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

[FreeKaner]

BTW, your guy is stylish-looking, why not get him a better portrait?

I began replacing some of the ugliest obvious-rush-job or unfortunate-backer watercolor portraits with superior colored versions. It really adds to my immersion.

For example I gave Bekarna a portrait of an Ethiopian model Senait Gidey. I just found one perfectly matching picture before I found out who the model was, and then it was easy to find a second. Bekarna has two portraits for plot reasons.

Mostly because I have neither the talent nor the patience to do water colours. Also I reroll why too much to keep up in portraits. The cloaked portrait is nondescript enough to be used for just about anything.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think she meant that more in terms of UI feedback"

She could always play in, you know, the expert mode. The way the game is meant to be played tbh.

But maybe she didn't even know it existed in the first place, cuz her husband is a scrublord

Real old-skool mad skillz players also play with one eye closed right?

Do you also walk on the streets with your shoes untied because you are such a master of walking or something?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Mostly because I have neither the talent nor the patience to do water colours

I don't care about watercolored versions and just convert colored versions to the conversation and scripted interaction dimensions. The watercolored versions were a compromise measure from the start, and they were even announced as such by Josh.

 

[fantadomat]

Fuck that shit,this game is twice as broken as kingmaker. At least the rus fixed their game and the major bugs. While this "AAA" pile of shit is still filled with obvious bugs that were reported 6 months ago,many of which just need a few trigger changes that would take half an hour to make. What an incompetent bunch of faggots,hope that obsidian burns to the ground!

 

[AwesomeButton]

Take it from me - your shitposts would improve if you would play the game.

 

[2house2fly]

Why would it be good writing for them to be convinced of their role and not disagree with each other?

 

[FreeKaner]

Why would it be good writing for them to be convinced of their role and not disagree with each other?

Because good writing is when everything makes rational sense. SCIENCE!

 

[Grunker]

I don't get you man. You chastise me for criticizing your build but then say PotD is a "grind."

I never chastised you and I never intended for the tone of my posts to give the impression of "chastising", in case it felt that way to you. In my view, I was explaining the reasoning which made me pick one or another ability.

Additionally, I posted my whole party, but we only ever discussed the player character, whereas I think it's important to take the player character in the context of the rest of the party. But that's a separate subject.

I grant that hp scaling in Beast of Winter was grindy and boring, but lowering that difficulty would only make the DLC even more auto-attacky.

Yes, I do not deny it would, but this is on account of the repetitive and predictable enemy tactics, not on account of enemy numbers or stats. My point is that filling the encounters with larger numbers of buffed enemies doesn't make the encounters more interesting.

Edit: Also, when I played BoW, I was playing on Hard, and this was exactly because I wasn't feeling like spending 10 minutes in constant pause and slowest speed, because I have to cope with 10-12-strong packs of enemies.

In the rest of the game - a lot of FS included except for some fights, which I thought were very satisfying - the game was fairly easy on PotD. This is not me posturing more of a "seems your build actually was the issue."

I most probably had a harder time because I began FS at lvl 18, but I had to look for every little advantage until I reached lvl 19 and eventually 20. At lvl 20 it really wasn't much of a problem and the final battle felt rather easy when compared to the initial encounters (with huge numbers of enemies) in the Collections or Archives areas.

You're moving the goalposts a bit though I think. I don't see how lowering the difficulty to Hard fixes PotD's problems. It may solve some grindyness (though I think grindyness is mostly only a problem in BoW), but it will remove the last remaining shred of challenge from everything but the megabosses.

Again what we disagree over is general difficulty: my problem with PotD is overall that it is way too easy. For me the perfect challenge level would be something like red skull Giant Cave Grub for set piece encounters and Skeleton Mage + backup encounters for trash. Those fights "felt right."

The core argument remains that if Hard is anything but way, way too easy I can't think of a reason why the criticism of your party wouldn't stand

Just to think that... mild spoilers about the Huana questline:

Spoiler

...in the basement of the Watershapers' guild the combat encounter and the dragon lair are in two neighboring rooms. Compare that to the Umar Hills or Windspear hills buildup to meeting a dragon.

Hell yeah. This more than anything summarises why I still put BG2 above Pillars even if I think the latter have a lot of strengths over the former.

Pillars areas are simply way, way too cramped.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't see how lowering the difficulty to Hard fixes PotD's problems.

By not swarming the player with as many enemies, which only increase the dificullty by brute force - by more enemy characters' recovery timers and actions for the player to worry about.

it will remove the last remaining shred of challenge from everything but the megabosses.

Those fights "felt right."

Ultimately the problem stems from the fact that we are playing pre-defined encounters where the variable is the player with his tactics, party composition and degree to which he takes advantage of his party's abilities and synergies, and takes advantage of game metaknowledge.

Due to the same fact, any particular encounter's difficulty is very much in the player's hands, regardless of the difficulty setting. Of course, on Hard or PotD it would "easier to achieve the feeling of difficult", because you would be to a bigger extent forced to make the optimal/rational choices.

However, wouldn't you agree that, with enough preparation and metagaming, it is possible to have an easier combat encounter on PotD than you would have with the same encounter but with a less rational "roleplayer" behavior on Hard?

What I've said I don't like about PotD is the way in which it increases difficulty - by buffing and increasing numbers of enemies, instead of making their behavior smarter. I know - who did ever do anything more than that - buff and increase numbers of enemies? But still, I regret it.

 

[MajorMace]

As my wife summarized it after having played IWD and BG2 - Deadfire is a casualized Infinity Engine game.

Your wife gives the best feedback.
Clear, concise, on point.

 

[Reinhardt]

Take it from me - your shitposts would improve if you would play the game.

He played it. On story mode.

 

[Lacrymas]

One aspect of good writing is indeed making rational sense. Random occurrences without causal relationships is not creative writing, it's simply writing sentences. And I'm not talking about plot holes here, they can be overlooked depending on the severity or the dramatic effect (why didn't Frodo take the eagles to Mordor?), I'm talking about a structural glue that makes sense from start to finish. I don't think the gods have a good dramatic effect, so their petty squabbling and ineffectual incompetence stand out more. That would be fine had there been any *narrative* point to their doing that. Banking on making the player feel satisfied for "one upping" them at the end is a shaky foundation and destabilizes the logical whole for extra-narrative payoff that doesn't even work.

 

[FreeKaner]

One aspect of good writing is indeed making rational sense. Random occurrences without causal relationships is not creative writing, it's simply writing sentences. And I'm not talking about plot holes here, they can be overlooked depending on the severity or the dramatic effect (why didn't Frodo take the eagles to Mordor?), I'm talking about a structural glue that makes sense from start to finish. I don't think the gods have a good dramatic effect, so their petty squabbling and ineffectual incompetence stand out more. That would be fine had there been any *narrative* point to their doing that. Banking on making the player feel satisfied for "one upping" them at the end is a shaky foundation and destabilizes the logical whole for extra-narrative payoff that doesn't even work.

I am not sure if you are being retarded on purpose or if your thought process is actually this sterile. I reckon it's in part result of atheistic rationalisation, which demands that if a higher power exists, it must be supremely pragmatic beyond human intuition. The story in pillars is garbage in both games but "hurr hurr gods aren't acting rationally and bickering amongst themselves!" isn't an argument whatsoever.

Here is a tip, read some fucking actual mythological stories. Gods act irrationally all the time and bicker amongst themselves all the time for no real reason.

 

[2house2fly]

I had assumed that the narrative point of portraying the gods as flawed was to portray the gods as flawed

 

[Lacrymas]

You are confusing myths with creative writing. Myths aren't writing in the sense of what Obsidian are writing or any kind of authorial intent. That's also kind of irrelevant, I said that they can act irrationally IF it serves a narrative purpose. My standpoint is not one of atheistic rationalization.

 

[FreeKaner]

You are confusing myths with creative writing. Myths aren't writing in the sense of what Obsidian are writing or any kind of authorial intent. That's also kind of irrelevant, I said that they can act irrationally IF it serves a narrative purpose. My standpoint is not one of atheistic rationalization.

The point is gods are flawed creations of people and essentially malfunctioning AI that Thaos was trying to keep working.

A good world building works as authentic mythology does and not a scientific inquiry. Which is neither entirely rational nor entirely logical, it's only reasonable in-so-far it's expected and explainable. In fact, a lot of games make the mistake of building a world in the lines of modern geography, taxonomy etc. with too much precision, accountability and no room left for errors of the human mind. Even modern history isn't as accurate as some games build their worlds.

 

[Delterius]

someone should tell pops tolkien that fantasy writing shouldn't have any mythos logic to it

 

[FreeKaner]

For example the town screens in PoE have exact population numbers, including percentages of the races. This type of modern demographics used in world building is completely and utterly retarded. Approaching worldbuilding as if you are trying to draw a scientific journal of universe is a basic stemlord mistake that many fictional worlds do.

Meanwhile look at Tolkien, he drafts a genesis for his world but much of its history is buried under folk tales, oral history and sparse written accounts with lots of room for imagination and error.

 

[Lacrymas]

The point is gods are flawed creations of people and essentially malfunctioning AI that Thaos was trying to keep working.

They being that is not the point, it's the baseline from which something else has to happen that is logically connected to that. At least in DF. They not knowing what Eothas is doing and squabbling is explained by the very thing you cited - myths. Gods in myths aren't human creations (in-narrative), yet they squabble all the time. It can't work both ways at the same time, it either doesn't matter they are human creations since they act just like all the other gods in myths or they squabble and are ineffectual because they are human creations.

 

[TT1]

I have to agree with fantadomat in this one. Deadfire is crashing a lot for me too. Actually, I didnt have a single CTD on Kingmaker, and I got more than five now in Deadfire, since I restarted to play, some weeks ago.

 

[Delterius]

Gods in myths aren't human creations (in-narrative), yet they squabble all the time. It can't work both ways at the same time, it either doesn't matter they are human creations since they act just like all the other gods in myths or they squabble and are ineffectual because they are human creations.

There's no 'both ways' here. They squabble because they were created from human souls. There's absolutely no reason why gods created from human souls should be any less human than gods that weren't.

 

[FreeKaner]

They being that is not the point, it's the baseline from which something else has to happen that is logically connected to that. At least in DF. They not knowing what Eothas is doing and squabbling is explained by the very thing you cited - myths. Gods in myths aren't human creations (in-narrative), yet they squabble all the time. It can't work both ways at the same time, it either doesn't matter they are human creations since they act just like all the other gods in myths or they squabble and are ineffectual because they are human creations.

Are you even trying to construct a valid assertion right now or is this your attempt to create a "defence" to keep the "argument" going?

The things you refer to are two distinct points; 1. A narrative regarding gods does not require rational actors, this is best exemplified in the myths of ancient civilisations from all over the world, 2. The aim of showing gods bickering amongst themselves is to display that gods are imperfect and faulty, unlike what Thaos and Engwithans intended as the arbiters of morality and justice, as well as stewards of people.

Moreover what you said has absolutely nothing to do with the initial suggestion that because the gods act irrationally the story is invalid. In fact this here again is as nonsensical suggestion that has absolutely nothing with the substance of what is being discussed.

 

[Lacrymas]

There's no 'both ways' here. They squabble because they were created from human souls. There's absolutely no reason why gods created from human souls should be any less human than gods that weren't.

What's the point of them being created by humans then? Or is the point that gods created by humans are no different than those that aren't? How do we know this? Where is this going narratively?

Are you even trying to construct a valid assertion right now or is this your attempt to create a "defence" to keep the "argument" going?

The things you refer to are two distinct points; 1. A narrative regarding gods does not require rational actors, this is best exemplified in the myths of ancient civilisations from all over the world, 2. The aim of showing gods bickering amongst themselves is to display that gods are imperfect and faulty, unlike what Thaos and Engwithans intended as the arbiters of morality and justice, as well as stewards of people.

Moreover what you said has absolutely nothing to do with the initial suggestion that because the gods act irrationally the story is invalid. In fact this here again is as nonsensical suggestion that has absolutely nothing with the substance of what is being discussed.

I don't know what you are arguing here. What I said first was directed at your assertion creative writing doesn't require making sense, which is absurd.

 

[Delterius]

What's the point of them being created by humans then?

Are you for real?

The gods can be made stronger, weaker and even new gods could conceivably be created as long as people have the know how to do so. That's the entire plot of the first game.

Holy shit, Lacrymas.

 

[FreeKaner]

The point is gods are flawed creations of people and essentially malfunctioning AI that Thaos was trying to keep working.

Which wouldn't be a problem with if the games properly aknowledged it.
We've been repeatedly told that there's no practical difference whether they are artificial or not, but that leads to the question whether their creation - in practical terms - was for better or worse. But that is never brought up.
It would be natural to let the player debate the practical consequences of the Gods with Thaos, whether agreeing that their control has shaped mankind for the better, or cursing him and pointing out that the fuckers threw a moon on the planet and so on, but that subject is strangely omitted from that conversation.

It has already been established in an interview with Fenstermaker (correct me if I'm wrong) that he and Ziets designed the Gods, and not until later decided to make them manmade. The narrative justifications in this thread are projections, the Gods are flawed because the writers overlooked the implications of keeping them flawed.

You are arguing something completely different. I don't think the main story or narrative of the game is good, so much so that I think directly removing it from the game without adding anything at all would improve the game by a lot. The point is that "gods are irrational and flawed, this doesn't make sense" is not legitimate criticism of why it's bad, neither in context of storytelling, historical and cultural context or the game's own world.