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

[MajorMace]

Sure but you really quickly get to that point.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Grotesque]

I am thinking to finally start playing this game.

I have just the base game and I see that there are 3 DLCs.

Which DLC adds something meaningful to the game? I intend to just buy one if that it's the case.



What I hated about Pillars 1 was the swamp the writing was, filled with purple prose but more importantly what I viscerally loathed was the fact of reaching level cap 75% in the game.

If that is the case again in Pillars 2 regarding level cap, is there a mod to slow down XP rewards to not reach lvl cap too soon?

 

[coldcrow]

I am thinking to finally start playing this game.

I have just the base game and I see that there are 3 DLCs.

Which DLC adds something meaningful to the game? I intend to just buy one if that it's the case.



What I hated about Pillars 1 was the swamp the writing was, filled with purple prose but more importantly what I viscerally loathed was the fact of reaching level cap 75% in the game.

If that is the case again in Pillars 2 regarding level cap, is there a mod to slow down XP rewards to not reach lvl cap too soon?

Just crank up the fucking difficulty. Turnbased PotD is quite hard for most builds and you will welcome reaching the cap. Writing is much better, still somewhat pretentious and banal.
Plus points are that it is a very polished and beautiful game, gfx and auditory experience is top notch.

 

[NJClaw]

Which DLC adds something meaningful to the game? I intend to just buy one if that it's the case.

Beast of Winter and The Forgotten Sanctum have the best content in the game from any point of view. Seeker, Slayer, Survivor adds bits of lore that you might be interested in (especially if you like Galawain and his cult), but 99% of it is just a long series of combat challenges, so you should consider getting it only if by the end of the game you still aren't fed up with its combat.

 

[santino27]

I am thinking to finally start playing this game.

I have just the base game and I see that there are 3 DLCs.

Which DLC adds something meaningful to the game? I intend to just buy one if that it's the case.



What I hated about Pillars 1 was the swamp the writing was, filled with purple prose but more importantly what I viscerally loathed was the fact of reaching level cap 75% in the game.

If that is the case again in Pillars 2 regarding level cap, is there a mod to slow down XP rewards to not reach lvl cap too soon?

DLCs are better than the main game. The main game's writing is less purple but more zany and, imo, equally shitty, and I found the main story arc tremendously unsatisfying.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Every DLC adds something different. Beast of Winter adds a lot of lore into that shit, SSS adds a lot of fun combat set pieces if you're into that shit, and Forgotten Scrotum adds a bigass dungeon.

As for the ship combat, all you have to do is swim into the storm couple of times and your sailors level enough to competently handle even the pirate-Feargus.

 

[Grotesque]

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105593-will-any-of-the-dlc-increase-the-level-cap/


ok, fuck this game.
NEXT!

 

[Grotesque]

Thank God for mods

 

[Lacrymas]

Less xp is basically mandatory.

 

[Haplo]

View attachment 18279
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105593-will-any-of-the-dlc-increase-the-level-cap/


ok, fuck this game.
NEXT!

But there is no good reason to make a completionist run. Focus on one faction, leave the others for another playtrough / build.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Been a while since I played but max level at 50% of the game is huge exaggeration.

 

[Grotesque]

View attachment 18279
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105593-will-any-of-the-dlc-increase-the-level-cap/


ok, fuck this game.
NEXT!

But there is no good reason to make a completionist run. Focus on one faction, leave the others for another playtrough / build.

I always try to complete all possible quests in a game because I rarely replay a game because once I finish it, I pretty much lose all interest in it.

And if I replay a game, it's always because I enjoyed its mechanics/ basic gameplay and not because in one playthrough I joined a faction and not the other or because in another playthrough I missed some story branch.
For this kind of story fluff, it's always youtube.

 

[MajorMace]

It's not the max level which occurs at 50% of the content tackled, but the state of late-game invincibility (which itself start with the party lvl 15 or so). I guess the confusion comes from this.

 

[Haplo]

View attachment 18279
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105593-will-any-of-the-dlc-increase-the-level-cap/


ok, fuck this game.
NEXT!

But there is no good reason to make a completionist run. Focus on one faction, leave the others for another playtrough / build.

I always try to complete all possible quests in a game because I rarely replay a game because once I finish it, I pretty much lose all interest in it.

And if I replay a game, it's always because I enjoyed its mechanics/ basic gameplay and not because in one playthrough I joined a faction and not the other or because in another playthrough I missed some story branch.
For this kind of story fluff, it's always youtube.

Well, I play most games only once as well. And tend to be pretty thorough myself. However in Deadfire past certain point it makes more sense to me to push the story quests and move to late game content / DLC, rather than autistically trying to solve every quest available and explore every nook and cranny.

It does help that Deadfire offers one of the greatest build varieties and supreme itemization.

 

[MajorMace]

rather than autistically trying to solve every quest available and explore every nook and cranny.

Do you autistically tackle everything in BG II ?

 

[DeepOcean]

rather than autistically trying to solve every quest available and explore every nook and cranny.

I agree with you that replaying a game should be encouraged more but level cap by the middle of the game is Bethesda level game design for dummies. Man, I'm not into doing Sawyer's job for him, it was his job to balance the game, it isnt the player job to guess when the level cap is reached. "Geez, I will store all those quests for the next playthroughs because Josh didnt bother into balancing this game XP curve and if I dont fix his mess, I wont have fun." this is the kind of stuff I really dont want to be worrying about while having fun.

 

[Desiderius]

Been a while since I played but max level at 50% of the game is huge exaggeration.

I was at max before hitting any of the DLCs or endgame IIRC. That's not 50% but it's not 100% either. I'll try Hap's suggestion next time since keeping all the factions balls in the air at the same time is a pain and so are several of the faction companions.

 

[Butter]

I wouldn't use an XP reduction mod until at least after you leave tutorial island. The curve there is totally fine for getting your build started, especially if you're on PotD and mutl-classing.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Been a while since I played but max level at 50% of the game is huge exaggeration.

I was at max before hitting any of the DLCs or endgame IIRC. That's not 50% but it's not 100% either. I'll try Hap's suggestion next time since keeping all the factions balls in the air at the same time is a pain and so are several of the faction companions.

I mean the DLCs didn't raise the cap, so of course you will hit max level without them. But 50% is just silly, it's probably not 60% either and closer to 70%. Still too early, but then you do wanna hit max level with still some game left.

Another thing is that combat in DLCs is hard enough that starting them without high level isn't a greatest idea anyway.

 

[Haplo]

rather than autistically trying to solve every quest available and explore every nook and cranny.

I agree with you that replaying a game should be encouraged more but level cap by the middle of the game is Bethesda level game design for dummies. Man, I'm not into doing Sawyer's job for him, it was his job to balance the game, it isnt the player job to guess when the level cap is reached. "Geez, I will store all those quests for the next playthroughs because Josh didnt bother into balancing this game XP curve and if I dont fix his mess, I wont have fun." this is the kind of stuff I really dont want to be worrying about while having fun.

The thing is, in Deadfire I don't feel forced to skip content. At some point, I simply feel that's enough and time to move on. Without feeling of loss. The quality of DLC content beats the quality of most of main game anyway. Plus working for all the factions till their final quests, while possible, isn't something an average privateer would do. Its not really in character.
Only on my last playtrough I've finally done the Rauatai faction quests. Fought the Kraken for the first time.... keeps the game fresh.

The only exception I do is doing the Principi quests on pretty much all playtroughs so far. But that's mainly because I love the Lucia Rivan questline, the Fonferrus and Engoliero do Espirs.

 

[Haplo]

rather than autistically trying to solve every quest available and explore every nook and cranny.

Do you autistically tackle everything in BG II ?

I don't play Baldur's Gate anymore. Outside of its magic system, it has inferior systems, based on outdated AD&D 2nd Ed.

 

[AwesomeButton]

BTW "Less Experience Gain" is called "Deadly Deadfire 4 - Difficulty Mod" if you are looking for it in the nexus.

The author took special care to avoid using the words "experience", "less", "slower", "reduced" or "gain" in the title, so it's more difficult to find.

 

[MajorMace]

BTW "Less Experience Gain" is called "Deadly Deadfire 4 - Difficulty Mod" if you are looking for it in the nexus.

The author took special care to avoid using the words "experience", "less", "slower", "reduced" or "gain" in the title, so it's more difficult to find.

Has someone tried a playthrough with it ? How does it feel ?

 

[copebot]

POE2 after the final patches has somewhat better encounter design. For all the talk of balance, though, some of the classes just went downhill from POE1. POE2 barbarians are just sort of bad, with their Carnage ability losing the crazy synergies that were possible in POE1. The balance is built around short encounters and per-encounter abilities, but a couple classes have access to ability restores that make them stand head and shoulders over any other class. Ciphers are "dev's lil' favorite" class that has access to incredible CC, great buffs, ability restore, and some of the best sources of armor bypassing damage in the game. Priests are loaded with very weak buffs compared to the first game, but then they have a small number of abilities that are so strong that they break the game. A character may seem strong, but if you run into an enemy with unusually high armor for all their damage types, they're a dead slot in the roster. If you start an encounter and none of that character's weapons can do anything against an enemy type, it's also quite difficult to drop combat without a rogue that can vanish and you cannot swap out your weapon slots in combat.

I guess the 'dead slot' criticism only applies to the revamped POTD, because at release the game was basically an AFK clicker and none of the build decisions mattered. The other annoying thing is that at various points, different abilities or characters will just be useless -- the nature of the armor system makes it very binary, because if the character can't hit or penetrate, it's not just marginally less powerful, but is completely ineffective.