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

[santino27]

Update below, wrapped in spoiler texts, since it's long:

Spoiler

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Update 52 - Beast of Winter Preview
News | July 19, 2018 10:00 AM
Greetings, Watchers!

Welcome back to another Backer Update. This week, we're proud to show off some of the cool things to come in our first major DLC, "The Beast of Winter", a new vendor that will be available in Patch 1.2.2, and the upcoming changes that are on their way in Patch 2.0!



The Beast of Winter

In case you missed last week's Obsidian Stream with Narrative Designer Alex Scokel, he provided quite a few insights for any budding narrative designers looking to join the industry. In addition to Alex's exuberant persona, the stream also included our very first sneak peek into the island of Harbinger's Watch, where "The Beast of Winter" begins. If you missed out on the live stream, you can see it any time through the VOD that is available on our Twitch page.
The Eternity Website has also been updated to include some more details about "The Beast of Winter".
And remember, if you subscribe to our channel on Twitch, you get access to emotes that you can then use across all of Twitch. All money we receive from Twitch subscriptions and cheers goes to benefit the Children's Hospital of Orange County. Do it "For the chids!"

Vatnir, a New Sidekick

If you tuned into the stream or took a look at the VOD, you may have noticed Vatnir, the sickly-looking Endings Godlike. This new sidekick has been a studio favorite since his conception, and we've been anxiously waiting to finally, officially, reveal him to the community.

Vatnir is a rare Priest of Rymrgand with the Condemnation domain and a focus in Famine, Entropy, and Winter. Additionally, any spells that depend upon a priest's god and faith reflect Rymrgand's portfolio. Vatnir can summon aspects of Rymrgand through his Spiritual Weapon, summons dual battle axes, or Incarnate, which summons a reflection of Rymrgand to fight at his side. If all else fails, he can cast the Call and the Symbol of Rymrgand to usher in the cold from Rymrgand's realm to freeze his enemies. If Vatnir is just one too many priests to have in your party, he also has the option to multiclass as a Celebrant (Priest+Chanter), or a Zealot (Priest+Rogue).
Vatnir's role won't just end with the DLC, however - you can bring him on your adventures throughout the Deadfire and he will chime in where he can...If he survives what awaits him in the cold depths of Harbinger's Watch.

More Sneak Peeks!
During the stream, we showed the happy town of Harbinger's Watch - and they are indeed quite happy, as death cultists are when on the frost-slick precipice of having their dreams fulfilled. We stopped the stream right before the good stuff, but even we thought that was cruel, so here are a few more quick shots of what's in store for "The Beast of Winter".

Beast of Winter Wallpapers
But wait, there's even more Beast of Winter love for you! Deck out your desktop with our wallpapers below:

2048x1536 Wide

2560x1440 Standard

Patch 1.2.2

This week, we have a small patch with an oft-requested feature from our community! As you might know, the development team hid secretive codes throughout all of our media prior to Deadfire's launch - some sharp-eyed community members began noticing these codes and began to search for and compile them before they even knew what they were for. Just prior to launch, we revealed the Deadfire Scavenger Hunt items, which would only be available to those who found and input those codes into our specialized site. With Patch 1.2.2, users on platforms outside of Steam can finally get their hands on the items the community unearthed together!

If you ever run across those members of the Explorer's Society who found and collated all of the codes that made obtaining these items possible in the first place, give them a salute or shake their hand - this one's from them.

The full patch notes can be found here: Patch 1.2.2.

Beginner's Guide
We understand that the game might be intimidating at a first glance, especially for players who have never approached this kind of game before. To this end (and to make it easier on those of us who are the resident "RPG Expert" of our group of friends), we created a Beginner's Guide. It will assist new Watchers in their adventures in the Deadfire just past the point they can leave Port Maje, so if you have any friends who might be interested in playing the game but get too intimidated by the early portion of the game, have them check it out!

What's Next?
In case you missed it, we were happy to announce a new community feature going forward: community-voted items! We were blown away by the level of participation last week on the World of Eternity Twitter polls, and we can't wait to unveil a new hunting bow made of...rather unpredictable animancer technology as created by Watchers all around the world! Stay tuned for more updates regarding this cool new weapon that you, our awesome community, helped to create.

Physical Backer Rewards Update
By now, some of you may have noticed that the status of your order has been changed on our backer portal - fear not, as your rewards are finally ready to be fulfilled. We apologize again for the delay and can't wait for your deserved rewards to arrive on your doorsteps.

If you're worried you might not be home at the time of the delivery, no worries! Please contact us with your order number and any pertinent details (such as when it would be the best time for us to send your rewards). Additionally, we will be sending out new information on a weekly basis until the end of the year, so please go ahead and send us your new or updated information and we'll get the details over to our distribution centers to fulfill your order. Once your order has been sent out, you'll receive tracking information from our fulfillment centers, so please keep an eye out!

 

[Safav Hamon]

Vatnir can summon aspects of Rymrgand through his Spiritual Weapon, summons dual battle axes, or Incarnate, which summons a reflection of Rymrgand to fight at his side. If all else fails, he can cast the Call and the Symbol of Rymrgand to usher in the cold from Rymrgand's realm to freeze his enemies. I

Why do they do this!?!? They create all these awesome subclasses, and then lock them behind companions.

 

[Infinitron]

The patch notes: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/103909-patch-notes-for-1220033/

Hello everyone!

We have a small patch for you all today. For those who were not able to participate in the Steam Scavenger Hunt, we have made the unique items available in game via the Berath's Blessings Vendor in Port Maje. Please see below for a few other fixes we wanted to get in before the 2.0 patch in a couple weeks!

This patch is now available on Steam, Origin, & GOG. For GOG Linux users, there may be a slight delay (couple of hours) before the patch becomes available. This patch will be available on MacPlay as soon as Apple reviews and approves the update.

Version 1.2.2.0033 Patch Notes

• The Vendor in Port Maje, unlocked via Berath's Blessings, now sells the following items (if the party does not already own them):
  • Scavenger's Lantern
  • Stinky Pete
  • Cloak of Berath
  • Sails of Berath
  • Cutthroat Cosmo
• If Maia leaves the party, she will only send 1 letter about her departure.
• Retraining now properly restores Level 1 abilities that were upgraded (and replaced) at later levels. Fix applies to character created on patch 1.2.2 or later.
• Missing Strings (in Portuguese) have been added to the Mod Manager Interface.
• Passive Ability Icons in the character level up screen now appear as circles again (instead of squares).
• Furrante's Ship has been moved closer to Port Maje to ensure the encounter occurs before the player reaches Neketaka.

 

[Alienman]

That companion look cool as fuck (and a bit scary).

I imagine having a conversation with him eye to eyes is a bit awkward.

 

[Owlish]

Made it to the hub city before it dawned on me what uninspired tripe it was and uninstalled. Took a step back from the first one and that says a whole lot.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Why the fuck are there human settlements on those pictures. I expected some crazy ass god realm with eerie environments and shit.

 

[Safav Hamon]

At least there is a settlement. I was afraid they would half ass it and this would end up being an 8 hour dungeon crawl.

 

[Infinitron]

Why the fuck are there human settlements on those pictures. I expected some crazy ass god realm with eerie environments and shit.

I think they don't want to spoil that.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

At least there is a settlement. I was afraid they would half ass it and this would end up being an 8 hour dungeon crawl.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Safav Hamon]

I would feel ripped off. That's not to say a combat focused DLC would be bad, but for $10 you better at least have some NPCs and sidequests.

 

[fantadomat]

Why the fuck are there human settlements on those pictures. I expected some crazy ass god realm with eerie environments and shit.

Why do you expected anything else from Obsidian?

 

[frajaq]

Sidekick...

 

[Lyre Mors]

hy the fuck are there human settlements on those pictures. I expected some crazy ass god realm with eerie environments and shit.

I'm guessing they want that part to be at least a little bit of a surprise to the player. They said it's in there, so I'm sure we'll see several such areas in the DLC. Probably similar to

Spoiler

the area you get "transported" to when you interact with the Adra spike that the animancers are experimenting with in Neketaka. That is Rymrgand's realm as far as I could tell.

 

[zeroprometheus]

I finally figured out what really bothers me about Tyranny and POE. For the most part cut scenes have been replaced by text. This is inherently jarring because video games are closer to film than literature. Playing a modern crpg that uses text do flesh out flashbacks or worse scenes that are presently happening is like watching a movie that is unironically using silent film captions. It's not a matter of being a bibliophobe because Bethesda has reams of textual lore in books or data storage strewn about all of their games. I'm not bothered spending hours reading short stories in Morrowind because the character I'm role playing is actually "reading" a book about an event that isn't present. All of the florid and sometimes prosaic language used to excessively describe a character's demeanor, or worse, the watcher's visions should have been done with visual art. Either animations, assets in the real world with higher resolution models, or cut scenes should have been used in this regard. My brain doesn't want to read something my character is actually seeing; I should be seeing it. This just occurred to me as I found that oversexed, STD ridden, scurrilous sac of fur's lost mentor and when I asked him what he wanted to do Obsidian decides words are better than images in a video game. It's essentially disorienting to my brain to go back and forth from book to animation. Please don't tell me this was a budget issue with how much was wasted on needles voice acting. I notice that I instinctively skip flavor text and just read dialogue.

Some joke that this game is sometimes like a visual novel. Have you played visual novels? They actually animate or show some visual representation of a lot of the sort of events Obsidian thinks are okay to only exist as text.

On a separate note, does it bother anyone else that even though this is the same watcher from the previous story (regardless of how devout you decided to remain to the idea of gods), this character should have dialogue options to communicate that the gods are not what people think they are? I think the poko-something island was a very good opportunity for that among a few.

 

[aweigh]

a well-done 8 hour dungeon crawl, by virtue of its nature necessitating an excellent multi-level dungeon designed with meticulous and mathematical care to evoke an array of emotions from the player, would actually be unbelievably incline and muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch muuuuuuuuuuch better than more npcs and dumb quests.

also there are no "new weapon subclass", the dual battle axe thing refers to him summoning regular axes for each hand.

 

[Lacrymas]

Vatnir can summon aspects of Rymrgand through his Spiritual Weapon, summons dual battle axes, or Incarnate, which summons a reflection of Rymrgand to fight at his side. If all else fails, he can cast the Call and the Symbol of Rymrgand to usher in the cold from Rymrgand's realm to freeze his enemies. I

Why do they do this!?!? They create all these awesome subclasses, and then lock them behind companions.

Eh, not really, they are basically describing my char - a dual battle axe-wielding Priest, except ice powers, I guess. I think it's actually not very creative and they could've done something more with a Rymrgand Priest. Especially since we already have Tekehu, who is an ice Druid. Well, officially he's a water one, but all his extra spells are frost-based because there aren't enough water ones, so he ends up an ice Druid.

Anyway, about an 8 hour dungeon crawl - that's a great idea! An 8 hour dungeon should have NPCs and sidequests, though, but not too much. And secrets, and treasure!

 

[Safav Hamon]

Eh, not really, they are basically describing my char - a dual battle axe-wielding Priest, except ice powers, I guess.

Battle Axes are just his spiritual weapon, which are high level weapons that priests can summon at tier 2. He also has three other unique spells, including the ability to summon Rymrgand.

Especially since we already have Tekehu, who is an ice Druid. Well, officially he's a water one, but all his extra spells are frost-based because there aren't enough water ones, so he ends up an ice Druid.

That's not true. Teheku has 3 water spells that are unique to his subclass: Ondra's Whip, Ocean Burst, and Watery Double.

 

[Infinitron]

Do they not want to publish this update on Fig? Weird.

 

[FreeKaner]

This dumpsterfire won't be doused with a handful of snow.

Also obviously Warhammer is better worldbuilding.

 

[Lacrymas]

TB party-based Warhammer RPG when?

 

[FreeKaner]

If you are in it just for combat, Mordheim is very competent and fun.

 

[Lacrymas]

Better just combat than Obs' writing. I didn't know Mordheim existed. Will definitely demo it when I get my replacement video card (had to warranty it).

 

[Safav Hamon]

Unpopular opinion: I think the writing is acceptable and on par with most other videogames.

You guys nitpick a couple sentences that you dislike and use it as confirmation bias that the entire script is terrible, but in reality any game with hundreds of NPCs and complex dialogue trees isn't going to be perfect.

 

[fantadomat]

Unpopular opinion: I think the writing is acceptable and on par with most other videogames.

You guys nitpick a couple sentences that you dislike and use it as confirmation bias that the entire script is terrible, but in reality any game with hundreds of NPCs and complex dialogue trees isn't going to be perfect.

Go and play Spellforce 3 and Siege of Avalon to see good writing! This shit is below mediocre.

 

[Lambach]

Unpopular opinion: I think the writing is acceptable and on par with most other videogames.

"On par with most other video-games" is a synonym for "shit", because vidya writers are by and large incompetent hacks who couldn't cut it anywhere else. I'll say that the writing in Deadfire is above most other video-games, but that by itself means very little.