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

[Fedora Master]

The fundamental system is irredeemable.

Why do you think that? I know there's a branch of people here that do, but I'm curious as to why. (Straight question.)

Strength wizards and Intelligence barbarians.
Furthermore, the system takes all the awful parts from 3.5e while, for the sake of BALANCE, leaving out the fun bits.
Every decision when building a character comes down to "Which of these feats and spells are the least useless?"

Thanks. Yeah, the first points I made my peace with long ago - "Might" is just an abstract "power level" stat. For a melee character it's an abstraction for strength, for a mage it's an abstraction of magic power.

That would be fine, except the attribute checks that require Strength are all very clearly designed around muscle power.

 

[gurugeorge]

Conan in the books was far from stupid.

 

[gurugeorge]

The fundamental system is irredeemable.

Why do you think that? I know there's a branch of people here that do, but I'm curious as to why. (Straight question.)

Strength wizards and Intelligence barbarians.
Furthermore, the system takes all the awful parts from 3.5e while, for the sake of BALANCE, leaving out the fun bits.
Every decision when building a character comes down to "Which of these feats and spells are the least useless?"

Thanks. Yeah, the first points I made my peace with long ago - "Might" is just an abstract "power level" stat. For a melee character it's an abstraction for strength, for a mage it's an abstraction of magic power.

That would be fine, except the attribute checks that require Strength are all very clearly designed around muscle power.

Not all I think, and more in the first game than the second - but enough to make it clear that they were a bit confused themselves

 

[purupuru]

I have grown to like Int barbarians. It's actually one of the more unique things that POE system offers. The idea of AOE range scaling with stats should be used a lot more.

You mean shamans? Or "im going to headbutt you with my big brain" type barbarians? I find it hard to imagine the concept

I simply mean I like the mechanical/gameplay aspect of it. Barbs have regular attacks being AOEs and Int increases the size of all AOEs so it's a fun combo.

 

[Poseidon00]

Conan was far from stupid.

Yeah but I think he was more perceptive (wise) than analytical (intelligent).

 

[Poseidon00]

I simply mean I like the mechanical/gameplay aspect of it. Barbs have regular attacks being AOEs and Int increases the size of all AOEs so it's a fun combo.

Oh, me too. I like the gameplay aspects of it. But I hate that it's a linear progression because it quickly goes beyond even suspension of disbelief. Bigger AoE's should be a combat feat with a prerequisite of like 13 int of something. If only a system did something similar to this!

 

[Butter]

The underlying goal of Josh's attribute system in PoE was that you could roleplay any character without it being a detriment to gameplay. Here's the thing: does anyone even roleplay this game, as in creating the character's background and personality and so forth? I might have given it a half-hearted try in the first game, but it quickly became clear that dialogue is something to be skipped as much as possible, and so paying attention and responding to people "in character" wasn't appealing. Ultimately Josh designed his system for a theoretical player who doesn't exist.

 

[Desiderius]

The ideal word would be the French "Puissance"

This works as a general statement.

 

[Desiderius]

Conan was far from stupid.

Yeah but I think he was more perceptive (wise) than analytical (intelligent).

The true mark of intellect is synthesis, not mere analysis. Any dumbass can tear things apart and many do. Conan obviously was both Perceptive and Intelligent. Perception is about being aware of one's enemy, intelligence about anticipating his next moves.

 

[purupuru]

I simply mean I like the mechanical/gameplay aspect of it. Barbs have regular attacks being AOEs and Int increases the size of all AOEs so it's a fun combo.

Oh, me too. I like the gameplay aspects of it. But I hate that it's a linear progression because it quickly goes beyond even suspension of disbelief. Bigger AoE's should be a combat feat with a prerequisite of like 13 int of something. If only a system did something similar to this!

Yes, a high Int barb's AOEs is definitely something rather wonky, but for me that's part of the fun. I appreciate what more "confined" systems offers but spreadsheeting with multiple linear progressions can be a enjoyable and rewarding experience when you get something self-consistent and functional (if not realistic).

 

[Efe]

It starts with int barbarians, then you slowly get to barbarians that are exclusive to women who know loss of a child.

 

[gurugeorge]

It's really a kind of weird accident of the D&D system having some simulationist intent but not quite being simulationist enough, that we all got used to only one or two stats being useful per class (more or less). They tried to get around that with 13 INT thresholds, etc., and that works a bit, but really you want all the stats doing something useful for a character, and then just weighting towards one thing or another to fit skill and wielding thresholds/reqs, which should be more important. That would mean "classes" and "levels" could be less important too (though you could still have some, but more as an aspect of the virtual world than of gameplay).

Realistically, if you're simulating properly, several attributes are always going to be involved in each of melee/ranged/magic. Hence my "paired-weighted attributes" idea I flagged in the mechanics sub-forum. Full simulation with all 6 Attributes contributing something would be too unwieldy, too un-fun to get your head around in the context of a game unless you were galaxy-brained; but you do want some way of being able to blend mental with physical (or even moral and spiritual) stats to represent various kinds of combat/magic effectiveness, I think, and having them in differently-weighted pairs (e.g. STR+per for melee or INT+dex for magic), would be a reasonable compromise. I'm not sure what the cash-value of "weighting" should be though.

 

[Desiderius]

we all got used to only one or two stats being useful per class (more or less).

No, "we" didn't. That didn't come from D&D, that came from the great MMO dumb-down. Original LotRO used all the stats for each class, then when they hired the Farmville lady to go FTP they changed every class to just use one stat.

In P:K/Wrath I start building characters with two points in each stat since that system does use every stat even today and each Stat pt only cost one creation point in that range.

 

[gurugeorge]

we all got used to only one or two stats being useful per class (more or less).

No, "we" didn't. That didn't come from D&D, that came from the great MMO dumb-down. Original LotRO used all the stats for each class, then when they hired the Farmville lady to go FTP they changed every class to just use one stat.

In P:K/Wrath I start building characters with two points in each stat since that system does use every stat even today and each Stat pt only cost one creation point in that range.

That brings back memories. LOTRO as it originally was was a fantastic MMO experience. I'll never forget falling in with some people who were rp-ing lite (proper, "Hail friend, well met" stuff ) and one of them said, "Hey have you visited Rivendell yet?" Two of us hadn't, so we all trooped off, fought our way through some Trolls, crossed the river, climbed the mountain, fought some more stuff, and crested the ridge into the valley, with the soaring music. Quite a wee peak gaming experience that was - the cameraderie, the feeling of being transported to another world.

And yeah, I don't remember the details but I do remember thinking it had been dumbed down when I revisited it after it went f2p. I popped my head in more recently and they seemed to have clawed some of that back - it seemed more like the old game again, with the cash shop less intrusive, etc.

 

[Orud]

Don't just call it the big MMO dumb-down, call it for what it is; the World of Warcraft dumb-down. It lead directly to D&D 4th edition and a decade of bland, uninspired video- and board games. Funny enough, World of Warcraft's design philosophy was a race to the bottom and eventually it started to eat itself.

Thankfully, the gaming industry seems to finally start climbing out of the dark hole it dug itself in. Even mobile games are starting to become less bland than a white sheet of paper.

 

[Desiderius]

we all got used to only one or two stats being useful per class (more or less).

No, "we" didn't. That didn't come from D&D, that came from the great MMO dumb-down. Original LotRO used all the stats for each class, then when they hired the Farmville lady to go FTP they changed every class to just use one stat.

In P:K/Wrath I start building characters with two points in each stat since that system does use every stat even today and each Stat pt only cost one creation point in that range.

That brings back memories. LOTRO as it originally was was a fantastic MMO experience. I'll never forget falling in with some people who were rp-ing lite (proper, "Hail friend, well met" stuff ) and one of them said, "Hey have you visited Rivendell yet?" Two of us hadn't, so we all trooped off, fought our way through some Trolls, crossed the river, climbed the mountain, fought some more stuff, and crested the ridge into the valley, with the soaring music. Quite a wee peak gaming experience that was - the cameraderie, the feeling of being transported to another world.

And yeah, I don't remember the details but I do remember thinking it had been dumbed down when I revisited it after it went f2p. I popped my head in more recently and they seemed to have clawed some of that back - it seemed more like the old game again, with the cash shop less intrusive, etc.

High Moor was something, no doubt, and perfect for the lore. They cut aggro ranges in half and added a quest that ports you there early for the great dumb-down. Just so stupid.

 

[Haplo]

The fundamental system is irredeemable.

Why do you think that? I know there's a branch of people here that do, but I'm curious as to why. (Straight question.)

Strength wizards and Intelligence barbarians.
Furthermore, the system takes all the awful parts from 3.5e while, for the sake of BALANCE, leaving out the fun bits.
Every decision when building a character comes down to "Which of these feats and spells are the least useless?"

Thanks. Yeah, the first points I made my peace with long ago - "Might" is just an abstract "power level" stat. For a melee character it's an abstraction for strength, for a mage it's an abstraction of magic power.

That would be fine, except the attribute checks that require Strength are all very clearly designed around muscle power.

True, that's a serious dissonance. However mostly an issue in PoE1. PoE2 doesn't have (many) direct attribute checks like this.

 

[Haplo]

There is too much of that due to the overly narrow parameters they set for themselves - no adventuring spells for instance. There are Abilities and Spells that are very much not useless at all within those parameters tho. The weapon Modals are massively annoying, but evidently Haplo who knows more than anyone says some are good?

The STR/INT whining is just straight up ghey.

The -25 defense debuff modals (club-Willpower, flail-Reflex, morningstar-Fortitude) are extremly good as far as party synergies go. Morningstar modal can actually be beneficial even personal damage output wise, particularly on a Barbarian with Brute Force (targets Fortitude instead of Deflection if lower) or possibly a specialized Fighter using a lot of Clear Out (aoe!) and Mule Kick (these target Fortitude directly).

Particularly the morningstar modal makes landing destructive stuff like Disintegrate, Death Ray and many others banal (and crits likely). Club is very useful to support early Ciphers, before they can get stellar accuracy vs Willpower and before Wizards get Miasma and such.

Axe Bleeding Cuts modal is extremely potent, it melts even megabosses after a few applications. It does slow you down a lot... but maybe you'll apply it semi-passively - for example as Ripostes/Retaliations. And maybe you'll spam Forbidden Fist while holding an axe and will create chains of axe swings via Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming (probably needs Community Patch to work). Or.. there's always the broken Blade Cascade from Scordeo's Trophy.

Rapier with its +20 Accuracy modal is barely slower then a "normal" speed weapon (like saber), while making you crit like crazy.

Single Pistol with modal is slightly faster then dual-wielding, barely less accurate and gets a 20% crit conversion.

+20 Accuracy on Arquebusses is great for alpha striking before reloading - even better from Stealth, as 1st reload/recovery from stealth is accelerated.
Same deal with Rod with its large aoe blast - you can attack twice exiting stealth (with Bounces and good chances for proccing Ondra's Wrath aoe, if using Tekehu's rod)- and maybe re-hide to get fast recovery again.

Arquebus (Prone) and Crossbow (Interrupt) modals are great to chain interrupt dangerous enemies - particularly shine in megaboss battles (with multiple party members peppering the boss with these interrupts).

Large Shield modal makes you way sturdier vs ranged attacks/spell like abilities. Particularly nice for boarding ship barrages.

Blunderbuss Powder Burns are clutch for triggering Streetfighter special abilities effortlessly.

Increased Pen/Reduced enemy AR can be crucial to beat some enemies if you under-penetrate. However I try to avoid being in such a situation in the first place trough buffing/use of appropriate weaponry. And if you have such issues, direct RAW damage weapons might be a more reliable solution.

 

[ferratilis]

Damn, I had no idea Justin Bell left Obsidian. His music and sound design were a big reason why PoE had such a nice atmosphere. Those soundtracks are among the best in recent time.

 

[Haplo]

I have grown to like Int barbarians. It's actually one of the more unique things that POE system offers. The idea of AOE range scaling with stats should be used a lot more.

Int Barbarian = Bestest Barbarian. Too bad Obsidian nerfed them in PoE 2

 

[gurugeorge]

There is too much of that due to the overly narrow parameters they set for themselves - no adventuring spells for instance. There are Abilities and Spells that are very much not useless at all within those parameters tho. The weapon Modals are massively annoying, but evidently Haplo who knows more than anyone says some are good?

The STR/INT whining is just straight up ghey.

The -25 defense debuff modals (club-Willpower, flail-Reflex, morningstar-Fortitude) are extremly good as far as party synergies go. Morningstar modal can actually be beneficial even personal damage output wise, particularly on a Barbarian with Brute Force (targets Fortitude instead of Deflection if lower) or possibly a specialized Fighter using a lot of Clear Out (aoe!) and Mule Kick (these target Fortitude directly).

Particularly the morningstar modal makes landing destructive stuff like Disintegrate, Death Ray and many others banal (and crits likely). Club is very useful to support early Ciphers, before they can get stellar accuracy vs Willpower and before Wizards get Miasma and such.

Axe Bleeding Cuts modal is extremely potent, it melts even megabosses after a few applications. It does slow you down a lot... but maybe you'll apply it semi-passively - for example as Ripostes/Retaliations. And maybe you'll spam Forbidden Fist while holding an axe and will create chains of axe swings via Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming (probably needs Community Patch to work).

Rapier with its +20 Accuracy modal is barely slower then a "normal" speed weapon (like saber), while making you crit like crazy.

Single Pistol with modal is slightly faster then dual-wielding, barely less accurate and gets a 20% crit conversion.

+20 Accuracy on Arquebusses is great for alpha striking before reloading - even better from Stealth, as 1st reload/recovery from stealth is accelerated.
Same deal with Rod with its large aoe blast - you can attack twice exiting stealth (with Bounces and good chances for proccing Ondra's Wrath aoe, if using Tekehu's rod)- and maybe re-hide to get fast recovery again.

Arquebus (Prone) and Crossbow (Interrupt) modals are great to chain interrupt dangerous enemies - particularly shine in megaboss battles.

Large Shield modal makes you way sturdier vs ranged attacks/spell like abilities. Particularly nice for boarding ship barrages.

Blunderbuss Powder Burns are clutch for triggering Streetfighter special abilities effortlessly.

Increased Pen/Reduced enemy AR can be crucial to beat some enemies if you under-penetrate. However I try to avoid being in such a situation in the first place trough buffing/use of appropriate weaponry. And if you have such issues, direct RAW damage weapons might be a more reliable solution.

Very handy summary Haplo, thanks!

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

I'm still playing this and I have to say I've fallen hard for it. Still haven't finished it, but I'm on my fourth char and run, on PoTD now.

Story and character-wise it's a mixed bag on account of the globohomo bs, but the quality of the writing in and of itself is good, most of the plots and quests are good, with decent C&C, interactivity, thoughtful moral and political choices, everything - and the rhythm of the RTwP gameplay (the timings of how long things last vis-a-vis how often you get into the swing of pausing to scan everything) is just great fun on PoTD, with the AI conditionals being the icing on the cake.

I usually prefer to play RPGs on last but one difficulty, as it's usually a good compromise between non-sleepwalking gameplay and story flow, but now that I'm more familiar with the game, I remember the thing that's so great about the hardest difficulties in games - you have to pull out all the stops and use every little tool at your disposal, every goddamn janky potion and sparklecracker, everything, just for that bit of edge to match up to the enemy OP-ness and bloat.

And it really does look a million dollars too.

It's funny, I kind of liked it a year or so ago when I tried it in turn-based to about 3-4 of the way through, but it didn't quite sit in the pocket for me. Now it does, I'm right there with my head buried in the mechanics and enjoying the virtual world.

(I read a comment a while ago about the PoE series to the effect that actually, the more of the lore you read properly and absorb, the more you enjoy the game. I think that's true. It's a bit of an irritating dump the first time you play PoE, but as you start to wrap your head around the epic scale and the fleshed-out details in both games, it's really good. One thing that keeps coming to mind is the kind of mega-superhero scenarios of the likes of Grant Morrison etc., the UK crowd - the "gods" remind me of that type of cosmic scale superhero stuff, and the puzzle of what whimsies would affect ridiculously powerful beings. Probably just a quirk of mine, but it enriches it for me.)

Again, I'm reflecting how sad it is that this wasn't the hit it deserved to be. So much love put into it, and attention to detail.

What settings would you recommend playing with?

 

[gurugeorge]

I'm still playing this and I have to say I've fallen hard for it. Still haven't finished it, but I'm on my fourth char and run, on PoTD now.

Story and character-wise it's a mixed bag on account of the globohomo bs, but the quality of the writing in and of itself is good, most of the plots and quests are good, with decent C&C, interactivity, thoughtful moral and political choices, everything - and the rhythm of the RTwP gameplay (the timings of how long things last vis-a-vis how often you get into the swing of pausing to scan everything) is just great fun on PoTD, with the AI conditionals being the icing on the cake.

I usually prefer to play RPGs on last but one difficulty, as it's usually a good compromise between non-sleepwalking gameplay and story flow, but now that I'm more familiar with the game, I remember the thing that's so great about the hardest difficulties in games - you have to pull out all the stops and use every little tool at your disposal, every goddamn janky potion and sparklecracker, everything, just for that bit of edge to match up to the enemy OP-ness and bloat.

And it really does look a million dollars too.

It's funny, I kind of liked it a year or so ago when I tried it in turn-based to about 3-4 of the way through, but it didn't quite sit in the pocket for me. Now it does, I'm right there with my head buried in the mechanics and enjoying the virtual world.

(I read a comment a while ago about the PoE series to the effect that actually, the more of the lore you read properly and absorb, the more you enjoy the game. I think that's true. It's a bit of an irritating dump the first time you play PoE, but as you start to wrap your head around the epic scale and the fleshed-out details in both games, it's really good. One thing that keeps coming to mind is the kind of mega-superhero scenarios of the likes of Grant Morrison etc., the UK crowd - the "gods" remind me of that type of cosmic scale superhero stuff, and the puzzle of what whimsies would affect ridiculously powerful beings. Probably just a quirk of mine, but it enriches it for me.)

Again, I'm reflecting how sad it is that this wasn't the hit it deserved to be. So much love put into it, and attention to detail.

What settings would you recommend playing with?

I don't have any of the fancy extra "challenge" settings for PoTD if that's what you mean, just the All scaling option with "scailng up only."

 

[Delterius]

in fact it's the idea of the wizard as a weedy nerd that's rather the odd man out in fantasy historically. If you look at Gandalf or the Vancian wizards, they're physically capable people

Not sure about that. If you look at your typical D&D experience both the Mage and the Fighter archetypes are far beyond these characters. A Fighter is not just physically capable, they are meant to be superhuman. Likewise with the spellcasters their abilities will soon eclipse even great divine beings like Gandalf. Meanwhile in Baldur's Gate a level 10 Mage has a THAC0 of 17, equivalent to a level 4 Fighter. In Kingmaker a level 10 Wizard has a +5 to BAB, equivalent to a level 5 Fighter. They are not necessarily physically incapable, just not likely to answer an epic challenge with their median fighting.

 

[gurugeorge]

lol, you learn something new every day. I've got 179 hours in the game, and I only just noticed that there's a "recommended companion" (little bar and portrait under the quest title on the right pane) for the quests. Nice touch - although I suppose one could argue that you should be able to figure it out for yourself by context (like generally take Tekehu for Huana stuff, Serafen for pirate stuff, etc.)

I was just thinking the other day about how much effort they put into having apposite comments from companions in some of the quests. Also, at this point, I should say that the disposition/reputation system is really nice (like when one of your companions is pissed off at something you or another character say, and they go down in their estimation - there's a lot of friction developing between Tekehu and Maia in my current main party, for example, which is pretty cool). Definitely an improvement on barebones "alignment" for those who hate that.

I wish I learned useful new things every day though