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

[AwesomeButton]

Sorry, I meant Sworn Enemy/Sworn Rival. If I don't mark the enemy as sworn enemy before attacking, I don't think it will happen automatically.

EDIT: Marked for the Hunt moves on to another enemy when you kill the previous one, but I think you still have to enact it the first time.

 

[Haplo]

+Deadfire: more clarity, much more diverse builds, more combart interactions
-Deadfire: more contrived/simplified systems (afflictions), more plain bad systems (penetration)

-removed Health/Endurance dynamic, moved abilities to per encounter on all classes, nerfed barbarian carnage (and many other things, but I found this most painful).

+What Parabalus wrote. Crazy building options, synergies, best in class itemization and item interactions with builds. And of course, better combat clarity and less messy and easier to understand and read affliction/buff system. Also better encounter design then in vanilla PoE, not many trash fights (still not as good as WM).

 

[Grunker]

Never thought the H/E added much, never thought daily abilities added much either.

 

[AwesomeButton]

They presuppose the player is roleplaying his party's adventuring day with various mundane activities, including rests, which is by now not the case for over 99% of RPG players of videogame RPGs.

 

[Grunker]

Ah shit, now I've gone and done it. The next 90 pages are going to be sperging about rest systems again isn't it

 

[Haplo]

Never thought the H/E added much, never thought daily abilities added much either.

IMO they did. You could potentially soak/heal a lot of damage, but it was short lived, as health loss would kill you soon anyway if the enemies kept pummeling you. Kept me on the edge, when playing a no defense barbarian. I imagine it was very important when playing a monk also.
I guess for a Paladin or other high defense chars it hardly made a difference, but it was vital for low defense chars.

As for daily vs encounter, the change forced the nerfing of many abilities and loss of class identity/uniqness (like cipher Vs wizard vs Chanter and so on). Also those former per rest classes lost some power, as sure, they needed to conserve spells - but also could really unload when needed. Now with base 2 spell slots per spell level, that's hardly possible (although there are ways around this) - and typically individual abilities have less power/impact.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Health endurance mechanics is such a cool idea i was sad they removed it

 

[CommunityGoat]

After being put through this crucible, do you think you could ever play it for fun? Just curious :D

BTW, I'm going to sound not one but two unpopular opinions this time.

1. I actually like TB mode and think it suits the complex systems of afflictions/inspirations, penetration requiring to prepare weapons, etc.

2. I find the walking animation, with an increased walking movement speed to be much more visually pleasing (and reminiscent of the IE games) than the running animation which makes movement too slow to fit the animation itself.
Put this in a Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\override\WalkSpeedMod\design\gamedata\mod_walk_speed.gamedatabundle file and switch your characters to walking:


They will walk with (almost) the same speed as they used to run with, but the animation looks better.

To answer your question, yes. I've actually been playing this game on and off since I quit the game tester job a couple of years ago. I stilll like it because the artwork is fantastic to me and some of the multi-class characters unlock hidden dialogues or interactions with objects during quests. This are perhaps some of my favorite easter eggs in this game. Plus, the way items interact with each other is pretty smart. It makes the game better than your usual rpg game.

Next, I want to say that the TB mode is actually my favorite too. Aside from the fact that you get to see the enemy's special abilities in more detail, each of the members in the party are easier to manage when it comes to abilities. This type of playing also seems to develop one's game sense on strategic thinking. It's cool.

The walking animation is funny when maxed on speed. I used to have actual codes I would use with the console to make the characters maxxed out on speed parameters. It was too much for normal gameplay but this girl had to do her job xD

 

[ferratilis]

same

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm playing it right now, and I think I'm starting to appreciate some parts of it better.

 

[AwesomeButton]

To answer your question, yes. I've actually been playing this game on and off since I quit the game tester job a couple of years ago. I stilll like it because the artwork is fantastic to me and some of the multi-class characters unlock hidden dialogues or interactions with objects during quests. This are perhaps some of my favorite easter eggs in this game. Plus, the way items interact with each other is pretty smart. It makes the game better than your usual rpg game.

Next, I want to say that the TB mode is actually my favorite too. Aside from the fact that you get to see the enemy's special abilities in more detail, each of the members in the party are easier to manage when it comes to abilities. This type of playing also seems to develop one's game sense on strategic thinking. It's cool.

The walking animation is funny when maxed on speed. I used to have actual codes I would use with the console to make the characters maxxed out on speed parameters. It was too much for normal gameplay but this girl had to do her job xD

I agree on all points. One of the reasons I was so happy when they added TB mode was exactly because it felt like a waste in RtwP having these wonderful animations and effects overlap and having to watch much of them in paused mode instead of seeing them as they were intended.

It's true that the ruleset is being slightly unbalanced when in TB, but in either case, the game was intended to be completable when roleplayed, it's not neccessary to minmax anyway.

On the class reacivity, I'm sure I still have much undiscovered regarding reactivity to class/background combinations, and party members' reactivity and dialogues.

 

[AwesomeButton]

same

It bears mention that when listing the sources of inspiration, he starts with IWD, and BG on second place

 

[pomenitul]

Good. Both IWDs are severely underrated these days; they deserve more love.

 

[AwesomeButton]

"But I do think that the relatively low sales of Deadfire mean that if we consider making another Pillars game in this style, we're going to have to re-examine the entire format of the game." Exactly how low Deadfire's sales were is unknown, but it reportedly sold fewer copies than the original game.

That's the issue with their thinking. The question they should be asking is why did PoE sell so many copies - because more than a million people were stoked for a successor to the BG2-style of RPG. And the reason Deadfire sold less than PoE is that Obsidian diverged too far from that experience. Partly lack of money-and-people resources, and technical difficulties with the engine are the root of the problem. But while Pathfinder was a bugfest at release, it stuck closer to the BG experience, and the Owlcat developers were rewarded for that with solid sales for both installments.

 

[Grunker]

Partly lack of money-and-people resources

Hard disagree here even though I reacted with agree. PoE is actually a massive and beautiful game. With expansions, it is absolutely huge. The potential and scope is there. The issues are design-related.

 

[Delterius]

It is time to preemptively rehabilitate Pillars of Eternity in face of Baldur's Gate 3. Which shall be rehabilitated in face of Obsidian Soft's Warcraft CRPG.

All things have their place in the fullness of time.

 

[Delterius]

Also deadfire didn't sell because it's a pirate RPG. It's that simple. The idea that the modern steam consumer seeks 'The BG experience' is crazy. The average buyer plays western RPGs once every 5 years. The rest of their time is spent on Skyrim, persona and MMOs. They do not care about our autism.

 

[Grunker]

Also deadfire didn't sell because it's a pirate RPG. It's that simple. The idea that the modern steam consumer seeks 'The BG experience' is crazy. The average buyer plays western RPGs once every 5 years. The rest of their time is spent on Skyrim, persona and MMOs. They do not care about our autism.

RPGs don't have to sell to "average steam users" to make money. The have to sell to my casual friends who are into "nerd stuff" but don't auto-buy RPGs like you and do.

And those people played Pathfinder, because they loved the generic fantasy and that they recognized the tabletop system. They did not play Deadfire because they were meh on Pillars 1 (since they expected IE-gameness).

These are the same people that made DivOS a success, btw.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Partly lack of money-and-people resources

Hard disagree here even though I reacted with agree. PoE is actually a massive and beautiful game. With expansions, it is absolutely huge. The potential and scope is there. The issues are design-related.

Trying to be more specific... I guess what I felt as different, and caused by lack of resources was how scaled down Defiance Bay was. PoE is more linear than BG or BG2, with the player clearly progressing through consequtive hub areas, with the hub that should be the biggest one (the city) being merely the second of four small hubs.

My expectation was for a structure more similar to BG or BG2 - either a good amount of free roaming around the map, and then the big hub, or an intro chapter, and then the big hub, then a linear progression. But knowing Josh, I guess both these variants for structure were something he considered "in need of improvement"...

 

[AwesomeButton]

I doubt it was a coincidence that when they started work on the sequel they picked a setting that's maximally predisposed to free roaming (the archipelago), and cut the player loose after the first 5 hours of gameplay, give or take.

 

[Delterius]

And those people played Pathfinder

Making a lot of assumptions here. People don't even play the games that they buy. RPG adjacent normies included. They are absolutely not seeking the IE experience. They just want to play generic fantasy. And I can assure you, if Blackwater's robots were a prominent feature of Pathfinder's marketing they wouldn't have sold nearly as well. No matter the ruleset.

 

[Grunker]

Partly lack of money-and-people resources

Hard disagree here even though I reacted with agree. PoE is actually a massive and beautiful game. With expansions, it is absolutely huge. The potential and scope is there. The issues are design-related.

Trying to be more specific... I guess what I felt as different, and caused by lack of resources was how scaled down Defiance Bay was. PoE is more linear than BG or BG2, with the player clearly progressing through consequtive hub areas, with the hub that should be the biggest one (the city) being merely the second of four small hubs.

My expectation was for a structure more similar to BG or BG2 - either a good amount of free roaming around the map, and then the big hub, or an intro chapter, and then the big hub, then a linear progression. But knowing Josh, I guess both these variants for structure were something he considered "in need of improvement"...

I'm not sure I agree. BG2 has a bizarre structure, if you think about it. Athkatla is FUCKHUEG, but all major quest areas are just omega-versions of minihubs. So the big quests are VERY BIG with their own score of subquests. But you don't have that much "open exploration" outside of Athkatla.

I'm not sure there's actually that much less content in PoE. But definetely think they should have rolled all their resources spent on Twin Elms into Definance Bay to make that an actual Baldur's Gate-like city in scope. I never understood why we had to play 2/3s of the game only to find a ton of content packed into the gated Twin Elms. It makes the game more linear than it has to be and presents us with a lot of content at a point where most people are like "ok let's get this game wrapped up."

Deadfire's structure is WAY better in this regard.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm not sure I agree. BG2 has a bizarre structure, if you think about it. Athkatla is FUCKHUEG, but all major quest areas are just omega-versions of minihubs. So the big quests are VERY BIG with their own score of subquests. But you don't have that much "open exploration" outside of Athkatla.

Note that I'm not commenting on whether BG or BG2 have a good or bad structure. Personally BG's freedom was a bit overwhelming to me. But consider what percentage of the potential PoE player base have been introduced to RPGs by BG2 specifically, and that this may have set their expectations.

 

[Grunker]

Making a lot of assumptions here

Anecdotally I'm not. My casual nerd friends have many hours in Pathfinder, and they don't actually play many RPGs outside of stuff like The Witcher 3.

I don't have any substantial proof of the broader point, of course, but 5th Edition sold really well and more importantly: has many active players, even now, many years after release. Nerds, even casual ones, enjoy that shit. I think Pillars' messy design, weird structure, somewhat boring (at least on the surface) systems and especially the poor choice to go with complex combat in a real time environment handicapped their efforts at getting their hooks into this audience. None of them came back for Deadfire.

 

[Grunker]

I'm not sure I agree. BG2 has a bizarre structure, if you think about it. Athkatla is FUCKHUEG, but all major quest areas are just omega-versions of minihubs. So the big quests are VERY BIG with their own score of subquests. But you don't have that much "open exploration" outside of Athkatla.

Note that I'm not commenting on whether BG or BG2 have a good or bad structure. Personally BG's freedom was a bit overwhelming to me. But consider what percentage of the potential PoE player base have been introduced to RPGs by BG2 specifically, and that this may have set their expectations.

My point wasn't that BG or BG2 had a good or bad structure, it was that PoE definetely had and that it's not the amount of content that's the problem. Hence:

I'm not sure there's actually that much less content in PoE. But definetely think they should have rolled all their resources spent on Twin Elms into Definance Bay to make that an actual Baldur's Gate-like city in scope. I never understood why we had to play 2/3s of the game only to find a ton of content packed into the gated Twin Elms. It makes the game more linear than it has to be and presents us with a lot of content at a point where most people are like "ok let's get this game wrapped up."

Deadfire's structure is WAY better in this regard.