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

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
That's fair, although consequence-free resting has always been a problem for the IE games and most of their spiritual successors. I've yet to attempt the Woedica Challenge myself, but when I do, I'll likely have to impose artificial will-based constraints to make it work. We shall see.
You also have a fraction of the spell slots you do in the IE games, though, and that's my main issue. Like Prima Junta said, you do use quite a lot of your abilities in combat so you'll just have to spam rest for no reason after 1-2 battles. What this challenge actually does is reduce the value of good food because it won't last that long due to the rest spamming.
 

Dyspaire

Cipher
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
280
Location
Relative
I recently fired up Deadfire again properly, first time in a couple of years. Tried it in turn-based mode. Guess what? It's much better than I remembered. I'm pretty sure Josh's balance stick has done it a power of good. I've just been wandering around the Deadfire murdering things and pretty much ignoring the story and it's a quite a lot of fun. I still have some beefs with it, but overall it's really not bad. I also recently replayed Pillars 1 and man is the combat in it a giant opaque clusterfuck by comparison. Josh also seems to have done something to the relationship flags, the party isn't trying to jump on my cock the minute I meet them anymore. I've been playing with more sidekicks in the party though, which helps; they're also much better written than the companions.

Likes:

- Boy is it pretty.
- I love the sense of discovery. There's a ton of hidden stuff on the map just to stumble upon.
- The sidekicks are cool. I like Vatnir and Ydwin especially. Mirke isn't half bad either although she gives me PTSD from real life.
- Some pretty cool maps and encounters. The Hanging Sepulchers is a terrific dungeon.

Beefs (apart from the usual ones about story, writing, silly ship combat, and bugs):

- Some bosses have obscene HP, making the fights much grindier than they ought to be. Once you've figured out how to beat their debuffs and get through their defences there's not much of a challenge there, but it still takes a long, long time to whittle some of them down. Neriscyrlas and the jumbo megaboss black pudding, here's looking at you.
- On PotD at least, armour levels are so high that Pen becomes too important. Low-Pen weapons just aren't very useful until the very late game when you get the really good Pen buffs / Armour debuffs, and by that time you're already committed.
- Priests are a bit too necessary. Fights are radically easier with Crowns for the Faithful, Triumph of the Crusaders, Dire Blessing etc. than without them. The high-level Symbol spells are extremely effective also, as is Dismissal when applicable. Both Xoti and Vatnir are racking up incredibly high personal damage numbers too.

Other notes:

- Troubadours are LOLpowerful. With the rapid chanting perk you get a wide-area Paralyze every other round (or something even more powerful a bit more rarely), or a really strong Summon continuously up, plus one continuous buff that's situationally super good; at high levels these get really strong as well. And the tornado Invocation is hugely strong; my troubadour is a wimp with 8 STR and he still does hundreds of HP of damage with that.
- I'm no longer so bothered by the "everything per encounter" thing, largely because PotD is hard enough that you really need to use everything you have on many of the encounters.
- There's too much XP in the game. I'm not even close to finishing all content and I've been at max level for a quite a while now.


Well said. Deadfire 5.0 turn-based is the most fun I've had with an isometric crpg since the release of BGII. 20 years.

Is the story the best ever? No. But it's totally find for what it is, and you covered the pros and cons of the game about as well as one can.

It is a lot of fun from the get-go, and I spent more nights last fall completely engrossed in a crpg than I have in a long, long time. Such good dungeon-delving, great and interesting cities, and secrets, so many secrets...

My dream would be for that engine to get released into the wild for people to work with. So much potential there. Prettiest isometric engine too, easily.

Cheers.
 

Dyspaire

Cipher
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
280
Location
Relative
Oh God, please don't unleash more of Unity upon the world.

I hear you. I know how poorly-optimized Unity is.

And I also don't know how user-friendly the Deadfire engine is on top of that. I've heard it's a bitch to create and implement background art for any isometric engine.

But, in 10 years the poorly-optimized Deadfire/Unity engine will not be an issue, and I would love to see what the community could do with it anyway.

I look at the IE modding community, or what those Circle-of-Eight guys did with ToEE, and I would love to see what would happen, is all I can say.

2c
 

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
11,006
Location
USSR
Oh God, please don't unleash more of Unity upon the world.

I hear you. I know how poorly-optimized Unity is.

And I also don't know how user-friendly the Deadfire engine is on top of that. I've heard it's a bitch to create and implement background art for any isometric engine.

But, in 10 years the poorly-optimized Deadfire/Unity engine will not be an issue, and I would love to see what the community could do with it anyway.

I look at the IE modding community, or what those Circle-of-Eight guys did with ToEE, and I would love to see what would happen, is all I can say.

2c
It's not gonna happen because PoE is a shit game and nobody wants to mod it.

Making an area is not just creating background images. There's also a height map, a nav mesh, maybe some hacks for light and animated grass and water, and who knows what else, all of them in god knows what format. Nobody's gonna bang their head against the wall for months to figure this shit out.
 

Dyspaire

Cipher
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
280
Location
Relative
I look at the IE modding community, or what those Circle-of-Eight guys did with ToEE

Are there any good campaign mods for ToEE?


I'm not sure if Keep on the Borderlands counts as a campaign, and even if it did, it's only okay at best. What the Co8 folks did do, is mostly fix and enhance a game that was pretty broken even after the last official patch.

And they did it with no source code. It's a shame that Temple+ and the source code took so long to come out. (I think I have my facts right here, no?)

It would still take some supremely-talented artists to create original backgrounds, new character models, etc... write new stories.

But if you're going to do it, why not do it in the prettiest isometric engine ever? And one that has some surprisingly great game mechanics already baked in.

There's still a lot of those Gibberlings Three/Circle-of-Eight/Sorcerer's Place folks out there, plus a whole new generation of new gamers/modders.

The more Dungeons and Dragons, Forgotten Realms-ish, isometric crpgs there are out there, the happier I am... is all I can say.

Cheers.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
9,430
Location
Grand Chien
Isn't turn based half assed? Is it actually good playing the game on TB mode?
I think that the experience of casting spells, getting crits, etc is more 'fun' on TB because you get to experience the 'moment' in a more singular manner rather than it being lost in a cacophony of actions.

However, the crucial flaw is that DF was built as a RTWP game and so its per-encounter format bites itself in the ass hard here. Namely, casting the same old buffs over and over and over at the start of each combat gets old. REALLY OLD. Casting offensive spells is always fun, but without the AI gambit system in place to take care of the busywork, casting stuff like mage buffs or fighter buffs repeatedly in an automated fashion... I just got tired of doing that over and over.

That said if you tend to avoid those type of builds then you might be able to enjoy it more.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Isn't turn based half assed? Is it actually good playing the game on TB mode?

It was half-assed when I first tried it, in particular it was LOLeasy. Not anymore. It's quite good really, the system of debuffs/counters comes into its own when it's not a continuous fireworks show. I like it more on TB now than I ever did in RTwP.

It has its issues of course (I agree with Yosharian that there's way too much rote buffing now, for example), but it's up there with D:OS (1, not 2, which is a disaster) as far as TB gameplay goes IMO.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Isn't turn based half assed? Is it actually good playing the game on TB mode?

It is half assed. For some stupid reason they introduced Turn system which makes Two handed swords as fast as two handing daggers. If you would remove Turns and leave only rounds it would be great system.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,138
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Isn't turn based half assed? Is it actually good playing the game on TB mode?

It is half assed. Action Speed is one of the most important parameters in RTwP, but Initiative matters very little in TB. Might as well wear the heaviest plate, dump Dex, use slowest weapon/shield stance mods. Cast the slowest spells.

They went the lazy 1 action per Universal round approach (plus free actions), when they should have made it individual initiative /personal rounds based. It could have been perfect then.

Plus a number of enemies are notably bullet spongy, which sticks out FAR MORE in TB.

What I found disappointing was that Interrupts didn't play nearly as big role in TB as I have hoped. You need to land one after an enemy starts casting and before he finishes - and you just don't get an action in this narrow time frame very often (at least when it matters, like an enemy casting an Arcane Damper).


That said, the TB does have its perks. Combat is far better organized and controlled. You follow buff/debuff effects and their durations much better. And yeah, you appreciate the impact of each individual action much more.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Another thing. Graze system sucks overall but it sucks ^2 in TB. Which kind is worsened by bullet sponges like Haplo said. I'd rather hit 1 time in 3 than hit 3 times for shitty graze. It just doesn't feel good.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
A'ight, a few more thoughts after just finishing it. PotD, TB. Played through all of the expansions. Made Concelhaut a very happy lich.

- Agree with Haplo above about the bullet-sponginess of the bosses. Late game boss battles especially take ages, even if you're not doing anything wrong (i.e., you get sufficient Pen and counter their debuffs). If your dudes have 250 HP and bosses have thousands it just feels stupid. There are better ways to make things challenging.
- The game is too big for its own good. There are some pretty to really good fights and maps and quests in it, but it also gets repetitive. A lot hangs on how well the opening goes; muff it and you'll likely get stunlocked and then wiped, get it right and the opposite is true. This means that there are a few stock tactics that work, and while it was fun to discover them, just applying them repeatedly isn't all that much fun. Also I hit level 20 ages ago and just ignored a lot of stuff.
- TB is just fine. Yes the balance is different than in RTwP -- as in, Dex is a dump stat -- but it's still good, you just need to build the parties differently. I also disagree with Haplo about interrupts: I had an arbalest on my MC and as many Interrupt-y abilities on everybody else, and used them to whittle down Concentration on the most dangerous enemies pre-emptively. However there were a bunch of bosses that had immunity to Interrupts and that felt a bit cheaty.
- Overall: yeah much better than I remembered. It was a fun romp in a really pretty and colourful setting. It's not a classic for the ages but it's a solid game. It is however pretty far diverged from its IE engine roots so I'm not sure exactly what I'd want to compare it to. Purely personally I do still rank BG2 a fair bit above it, but I liked it a lot more than BG1, and the IWDs as pure dungeon crawls are different enough that you can't really compare. Well worth the time.
 

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