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

[Citizen]

Bros few questions:

1. Is there a way to increase area of barbarian carnage skill? Ma boi is wielding an enormous two-handed mace and the aoe attack range is just pathetic. There are situations where barb is surrounded by 4-5 enemies hitting him in melee and carnage affects no one, cuz their attack range is bigger
2. Does aoe damage from blunderbuss modal attack fill cipher's focus meter? Seems like it doesn't

 

[Elephantman]

Titan AAR at level 3

Spoiler

Collect Pen so that we can punch through his 15 Pierce AR, Flanked drops his AR to 14, our Exceptional Arquebus gets up to 13. 75% dmg is good enough. Serafen is casting Charms. Eder might need to Disengage to avoid the Grab which is worse than the Disengagement Attack.

Trap to drop his 4 Concentrations a bit.

First weapon Upgrade to whack the Titan from Stealth, thx Bardatto vault for it and Bardatto family for the Full Plate!
Dazed removes his Engagement and lets the Rogue kite in place. I think its fair here.

Also, spores poison, the only one that roles vs Will, which the Titan lacks. I get about 4 attacks out of a single Daze and have 2. First from stealth, second from Smokeveil. Drops his Concentration down to 2. Trap to 1.

Charm works too well. Charmed NPCs dont use special abilities which is super good for the Titan cause his normal attacks are about 3 to 4 times worse than his specials...

20s Charm, its over! Ah yeah, some bullshit bug kills my rogue despite her being 5m away from the Titan, yet his slam still hit. Bullshit.

Oshit, this might not be over...

Fug, we have to kite the last 100 HP out. Problem is, he is faster than us on flat terrain! But not around corners! The wonders of 3d games!

aaaaaaaaaaaaanooooo

That was a Toughy. Rest bonuses, all the drugs and potions, special weapons, grubbling summons that actually Proned him, past Concentration, with Leech Grab - and semi dishonorable Kiting.

Tldr, basically this and Charm.

 

[Elephantman]

Does aoe damage from blunderbuss modal attack fill cipher's focus meter? Seems like it doesn't

It should... though on Potd blunderbusses suck donkey cock and penetrate nothing.
Barb area with 2 rings, +20%, drug +3 to Int, another 30%.

 

[Lacrymas]

How do you deal with all the spawns on this fight at this level? Only Charm? Also, Aimed Shot seems too good compared to other modals. Sabres have +2 PEN at the cost of 100% speed. Do Deadeye and Potion of Impediment stack?

 

[luj1]

No reason to play tb unless you are really bored and\or doing your 10th playthru

No reason to play Pillars at all

 

[MajorMace]

Retrospectively, I liked the first game more in the end.
Might have to do with the insane amount of hours that disappear in seafaring in this one. The pacing is fucked.

Mind you I haven't touched the dlcs, but since they're all set in mid/late game, it doen't help.

 

[Haplo]

Hmm, yes, character building is more involved in 2. Graphics better, of course, as well as the exploration.
But Health, Endurance & Attrition were much better in 1. Enemies less spongy. And game more fun overall, I guess. Particularly the White March.

 

[Jimmious]

For me the main issues in PoE2 are the weird changes in the system, probably for balacing reasons... but they just feel off.
For example the whole - no specialization in weapons but some weird modals.... I just can't get used to that.

 

[MajorMace]

I share these impressions. Also I'd say the exploration is better on a first playthrough, but detrimental to any subsequent one.
A good dlc option they missed was to let the player randomise the map to some extent (maybe divide the map in big chunks, have magran's teeth always pop in a corner, and randomise the disposition), I think it would have helped greatly in that regard.
Also it's an unpopular opinion, I liked the writing better in deadfire. Characters were more involved and dialogues felt more like dialogues. I actually have no grief towards the voice acting either, it wasn't that bad handled and there were enough different voices to distinguish characters (fallout 3 caused a trauma in that regard, there were like 5 voices for the whole game). It also made the insane amount of gibberish like Ekera even funnier, win-win for me.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think the primary disappointment of Deadfire for me was precisely the exploration. You have a huge map, you discover islands in the archipelago, but in the majority of cases they only house a one-area, one-screen-wide "dungeon" where all you can do is walk from one end of the area to the other, meet your combat encounter, and leave with the loot.

TWM or Deadfire's Forgotten Scrotum had so much more depth to their exploration. I think the key goal is to make the player feel he has "lost himself" in the dungeon, descended so many levels, taken so many turns at junctions, left huge unexplored areas in the other junctions, and there is no end in sight. More examples of this type of exploration - Old Sycamore (if we leave the excessive combat aside), or Underrail (basically anywhere)

 

[PsychoFox]

I think the primary disappointment of Deadfire for me was precisely the exploration. You have a huge map, you discover islands in the archipelago, but in the majority of cases they only house a one-area, one-screen-wide "dungeon" where all you can do is walk from one end of the area to the other, meet your combat encounter, and leave with the loot.

TWM or Deadfire's Forgotten Scrotum had so much more depth to their exploration. I think the key goal is to make the player feel he has "lost himself" in the dungeon, descended so many levels, taken so many turns at junctions, left huge unexplored areas in the other junctions, and there is no end in sight. More examples of this type of exploration - Old Sycamore (if we leave the excessive combat aside), or Underrail (basically anywhere)

Word. The game seems to be missing deep dungeon dives which is a shame considering the combat system is robust and that the previous game had the endless paths.

 

[PsychoFox]

Hmm, yes, character building is more involved in 2. Graphics better, of course, as well as the exploration.
But Health, Endurance & Attrition were much better in 1. Enemies less spongy. And game more fun overall, I guess. Particularly the White March.

I think white march has drastically colored people's opinion of the first game. I tried playing it so many times but it is just so mediocre. Never tried the expansion though. I wonder why people think so highly of it.

 

[Sentinel]

The verdict is in



#madewithunity

I dont get it. Dynamic shadows? Is this 2004?

 

[santino27]

The verdict is in



#madewithunity

I dont get it. Dynamic shadows? Is this 2004?

I think deadfire looks pretty great (although I don't love the art style itself), but he really did pick an odd gif to try to make his case with.

 

[PsychoFox]

I specially like the effects on the spells and abilities. It's one of the reasons i disliked the original. Overall the combat has a very satisfying punch to it.

 

[purpleblob]

Finished the game yesterday.

I initially started the game with RTwP mode but found the combat too messy so restarted it with TB mode. Steam shows 58 hours of game play which includes ~8 hours of the first play through with RTwP. Overall, I found it "ok" but not fun enough for a replay.

The character building is decent with the choices to multiclass + subclass, not just for your main character but also the companions as well (e.g. depending on your choice, Eder can be multiclass as Fighter/Rogue or just a pure fighter or rogue). I really liked the fact that there are a good variety of companions (with their own story and quests) and sidekicks (no story or quests) available to try out different class builds in one playthrough.

Unfortunately, I didn't find the combat very engaging nor challenging. Most of the battles play out almost the exact same way since your spells, abilities and health resets after the battle - you can just blast enemies with your best spells and abilities all the time without having to worry about the next encounter which really removed the strategic nature of the combat. I only came across a couple of challenging encounters throughout the whole game and most of the time it was due to the fact enemies were much higher level than my party (indicated by the red triple skulls).

While I could keep a better track of the combat in TB mode, it also dragged out the combat heaps, especially for the ship encounters where they basically outnumber your crew most of the time. In the early games, there are many ship that will pursue you, which really ruined the exploration for me with so many boring combats - yes, I tried both ship to ship battle and just getting on board the other ship, and both were equally tedious. Another issue I had with TB combat is terrible pathfinding - characters often either push others out of their path or get stuck and waste all of their movement points…. I found this really ridiculous.

Obsidian put a lot of effort in building the world and lore - while I appreciated some aspects, some I simply disliked a lot. For example, I loved the contrast of the poor vs. the rich area in Neketaka - the gloomy atmosphere of The Gullet made me want to escape the place as soon as possible, while I stood still for a while in Serpent's Crown, enjoying the calming sensation of the surroundings, listening to the flow of waterfall and chirping of the birds. On the other hand, I hated the language Obsidian developed for Deadfire, with the NPCs and companions constantly spouting something that sounds ridiculous like "ac".

The main plot is extremely short, and you spend most of the game trying to form a strong relationship with various factions in Deadfire. If you like dealing with political affairs, you may find the game very interesting - I really hate politics and didn't really get attached to any of the factions which reduced the fun factor significantly. It was quite disheartening to learn that my choices caused so much chaos and destruction to Deadfire even though I didn't really feel much attachment to any of the people I've met.

I encountered a few technical issues like stuttering and rather long loading time but nothing serious.

Final score: 6.5/10

 

[PsychoFox]

On the other hand, I hated the language Obsidian developed for Deadfire, with the NPCs and companions constantly spouting something that sounds ridiculous like "ac".

I live in a country where people speak English mixed with their own native languages. What i noticed in deadfire is that this aspect of the dialogue is incredibly forced. NPCs often speak with eloquence, pause, say a single word in their native language (ekke, ac, etc.) and then continue on with their perfect English sentences. This is simply not how it works in real life. In RL, people fluidly mix the languages together which makes the whole thing much more natural and charming. Overall, the writing in PoE has always been very pretentious and not all that interesting. It's like the writers are being payed per word, or else are overexcited amateurs that can't contain themselves having received the chance to work on this project and want to show off as much as possible. I also hate the narrator. I skipped almost all of her narration and I still perfectly understood what was going on, which just shows you how superfluous she is.

 

[Jimmious]

The voice actors make it worse with the acs and the ekeras... It doesn't seem like there was a "general direction" on to how these should sound and every now and then they sound completely different - which makes the experience worse imo

 

[Lacrymas]

Multilingual people don't talk like in PoE, but since Americans very rarely are multilingual, it doesn't surprise me they don't know that. It also wouldn't be surprising if none of the people in Obs' writing team speak anything other than English. I know Sawyer speaks German (of course he does), but that wouldn't magically transfer over to the others, even if he is overseeing the writing. Which I don't think he is.

 

[PsychoFox]

Multilingual people don't talk like in PoE, but since Amricans very rarely are multilingual, it doesn't surprise me they don't know that. It also wouldn't be surprising if none of the people in Obs' writing team speak anything other than English. I know Sawyer speaks German (of course he does), but that wouldn't magically transfer over to the others, even if he is overseeing the writing. Which I don't think he is.

I don't think he is either.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

I live in a country where people speak English mixed with their own native languages.

Location: Mom's basement

 

[vortex]

I think deadfire looks pretty great (although I don't love the art style itself), but he really did pick an odd gif to try to make his case with.

It looks amazing, yes. The cruel, cruel irony, the game is 2.5D and yet has worse performance than any 3D game with higher system requirements.

 

[PsychoFox]

I think deadfire looks pretty great (although I don't love the art style itself), but he really did pick an odd gif to try to make his case with.

I looks amazing, yes. The cruel, cruel irony, the game is 2.5D and yet has worse performance than any 3D game with higher system requirements.

Well i think after months of patching the game is pretty stable now. I haven't run into any problems myself performance wise. I do think unity is a poor engine for CRPGs though. I mean just look at PFKM.

 

[Daidre]

Both P:K and Deadfire a russian roulette performance-wise. I got lucky with P:K but Deadfire still runs like shit 3 upgades and 3 clean OS installs after.

 

[Parabalus]

Multilingual people don't talk like in PoE, but since Americans very rarely are multilingual, it doesn't surprise me they don't know that. It also wouldn't be surprising if none of the people in Obs' writing team speak anything other than English. I know Sawyer speaks German (of course he does), but that wouldn't magically transfer over to the others, even if he is overseeing the writing. Which I don't think he is.

The portrayal in Deadfire seems pretty in character for American media, exaggerated accents and word use is pretty common on TV and film.