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

[AwesomeButton]

Some people get so triggered at the thought of a woman blacksmith in their magical fantasy games they can't even.

Yeah. That wouldn't work. It's too (toxically) feministic.

I've found it, as well as the rest of Deadfire's feeble attempts at 'using fantasy fiction to fix real social issues', rather cute. Like watching a baby try to pronounce words.

 

[Elephantman]

TLDR:
Up until now is Concelhaut is the bestest fight in the game. Actual real tactics required (lvl7, no food full immunities are used, no 30 heal potions in quickslots).

Spoiler

After having bruteforced the horde on Concelhauts first level with some luck, I though that he would be a pushover just from looking at the mob. Wrong!

Five things that make this fight great:
1. wizard with 'arcane dampener'
2. priest
3. monk with con affliction
4. fighter ignoring engagement and hit-to-crit converting and terrorizing
5. position

I. Attempt
Pull em left through corridor and choke with Eder. Backstab from the right (there is totem there that I have a counter sigil for) with Wiltingwind from OP rod and Thunderblow from OP blunderbuss for 1k+ dmg. Shoot them dead.
FAIL: I doesnt work because the wizard and Concel cast 'Arcane Dampener' ('AD') in the first seconds, and suspend all fucking buffs on Eder and he goes down faster than you can pause. Buggy thing is that you cant even reapply suspended effects, like Robust which is +2AR and 10HP/3s. As long as 'AD' is running, if you reapply the same effect, it will go to the suspended list. This goes for all Heals too...

II. Attempt
Let them cast 'AD' first and apply buffs afterwards.
FAIL: Concel has unlimited 'AD's and he uses them from time to time.

III Attempt
Gib 1 wizard they have in the opener and try to keep Concel down with arbalest modal on Maia.
SEMIFAIL: might need a reload to gib the wizard but having about 60% to prone Concel is barely enough.

IV
Summon something as an opener and find out that that the AI is retarded (news!) and has priority! to apply 'AD' to summons. With even more retarded outcome that the countdown timer of the summon gets suspended xDDD and now you have a 50s summon instead of 30!
SEMIFAIL: I save Eder from some 'AD' and have longer summons but still need to kill the rest and Eder is still dying!

V
Eder is still dying because
1. the monk is constantly applying a CON debuff which cancels my Robust (2AR and heal) and can add up with Concel's debuffs to -10 CON (180hp to 120hp and 20 fort drop whcih is bad because the Knock Down are coming in from 2 fighters) and terrible healing rate -> death
1a. by the way, first time in game I see effective affliction interplay, plaguestrikers and naga maraduers cancel Robust constantly as well, I've seen Smart cancel Charmed but not on me
2. the unique fighter has a Terror ability
3. the wardog's maul prones Eder at the worst possible times...
4. the unique fighter has hittocrit which leads to funny 50dmg hits
Whiteleaf drug turns out be super powerfull! It applies Concentration every 6 seconds! Description is not clear and you'd think 'once' because even char abilities that you can get at level up apply it once. Helps alot.
Eder gets the Stag Helmet that gives a Resolve resist which turns 'Terror' into 'Fright' and he doesnt lose engagement.
The CON debuff can be handles a little bit with the Bardato mace (wow, thank you AGAIN Bardatto familiy!) which gives a resist.
Enemy Hit-to-crit is not resistable. Eder has to stand around without action and drink a potion (one of his 3) if it happens. Its rare but once is too much...
Buffed up like that, with 3AR potion and potion that converts lotsa physical Grazes Hits Crits into the lower tier, we can stand around with 2 fighters, 1 unique fighter, 1 monk, 1 wardog.
STILLFAIL: as soon as Serafen or Tehecu start casting Charm or Summon or Heal, the unique fighter that cannot be engaged, always disengages from Eder and goes right for the fucking casters. And he is a tanky fucker. Cant stop him quick enough.

VI
Basically, Charm and Dominate are disabled now... Tehecu starts the fight in stealth and stays there, sadly you have to be close to cast Moonwell, its a tricky dance.
STILLFAIL:
so, I summon first to soak the first 'Arcane Dampener', Eder is buffed to gills standing in 3 healing fields and casting Vigorious Defense for +20 in all defenses hoping not to get unlucky early,
my rogue gibs the wizard and some trash, hope to get the ranged rogue as quickly as possible too and do as much dmg as possible, Maia is shooting Concel nonstop for the Prones and interrupts,
Tehecu is on heal standby, Serafen is shooting the monk for focus and applying Robust to Eder for 40 focus a pop. Whats the problem?
There is an enemy priest... with MIrror Images.... the problem is that I only have so many chars and he is standing in a position next to a Death Totem that kills summons in 3 ticks and he doesnt really like to run next to my shooters, though I dont really have free shooters...

VII
Tried pulling them out of their platform with totems to get to the priest easily and it becomes super volatile. Tough to soak the first AD and Concel starts doing aggressive unpredictable things, targeting backline and shit. Rogue, imps, the wardog now dont want to stick to Eder.

VIII
Bruteforce the priest.
Typically I summon the Drakes, which are unlimited, to soak AD and occupy Concel first. Greater Blight, also unlim, somewhere later in the fight. Now I add something like Vine Lurker or something beefy from limited figurines. Replace Blight with Tehecus Ondras Whips because they can teleport to Concel quickly.
Gib the wizard and try to finish the priest with the rogue without dying and try to finish him with Maia if she can reach him. That leaves Concel to do what he wants but it basically is a working strategy because Concel AI is pretty retarded. You just have to finish the enemy rogue usually afterwards, the monk, the unique fighter, 2 tanks, and Concel... and not let Eder die - eeeez...


All that was left in best attempt and he managed to outtank us. Took me like half an hour, I was so fucking mad. xD

Early attempt. I though I was winning! xD even though Eder was terrified.

Hitchcok in shambles!
I have no tried if the clones get for example the 2 shots from the Red Hand arquebus per reload, it would be serious burst dmg! They have like 12 sec duration, 5 people, 2 reloads, 2 shots each = 20. Big if true.

I absolutely HATE Serafens wild mind...

What a typical start looks like though the rogue is out of stealth. Concel showing his INT score!

If the casters in the game had any fucking AI, the game would be BRUTAL. And if the fighters had AI oh gee, there would be no way past a multiclass tank lineup.

Deadfire about x5 the game POE1 was.

 

[Prime Junta]

Some people get so triggered at the thought of a woman blacksmith in their magical fantasy games they can't even.

Yeah. That wouldn't work. It's too (toxically) feministic.

Yeah fucking potato SJWs https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Master_Armorers

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Tekehu ist best companion, outbros Eder by a mile.

 

[Iskramor]

Hello everyone. I finnaly decided to give poe 2 seventh chance so im asking what is reccomended diff. setings for turn based mod?Classic upcale all?

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Play Icewind Dale on tablet instead.

 

[Grunker]

Still really disappointed about most of the challenges. Challenges I would have liked:

1) Crew morale drops by set amount each day. Currently it's almost free to have maxed out morale.

2) XP gains cut in half or reduced by 25%.

3) Change Ondra's challenge so that some storms cannot be avoided. Making storms bigger doesn't really do anything since you can still just sail around them. At least the faster enemy ships is one of the only challenges with actually impact that isn't just an annoying spreadsheet challenge, so I still run Ondra's.

4) Something like Galawain's challenge but for all non-boss enemies. Game is still too easy on PotD for many fights (again megabosses are a clear exception, they're great and I'm bad).

5) Gold gain reduced. Items sell for less.

And so on. Instead of general difficulty enhancements, most challenges fall into two categories: 1) game changers (like the timer) which are great if you want to play a different game entirely but cannot augment a normal playthrough, or 2) annoying stuff that just makes you do more bookkeeping.

Hello everyone. I finnaly decided to give poe 2 seventh chance so im asking what is reccomended diff. setings for turn based mod?Classic upcale all?

Path of the Damned, upscale all for sure. Even with the companions, the game is too easy without these settings. Level scaling all arguably even more important than PotD. The game still experiences a dropoff in difficulty post level 10, but it gets unbearably easy without scaling.

As for rtwp vs. tb, I am currently playing my first TB walkthrough and I personally find it more enjoyable than RTWP, but the conversion has resulted in some weird things that you may want to consider. Examples:

1) Unless you are a pure caster (and you'll still consider it even then), wear the absolute heaviest armor on everyone. Everyone gets the same amount of actions no matter what (1 standard, unlimited free), and action speed only lowers you initiative.

2) That turns everything on its head: Dex is the new dumpstat. Action speed is useless.

3) A lot of abilities have changed in terms of usefullness. Cipher-stuff like Ectopsychic whatever that was hard to pull of probably on RTWP can be absolutely devastating in TB. Every modal that nerfs action speed gaining you something valuable is a no-brainer.

4) Unless they changed this, and I can't find any source that says they did, you want to aim at exactly 14 Intellect on everyone. This should give you +1 round of duration on most abilities.

etc.

RPGs would have failed if designers actually set that as a design priority; the don't because they know it's not an issue and putting stress on players is dangerous to sales, especially on the "RPG" crowd. Modern RPG players do not think that RPGs should be challenging, they're all about exploration, story, etc.

Some critics would make videos about it, gamers would give them many likes; then when they see game with timer they would go into hysteria about it and mod that shit out of the game first time mod gets made.

You can just enable the challenge for it if you like that sort of thing though. There is a timer challenge

 

[Shadenuat]

Damn and I heard so many people say TB saved Deadfire and so there must be TB in PK because it saves the game and turns it into DOS2 successful level super thing.

 

[Grunker]

Also a blessing I'd like to see: more adra ban drops. The extreme limitations put on adra ban drops is a retarded design choice in my opinion. The logic is that it limits the amount of legendary gear you can equip your team with, and while that's a worthwhile goal, an extremely negative side-effect is that it severely limits your ability to test out the game's insanely great itemization options. Once you've upgraded some gear with your bans, that item slot is set and you won't ever change it (since the accuracy bonus from Legendary is so vital).

Or they could just implement a Challenge that removes the Legendary upgrade entirely I suppose.

 

[Jimmious]

Damn and I heard so many people say TB saved Deadfire and so there must be TB in PK because it saves the game and turns it into DOS2 successful level super thing.

Yeah it seems so initially but as Grunker says, mechanically it feels like some things were simply not very well thought out for the TB mode.
Also it's definitely very weird that they basically went with a ... NuXCOM TB system, of 1 move & 1 action per turn. It can work but... why?

 

[Grunker]

Well I love Deadfire on RTWP, for me TB is a clear upgrade, it just comes with some weirdness from the conversion that clearly wouldn't be designed in that way if the game was TB from the beginning (fighters spending all their Discipline in turn one to free action pull every enemy on the screen for instance). But anyone telling you it will save the game for you if hate Deadfire on RTWP are not truthful. It's still the same game.

 

[Grunker]

The biggest detractor of Deadfire for me is still the difficulty drop-off post level 10 in non megaboss fights

 

[Shadenuat]

Oh so they didn't try to tie say movement to speed and give it more sorta granularity? I think even ToEE did this to an extent.

 

[Grunker]

Oh so they didn't try to tie say movement to speed and give it more sorta granularity? I think even ToEE did this to an extent.

ToEE "just" implemented traditional 3e rules, meaning you have a Standard action and a Move action, but you can eschew the Standard action to take another Move action. It's not granular besides the binary choice of "do I give up my action to move more." You can't do that at all in PoE, however. Would be easy enough to add I guess but you would use it extremely rarely I suspect (because actually doing something on your turn is important) so it wouldn't make much difference.

Deadfire works like this:

1) If an action is free, you can use it as many times as you want in a turn. This isn't as insane as it sounds, since besides the Fighter pull and a few other things, most free actions are stuff like the Wizards buffs or the Paladin marks. So stuff that was very, very fast in RTWP as well.

2) Then you have a Standard action which can be used to make an attack, use most attack abilities or cast a spell.

3) If you cast a spell, unlike ToEE and most other TB games, your character starts casting but must stand there channeling (with risk of being interrupted) for a while depending on the cast time of the spell and your guy's initiative/dex. This is REALLY cool and gives lots of tactical play like you have to set up AoE-spells, Concentration is still important, your other guys have to move relative to the spell you are setting up etc. It's easily the most interesting part of the TB conversion and makes me want to play a full Caster team some time.

4) Finally you have move points based on your stride (so Dex + gear + passives). This is the primary cost of dumping Dex. You still do it, though, but you'll be slow as hell (my main PC dumped Dex) unless you're a class with movement abilities (I'm not) or you find or buy gear that gives movement abilities (high on my priority list for the PC).

5) Movement can be broken up, so you can use it in increments. Like: move, use a free action, move, use a standard action, move, end turn or whatever.

 

[Grunker]

Galawain's Challenge gave Onekaza's tigers "Prowling" so they're permainvisible

 

[Lacrymas]

All the challenges could've been better, but that's what we got. Galawain's is the only one which directly adds to the difficulty. Other things could've included limited rests, inability to use food buffs or potions, less xp and gold, etc. There's already a less xp mod, though. Making it too restrictive could've made The Ultimate impossible, though.

 

[Shadenuat]

ToEE "just" implemented traditional 3e rules, meaning you have a Standard action and a Move action, but you can eschew the Standard action to take another Move action.

I mean different races had different movement in feet. And size mattered (Enlarge would increase total distance u moved, so should Haste).
I am not sure about this though.

Btw, how long does TB Deadfire take on PoTD? Since hp/defences bloat, especially in add-ons, is real.

 

[Grunker]

ToEE "just" implemented traditional 3e rules, meaning you have a Standard action and a Move action, but you can eschew the Standard action to take another Move action.

I mean different races had different movement in feet. And size mattered (Enlarge would increase total distance u moved, so should Haste).
I am not sure about this though.

Btw, how long does TB Deadfire take on PoTD? Since hp/defences bloat, especially in add-ons, is real.

Ah, yeah but just in the way that Halflings and Gnomes get 20ft. movement and everyone else get 30. In TB Deadfire movement is Stride, so if any races affect that they would affect tb movement as well, but since Orlans lore-wise are pretty fast fuckers I don't think they have a penalty?

Loads more movement modifiers than in ToEE in general, though I'm not sure if any races affect it?

TB defintely adds waaaaay more playtime. For the most part the hp bloat is actually less of a problem in TB as far as I'm concerned because it's way less tedious to make sure that armor penalizing effects are constantly up, but there are a couple of exceptions that are just as bad as you suggest:

1) Any ironclad/steelclad golem that outlevels you.
2) And because of the above, I expect Harbinger's Watch to be even more of a shitty slog than it was in the original. The soul collector in the Sacred Stair quest wasn't tedious because it deals so much damage and I don't find HP bloat to be an issue as long as the opponent is a threat. But the collectors in Harbinger's Watch don't really threaten you, they just take a long time to take down. On TB, I'm fully expecting that to be a boring grind moreso even than in the RTWP game where it was bad enough.

However the system is very "brisk" for lack of a better word, so the trash isn't as bad I expected going into it. Rounds are pretty fast paced.

 

[Quillon]

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the game, even if I immensley enjoy the ship combat. I don't know what's wrong with me ...

 

[Grunker]

Ship combat:

1. turn to port or starboard
2. Fire cannons
3. Jibe
4. Hold position
5. Fire cannons

Repeat 3-5 ad nauseam until won

 

[Reinhardt]

Ship combat:

1. Install mod "no damage on boarding".
2. CHAAAAARGE!

 

[Grunker]

Ship combat:

1. Install mod "no damage on boarding".
2. CHAAAAARGE!

You don't need to. The final patch, patch 5.0 made a neat little interfact where you can jump straight to the boarding.

Though, even if they didn't, why the fuck would you need that mod? Maintaining ship resources is almost free

 

[Lacrymas]

You could always skip right to the boarding, but it costs stuff that is tedious and pointless to renew, so you just remove that little nuisance.

 

[AwesomeButton]

You have to admire the total incompatibility in tone between Josh's writing and the Deadfire writing team.