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

[gurugeorge]

Just watched the Josh Sawyer post-mortem Infinitron just linked to in the Josh Sawyer Q&A thread, and it seems pretty fair for the most part. VO and ship-to-ship as huge distractions (from efforts that could have been spent on making the game better) and the relationship system as a very cool but initially flawed idea (heck, spending some of the time wasted on VO and ship-to-ship could have been spent on fine tuning that before release).

Re. the ship-to-ship: setting aside the fact that it was a huge time-sink for them, I think in concept (storybook style abstracted ship-to-ship) it's good, but to me the thing they've kept through all the iterations that's really incomprehensible and annoying is the central vertical strip with the turns and arrows and shit.

I still haven't the foggiest clue what's going on there, it sort of glides off the brain. I think if whatever information they were trying to convey there - presumably about relative positioning, etc. - if that had been instantly readable, the ship-to-ship probably would have been fine, otherwise just leave it out and rely on the narration and the icon at the bottom showing barebones positioning, because that central strip of whatever it is adds nothing and is just an irritating lump of incomprehensibility in the middle of the ship-to-ship UI. IOW, maybe the problem was that it wasn't abstracted enough.

Alternatively, a proper tutorial explaining the system would have gone a long way to making it friendly. The first combat could have been forced, with a gradual introduction to the system.

 

[Atchodas]

Did Sawyer ever admit that his lunatic ramblings that is Derpfires story and world building were complete trash and nobody sane actually read/listen it and thats one of the main reasons that game is so bland and boring

 

[Haplo]

World building was pretty solid.

 

[Atchodas]

His world building was just doubling down on all that gods who barter in souls crap that nobody gave a fuck about.

He clearly fell in love with his lunatic ramblings about gods of eora and just proceeded to shove that crap to players in either huge walls of texts or prolonged VO sequences

To the point where ending of deadfire (which was final nail to the PoE coffin) is just listening to hour long lecture about Eothas motives

Also if you exclude all the gods and souls BS then its just general fantasy where gnomes are orlans and vampires are fampyrs

 

[Feyd Rautha]

To me the thing they've kept through all the iterations that's really incomprehensible and annoying is the central vertical strip with the turns and arrows and shit.

I still haven't the foggiest clue what's going on there, it sort of glides off the brain. I think if whatever information they were trying to convey there - presumably about relative positioning, etc. - if that had been instantly readable, the ship-to-ship probably would have been fine, otherwise just leave it out and rely on the narration and the icon at the bottom showing barebones positioning, because that central strip of whatever it is adds nothing and is just an irritating lump of incomprehensibility in the middle of the ship-to-ship UI.

There are some really useful videos to be found on youtube that explains the ship-to-ship combat. It's not complex at all. However, as you say, it could have been explained better ingame.

 

[Lacrymas]

Just use the mod that skips the ship battles.

 

[2house2fly]

Did Sawyer ever admit that his lunatic ramblings that is Derpfires story and world building were complete trash and nobody sane actually read/listen it and thats one of the main reasons that game is so bland and boring

Broadly speaking, yes. He's said he's happy with how the faction stuff ended up, but is willing to cop to the central Eothas plot not being good. He's briefly talked about his aims

Being pushed around and ignored by the gods was supposed to feel annoying and irritating [...] My hope was that the gods' increasing desperation and reliance on the Watcher would give the player a sense of satisfaction and that Eothas' willingness to listen to the Watcher's opinions about how to leave things would give them a sense of place and purpose between Eothas, the gods, and mortals.

which makes it easier to see what they were going for and where exactly it fell short

 

[gurugeorge]

His world building was just doubling down on all that gods who barter in souls crap that nobody gave a fuck about.

Speak for yourself, I actually found it quite interesting, and a change from the usual lore. That's not to say it's entirely successful, but it's more interesting and thoughtful than the usual game fantasy setting, which is pretty throwaway.

I have found that the more you actually read the lore, the more you want to read, the more you want to have a fleshed-out sense of the world, and the more it actually does make a grand, epic story. This is from hating the stuff on first contact. But as someone said, maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome

To me the thing they've kept through all the iterations that's really incomprehensible and annoying is the central vertical strip with the turns and arrows and shit.

I still haven't the foggiest clue what's going on there, it sort of glides off the brain. I think if whatever information they were trying to convey there - presumably about relative positioning, etc. - if that had been instantly readable, the ship-to-ship probably would have been fine, otherwise just leave it out and rely on the narration and the icon at the bottom showing barebones positioning, because that central strip of whatever it is adds nothing and is just an irritating lump of incomprehensibility in the middle of the ship-to-ship UI.

There are some really useful videos to be found on youtube that explains the ship-to-ship combat. It's not complex at all. However, as you say, it could have been explained better ingame.

It's not that the combat itself is difficult, it's fairly easy (close, broadside, jibe, hold, fire, jibe, hold fire, rinse and repeat), and I like doing it now and then. For me it's just that central column of visual shit that's unnecessary, and only turns people off (I think anyway).

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

Did Sawyer ever admit that his lunatic ramblings that is Derpfires story and world building were complete trash and nobody sane actually read/listen it and thats one of the main reasons that game is so bland and boring

Broadly speaking, yes. He's said he's happy with how the faction stuff ended up, but is willing to cop to the central Eothas plot not being good. He's briefly talked about his aims

Being pushed around and ignored by the gods was supposed to feel annoying and irritating [...] My hope was that the gods' increasing desperation and reliance on the Watcher would give the player a sense of satisfaction and that Eothas' willingness to listen to the Watcher's opinions about how to leave things would give them a sense of place and purpose between Eothas, the gods, and mortals.

which makes it easier to see what they were going for and where exactly it fell short

The real problem is that the Watcher doesn't even do anything and nor do the Gods, so it's not even a plot! All you have is Eothas doing whatever he likes, followed by the idiotic final dialogue where you can persuade him of anything for no reason.
All they had to do was make it an actual plot, f.e. you can weaken Eothas by sabotaging pillars ahead of his advance, and can revive some of the Gods' ancient bodies to fight him, then it would be an actual plot with things happning which the player can participate in.

Pillars' worldbuilding is well-executed, the only problems are conceptual - it's too realistic and unoriginal, and it's too tinged by libtardism.

ANyway this shit is why I visited the thread:
So apparently Serafen has a random chance to do enough AoE friendly fire damage to instagib multiple party members? This is an instantly lost fight, and when I reloaded, it happened again! What a piece of shit design.

 

[Sannom]

If only there was a chance of something similarly beneficial for the party happening, I would really like that thing, it lead to a funny moment when he exploded, took himself and my PC out, brought 2 of the enemies (including the captain) down to very little health. It made that fight spicier, even if I wanted to scream at the screen on the moment.

 

[Jackpot]

I actually liked a lot of the god shit, the problem with Deadfire is it's so disconnected from the setting.
Despite the gods being the driving force behind the main plot, everything except the main plot is almost entirely focused on pirates and trade companies and Hawaiian smurf politics.

In PoE1, the gods were both the driving force of the main plot AND felt like an integral part of the setting.

 

[GloomFrost]

I actually liked a lot of the god shit, the problem with Deadfire is it's so disconnected from the setting.
Despite the gods being the driving force behind the main plot, everything except the main plot is almost entirely focused on pirates and trade companies and Hawaiian smurf politics.

In PoE1, the gods were both the driving force of the main plot AND felt like an integral part of the setting.

Yep especially considering that the main plot is like 4 missions long. So you spend over 90% of the game swimming, around, exploring, doing faction and companion quests. BG2, PST,F:NV, even the first POE showed how to properly integrate side quests into the main story.

 

[welly321]

So is it worth replaying deadfire for the DLCs and turn based combat? I played and completed deadfire on release and I thought it was decent but I was really disappointed at the ending. I also thought the story of chasing Eothas was really nonsensical. The exploration and world-building were top notch though.

 

[Desiderius]

The DLCs are probably better than the original content, and they smoothed out a lot of the kinks. You can even directly board ships (skipping ship combat) which unfortunately I have a hard time avoiding since I enjoyed ship combat but it seems strictly worse than just boarding.

 

[gurugeorge]

lol, I can see how this design decision might have annoyed a lot of people: the fact that you can only lay down one trap at a time.

I'm not normally a big traps person, too much faffing about, but I bethought me to lay down some traps for Laugafaeth in POE today. Nothing fancy, just like 3 or 4 at a choke-ish point. Imagine my disappointment

I understand the intent and reasoning obviously, but surely a one trap at a time allowance is a bit too draconian? 3 or 4 would be a nice happy medium surely? So you still have the machiavellian fun of it, but it can't get ridiculous like it did in the BG games?

Doesn't bother me that much, but i can imagine it must have absolutely infuriated some people and been an instant rage uninstall

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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.

I found pillows to be better at making every stat matter(while still having depth) than most other RPGs I can think of right now.

The only real exception was CON in pillows 1, and I believe it was reworked in dumpsterfire to make it more important.

 

[gurugeorge]

Oh, and I finished POE2 for the first time today as well, on my "scratch" character (I still intend to get the two games and all DLC done with one consistent character, a cipher who I'm going slow and immersed with through POE atm).

What's all the fuss about the ending? You get a goodly set of choices, all with cost/benefit scenarios attached. It's a difficult, sticky choice that you have to ponder for a bit, which makes you think about your own preference ranking.

Is the problem that there's not one clear good ending? In a way, I can see the complaint that the moralltiies of the choices are just a reflection of lame liberal "balance" and fence-sitting - everyone must get prizes, and at the same time everyone must feel equally slightly dissatisfied too. But I thought that bar the obligatory snarky jabs of anti-White-colonialism, the options and the costs/benefits were quite realistically and maturely drawn, on the whole.

 

[Grunker]

but it seems strictly worse than just boarding.

You lose a neglible amount of resources so small you don't even notice. Honestly it doesn't matter

 

[Grunker]

What's all the fuss about the ending? You get a goodly set of choices, all with cost/benefit scenarios attached. It's a difficult, sticky choice that you have to ponder for a bit, which makes you think about your own preference ranking.

Is the problem that there's not one clear good ending? In a way, I can see the complaint that the moralltiies of the choices are just a reflection of lame liberal "balance" and fence-sitting - everyone must get prizes, and at the same time everyone must feel equally slightly dissatisfied too. But I thought that bar the obligatory snarky jabs of anti-White-colonialism, the options and the costs/benefits were quite realistically and maturely drawn, on the whole.

no it's just a shit story fam

 

[gurugeorge]

What's all the fuss about the ending? You get a goodly set of choices, all with cost/benefit scenarios attached. It's a difficult, sticky choice that you have to ponder for a bit, which makes you think about your own preference ranking.

Is the problem that there's not one clear good ending? In a way, I can see the complaint that the moralltiies of the choices are just a reflection of lame liberal "balance" and fence-sitting - everyone must get prizes, and at the same time everyone must feel equally slightly dissatisfied too. But I thought that bar the obligatory snarky jabs of anti-White-colonialism, the options and the costs/benefits were quite realistically and maturely drawn, on the whole.

no it's just a shit story fam

Hyperbole is the worst thing in the world.

It's not shit, it's uneven, with some inspired bits and some incoherent bits - but at least it tries.

 

[Desiderius]

It doesn’t try when you drop off Eder’s kid. It punts. Badly.

Likewise the end of the faction quests.

Shiny happy sunshine land is stupid. So is the opposite.

 

[Butter]

Most of the game's story is you following Eothas. He keeps stringing you along even though he could just tell you his plan from the outset, but hey! we need a mystery to keep the player intrigued. It's a lazier version of what they did in the first game.

 

[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.

I found pillows to be better at making every stat matter(while still having depth) than most other RPGs I can think of right now.

The only real exception was CON in pillows 1, and I believe it was reworked in dumpsterfire to make it more important.

I think this was maybe one of the downsides of it for people who were used to 1 or 2 pumped and 1 or 2 dumped. I remember it feeling quite opaque at first just because it is quite intricate and you're juggling a fair number of balls. But once it clicked, once I got my head around the whole thing and felt "inside" it, I've found it to be pretty damn good and reasonably simulationist. You can still pump and dump some if you want to - it's still more or less obligatory for a PoTD build - and that works fine too, but it's clear what you're sacrificing and there's a genuine cost that you have to make sure to cover in other ways.

 

[gurugeorge]

Most of the game's story is you following Eothas. He keeps stringing you along even though he could just tell you his plan from the outset, but hey! we need a mystery to keep the player intrigued. It's a lazier version of what they did in the first game.

There are very few movies you can't tell what the ending is going to be after about 10 minutes in, but they can still be worth watching, because you want to see how they get to that point.

Presumably he didn't tell you off the bat because you would likely have blabbed to Berath, and he wanted to keep his brothers and sisters guessing till it was more or less a fait acoompli? That's how it seemed to me anyway.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

Oh, and I finished POE2 for the first time today as well, on my "scratch" character (I still intend to get the two games and all DLC done with one consistent character, a cipher who I'm going slow and immersed with through POE atm).

What's all the fuss about the ending? You get a goodly set of choices, all with cost/benefit scenarios attached. It's a difficult, sticky choice that you have to ponder for a bit, which makes you think about your own preference ranking.

Is the problem that there's not one clear good ending? In a way, I can see the complaint that the moralltiies of the choices are just a reflection of lame liberal "balance" and fence-sitting - everyone must get prizes, and at the same time everyone must feel equally slightly dissatisfied too. But I thought that bar the obligatory snarky jabs of anti-White-colonialism, the options and the costs/benefits were quite realistically and maturely drawn, on the whole.

If I remember clearly, there's no reason for Eothas to care what you have to say, but he listens anyway just 'cause.
It's like convincing the Master to blow himself up in Fallout 1 - except instead of having to acquire research proving that Mutants are sterile, you can just spew some emotional BS.