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

[Lacrymas]

Can I watch?

 

[Roguey]

Roguey

You still didnt answer about me you and kaye dollarhyde thresome??

My response was

I have no idea what your deal is, but Dollarhyde is unappealing, physically and mentally.

 

[Lacrymas]

But that's why it's so dirty and fetishy!

 

[Lacrymas]

Your bet is absolutely correct! But here's the rundown anyway - playable, not as good as WM. In short, meh.

 

[aweigh]

I hope one day eccentric (i.e. retarded) PoE2 modder peardox meets loveable modder Drog.

I imagine DBZ style power-levelling and monologue.

 

[Grotesque]

It is so satisfying to see this thread slowly dying.

 

[Thonius]

It's pretty big thread...

 

[Prime Junta]

Finished BoW.

Vatnir is pretty cool, as were the other Norwegians. Rymrgrand is an asshole. It was okay. No White March but not actually bad either, and opened up some of the lore nicely.

Spoiler

I went in a bit underpowered since I wanted Ydwin on board; this meant I had no tank and Ydwin was only on level 12 since I hadn't been adventuring with her a lot. Even so it wasn't that hard (on Veteran, I gave up on PotD a while back as it was just too grindy to be any fun); I had the hardest time with that one optional encounter with the ice spirits to the left of the entrance map to the temple. Ended up talking the dragon into attacking Rymrgrand so then I got to fight the Beast of Winter instead. The tongue-in-cheek tone was at times actually funny, although I wouldn't like the whole game to be like that.

Also, chanters are hella powerful. Blŵgras played them some golden oldies like Man Of Constant Sorrow and John Henry, and it went pretty well.

Still haven't finished the base game. Running out of errands to run so I'll be headed for Ashen Maw next.

 

[fantadomat]

But that's why it's so dirty and fetishy!

You are a weird....guy.

 

[Big Wrangle]

It is so satisfying to see this thread slowly dying.

You say that but deep inside, you know what will happen with the following DLC...

 

[Lacrymas]

There are 2 threads for this game, the other one is more active.

 

[existential_vacuum]

There are 2 threads for this game, the other one is more active.

More like ~22 threads

 

[Crispy]

Beast of Winter had one main thing going for it, and that was the re-enacting of the

Spoiler

Godhammer bomb

Whoever was responsible for that section was clever and creative, making the DLC almost seem like it was worth it. Other than that, the entire thing seemed completely out-of-place to me and was irritatingly (and typically) full of bugs.

One prime example of that was:

Spoiler

After recruiting two out of the three individuals to assist me with taking out the dragon (Waidwen and the former king), those two IDIOTS just stood in their corners doing NOTHING. I could have really used the help, too, because that dragon is such a fucking HP sponge that the fight took me probably an hour to complete. Thanks, Obsidian.

I do agree that Vatnir is a p. cool sidekick and I kept him on to be a member of my crew. Equipped with the one soul-bindable arquebus in the game, combined with his spells, he's decent in a fight.

Other than those things, BoW is completely forgettable.

 

[TT1]

I hope one day eccentric (i.e. retarded) PoE2 modder peardox meets loveable modder Drog.

I imagine DBZ style power-levelling and monologue.

Please No

 

[Iskramor]

Roguey

You still didnt answer about me you and kaye dollarhyde thresome??

My response was

I have no idea what your deal is, but Dollarhyde is unappealing, physically and mentally.

But am i?

 

[Sizzle]

One prime example of that was:

Spoiler

After recruiting two out of the three individuals to assist me with taking out the dragon (Waidwen and the former king), those two IDIOTS just stood in their corners doing NOTHING. I could have really used the help, too, because that dragon is such a fucking HP sponge that the fight took me probably an hour to complete. Thanks, Obsidian.

Spoiler

I think they never actively join the fight, but serve to debuff the dragon a bit. Either that, or my game was bugged too.

 

[Prime Junta]

Fiiiiinally finished it. Didn't do all the side content but hit level 20 anyway.

I have many thoughts about this which I may or may not expand upon in some format or another at some time or another, but ... yeah, overall I liked it. It's a weird game though, it's really very good with things Obsidian isn't particularly well known for, and its weakest areas are in places they are known for.

tl;dr fantastic setting, exploration, visuals, variety of environments, great encounter designs, great monster variety, great items, massive scope with tons and tons and tons of stuff to do... but main quest that makes no sense and doesn't fit the game, dopey companion writing, mechanics changes that are a regular square dance of pointless movements in all directions, and... yeah, buuuugs. But it's one of those things that gels into an ultimately really cool set of toys to play with. Easily Obsidian's best game since FONV, although for rather different reasons. Will play again

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Prime Junta likes a Pillars game.

Pick your jaws up off the floor, gentlemen.

 

[Space Satan]

Pillars games seem...soulless. No irony intended. When I play Baldur's GameI feel entitles but Pillars I just can't feel any empathy for any character. Game seem to miss some important spark that would make it tick

 

[MWaser]

Pillars games seem...soulless. No irony intended. When I play Baldur's GameI feel entitles but Pillars I just can't feel any empathy for any character. Game seem to miss some important spark that would make it tick

too much text with too much information and not enough character

 

[imweasel]

One of the reasons why Baldur's Gate is so good is the lore of the Forgotten Realms setting. Mostly standard fantasy stuff, but there is tons of it and it's actually pretty good.

You could say that the main character in Baldur's Gate or even Planetscape: Tournament was the world itself.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Pillars games seem...soulless. No irony intended. When I play Baldur's GameI feel entitles but Pillars I just can't feel any empathy for any character. Game seem to miss some important spark that would make it tick

I went back and played through a bit more of Pillars 1 post patches and they have really improved the midgame.

Midgame in general appears to be where things pick up.

Characters like Weeping Mother are interesting in a Kreia kind of way. And there are some pretty cool sidequests like the mage's tower - spoiler: though it was a bit anticlimactic at the end.

But the game's start felt very hollow.

You start off in some boring town filled with filler NPCs and mindnumbing quests.

Compare it to BG2 where at the start you are immediately thrown into Althkatla. (I kind of wonder if this wasn't them learning from having buried BG1's largest and most interesting city in the mid to late game.)

Or PS:T where you start in Sigil and wander through several open areas with many sidequests etc.

The start also lacked a hook to involve you in the story and killed off your starting companions for no real reason, which aped one of the worst Bioware design tropes: forced failure and generally left you feeling eve more disconnected from the game world.

The world building was also too text heavy. It's better to show important things about the world than to tell about them. But instead we're constantly told about things with alien names you can barely remember - another bad choice - and even if we see them, it's usually just once, so if you weren't paying attention, it's more of a "wtf was that? should I care?".

Anyway, but like I was saying, it seems to pickup in the midgame and patches seem to have improved it - though still not enough to get me to finish a playthrough. I might need to take another look at it though.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You could say that the main character in Baldur's Gate or even Planetscape: Tournament was the world itself.

Well, I will agree that they had a lot more to draw from. The Underdark, beholders, dragons of different colors, Demogorgon, different planes etc, but you wouldn't really care enough to learn about them if the game didn't already draw you in with a decent plot and fun gameplay.

 

[Lacrymas]

Pillars games seem...soulless.

PoE1 had a soul, just not in the usual places. This might come off as uncharacteristic of me, but I ...appreciate PoE1 and think it's worth playing. If you want it to engage you with its narrative elements, that won't happen, it just isn't good and that's why most people are put off by the game. The beginning is shit, the middle is shit and the end is shit with almost no respite. The redeeming quality of the game is actually the combat, despite my usual critical opinion of it I think it's more than playable, it's engaging. In certain circumstances of course, but still. The effort Josh put into it really shines through and we do it a disservice by not acknowledging that.

PoE2, paradoxically, is much more soulless in that "fine in a lot of ways, but nothing special" deal. It's functional, but that's it. I actually think PoE1 is going to be remembered more fondly than 2. 2 still is the better overall game, but feels surgically engineered and trivial.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

The redeeming quality of the game is actually the combat, despite my usual critical opinion of it I think it's more than playable, it's engaging.

Really? That's one of the most flat and banal portions of the game to me. It feels like BG1's combat system with all the decent ideas stripped out and a bunch of dumb ones added in.

PoE2, paradoxically, is much more soulless in that "fine in a lot of ways, but nothing special" deal. It's functional, but that's it. I actually think PoE1 is going to be remembered more fondly than 2. It still is the better overall game, but feels surgically engineered and trivial.

Good grief. For someone like me that can barely stand PoE1, this is like saying it's a 0/10.