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

[TT1]

PF:K have a good balance of companions/ quests/ interaction.

Not every quest is perfect, but mostly of them are pretty good. The companions are fine, interesting and they talk a lot during camp. You can even skip it, if you dont like.

Most of companions in Deadfire are bad, few are pretty good (Serafen and Maia).

Personally, I like PoE1 companions more. I miss Hiravias and Sagani. They should have returned, instead of Aloth and Pallegina.

Sidekicks are all interesting and they should be real companions.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think they are interesting precisely because the Obsidian writer geniuses have not endowed them with the gifts of their writing talent.

 

[Roguey]

Regarding Sawyer's "quiet people", I've said before and say it again - they are simply not attuned to the kind of game that is an isometric party-based RPG. You can't convey a character subtly by relying only on text, portrait image and voice, with no facial expression. The channels are are simply too limited to for a writer to have his "I'm a movie scriptirer" larping session. Try to convey complex emotional transitions and states through web chat or forum. The medium simply doesn't work that way.

Splinter Cell's characters are conveyed almost purely through voice audio/subtitles.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Regarding Sawyer's "quiet people", I've said before and say it again - they are simply not attuned to the kind of game that is an isometric party-based RPG. You can't convey a character subtly by relying only on text, portrait image and voice, with no facial expression. The channels are are simply too limited to for a writer to have his "I'm a movie scriptirer" larping session. Try to convey complex emotional transitions and states through web chat or forum. The medium simply doesn't work that way.

Splinter Cell's characters are conveyed almost purely through voice audio/subtitles.

 

[Reinhardt]

Sidekicks are all interesting and they should be real companions.

Sidekicks are interesting exactly because they are not real companions.

 

[Roguey]

I don't know if you're disparaging the quality of characters in Josh Sawyer's much praised Splinter Cell or disputing the statement, but if it's the latter, the first three games have roughly 20 minutes of actual cutscenes each in what are 10-13 hour games. Most chatter is communicated through audio rather than anything involving lip movement.

By comparison, the first Metal Gear Solid has 3 hours of cutscenes and they only go up from there.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't know if you're disparaging the quality of characters in Josh Sawyer's much praised Splinter Cell or disputing the statement, but if it's the latter, the first three games have roughly 20 minutes of actual cutscenes each in what are 10-13 hour games. Most chatter is communicated through audio rather than anything involving lip movement.

Your comparison makes no sense, I thought that was obvious.

 

[prodigydancer]

ranger can be built into a weapon of divine punishment

I was talking only about pets, but if you insist: the best ranger is Devoted fighter specced into whatever ranged weapon type you're going to use. Combine with Helwalker, Assassin or Ascendant for more damage output. Oh, and you can still pick things like Refreshing Defense and Unbending Trunk.

Ranger is 2x more micromanagement and no decent survivability tools. Pay more for less.

 

[AwesomeButton]

ranger can be built into a weapon of divine punishment

I was talking only about pets, but if you insist: the best ranger is Devoted fighter specced into whatever ranged weapon type you're going to use. Combine with Helwalker, Assassin or Ascended for more damage output. Oh, and you can still pick things like Refreshing Defense and Unbending Trunk.

Ranger is 2x more micromanagement and no decent survivability tools. Pay more for less.

Devoted fighter makes sense, but I've had very good resuts with a Scout. Should test devoted fighter though. Devoted/Rogue will probably be even stronger. I don't care about tanky abilities on a ranged fighter.

 

[TT1]

Devoted/ Assassin is pretty solid, indeed, but its not a "ranger", its just a ranged fighter.

I mean, ranger is a hard class to implement. What exactly is a ranger? PoE1 had weak rangers in the first months and Deadfire also have weak rangers.

In AD&D, ranger was much more than a ranged fighter. He had tracking abilities, some rogue talents like hide in shadows and move silently, some spells. He was Aragorn and much more.

In PoE and Deadfire, everybody can sneak, there are no tracking (mechanics maybe?), no divine spells. So ranger is just a ranged fighter with a pet and weak/ "useless" abilities like hit and run. This class should be completely reworked.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This class should be completely reworked.

The class should be a subclass of rogue that gets a pet.

 

[AwesomeButton]

What exactly is a ranger?

It's only hard if you insist on having a "participation award" system like Josh does, where every class has access to every weapon.

 

[TT1]

What exactly is a ranger?

It's only hard if you insist on having a "participation award" system like Josh does, where every class has access to every weapon.

Exactly. The way it is today, a devoted/ assassin can be a much better ranger than a ranger. Its fucking sad, actually.

 

[AwesomeButton]

But the Ranger class is an example of a gimmick class from its inception in D&D. What is the Ranger class there? It's a more of a role-playing concept "I want a dark Aragorn-type of character" than a class description. From this starting point, PoE's concept for a Ranger class is an improvement - it's ambitious and has potential to be interesting. But that's just regarding the concept. When it comes to the execution, they are not going the full length to making it unique. If everything the ranger did had some sort of interaction with the companion, then who knows - it would have been more interesting to play but also more difficult, and probably feel like even more micormanagement for most players.

 

[Parabalus]

In PoE and Deadfire, everybody can sneak, there are no tracking (mechanics maybe?), no divine spells. So ranger is just a ranged fighter with a pet and weak/ "useless" abilities like hit and run. This class should be completely reworked.

Rangers are stong in both 3.0 PoE and Dumpsterfire.

 

[Lacrymas]

In this roster of an unnecessary number of classes, Ranger is the most pointless, true. They should've made Ranger a subclass of Rogue and Barbarian a subclass of Fighter.

 

[Parabalus]

In this roster of an unnecessary number of classes, Ranger is the most pointless, true. They should've made Ranger a subclass of Rogue and Barbarian a subclass of Fighter.

The classes are too distinct for that, especially in the PoE1 system without subclasses.

 

[TT1]

But the Ranger class is an example of a gimmick class from its inception in D&D. What is the Ranger class there? It's a more of a role-playing concept "I want a dark Aragorn-type of character" than a class description. From this starting point, PoE's concept for a Ranger class is an improvement - it's ambitious and has potential to be interesting. But that's just regarding the concept. When it comes to the execution, they are not going the full length to making it unique. If everything the ranger did had some sort of interaction with the companion, then who knows - it would have been more interesting to play but also more difficult, and probably feel like even more micormanagement for most players.

Look at this description:

"Rangers are warriors of the woodlands and masters of the hunt. Always partnered with soul-bonded animal companions, they can be found in wild spaces all over the world. As their lifestyles often tend toward independence and isolation, it is rare for rangers to become an integral part of a large fighting force, though they are often employed as scouts and guides."

How the hell this is implemented in the game? Lets see:

- Masters of the hunt: HMMM OK (marked pray, Hunters shot, etc)
- soul-bonded animal companion: OK
- independence/ isolation: NOPS
- scouts: NOPS
- guides: NOPS

You can sure use survival, mechanics and alchemy to simulate the wild nature/ tracker/ scout aspect, but, hey, every other class can.

In PoE and Deadfire, everybody can sneak, there are no tracking (mechanics maybe?), no divine spells. So ranger is just a ranged fighter with a pet and weak/ "useless" abilities like hit and run. This class should be completely reworked.

Rangers are stong in both 3.0 PoE and Dumpsterfire.

I agree with you, but not as strong as a ranged devoted/ assassin, for sure.

 

[AwesomeButton]

In this roster of an unnecessary number of classes, Ranger is the most pointless, true. They should've made Ranger a subclass of Rogue and Barbarian a subclass of Fighter.

I did a full playthrough on PotD with a Barbarian/Fighter main character, and I didn't find any point to the Barbarian abilities. They all had a marginal impact. The only reason I picked Barbarian as one of the classes was the higher health pool.

 

[Lacrymas]

The classes are too distinct for that, especially in the PoE1 system without subclasses.

Exactly the opposite, I'd argue there are 4 classes in the PoE system - Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Caster and Miscellaneous (Chanter and Cipher). Everything is a variation of that and they play exactly the same, whether someone has +50% damage on this or that, or has AoE in a radius is superfluous. Chanter and Ciphers are weird because they don't "play by the rules" (Blood Mage can be added to that, but for different reasons) and surprise, surprise, they are OP in long fights. Now that they've streamlined every buff, the classes are even more samey and homogeneous.

 

[Delterius]

everyone plays the same, they have weapons that they use sometimes and spells that are cast here and there

 

[Orma]

Orma is right

Did you even read the post, I was talking about animal companions

 

[Parabalus]

The classes are too distinct for that, especially in the PoE1 system without subclasses.

Exactly the opposite, I'd argue there are 4 classes in the PoE system - Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Caster and Miscellaneous (Chanter and Cipher). Everything is a variation of that and they play exactly the same, whether someone has +50% damage on this or that, or has AoE in a radius is superfluous. Chanter and Ciphers are weird because they don't "play by the rules" (Blood Mage can be added to that, but for different reasons) and surprise, surprise, they are OP in long fights. Now that they've streamlined every buff, the classes are even more samey and homogeneous.

Just the wizard class can play mDPS, rDPS, caster and misc by itself. Other classes can also do several of those things, if not all.

At least add monks to chanters and ciphers, so it appears you're trying. But it's disingenuous, since in Dumpsterfire every class can regenerate resources.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Orma is right

Did you even read the post, I was talking about animal companions

Yes, I did. You are right that the tanger can be a strong damage-dealer. Or when you said the ranger becomes a beast, you didn't mean that?

 

[prodigydancer]

I've had very good resuts with a Scout.

Scout is a good pure DPS, esp. at low levels, but Wounding Shot doesn't really become great until L7. Now look at Ascendant/Assassin spamming Soul Shock at L4.

My opinion on Ranger boils down to three main points:

1) I'm not saying the class is unplayable. The game isn't that hard, so you can probably beat TCS with single-class vanilla Ranger. Doesn't mean it'll be much fun.

2) Pets are awful. Resilient Companion doesn't really solve their armor woes and additional micro is real. It was already an issue in PoE1: even after patch 2.0 a pet was 70% asset and 30% liability. Wolf had very good damage potential but required quite some babysitting. In PoE2 we're back to the 20% asset and 80% pain in the ass scenario. And no, Ghost Heart doesn't solve the problem. It merely lets you ignore it.

3) The class itself is very bland. It doesn't do anything that other classes cannot do better. All the +Acc stuff is superfluous. E.g. Assassin has +25 Acc from stealth (on top of 10% HtC conversion from Dirty Fighting) and there are ways to become invisible in combat. Fighter gets tons of GtH conversion, some HtC and +5 Acc from Conquerer Stance. And I don't even mention all the +Dmg possibilities.
What does Ranger have that really shines? Driving Flight? Situational. Gunner? Meh. Twinned Shot? A single-class ability that you'll get at L15. Each use costs 2 Bond. In PoE1 it was a modal.

In PoE (with TWM) Ranger was good because you could use high +Acc to proc Borresaine and later switch to Stormcaller with Twinned Arrows. And your pet could actually off-tank or deal noticeable damage.