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

[Haplo]

Not sure if I'd call AR 18 "widely open".

But Shock would be quite effective.

 

[Lady_Error]

So I started the Deadfire DLC's after stopping my playthrough about a year ago.

One thing that is clear is that big fights are a clusterfuck in RTwP - especially the SSS DLC shows this. Much of the time you cannot even see WTF is going on or who is where.

Another thing I realized is that a Paladin tank/healer is a must. Tried a priest and he sucks in comparison. Speaking of which, the first thing that happened when I loaded my game was Pelegrina telling me that I did something to her company, so she is leaving and not coming back. Great job on your updates, Obsidian.

 

[Lady_Error]

Not sure if I'd call AR 18 "widely open".

But Shock would be quite effective.

That animancer blade that does only raw damage ignores the armor rating too, no?

Or use a weapon with magic damage AND high penetration.

 

[Haplo]

Not sure if I'd call AR 18 "widely open".

But Shock would be quite effective.

That animancer blade that does only raw damage ignores the armor rating too, no?

Or use a weapon with magic damage AND high penetration.

It does. But it's rather low damage. I'd rather use the shock pollaxe - Lord Darryn's Voulge, any blunt or an Estoc with some Pen buffs (made an Estoc Devoted "Armorbreaker" build a while ago).
Still 147 Deflection is not low.

 

[Lady_Error]

You know, the best approach against high-end enemies seems to be:

1) one super-tank (Paladin/Chanter in my case, also regenerates health with chanting and items, turn on wall shield)

2) the two wall spells from the wizard (especially the one with random effects, the druid spells work too)

3) spamming conjurations (Chanter: unlimited Drakes, Phantoms or Ogres. Monk: unlimited two copies of himself, etc.)

Put the tank ahead to focus the initial enemy attacks on him. Then let the conjurations help absorb the attacks and deal more damage. All the while the rest of the party attacks from afar.

 

[Tigranes]

coloured wall wiz spell is a big winner. you can often find ways to set enemies up (eg fighter rogue eder w persistent distraction, pull of eora) then have them all trip the wall every round - often hundreds of damage and paralysis.

for kicks, miasma to debuff defences then rymrgand horror on top = they walk around terrified running over yhe wall again amd again.

i am doing seeker slayer survivor, and its very combat heavy, a bit of a chore by the end.

 

[Lady_Error]

Yeah, I did only the required fights in SSS and skipped the optional ones. Started the Forgotten Sanctum DLC now, which looks promising - with more of an exploration and puzzle focus, but also some fights.

 

[PsychoFox]

So....

After playing a bit of Deadfire and liking it well enough, I decided to go back and play through the first game. Now I've had tried to play this game before... about five times actually. This time around though, i was determined. I wanted to understand the plot, the motivations of the characters and the inner workings of the world of Eora. So I put ~30 hours into the game, playing as a druid and...

...I gave up just before killing the final boss. DESPAIR.

By far the biggest problem that contributed to this was the writing. Now don't get me wrong, the writing in PoE is technically competent- but there's just too much of it - and about 90% of it is just bland. Funnily enough, the overall lore of the game - with it's histories, and gods, and heroes - is interesting. It's just that nothing else is, including the NPCs, companions, factions etc. I liken the writing in PoE to hearing someone explain the inner workings of a can opener in hundreds of thousands of words. It just made me cthulhu. MAJOR DESPAIR.

By the time I understood the motivations of the main antagonist, and the overall story, i had lost any desire to see the conflict resolved and it didn't help that I did not like or care for a single companion in this game, which is just abysmal. So i just uninstalled the game for the sixth time... then proceeded to my toilet to throw up. I had to purge all that mediocrity and blandness out of my system.

I think one other major aspect of the story that contributes to its overall blandness is the stake the player's character has in the whole scheme of things - or lackthereof. There is almost 0 motivation for the PC to ever participate in the events of the story, and what is there is ham-fisted at best. The whole reason why the player follows the plot, is some vague threat of insanity that is barely there. In fact, the player has the choice to pretty much write that threat off in dialogue with companions (in several instances in fact) but for some reason, it suddenly becomes a real issue in ONE dialogue in the last leg of the game and so we have to believe that this is a worthwhile reason to pursue the rest of the plot.

Lastly, this game has an incredibly linear story. There is a lot of choice in dialogue and some branching in quest decisions etc. but you'll have very little effect on the story itself, which imo was just a bad way to do it. Forget about the freedom you had in deciding the outcome of the story in other Obsidian games (AP, FNV etc.), here you're choices are barely important, and for the most part for flavor.

Mechanically there was a lot to like about the game. The dungeon crawling (and specially the mega dungeon) was great. I loved the combat and the abilities and the spells the characters had. I like seeing all those effects and abilities pop off and enemies be slaughtered by them. Playing as a druid was also very satisfying. The stronghold mechanic was fun, and i liked how it was interconnected with the game's excellent mega dungeon.

The gameplay is not without its issues though: The pathfinding is often atrocious, the characters frequently fail to acquire targets and engage them in combat, there's too many traps everywhere, and a lot of your time will be wasted on looking at the area map as your characters run to map exit nodes in fast mode

Lastly, i hate the custom language Obsidian has made for this game. Like everything about the writing, it's obnoxious and try-hard.

Overall gameplay was the only reason i was able to get as far as i did into the game, but nevertheless, lack of coherent motivation and the overall blandness of the plot made this an experience I will attempt try again.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Pillars of Eternity 1 is rough to play , even if i can see why some people prefer over Deadfire.. I played for 62 or something hours , before i gave up while playing the White March DLC/at the ending of act 2 and jumped to play Deafire instead.

The writting is fucking bloated, especialy for non-native english speaker and for a player that try to get 100% of their companions like me , trying to understand what fuck Durance and Grieving mother are trying to say to complete their quest is most painfully even if i like Mother , it's like trying to understand polish or german to me.

The gameplay in general is decent but lack the general quality of life of Deafire making much much worse imo , the graphics are bleh and even the whole Watcher/Hollow aspect/Lore imo is really interesting , i just feel exhausted trying to gameplay this game.
Think now , i really struggle to say why played so much of this game asides from the Companions and the Lore (and sadly both are damage due the bloated writting)

The whole reason why the player follows the plot, is some vague threat of insanity that is barely there

The writting is making you slowing going insane, that's why is barely there in the actual plot , i think that's a really neat trick to fuse gameplay/dialogue and the writting imo./s

 

[Lacrymas]

Like it has been explained numerous times - don't read the text or at least just skim through it to get the general gist of what is being said. Nobody is saying anything important or noteworthy, so just play it for the gameplay and nothing else.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

so just play it for the gameplay

but that's the worst part

 

[Sailor Woedica]

 

[Lacrymas]

but that's the worst part

If the combat is the worst part, what is the best?

 

[Shadenuat]

There is no best part. It is all balanced.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

The best parts are the companions, the writing, the combat and how cute Josh is

 

[vortex]

Sailor Woedica's potty mouth on
Next Pillars game is gonna be fierce.

Spoiler

Sailor Woedica's potty mouth off
Feeling the hype about next Pillars game.
Getting dissapointed later.
Things that never happened.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

(Deadfire's console version is also going to be at Gamescom!!!!!!)

 

[PsychoFox]

Yeah tbh i don't mind seeing this franchise continue. Only i hope it's not going to suddenly become TB only. As much as i like TB gameplay, i still would like top play RTwP games as well.

 

[Sacibengala]

When they will release the definitive edition of this for me to buy it and play it? And feel guilty about it later, of course.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's all the same to me whether they'll make another one or not. This franchise has proven itself to be overall mediocre at best, so whatever. If they fire the writing team and get better writers, maybe we'll get something worth playing, but before that, no.

 

[vortex]

Yeah tbh i don't mind seeing this franchise continue. Only i hope it's not going to suddenly become TB only. As much as i like TB gameplay, i still would like top play RTwP games as well.

I would like to become TB as Divinity: Original Sin with open ended world and more world interactivity. It needs better pacing, lore/text dump splited in small chunks and less text pop-up interuption.

 

[Sacibengala]

It's all the same to me whether they'll make another one or not. This franchise has proven itself to be overall mediocre at best, so whatever. If they fire the writing team and get better writers, maybe we'll get something worth playing, but before that, no.

The graphics are shiny. But bad writing is hard to skip in a game that you need pass so much walls of text. I wonder if at least the gameplay in general is worth it.

 

[PsychoFox]

It's all the same to me whether they'll make another one or not. This franchise has proven itself to be overall mediocre at best, so whatever. If they fire the writing team and get better writers, maybe we'll get something worth playing, but before that, no.

Yup. I was just thinking about the reason why i quit the game right before the final boss, and i realized i had almost no connection to the character i was playing as. The writing simply did not allow for enough opportunity for me relate the game's protag. I remember several times in the game someone asked me why i was following after the game's antagonist and what was i going to do once i got to him. Well i never had a good answer. None of the options seemed interesting to me. I simply didn't know why i was going through the motions. Kinda like a depressing job.

They really need to step up their game on the writing angle. I'm surprised i'm saying this considering this is an obsi game. They gotta stop getting high of their own farts and pompous writing and instead make something that is actually engaging and interesting.

I would like to become TB as Divinity: Original Sin with open ended world and more world interactivity. It needs better pacing, lore/text dump splited in small chunks and less text pop-up interuption.

I don't mind to see TB mode, but not as a replacement for RTwP. There's already so many TB games and not enough RT.

 

[PsychoFox]

It's all the same to me whether they'll make another one or not. This franchise has proven itself to be overall mediocre at best, so whatever. If they fire the writing team and get better writers, maybe we'll get something worth playing, but before that, no.

The graphics are shiny. But bad writing is hard to skip in a game that you need pass so much walls of text. I wonder if at least the gameplay in general is worth it.

It's alright, though it has issues as well. The most frustrating ones are:

• Bad pathfinding
• Bad adherence to formation (which is super important in a game where proper positioning is essential)
• Bad AI specially when deciding on engagement.
• (Sometimes) bad encounter design.
• Combat doesn't have enough Umphf.
• Relationship between attributes and stats are counterintuitive.

IMO the only reason you would play this game is for the mega dungeon which i thought was pretty good (although not perfect). Otherwise, read a synopsis of the story and go straight for the second game.

 

[PsychoFox]

It's interesting to hear from people who loved the game's writing and story. This guy seems to hate the combat and love the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRoSMKCw5qs