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

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

if I did not really enjoy POE1 is there any chance I might enjoy the final version of POE2?

 

[General Disarray]

if I did not really enjoy POE1 is there any chance I might enjoy the final version of POE2?

Yeah I think so. I didn't finished PoE1 ( too boring ) until 2 came. Then I loaded up and played through The White March which I really enjoyed, unlike the main campaign.
PoE 2 was fun, nice take with the islands and good amount of quest, npcs and freedom. At least one new good follower. I enjoyed it for what it was.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

if I did not really enjoy POE1 is there any chance I might enjoy the final version of POE2?

Yeah I think so. I didn't finished PoE1 ( too boring ) until 2 came. Then I loaded up and played through The White March which I really enjoyed, unlike the main campaign.
PoE 2 was fun, nice take with the islands and good amount of quest, npcs and freedom. At least one new good follower. I enjoyed it for what it was.

thanks, its on sale and I am thinking of getting it..for some reason it looks better to me than the 1st one, but I can't tell if I am just being hopeful...

 

[Lady Error]

It's definitely better than the first one. PoE1 got better with the White March expansions and PoE2 builds on that.

 

[chuft]

Turn based made all the difference for me.

 

[Grunker]

if I did not really enjoy POE1 is there any chance I might enjoy the final version of POE2?

White March > PoE2 > PoE1

HOWEVER PoE's system doesn't really do well in a realtime environment, so I personally find PoE2 more enjoyable from a core gameplay standpoint simply because I can switch to TB (even though parts of the implementation are a bit wonky).

 

[Lacrymas]

RPGs of this type just aren't suited for real time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Even the IE games have wonky real time implementation.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

White March should've been a game on its own. Hell, THAT should've been PoE.

 

[Butter]

White March should've been a game on its own. Hell, THAT should've been PoE.

It didn't occur to them to make it a separate campaign on the start menu. The people who made Icewind Dale and NWN 2 didn't know about that one.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

White March should've been a game on its own. Hell, THAT should've been PoE.

It didn't occur to them to make it a separate campaign on the start menu. The people who made Icewind Dale and NWN 2 didn't know about that one.

Seriously the amount of times I tried to replay it just for the White March, but gave up because of having to do main campaign again...

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

White March should've been a game on its own. Hell, THAT should've been PoE.

It didn't occur to them to make it a separate campaign on the start menu. The people who made Icewind Dale and NWN 2 didn't know about that one.

Even Owlcat was smart enough to do this. Obsidian BTFO.

 

[Goldschmidt]

 

[ferratilis]

Same guy:

 

[mediocrepoet]

Same guy:

Only the decade? Pfff, lightweight.

Baldur's Gate 3 is the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!!

 

[AwesomeButton]

Has anyone else reached that point where Xoti's opinion of Maia improves so much that she admits to the PC she has a crush on Maia and asks the PC for advice how to get Maia to notice her?

On one hand there is some cringy "I like girls so what?" strong-independent moment, on the other hand it's a mildly funny conversation.

 

[gurugeorge]

Has anyone else reached that point where Xoti's opinion of Maia improves so much that she admits to the PC she has a crush on Maia and asks the PC for advice how to get Maia to notice her?

On one hand there is some cringy "I like girls so what?" strong-independent moment, on the other hand it's a mildly funny conversation.

Weird, but my male PC just shagged Xoti and that was it, I haven't had much to do with her since then. She doesn't seem particularly affectionate, just tags along

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think we could imagine she is portrayed in some kind of identity crisis. First has a crush on Eder, he (rightly) thinks she is too immature, then Maia, the PC has opportunities with her as well, I wonder if there are other options. Or maybe Megan Starks just wanted to cover as many options as possible.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've resumed my "Onekaza loyalist & Huana nativist" run, modded with the community fixes mod and Deadly Deadfire (for the enemy scaling and xp gain reduction). With these changes, I think I've found the sweet spot between challenge and numbers of enemies by playing on Veteran with scaling of everything and scaling only upwards. RtwP mode.

Combat feels less like a chore of repeating the same ability casts every time, partly thanks to the mods and partly thanks to the fact I'm swapping party members often for quest reactivity reasons.

I don't play more than an hour per day and I find this actually results in a better experience than what I was getting when I could sit down for 2-3 hours at a time, or more.

The reactivity and variety in dialogue often surprises me. This game has more emphasis on repleayability than I think people are used to expecting.

 

[Delterius]

So they're not typically vampires. "Vampirism" is very weird in Sawyer's realm. It's stupid, and I don't want to get into it.

its just a soul that was sealed in an dead body and feels the need to consume energy, most conveniently via living flesh

doesn't sound that weird to me

 

[Nikanuur]

My wish for unicorns paid off! Some good soul actually reworked the PoE 2's turn based mode from "even simple debuffs take often 2 turns to cast and after that they alarmingly often don't even affect the enemy" into a more streamlined, tabletop-friendlier "spells and skills take 0 turns to cast" form.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172647063

 

[Lacrymas]

Spells with cast times were literally one of the few good things about the tb mode in this game.

 

[Nikanuur]

Spells with cast times were literally one of the few good things about the tb mode in this game.

Look, I really like both PoEs and I don't really care about RTwP or TB. Also, normally, I'd agree that an original approach towards casting (initiative +- dexterity = slow or fast casting) would be great.

However the specific implementation of TB in the case of PoE2 like casting a 1st level debuff for 2 turns by the Wizard of DEX 17 only to find out that the debuff ends before it even begun (the condition resets as soon as enemy gets its turn) and then some more shenanigans... no thanks.

 

[gurugeorge]

My wish for unicorns paid off! Some good soul actually reworked the PoE 2's turn based mode from "even simple debuffs take often 2 turns to cast and after that they alarmingly often don't even affect the enemy" into a more streamlined, tabletop-friendlier "spells and skills take 0 turns to cast" form.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172647063

Just tried it, it's excellent, combat flows so much better. Probably because that way of doing magic is just more familiar, but if it ain't broke ...

I thought the take on magic of POE2 turn-based was interesting, but it never felt very smooth to play.

 

[Grunker]

"spells and skills take 0 turns to cast"

One of the greatest features of the combat, why would you remove that

 

[gurugeorge]

For my sins, I've gotten into a turn-based playthrough, as the mod above is quite nice, makes the turn-based game feel more comfy, so I just drifted into playing the damn thing again.

But on a whim I went for Iron Man mode PotD this time round, and I'm reminded about one of the things about playing games with one save - not only do you get more immersed because no part of your brain is wasted on saving worries, but also I realized that playing Iron Man, I'm much less inclined to go for long sessions, because I know from experience I make mistakes when I'm tired, and I don't really want to make the kind of stupid mistake you make when you're tired.

So I find it easier to quit the game after a nice, bite-sized session that has a bit of everything in it (combat, inventory, story). Instead of going on and on for a couple of hours, I can do half an hour or three quarters and just stop.

Nice side-benefit.

***********

It's also a bit melancholy because I've played through this game+DLCs twice now, with a few side characters having done bits too, and while I still enjoy the combat, I'm bored with a lot of the story and just click through it mostly.

It makes me wistful for a new CRPG with good gameplay like this (quiet in the cheap seats!), good QOL and attention to detail, with graphics as jewelline as this, and a new story.