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

[ColonelMace]

There's no challenge in Deadfire partly because monsters stats blocks were sometimes critically undertuned. I still remember the mind-numbing lvl 11 krakens and lvl 14 dragons.
Made zero sense and turned de facto potentially memorable fights into banal encounters.

One of the many decisions that turned out detrimental to the experience.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Deadfire can offer an okay challenge, but you'd generally need to at least mod xp and self-restrict from most gamey stuff, otherwise it's really easy to break progression.

Did some more Arcane Archer/Wizard testing. Neither Summoned Weapons nor Wizard spells benefit from the Arcane Archer accuracy bonus. Summoned weapons take the -5 malus. Rays do get Marked for the Hunt and Stalker’s Link but whatever, not a great benefit other than using Wiz self-buffs to make auto-attax better when not Imbuing.

Straight-up AA gets insane Accuracy on Imbued attacks (and Empower upgrades everything on Minuleta’s Missiles) since they get Arcana to Accuracy (double with Spearcaster - it does stack) along with Marked, Link, etc. 133 unbuffed at level 12 in test (and that was Wiz multi, single-class would be higher).

Imbued Fireball with Driving Flight and Hand Mortars would be pretty nuts. Imbues are free picks (though of course they eat your Bond) but high Arcana means scrolls and there’s plenty to spend those picks on due to all the pet upgrades.

So when you do it's an amazing build, when the rest of us do it, we're playing it wrong and trivializing the game.

Curious.

Deadly deadfire and 1/3 exp has really good challenge and progression curve with the DLCs too.

 

[luj1]

banal encounters

the whole first game was like that

 

[Haplo]

I'm not entirely in love with the fact one of, if not the hardest fight in the entire game is in the beginning, not gonna lie. Once you beat it, it feels like nothing else will compare.

You do have a point there.

However its a pretty strong counter to the wild claims that the difficulty in Deadfire is laughable.

 

[luj1]

Both Pillars games are pretty easy. In Hearkenwold every battle is a nuclear chess match to the death.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Two good fights in tutorial followed by 100 hours of smooth sailing until you get to some of the DLC bosses. Not exactly a rough ride, lads.

You can obviously use mods and/or avoid metagamey stuff like exploration xp or chests with free endgame gear that can be found and robbed at level 5. But ultimately it ain't a hard game at all. Would've been so much more fun if difficulty forced you to use all the gamey trickery, since Deadfire's open structure is perfect for it.

 

[Desiderius]

avoid metagamey stuff like exploration xp or chests with free endgame gear that can be found and robbed at level 5

Good advice

 

[ColonelMace]

Considering the time it takes, loading screens included, to travel, I doubt anybody actually indulges in roaming the map for the sake of farming xp.

Deadly deadfire and 1/3 exp has really good challenge and progression curve with the DLCs too.

Never tried them, might do that next time.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Considering the time it takes, loading screens included, to travel, I doubt anybody actually indulges in roaming the map for the sake of farming xp.

It's been years since I've done it, but you can power level like 5 levels in 30 minutes doing non combat stuff. I can post an entire route that I had figured out if people want to try it for the lulz, but I don't recommend it, you'll basically ruin the playthrough right after the tutorial.

 

[Haplo]

I tend to do a lot of non-combat stuff in Neketaka, soon after the pirate stronghold and maybe 1-3 stops on the way there, and that does award a lot of xp, but I'm pretty sure it took me a lot longer then half an hour.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Could be a little bit more, I didn't time it with a stopwatch exactly, but the only real bottleneck are the loading screens.

Solve pirate stronghold by planting a bomb, sail round the map picking up exploration xp and marking the islands for the navigator's quest. Once you're in NW corner on the map take Aloth with you to Ori o Koki and finish his quest, rob the vault while you're there. Beeline to Neketaka, visit navigator, steal 6 adra chests from building next to navigator, go north. Rob armorer's vault, rob Arkemyrs vault, finish that quest. Go to the palace, do the dialogue there, go to temple, steal the magic shield near the steps, do Xoti's quest. Then go to Gullet and give adra chests to captain Morena.

Probably some smaller shit along the way that I forgot. Oh yeah pick up Pallegina and you can do Neketaka part of her quests while on route. So that's like, 3 companion quests, some major side quests, inventory full of phat loot and from what I remember you're not fighting anybody.

 

[razvedchiki]

do you get anything for importing a char from pillars 1?

 

[Haplo]

Could be a little bit more, I didn't time it with a stopwatch exactly, but the only real bottleneck are the loading screens.

Solve pirate stronghold by planting a bomb, sail round the map picking up exploration xp and marking the islands for the navigator's quest. Once you're in NW corner on the map take Aloth with you to Ori o Koki and finish his quest, rob the vault while you're there. Beeline to Neketaka, visit navigator, steal 6 adra chests from building next to navigator, go north. Rob armorer's vault, rob Arkemyrs vault, finish that quest. Go to the palace, do the dialogue there, go to temple, steal the magic shield near the steps, do Xoti's quest. Then go to Gullet and give adra chests to captain Morena.

Probably some smaller shit along the way that I forgot. Oh yeah pick up Pallegina and you can do Neketaka part of her quests while on route. So that's like, 3 companion quests, some major side quests, inventory full of phat loot and from what I remember you're not fighting anybody.

Yeah, I guess you can do this. Except its not normal gaming. Most of this requires prior game knowledge or following a guide.
Otherwise it will take many, many hours to get there instead.

 

[Haplo]

do you get anything for importing a char from pillars 1?

Could keep some permanent bonuses you got in 1.
Also some small quest resolution details might have an impact. Like the fate of a certain sword.
I guess power wise most important detail is how you've handled Devil of Caroc questline. As that may give you access to one of the best armors in the game.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

do you get anything for importing a char from pillars 1?

Could keep some permanent bonuses you got in 1.
Also some small quest resolution details might have an impact. Like the fate of a certain sword.
I guess power wise most important detail is how you've handled Devil of Caroc questline. As that may give you access to one of the best armors in the game.

What armor?

 

[jf8350143]

Deadfire can offer an okay challenge, but you'd generally need to at least mod xp and self-restrict from most gamey stuff, otherwise it's really easy to break progression.

I remember the vanilla game being exceptionally easy, to the point it wasn't that hard few hours into the game to have a party that was virtually unkillable at that point.
But I've also heard that the DLCs and updates put some effort into SOMEWHAT increasing the overall level of challenge.

They basically nerfed every singel equipment in the game by around 50% to make it harder. On release you pick OP weapons left and right, now most of them are only good, but never broken.

 

[Haplo]

do you get anything for importing a char from pillars 1?

Could keep some permanent bonuses you got in 1.
Also some small quest resolution details might have an impact. Like the fate of a certain sword.
I guess power wise most important detail is how you've handled Devil of Caroc questline. As that may give you access to one of the best armors in the game.

What armor?

Devil of Caroc Breastplate :D

 

[Haplo]

Deadfire can offer an okay challenge, but you'd generally need to at least mod xp and self-restrict from most gamey stuff, otherwise it's really easy to break progression.

I remember the vanilla game being exceptionally easy, to the point it wasn't that hard few hours into the game to have a party that was virtually unkillable at that point.
But I've also heard that the DLCs and updates put some effort into SOMEWHAT increasing the overall level of challenge.

They basically nerfed every singel equipment in the game by around 50% to make it harder. On release you pick OP weapons left and right, now most of them are only good, but never broken.

Except that's not true. Obsidian nerfed a lot of the miscellaneous equipment, like amulets, rings, belts and such.
Very few weapons were affected.

Lots of broken weapons were left untouched. And even more added in the DLCs.
One scimitar even allows 0 recovery rapid attack spam.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

do you get anything for importing a char from pillars 1?

Could keep some permanent bonuses you got in 1.
Also some small quest resolution details might have an impact. Like the fate of a certain sword.
I guess power wise most important detail is how you've handled Devil of Caroc questline. As that may give you access to one of the best armors in the game.

What armor?

Devil of Caroc Breastplate :D

Rofl. Thanks

 

[The Bishop]

Except that's not true. Obsidian nerfed a lot of the miscellaneous equipment, like amulets, rings, belts and such.
Very few weapons were affected.

Lots of broken weapons were left untouched. And even more added in the DLCs.
One scimitar even allows 0 recovery rapid attack spam.

Nerfs were very erratic. Some random items and encounters were tuned heavily. Certain encounters went from cakewalk to nuclear, including those in tutorial. Yet the content right next to them stayed unchanged. As if somebody at Obsidian tried to do balancing while also busy with a whole bunch of other things, managed to look at few places and items, but then got distracted and left it at that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

marking the islands for the navigator's quest

This requires combat actually

Deadfire really lends itself to playing out character concepts for your PC which are somewhat rooted in the world of Eora (tm). I first played the game as a Vailian-leaning ruthless conquistador, and the quests provided for that, later I did a playthrough as a Huana nativist (a mirror image of the first character) and the game ofc provided for that too. You are in no way steered towards certain companion NPCs either, if you are a Huana nativist you can beat Tekehu over not taking his role in the rebirth of Huana power seriously, or you could be Vailian but discriminate against Pallegina.

If anything, the game's writing tone has been shitted up by overabundant "subversion" attempts by using woke tropes. The most annoying is the "caricaturized dumb male character-resourceful and humane female character" opposition. There are three examples of this I can name just on the Port Maje island, then two more in Fort Deadlight, and I can go on. It's the same in Neketaka, Sayuka, Tikawara, etc. All of the factions questslines feature a strong independent female character that the player can support.

 

[Piotrovitz]

If anything, the game's writing tone has been shitted up by overabundant "subversion" attempts by using woke tropes. The most annoying is the "caricaturized dumb male character-resourceful and humane female character" opposition. There are three examples of this I can name just on the Port Maje island, then two more in Fort Deadlight, and I can go on. It's the same in Neketaka, Sayuka, Tikawara, etc. All of the factions questslines feature a strong independent female character that the player can support.

Nothing new, that's basically standard for games/movies/tv series etc since late 2010s, even for indie ones.

As for challenge - best way to keep things interesting is to adjust XP gain percentage dynamically in the ini file, e.g. slapping 50% nerf for Neketaka fetch quests or bounties etc, and keeping most of the playthrough in the mid levels range. Plus Deadly Deadfire.

 

[Desiderius]

Could be a little bit more, I didn't time it with a stopwatch exactly, but the only real bottleneck are the loading screens.

Solve pirate stronghold by planting a bomb, sail round the map picking up exploration xp and marking the islands for the navigator's quest. Once you're in NW corner on the map take Aloth with you to Ori o Koki and finish his quest, rob the vault while you're there. Beeline to Neketaka, visit navigator, steal 6 adra chests from building next to navigator, go north. Rob armorer's vault, rob Arkemyrs vault, finish that quest. Go to the palace, do the dialogue there, go to temple, steal the magic shield near the steps, do Xoti's quest. Then go to Gullet and give adra chests to captain Morena.

Probably some smaller shit along the way that I forgot. Oh yeah pick up Pallegina and you can do Neketaka part of her quests while on route. So that's like, 3 companion quests, some major side quests, inventory full of phat loot and from what I remember you're not fighting anybody.

Or, you know, don’t do that.

What do you do when you catch the attention of a passing Galleon? Magic reload? What are you even doing?

“Game is one-weird trickable therefore unplayable” is a self-own. You are aware that speedruns are a thing, right?

 

[Desiderius]

Belatedly discovering that Consumables are good* with the appropriate skill. Making up the gap to get play level back to PotD caliber.

* - Nice for filling holes in action econ.

Explosives on Fighter Single-class Eder lets him AoE control while tanking (Cinder Bomb pulses like Chill Fog).

Alchemy on Sharpshooter gives it something to do while waiting for Priest buffs.

Mechanics on Rogue lets (Accurate!) Traps pull foes while remaining in Stealth - they come over to investigate.

Arcana on Xoti saves spell picks since she can just use scrolls for the Situational stuff. Lvl 1 Blessing has double the radius (4x area) of level 3 Dire Blessing. Still cures Blinded.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Could be a little bit more, I didn't time it with a stopwatch exactly, but the only real bottleneck are the loading screens.

Solve pirate stronghold by planting a bomb, sail round the map picking up exploration xp and marking the islands for the navigator's quest. Once you're in NW corner on the map take Aloth with you to Ori o Koki and finish his quest, rob the vault while you're there. Beeline to Neketaka, visit navigator, steal 6 adra chests from building next to navigator, go north. Rob armorer's vault, rob Arkemyrs vault, finish that quest. Go to the palace, do the dialogue there, go to temple, steal the magic shield near the steps, do Xoti's quest. Then go to Gullet and give adra chests to captain Morena.

Probably some smaller shit along the way that I forgot. Oh yeah pick up Pallegina and you can do Neketaka part of her quests while on route. So that's like, 3 companion quests, some major side quests, inventory full of phat loot and from what I remember you're not fighting anybody.

Or, you know, don’t do that.

I don't, and specifically said I don't recommend doing it. But congratulations on repeating the same thing back to me as if you made some new point.

What do you do when you catch the attention of a passing Galleon? Magic reload? What are you even doing?

Kill it, there's tricks with that too. The only ship in the whole game that should be any threat is Feargus's galleon.