, Pallegina, Ydwin, Tekehu and Vatnir, which is hardly ideal, and most fights are considerably more challenging than on my first playthrough with a different composition.

 

[Grunker]

Even so, you spent over 10 hours getting killed by a boss that most people beat on their first try. Yet you still called the fight easy

The reason I haven't replied to your last ten baits is because it's been pretty weak. Your misquoting was better, I'll grant you.

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's fact, not bait. You spent over 10 hours dying to a boss, and blamed the game instead of your own lack of skill.

You're only allowed to call a boss easy, if it doesn't take you over 10 hours to beat it.

 

[Haplo]

A lot of modals are excellent. Crossbow has pretty much the best modal in the game, Arquebus is pretty good on PoTD, so is Arbalest. On melee weapons it's hit or miss. Shields have decent modals. Bows are situational. Magical weapons are the worst, although Wands can be good for a pure debuffer build.

Rods go aoe with modal! Shame about the recovery but... interesting for various aoe interactions/combos and recovery after alpha strike from Stealth is 80% reduced...
Hunting Bows become machine guns with the modal!

 

[Grunker]

Guess it's hubris that I complain about AoE modals and Forgotten Sanctum has a ton of fights where AoE is really good :D

Cool fights in this DLC so far. More lethal than most of PoE2, with damage being much more front-loaded, so you can't just auto-attack your way through a couple of them.

 

[2house2fly]

Why is it even a two-handed sword I wonder, what was the creator of this item was thinking

why, is it a reference to something?

One thing I don't get is why certain backgrounds are locked by culture.

Aristocrat, artists, clergymen, colonists, dissidents, explorers, mercenaries, mystics, philosophers, bandits, scholars, and scientists can exist in any culture.

just so each culture has at least one unique background available to it, so I don't know why they went with the ones they did to be unique

 

[FreeKaner]

why, is it a reference to something?

Its name means "black wolf" in Turkish and its model is a type of historical Ottoman shortsword.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Is it possible that the companion relationship stats are still bugged? Unless I'm really not understanding the system it surely seems that way. A gazillion of green arrows and like four red arrows shouldn't amount to a zero, should they?!

I mean, wtf:
https://picload.org/view/dcclacai/vemethanmaia.jpg.html

 

[Lacrymas]

There are various stages of green and red arrows, so a gazillion single green arrows and 4 triple red arrows might amount to 0.

 

[2house2fly]

Depends on what quantity of arrows either way would push you up or down. Maybe you're just under 1

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

I guessed as much, but as you can see on the screenshot I linked all in all it's 11 green arrows (five times two arrows, one time one arrow) for Maia vs. 4 red ones (two times two arrows), so that still doesn't seem right to me.
It's similar with Pallegina.

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's misleading. Triple arrows are actually worth several double arrows.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Huh, who would have thought. Then maybe it's alright, thanks!

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Hey, HEY SAFAV.

What's with this PUSSY community you're fostering here? I'm strolling the Steam forums, checking in on Grimoire updates and I wander over to the Deadfire forum. What is the first thing I see?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/560130/discussions/0/1744480967011800919/

Look at that. Do you know how much it hurts me to read this hysterical fearmongering bullshit? "Oh no, when I was 7 I ran into a tarantula! Whee whee I'm a sissy bitch for life now." First off, tarantulas are super easy to kill. Literally D tier on the spider tier list. Secondly, everybody knows giant spiders in fantasy games are often demoted to being xp dispensers. There's no fear to us. Look at me, look at me Safav, I'm a fucking joke. You send a Wizard to melee me and it's a life or death struggle for me.

But now you can't even let the giant spiders fulfill their purpose in fantasy gaming? Now we have to be eradicated from the trash mob directory entirely because of "men" that never heard of a paper towel?

Get your fanboys straightened out, Safav. You and all you Obsidianites are on notice. You want to deny giant spiders a job? Fine, I hope you enjoy fighting shitty kobolds endlessly. Wait, do they call them kobolds in POE? Or is it "qobolds?" Hah, geeks.

Edit: FUCK you Safav.

Edit 2: I didn't mean that, I'm sorry.

 

[2house2fly]

This is the first time I've ever seen an arachnophobephobe.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Fake news. Beleranga is my favorite boss battle in Deadfire.

 

[Riddler]

What difficulty are you playing at Grunker?

 

[Grunker]

What difficulty are you playing at Grunker?

PotD. Just got done with Forgotten Sanctum, now it's on to the end of the game. Will take on SSS in my second playrthrough.

 

[Alpan]

Streamlined weapon attack and recovery speeds, for example. It makes flail and dagger play as essentially the same weapon without the modals and the flail modal is useless. Many spells which only have inspiration element being so similar to be hard to distinguish. For example Pyschovampiric shield in PoE1 was an unique and central part of melee ciphers but in second game it is simply a resolve inspiration that doesn't stack with other inspirations and overall is useless, it also drains all the flavour from the game aside from gameplay concerns. Another example is savage defiance is same thing as nature's balm, there are many more of these like disciplined barrage and eldritch aim being same thing etc.

There are some abilities and spells that differ, of course, it isn't all bleak but still there simply isn't enough unique interactions, constants and variables. Only wizard seems to be exempt from this with many unique interactions.

This streamlining is more than counterbalanced by the subclasses and possibility of multi-classing.

 

[Parabalus]

The only AoE ones are rod (blast) and blunderbuss (powder burns), the latter is great and is featured in many builds, both because of AoE and the self distract (flank)

All of the fights that challenged me in any way put pressure on my ability to do single target damage and control-manage mobs. I can't recall one where I needed more AoE-clear. Perhaps it's a result of my party comp though, I'm really not an expert after one playthrough on PotD.

In general though I guess it's hard to say since the game is way, WAAAAAY the fuck easier than White March. Again besides the BoW dragon I didn't reload more than once or twice once I got past 10th level (keep in mind I'm still missing some megabosses + Forgotten Sanctum).

I played through WM several times and found Dumpsterfire much harder. Llengrath is a joke compared to megabosses and DLC content.

What was your party?

 

[entr0py]

The only AoE ones are rod (blast) and blunderbuss (powder burns), the latter is great and is featured in many builds, both because of AoE and the self distract (flank)

All of the fights that challenged me in any way put pressure on my ability to do single target damage and control-manage mobs. I can't recall one where I needed more AoE-clear. Perhaps it's a result of my party comp though, I'm really not an expert after one playthrough on PotD.

In general though I guess it's hard to say since the game is way, WAAAAAY the fuck easier than White March. Again besides the BoW dragon I didn't reload more than once or twice once I got past 10th level (keep in mind I'm still missing some megabosses + Forgotten Sanctum).

I played through WM several times and found Dumpsterfire much harder. Llengrath is a joke compared to megabosses and DLC content.

What was your party?

Also scaling up everything on PotD seems to offer real challenge. My party is currently at lvl 13 and things can still be pretty hard, while previously the game was a cakewalk by now. Thanks to Obs bumping up enemy armor there is no way you can overpenetrate anything which is a major problem for wizards mostly. While my preist of woedica / helwalker monk can have 15 penetration which is godly at this level (still barely above enemy armor which is ~12-15 for most encounters), my blood mage main is cucked with spells penetrating around 7-9 so he is more like a cc-dispenser than a damage dealing powerhouse.
Btw, I really liked the quest arc and the conversations with Modwyr, probably she is the most well-written companion, I like how she is not just a cardboard cutout like everyone else in this game. Tells you everything about NPC design if it's a sword who is the most memorable of them all.

And generally I agree with Parabalus, this game on PotD with upscaling ticked on for Everything is a lot harder than anything in PoE 1 (including WM), also I definitely encourage everyone to use the Galawain challenge to spice up early/midgame beast encounters. Be aware though, the digsite area near Port Maje might be really hard with it, but afterwards its more like a welcome additional challenge.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Everything involving beasts gets really crazy with Galawain's challenge added on top of PotD + level scaling all. Wait till you get to Sayuka, if you haven't yet.