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

[2house2fly]

My experience with Fort Deadlight was that it was better to just kill everything on the island because trying to do it the devious non-combat way just resulted in it bugging out

 

[Safav Hamon]

There are two pathways through the quest that don't involve killing everyone, or alternatively you can sneak into his quarters and convince him to make peace.

 

[FreeKaner]

One of the biggest disappointments for me in PoE2 was the lack of any new weapon types. The way weapons and weapon groups work in PoE (and grouping in PoE2) just makes every weapon of a category feel very samey, and some new weapon types really would've helped out here.








...Yes, this is all just a thinly veiled ask for katanas and nunchuks. You guessed it!

Sawyer's retarded autism with making all weapon types same damage in same speed category is absolutely fucking retarded. It's also why he wanted to remove DR and DR-reduction. Because if you give an estoc and greatsword same 16 damage, but then also give estoc 3 DR reduction well then estoc is practically 19 damage so it's better in all cases.

Except you know, he could just make estoc 9 damage and 9 DR-reduction so it's better when the enemy has more than 9 DR. It would also be easier to read and more intuitive, not to mention flat damage resistance interacts better with percentage values because it creates asymmetric interaction. Not to mention you could have interesting uniques with extremely high DR reduction that only works against some of the heaviest armour in the game to spice it up.

However, no his autism doesn't allow it, he must make all weapons have exact same damage in same speed. I am not even going to comment on a flail and a rapier practically being same weapon (graze to hit convert vs. accuracy, same speed and same damage values) that his retarded system creates in PoE1.

 

[Haplo]

... are you ranting about PoE2?
As I don't think there is DR in PoE2. And I don't think estoc and greatsword have similar damage.

 

[Infinitron]

I mean yeah, now they have a strong foundation again but I assume they'll just change essential elements of the combat system again if they make PoE 3.

I'm skeptical that there will be a PoE3 in the near future but if they do make one, Sawyer's departure from project direction makes this less likely, no?

Source: https://www.shacknews.com/article/1...-and-characters-of-seeker-slayer-survivor-dlc

Pillars of Eternity 2 interview talks creatures and characters of Seeker, Slayer, Survivor DLC
Pillars of Eternity's latest DLC is out today and Shacknews recently spoke to lead narrative designer Alex Scokel about what to expect.

Pillars of Eternity 2 is preparing to ride off into its first batch of DLC. Obsidian is still riding high off of the game's positive buzz (which includes a sterling review from Shacknews), but took some time to talk to Shacknews about what players can expect next.

In the Seeker, Slayer, Survivor DLC, players venture to a mysterious island, where strange happenings are occuring. Their journey eventually takes them to the island's arena, where they encounter waves of enemies and challenges from some monstrous creatures.

"We're gonna see a really cool Fire Titan, which is like an Engwithan Titan, but with fire!" lead narrative designer Alex Scokel tells Shacknews. "We're bringing back some old favorites from Pillars of Eternity, with big pointy teeth, which I won't spoil the name of yet, but my guess is those of you who play the game know what I'm talking about."

Scokel further teases things with glowing eyes, from fish men to ogres, as well as shady characters. To learn more about what's coming in the Seeker, Slayer, Survivor DLC, check out the full interview. For more content like this, be sure to subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHub.TVon YouTube.

The Seeker, Slayer, Survivor DLC for Pillars of Eternity II is out today on PC and Mac.

 

[Ivan]

If they combine the story of BoW, the combat of SSS, and the dungeon design of Forgotten Sanctum (presuming it's good), then Pillars of Eternity III could be a masterpiece.

How about if they combined the storytelling of Planescape Torment, the combat of Icewind Dale and the exploration of Baldurs Gate?

 

[FreeKaner]

... are you ranting about PoE2?
As I don't think there is DR in PoE2. And I don't think estoc and greatsword have similar damage.

I am actually, because the Sawyer abandoned DR due his autism. Which lead to sterile percentage based penetration system.

 

[Flou]

Yeah we said the same thing after White Marches but DLCs turn out better cos they are smaller scale projects with more focused goals/stories on the same tech they've been interning with for the past couple of years There are just too many different themes, characters, factions, gods, new systems, features, tech etc flying around in a full game and making all that cohesive is prolly much harder.

Well, encounter and map design is much better in Deadfire than it was in Pillars. Sure, it's not consistent from map to map and from encounter to encounter, but Pillars only had few areas that shone in that regard.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

One unstated problem with multi-classing is that AI is absolutely terrible at handling it. Single classes that aren't resource intensive you can pretty much leave on auto and AI will do half decent job. But the way it handles multi-classes is stuff of nightmares.

 

[Infinitron]

Somebody reviewed this: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2018/09/26/pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-seeker-slayer-survivor-review/

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Seeker, Slayer, Survivor Review

Having conquered the Beast of Winter, the next challenge that offers itself to you is Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, which kicks off a new adventure when you receive a strange crate aboard your vessel. Upon opening it up like a child at Christmas, you find something you’ve always wanted. That’s right, it’s a puppy… no, wait… it’s a severed head. Maybe it isn’t what any kid wants as a gift, but it’s the one that your party is given. The good news is that the head is linked to a spirit who is surprisingly chipper about the whole ordeal, and actually wanted to be sent to you. You see, he needed to warn you of an issue that only a Watcher like yourself could resolve.

If only the Watcher got requests for petting cats and maybe having a nap, alas instead you have to journey to the isle of Kazuwari and try to sneak into the Crucible. This is an island protected by the God of the hunt, the fearsome Galawain. He makes himself known before you have even made ground and bears his fangs – if ever there was a time to be wary of a God, now may well be it. The island is home to warriors aplenty, but the wildlife is no joke either, creatures here are overgrown, strengthened by the battles that define every aspect of this little bloodied area of the world. Every aspect of this place screams survival of the fittest.

Upon finding your way to the Crucible itself, it becomes incredibly clear that the only way to make any headway here is with your strength. You must overcome a plethora of trials or fall to them, and thus fail in your mission to find out what has gone wrong. You must overcome the elements, the creatures, and other combatants in order to stand out from the crowd and earn the chance to speak for one of the three Faces of the Hunt. Once you have earned the right you can align yourself with one of Seeker, Slayer, or Survivor. While you can only choose one if you wanted to, true prowess lies in mastering all three, so it is up to you just how deep into this particular rabbit hole you want to go.

The Crucible is not the only challenge you must face; in order to truly become a champion you have to venture out into the wilds and overcome nature itself. Only in doing so can you acquire the artifacts necessary to unlock new challenges. The island itself holds some, but there are plenty spread across other islands as well. True mastery requires commitment, but if you aren’t careful while venturing through a jungle you may well end up losing your party to the local fauna. In fact I lost everyone to a spider that was feeling lonely at one point.

Each new challenge can be overcome with an overwhelming show of force. The island demands battles in every form, and if you fail to deliver then you will stop living. It is an enjoyable oppurtunity to really flex your tactics, and your skills to their absolute limit. This is a combat heavy DLC, a far different kind of animal to the Beast of Winter. Where the Beast was full of nuance and intrigue, here there is less mystery and more hitting things really hard until they stop existing. The writing is still incredibly good, the level of sass in the individual choices is incredibly gratifying and the Gods still feel arrogant and beyond comprehension, it just doesn’t shine in the same way it did in the last piece. The star attractions here are the combat itself and the strange places you visit.

Seeker, Slayer, Survivor is yet another fantastic addition to the Deadfire lore. The high level of quality on display is as impressive as always, and the options available to the player are bountiful. While some of the individual choices don’t feel quite as meaningful, the different paths that you can take more than make it up. If you like to show off in front of people then this is a DLC that you will savour greatly. As ever, Pillars of Eternity is well worth your time and continues to get better with each addition.

http://expansivedlc.com/seeker-slayer-survivor-dlc-review/

SEEKER SLAYER SURVIVOR DLC REVIEW

Seeker, Slayer, Survivor takes a more direct approach to combat in Pillars of Eternity 2 by putting players right in the heart of the arena.
Following on from last months’ Beast of Winter, this time players will go up against all manner of creatures and characters in a bid to become the true Champion of the Hunt.

But as is usual with The Watcher, not all is at it seems.

I seek a slayer that has survived
I enjoyed Beast of Winter as a rounded, narrative experience, appreciating many of the story beats and path of progression. But my main complaints were that the content felt quite insular and it ended rather quickly.

That’s something Obsidian have clearly taken into consideration with Seeker, Slayer, Survivor. Not only does the content encourage you to venture beyond the island of the Crucible, but there are plenty of optional things for you to do, whether you do them during or after the main adventure.

To be clear, SSS isn’t just a series of battles in an arena for you to earn loot and coins. There’s an intricate, pretty solid story holding it all together. And I might even prefer it to BoW.

It all starts in the quarters of your ship when the steward comes in to tell you about some mysterious cargo. But it’s not just mysterious, it’s also gross as inside you’ll find an animated head who tells you to visit the island of Kazuwari.

The spirit of the head begins to converse with you since you’re the only Watcher and can see it. The essence claims you’re the only hope for restoring balance on the fractured island by fighting in the Crucible and currying favour with the Faces of the Hunt.

Oh, did I mention that the Faces of the Hunt are a combined statue of a spider, pig, and sabretooth, representing the three facets of Galawain? A statue, by the way, which comes to life and talks? No wonder the denizens worship it.



Your objective in the DLC is to choose your allegiance to either the Seeker, the Slayer, or the Survivor, with each one offering different challenges. It’s down to you to impress them, listening carefully to what they have to say in order to best the opposition in front of you.

And that’s something unique to SSS, you will find yourself in all-new scenarios which will require you to think tactically about your approach. You can’t just swing a sword around and hope for the best. You’ll need to target individual enemies, pick out the weakest members of the group, or the most dangerous.

You can also use the environment to your advantage, claim the high ground, or use an explosive barrel to create a burning effect. But the structure of the encounter is different dependent on the deity you choose to appease. You might have to fight through waves of enemies or take out a high value target.

Whatever your approach, Seeker, Slayer, Survivor encourages replays so you can master your strategy and finish in the quickest time. So not only does it deliver a very lore-heavy, focused tale, but it also has the gameplay to back it up.

Sure, we got dragons in the last expansion, but this is some pretty enchanted stuff. And you have to listen to the imposing grey structure boom out taunts and tongue twisters before each fight, whether you’re slicing skittering spiders or splattering globs of ooze.

Before you dive into the content proper, you’re going to need to be Level 16, and have already completed the Magran’s Teeth section of the base game in order to unlock it. Your opponents are tough and bad news and will show you absolutely no mercy. So make sure you’re prepared.



Kazuwari is on the western side of the map, but it’s still well within reach of various other ports scattered all around. Which is convenient because SSS is full of optional objectives.

The arena is structured in a way that you only need to beat a handful of fights – known as Rites of Passage – in order to finish the story. However, you’re informed of various optional artifacts, spread throughout Deadfire, which can be claimed then brought back to the basin to exchange for battle.

And most of the artifacts can only be found by solving riddles and clues you receive from the proprietor. I won’t spoil any Artifact locations in this review, nor tell you what they give you, but there’s a fair few of them and they really do range in quality and difficulty.

There are even some new quality of life features Obsidian have added since Beast of Winter to continue bolstering and improving the PoE 2 experience, such as an Ability Tree Preview, which lets you view your progress outside the level up screen, Steam Workshop Mod Support, improved in-game combat sounds, character abilities and much more.

There’s even new Magran’s Fires Challenges to add to the overall content.



However, in my pre-release build, I did encounter some delays in cut-scene transition, slightly muffled audio, and a few problems with glitching. There was also some bad lag during battles, occassionally freezing the entire screen which meant I couldn’t interact with anything for a few seconds. This became quite frustrating.

All that said, I really enjoyed Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, much more than I expected to. Obsidian have offered a fresh perspective on PoE 2 combat, which has proved divisive within its community. They’ve opened up the wider Deadfire map, adding new content to familiar areas for optional reward, all while giving us – overall – a good piece of content that adds to the game in interesting ways.

If Beast of Winter was good and this is better, I’m very excited to see what The Forgotten Sanctum offers later this year.

Pros
+ A fresh and exciting take on the game’s combat
+ Surprisingly deep and interesting story
+ Lots of optional quests to tackle, opening up the wider map
+ Replays encouraged for challenge and competition

Cons
– Combat lag locked up the game a few times
– A few issues with cut-scene transitions
– Muffled audio noticeable compared to other sound

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Seeker, Slayer, Survivor
8 out of 10

 

[AwesomeButton]

Damn, what is the earliest level at which you've beaten the Lord Admiral Imp and his gang, on PotD? I just managed to do it on 7th, and with a rather under-optimized party.

One thing I'm positive about from playing PotD - because battles are prolonged, the ability to supply healing over the period of a long battle becomes very important, and because battles are against bigger groups, the ability to increase the number of friendlies in a fight by summons (items or wizard, chanter spells) also becomes very important.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Damn, what is the earliest level at which you've beaten the Lord Admiral Imp and his gang, on PotD? I just managed to do it on 7th, and with a rather under-optimized party.

One thing I'm positive about from playing PotD - because battles are prolonged, the ability to supply healing over the period of a long battle becomes very important, and because battles are against bigger groups, the ability to increase the number of friendlies in a fight by summons (items or wizard, chanter spells) also becomes very important.

Yeah it's funny how despite the introduction of spammable spellcasting, it's the classes that have staying power that ended up ruling the battlefield. Monk/Chanter/CIpher with their infinitely renewable pool of resources have huge advantage, while Priest blows up his big spells and he's done.

 

[AwesomeButton]

But the priest's power scales greatly as he gains levels. Not because of spells becoming more powerful, but because he gets more uses per combat. This gives me food for thought about a possible rebalancing of spells. For now, a priest benefits from high might and intelligence, to increase the healing he does and the duration of his buffs. A well-buffed priest with his high might + buffed perception may be a strong offtank for a while.

 

[Safav Hamon]

It's more efficient to use a Druid, Chanter, or even a Paladin in substitute of a priest. They can perform the same role with added versatility.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The challenges work pretty cool for me - Abydon's is an extra money sink which actually makes money scarce even when you are well into the game. Eothas' challenge forces you to consider resting more carefully because each rest is 8 hours lost in which you could accumulate XP. Galawain's challenge makes beast-only encounters considerably tougher with exploding animals and animals getting bonuses. The only challenge I couldn't imagine playing is Magran's as that's a pretty artificial challenge to have - disabling part of your controls.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Well I finished the DLC. Main story is short but actually pretty good and choices seem to offer plenty of replayability. There's more optional fights beyond the main quest that require figuring out the riddles and hunting artifacts all over the map, but they're not required to finish the main quest.

Difficulty on PoTD can be a pain, think I've had more full party wipes just in couple of hours with the DLC than I had in two POTD runs of the base game, combined. Although it gradually became easier once I figured out what lineups work best on an arena setup, but I'll leave that for you to figure out on your own.

 

[Safav Hamon]

I took a break because the difficulty was becoming too much for me (a good thing). I'll get back to it eventually,

 

[Drudkh]

I thought they had a strong foundation in Pillars 1 but a lot of the combat system got changed anyway. Not that it helped... I mean, all the work that went into changing the combat system was nearly pointless as far as I'm concerned since I don't remember people or reviews really praising the new combat.

With all my complaints about the lack of tactical variety in the first PoE, the 2nd game came out and made me miss the depth of the first game; now the combat is Dragon Age caliber thoughtless. I'd like to see a Torment style game from Obsidian that is more focused around exploring and talking with npcs, content i think Obsidian does best. (yeah, i know i'm a heretic, but i love the writing and themes of the PoE series)

 

[Grunker]

Any opinions on how to build Serafen? Since I'm going with the new companions I'm having some trouble figuring out who should be in the melee stack. My PC is Paladin full tank, and it looks to me like Maia Rua should definetely be built for guns.

That leaves Serafen, Tekehu and Xoti, and of these Serafen makes the most sense in the frontline it seems, in which case full class Barbarian seems the best option, no?

 

[Safav Hamon]

The most optimal setup would be

Maia - Geomancer (Ranger/Wizard)
Serafen - Witch (Barbarian/Cipher)
Tekehu - Druid
Xoti - Monk

 

[Grunker]

The most optimal setup would be

Maia - Geomancer (Ranger/Wizard)
Serafen - Witch (Barbarian/Cipher)
Tekehu - Druid
Xoti - Monk

Can you expand? I get that Xoti as a monk would solve the off-tank issue, but Maia seems built for either pure Ranger or Ranger/Rogue with her passive and using a Priest on a blind, first PotD playthrough seems like the safe choice, IF Priest is as vital as it was in PoE1?

 

[Safav Hamon]

Rangers are always better multi-classed, because they don't need a ton of investment and their high power levels suck. Having a wizard will make your party more versatile.

Barbarians and Ciphers don't need much investment either, which is why you should multiclass. Those classes have good synergy as well.

Tekehu's watershaper subclass makes him stronger than a custom adventurer, and his best abilities can be attained faster as a single class. Druids are also amazing at high power levels.

Priests are the worst class in the game. Monks are one of the best. Monks have great abilities at high power levels too.

 

[Grunker]

What weapon setup would you use for Serafen in that comp?

 

[Safav Hamon]

Blunderbuss for ranged weapon. Dual-wield half-swords or battle axes for melee weapon.

 

[Grunker]

So, Safav Hamon, would you go single class paladin or Paladin/Fighter? Those max level Paladin abilities sure do look good. Chanter also looks like a good option - self-healing, summons etc.