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

[Shadenuat]

Lol 70% of encounters are monster closets.

Also my PC crashed 3 times when fighting first pack of frost not-temple of eothas totally design-shadows in a very unique way with monitor losing signal. PoE is the only game that does it and it happens during casting druid's Vengeful Storm spell
and there's quite a lot of other bugs including plot bugs, script bugs and characters stuttering after getting hit by push spells


where's Durance? Cause I'm finishing last portal boringkingdom and he wasn't on bridge


They made me kill mama bear
+"temple of decline" I am not sure Obsidian is taking their writing seriously anymore, at all

Vatnik is okay though, and his spells are alright.

 

[Flou]

Bought the pass today, will start from the start, prolly be a while till I hit BoW.

Update vid was cool. Alex Scokel, from tester to Lead Narrative, gratz :D

I think this DLC only had 2 writers attached to it. Scokel and Dollarhyde. Still it's good experience and it looked like they team enjoyed working with a smaller group much similar to what Avellone said his experience was with FNV DLCs.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Durance had his question answered, he just didn't like it.

THAT is your summation of Durance's questline?BURN THE HERETIC!!!

 

[Lacrymas]

Also my PC crashed 3 times when fighting first pack of frost not-temple of eothas totally design-shadows in a very unique way with monitor losing signal. PoE is the only game that does it and it happens during casting druid's Vengeful Storm spell

Try turning on V-Sync. The monitor losing signal thing is the video drivers crashing, I had the same problem, but it turned out my video card was failing so I had to RMA it.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

How 'bout y'all using them Spoiler tags?!

 

[Lexx]

I had some huge screen tearing issues since patch 2. Fixed it now with setting my monitor to 144hz. It's a bit annoying, because usually I mirror my screen with the tv which I can't run in 144hz.


I'm lvl 14 and just beat the messenger. Wasn't that easy, but also not extremely hard. So far it's interesting. Will continue.


PS: Honestly, I'm beginning to hate ALL descriptive texts in the dialogues. Fallout didn't needed them, why must every rpg have them now? It's annoying, especially when I see it being a big wall of text again. Just get rid of it, I won't miss it, and the game certainly won't either.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Here's all the dialog from Ryona, the Valian ghost companion in the next DLC. Look at obvious risk of spoilers.

Spoiler

"Finally, a beacon to light this wilderness! I would have words with you." The spirit takes a bold step forward and crosses her arms, studying you with her chin tiled up.

"I am remembering things." Ryona opens both of her palms. At first it seems like she's studying her hands, but it seems equally possible that she's admiring the memory of a blade.

"You will let me know when you change your mind?"

"Who I was, who I am - this is of no consequence. That person is gone to the world, ac?"

"Death has darkened the skies, but I see three beacons in the fog. Since you are the closest, I will follow you until I reach another. I hope this is agreeable?" She adjusts her empty scabbard and weighs your reaction.

"One of those 'beacons' is probably Eothas."

"I can handle myself in a fight, casità. Whatever keeps me bound to this side of death's curtain has also kept my sword hand steady. Sometimes I even bleed - strange, no?" She snorts loudly and hocks a glob of ethereal phlegm at the ground between her feet.

"You do not jest? Then it is a good thing I did not follow the walking god – who knows where I might have ended up?" She looks off to the distance and shivers. A breeze - one which you don't feel - stirs her hair.

"I remember friends. Friends in handsome armor. One had a pet lion. We camped in a clearing on our way to a dragon's roost."

"I went out hunting alone, but a storm forced me to take shelter in a cave. A pair of eyes studied me from the darkness. Eyes full of hunger and hate."

"The beast was famished, and I was an animal trapped in the corner. So I struck a betrayer's bargain: the lives of my friends in exchange for mine. The beast agreed to these terms."

"I fled the cave. It followed me back to the clearing. My friends were telling stories about the last time I speared a boar. They did not know they had already eaten their last meal.”

"I scrambled from those woods alive, but with screams echoing in my ears. Later I returned to the Republics, did right by the families of the lost. Defended them when I could. But it was never enough. All those deeds never scrubbed a single fleck of blood from my hands."

"The next time I stepped into that cave, the beast was waiting for me. I wasn’t strong enough to face it before. I didn’t fare any better on my second try." She squeezes her eyes shut and turns away.

"But enough out of me. It must be tedious living with the regrets and unfinished business of the dead, no?" </DefaultText>

“As you say, casita.” She sighs and gestures off to the distance.

Nodding, she picks a direction and marches toward it, fading from your sight.

"Why do we tarry? The beacon calls."

"My memories are clearer than before, casita.”

"To use the skills in death that I honed in life is a noble calling." </DefaultText>

"Oblivion is my only hope. Do not stop me."

 

[Shadenuat]

Try turning on V-Sync. The monitor losing signal thing is the video drivers crashing, I had the same problem, but it turned out my video card was failing so I had to RMA it.

Sadly that just kills my fps. So had to live through another (4th) hard crash


Finished in 6 hours, minus 4 crashes. Reminded me of a bit expanded Planar sphere. More interesting than usual PoE. Bridge was the most interesting but writing and cutscenes were not enough to really do Waidwen justice. Temple was barebones compared to similar location in IWD2.
Loot was pretty but mostly eh. Liked the ice set from Morrowind expansion + ice mace looks solid.
A lot of nods to previous IE games - balance in all things, axe that looks like Vhailor's, whatever.

Main boss was pretty much nothing to talk about and re-used once, encounters - copy-pasted, but not select-all-left-click due to everything teleporting (dude + 4 barbarians dude + 4 archers dude + shadows etc.)
My party was storm druid, eder fighter/rogue, aloth, seraphen witch & vatnik. Very weak but Vatnik just outbuffed monsters.
Nothing interesting from companions, Eder was chatty but that's it. I guess I should have taken Ydwin & custom party to clean up monsters quicker because 100+ defence teleporting aoefreezing shadows already took me a long time to kill (without empower/figurines anyway). After that it was mostly Eder tanking everything though and others shooting spells.

 

[Alpan]

Here's all the dialog from Ryona, the Valian ghost companion in the next DLC. Look at obvious risk of spoilers.

Also, Ryona's breastplate is featured in PoE1 (WM2).

 

[Safav Hamon]

Good catch. This is the description of her breastplate.

This dark green enameled steel breastplate was the property of Ryona, an adventurer who hailed from the Vailian Republics and found her calling running with expedition companies in the Dyrwood. A small amount of copper chain extends under the breastplate for additional protection.

Ryona ended her career early after giving up her expedition group to a dragon in the White March in exchange for her own life.

After escaping the alpine dragon, Ryona was overwhelmed with guilt. She resolved that she would not rest until she'd made amends for each of the lives she had traded away, and she began to travel the Eastern Reach in search of ways to help the surviving relations of her lost adventuring company.

In Defiance Bay she found the widower of one of the lost expeditioners. His wife had been part of the expedition in hopes of finding treasure within Durgan's Battery that might pay off a debt that he owed to House Doemenel. By the time Ryona arrived, House Doemenel had already put out a contract on his life. She acted as his personal bodyguard and helped him to survive a series of attacks by putting herself in the line of fire. Improbably, Ryona and the widower both lived through the ordeal.

In Midwood she came to the aid of the family of an aristocratic expeditioner who had failed to satisfy the house of his daughter's husband-to-be with the dowry he'd provided. The angry in-laws swore to destroy the family for the insult, and enlisted a band of Bleak Walkers to perform the deed.

Ryona rallied together army of the expeditioner's vassals, exhorting them with a powerful speech about the kind of man he'd been, and together they slew the Bleak Walkers to the last man.

Always, though, the form of the dragon loomed large in Ryona's mind and haunted her dreams. She succeeded in every effort to help those who were close to the expeditioners she'd sacrificed, and yet peace eluded her. Only then did she come to understand that she would have to face the dragon and see it dead, or die in the attempt.

She gathered her belongings and embarked on one final journey to the White March, and was never seen again.

 

[Lacrymas]

Companion or sidekick?

 

[Ulfhednar]

Kinda like that "POE1 is about unanswered questions and Thaos is a Dostoyevskian character!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor

So it's not exactly like Sawyer and Company debunked the Temptation of Christ and upset all their good Catholic readers, but I don't understand why you couldn't compare/contrast Ivan/Alyosha with Thaos/Iovarra and come up with a fairly competent Master's thesis at some backwater liberal arts college.

It's not particularly interesting, but it's there.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Companion or sidekick?

Probably like Vatnir. Many interactions within the DLC, a few outside the DLC, and an ending slide after Ukaizo.

 

[Lacrymas]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor

So it's not exactly like Sawyer and Company debunked the Temptation of Christ and upset all their good Catholic readers, but I don't understand why you couldn't compare/contrast Ivan/Alyosha with Thaos/Iovarra and come up with a fairly competent Master's thesis at some backwater liberal arts college.

It's not particularly interesting, but it's there.

Because it would be hyperinterpretation. I don't know what Master's theses on any arts you've read, but the competent ones aren't about overdramatization, hyperintepretation and sophistry.

 

[Alpan]

Oh come on. Lacrymas wouldn't be Lacrymas without mad hyperbole, but this is a bit much even for you. That very early quest where you're sent to fetch a remedy from Ranga? Sagani's quest? Durance's arc? Zahua's rather beautifully unfolding story that turns a comic sidekick into a tragic hero? All of that is just mentions, not exploration? Not even a little?

"A little exploration" is more or less the same as "no exploration". Chris Avellone knew this (no doubt from his time on PS: T) and -- facing development challenges -- wisely chose to disperse both Grieving Mother's and Durance's questlines throughout the game (granted, the former can be gamed). It is why their companion quests are memorable and no one cares about Kana Rua's little archaeology trip or why Hiravias is the way he is. You need to start caring about the characters before caring about their quests and before caring about how those quests fit the overall picture, and in most cases PoE I fails to generate that emotional investment. Things are usually over right after they get started and "What if we can be assured of nothing?" more often than not becomes "We didn't really have the budget to do this quest justice; here's a half-baked ending."

 

[Ulfhednar]

Because it would be hyperinterpretation. I don't know what Master's theses on any arts you've read, but the competent ones aren't about overdramatization, hyperintepretation and sophistry.

It's true, I'm from the science side of academic things, so I spend my spare time reading actual literature rather than some Master's thesis that in 90% of cases is going to be a waste of time.

I don't know what you mean by hyperintepretation and it didn't show up in a google search so I'll need you to explain that... I also see no reason why writing a piece of criticism that compares/contrasts the relationships of two sets of characters from two different works would need to engage in sophistry or overdramatization.

I am quite familiar with the academic defense of hiding behind jargon to avoid making an argument. If you haven't actually read The Brothers Karamazov, I can sympathize. Dostoevsky was a master of 'walls of text'.

 

[Lacrymas]

Hyperinterpretation is when you make wild and overreaching interpretations that have no basis in reality. Contrasting and comparing random things because they vaguely sound similar is such hyperinterpretation. Nobody is going to think Iovara, a ghost elf with no character or point in the story, is analogous to Alyosha. Same with Thaos, really. It's a classic case of apophenia.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Hyperinterpretation is when you make wild and overreaching interpretations that have no basis in reality. Contrasting and comparing random things because they vaguely sound similar is such hyperinterpretation. Nobody is going to think Iovara, a ghost elf with no character or point in the story, is analogous to Alyosha. Same with Thaos, really. It's a classic case of apophenia.

So would you dismiss the possibility of critically comparing say Odysseus to say Frodo Baggins or Huck Finn on the basis that they are no more relevant than seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast?

 

[Alpan]

Hyperinterpretation is when you make wild and overreaching interpretations that have no basis in reality. Contrasting and comparing random things because they vaguely sound similar is such hyperinterpretation. Nobody is going to think Iovara, a ghost elf with no character or point in the story, is analogous to Alyosha. Same with Thaos, really. It's a classic case of apophenia.

So would you dismiss the possibility of critically comparing say Odysseus to say Frodo Baggins or Huck Finn on the basis that they are no more relevant than seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast?

A critical difference here is that neither Odysseus nor Frodo Baggins feature as shrouded characters who unload their entire motivations and raisons d'être only in the last thirty minutes of the story. I think Lacrymas just likes saying "apophenia", but there are absolutely valid reasons why the comparisons may be considered baseless. The onus was on Obsidian to render Thaos and Iovara worthy of such consideration, and here they failed.

 

[Lacrymas]

I do indeed like saying apophenia, but it's apt in this case. People like to criticize art analysis because they think it makes wild assumptions and yaps aimlessly, looking for connections that don't exist, yet fall into exactly that when they feel like it.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Hyperinterpretation is when you make wild and overreaching interpretations that have no basis in reality. Contrasting and comparing random things because they vaguely sound similar is such hyperinterpretation. Nobody is going to think Iovara, a ghost elf with no character or point in the story, is analogous to Alyosha. Same with Thaos, really. It's a classic case of apophenia.

So would you dismiss the possibility of critically comparing say Odysseus to say Frodo Baggins or Huck Finn on the basis that they are no more relevant than seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast?

A critical difference here is that neither Odysseus nor Frodo Baggins feature as shrouded characters who unload their entire motivations and raisons d'être only in the last thirty minutes of the story. I think Lacrymas just likes saying "apophenia", but there are absolutely valid reasons why the comparisons may be considered baseless. The onus was on Obsidian to render Thaos and Iovara worthy of such consideration, and here they failed.

I think the argument that Pillars of Eternity isn't worthy of critical comparison is a perfectly valid one to make. Thaos and Ivorra are both lightweights compared to the Karamazovs just because they respresent a religion that exists only in a fantasy world and has no real adherrents.

But the idea that the comparison is not apples to oranges but more like elephants to quiche seems disingenuous to me.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Alpan]

Strange features like this and the Shacknews video reek of """upper management""" frenziedly taking every marketing shot they can possibly take.

 

[Ulfhednar]

A critical difference here is that neither Odysseus nor Frodo Baggins feature as shrouded characters who unload their entire motivations and raisons d'être only in the last thirty minutes of the story.

I guess I should also point out that Ivan Karamazov is also a character whose 'entire motivations and raisons d'être' are shrouded in mystery for most of the novel up until he reads the Grand Inquisitor. It functions as both a character revelation and a turning point in the novel.

Ivan's "The Catholic Church is a cult of death" hits much harder than PoE's "the gods aren't real" because of who Dostoevsky's audience is, what it means to them personally, and because he spends another 500 pages or so analyzing the fallout between Ivan and Alyosha.

 

[Roguey]

I do indeed like saying apophenia, but it's apt in this case. People like to criticize art analysis because they think it makes wild assumptions and yaps aimlessly, looking for connections that don't exist, yet fall into exactly that when they feel like it.

Me reading this