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

[Grunker]

So I arrived in Neketeka and have picked up all the companions I will be using save Maia Rua (whom I assume I will have a chance to pick up later). I’m pretty impressed so far - the attention to detail is staggering. Everything is extremely user-friendly and pretty, and I’m hyped for customizing my ship, crew and delving into some dungeons. Quests have been very interesting so far with multiple approaches and solutions to every single one.

Even the writing has improved a fair bit with less lore dumps so far though the highlighted fake-language words are incredibly annoying and bring any dialogue reading to a grinding halt unless you ignore them. Which makes a lot of the dialogue non-sensical, which undercuts the improvements. Serafen seems awesome, Xoti pretty meh and Tekehu actively annoying - and boy is it true that every companion talks about romance constantly. To the point of bizarroness.

Exploring islands is great fun and I’d say the moniker of SoZ+ should be SoZ++. It really does feel like a much better SoZ so far. The text adventures are great as ever, though I have yet to see one as complex as the best White March ones. The great itemization seems to carry over from White March except with much, much more interesting enchantment crafting this time... how the fuck did they manage to implement all these systems? Also: can anyone tell me whether multiple unique enchant paths are mutually exclusive? For instance, Saint’s War Armor has two unique upgrade paths - can I upgrade both?

The systems seem very decent and multiclassing and leveling is fun, but it seems a two steps forward one step back kindda deal: the introduction of “mana” for all classes (class resources) removes incentives to diversify ability usage which harkens back to PoE pre-WM. The lack of Vancian casting is tiresome for the same reason. As great and polished as these systems are, their greatest weakness is still the universality of stuff. I’m also missing the sixth party member.

Combat was fucking amazeballs on Viltario’s Rest with me having to use every resource at my disposal to succeed, but afterwards it got piss easy. This is my main worry so far: hopefully the PotD difficulty picks up in a serious manner, because that first desert island got seriously thrashed. Still miffed on how veterans like Darth Roxor could bear playing on lesser difficulties.

I’m still in the honey-moon phase here so I’m restraining the praise a bit so far, but I’m having great fun currently.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Combat was fucking amazeballs on Viltario’s Rest with me having to use every resource at my disposal to succeed, but afterwards it got piss easy. This is my main worry so far: hopefully the PotD difficulty picks up in a serious manner, because that first desert island got seriously thrashed. Still miffed on how veterans like Darth Roxor could bear playing on lesser difficulties.

Difficulty is highly variable because of it being open world. If you want to be challenged, do the quests in Sakuya, Splintered Reef, Poko Kohara, and Drowned Barrows sooner than later.

If you have the DLC, do Beast of Winter at level 14 and SSS at level 16 which are the officially recommended levels. SSS is brutal even at max level, but trying to fight Neriscyrlas at level 14 can be a nightmare too.

 

[Tigranes]

I certainly think it's a SoZ++, more or less.

I think part of the honeymoon reflects how Deadfire improves on several of POE1's flaws - and then steps into some other, new flaws. The writing loses the verbosity and top-heavyness of POE1, and Deadfire is no more ranty than any other story-driven RPG out there. But now, the story loses a lot of the urgency, thematic cohesion, and dramatic pacing that Obsidian did so well in something like K2/MOTB, and even did reasonably in NWN2/POE1. The itemisation is fantastic and well above the genre average, but it has to play in a playground of retarded 'mana' systems; POE1's hybrid system was ungainly and weird, but it wasn't mechanically seriously problematic in the ways that Deadfire is.

POTD difficulty was improved in early patches, and 1.0 also had stupidly generous bonuses with many items. Roxor also played on Hard anyway. It's a different experience if you're playing now on POTD, and also, as Hamon says, you should pace your exploring instead of scooping up all the noncombat XP. (Obviously the game should do a better job of pacing the XP.)

 

[AwesomeButton]

Quests have been very interesting so far with multiple approaches and solutions to every single one.

Yeah. I can't think of many RPGs where you have so many solutions including to simple tasks.

The writing is crap, check.

Regarding Vancian casting - the most interesting decision I have to make on my potd+challenges run is whether to use empower to refill my mana points. This leads me to thinking that if more abilities (though possibly not all?) were per-rest, combat would become more interesting, and Hard would become the best difficulty, where you have to think economically about abilities, but don't have to cope with buffed enemies and large crowds.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Difficulty is highly variable because of it being open world

Not so much, in my experience, because of the scaling of encounters up to my level and avoiding higher level than mine quests and foghts.

 

[AwesomeButton]

story loses a lot of the urgency

This is done for the "at my own pace" whiners. Eothas' challenge adds back the urgency quite well.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Not so much, in my experience, because of the scaling of encounters up to my level and avoiding higher level than mine quests and foghts.

Enemies don't actually scale to your level. Only 4 levels from their base.

 

[Haplo]

The difficulty is varied, at least if you're on PotD UPSCALED.
Safav Hamon listed some high level areas, which provide a challenge, but before that you can get decent challenge as well. Usually before getting to Neketaka I stopped at Oathbinder's Sanctum and it provided plenty of challenge at level 5-6.
If you go to the Old City in Neketaka trough the Gullet BEFORE doing all the non-violent town quests, there's also some nice challenge there. Or if you go to Berath's Catacombs under the temple in the Sacred Stairs. I got decent challenge there at levels 10+.

And yeah, the enchantment paths are EXCLUSIVE. The element of choice adds a lot to the itemization IMO.
Word of advise: when you get the Grave Calling sabre, enchant it to generate friendly Chillfogs on vessel kill. And to Paralyze at max stacks.
Not a bad idea then to have a chanter in the party (Pallegina?) with the summon skellies invocation to feed the saber, as the effect is pretty great, particularly for classes that can boost the damage (rogues, helwalker monks, ciphers... although confused berserkers can also be deadly, as their Chillfogs will kill skellies fast and stack additional chillfogs - but with Friendly fire, so have to be careful then).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Enemies don't actually scale to your level. Only 4 levels from their base.

Yes four levels max, whether it's up or down scaled. Still, the only place where I had a cakewalk, and shouldn't have, was at Magran's Teeth where I was at the level cap. Maybe I was directing the adventure too good to feel this problem. And I was playing on Hard, not PotD.

 

[Tigranes]

Difficulty is highly variable because of it being open world

Not so much, in my experience, because of the scaling of encounters up to my level and avoiding higher level than mine quests and foghts.

I'm looking forward to the god challenges, especially since it seems like they may add more? Haven't been able to try the DLCs yet either.

I would say not using Empower is the quick ticket to success. It's really incredible how it made it in. Given how much I would laugh at the brain capacity of Bethesda or Bioware if they put in such a button, I consider it only fair to question Obsidian's basic sanity and competence on that point.

 

[Haplo]

Enemies don't actually scale to your level. Only 4 levels from their base.

Yes four levels max, whether it's up or down scaled. Still, the only place where I had a cakewalk, and shouldn't have, was at Magran's Teeth where I was at the level cap. Maybe I was directing the adventure too good to feel this problem. And I was playing on Hard, not PotD.

I believe the main quests mostly have more tame difficulty (after Port Maje, that is). I've been to Magran's Teeth at level 15 and it wasn't really difficult. Well a certain fiery boss took a while and 2 tries to go down, but even she wasn't actually that dangerous.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Empower was meant to be a compromise for removing per rest abilities. The problem is that the encounters in the base game weren't balanced around using most of your abilities, so it felt like an unnecessary awesome button.

With the recent DLC and megaboss, you do end up draining most of your abilities in every fight (some take me between 20-30 minutes) and the empower button becomes almost necessary in order to win.

 

[Grunker]

Not so much, in my experience, because of the scaling of encounters up to my level and avoiding higher level than mine quests and foghts.

Enemies don't actually scale to your level. Only 4 levels from their base.

GOD I wish I had known this. That would have probably made me turn on total scaling... time to restart again? What do you guys say - AwesomeButton, Safav Hamon, Tigranes - will I regret having it turned off? It can only be turned on during New Game screen, right?

I'm starting to really think I need it turned on.

Combat was fucking amazeballs on Viltario’s Rest with me having to use every resource at my disposal to succeed, but afterwards it got piss easy. This is my main worry so far: hopefully the PotD difficulty picks up in a serious manner, because that first desert island got seriously thrashed. Still miffed on how veterans like Darth Roxor could bear playing on lesser difficulties.

Difficulty is highly variable because of it being open world. If you want to be challenged, do the quests in Sakuya, Splintered Reef, Poko Kohara, and Drowned Barrows sooner than later.

If you have the DLC, do Beast of Winter at level 14 and SSS at level 16 which are the officially recommended levels. SSS is brutal even at max level, but trying to fight Neriscyrlas at level 14 can be a nightmare too.

Thanks, but I must admit I'm worried none the less - especially since I only turned on Level Scaling for crit path.

I think part of the honeymoon reflects how Deadfire improves on several of POE1's flaws - and then steps into some other, new flaws. The writing loses the verbosity and top-heavyness of POE1, and Deadfire is no more ranty than any other story-driven RPG out there. But now, the story loses a lot of the urgency, thematic cohesion, and dramatic pacing that Obsidian did so well in something like K2/MOTB, and even did reasonably in NWN2/POE1. The itemisation is fantastic and well above the genre average, but it has to play in a playground of retarded 'mana' systems; POE1's hybrid system was ungainly and weird, but it wasn't mechanically seriously problematic in the ways that Deadfire is.

Yeah this seems to be my initial conclusions as well. I was more engaged in the first conversations with the Gods (which is presented so fucking solidly in the text-adventure themed dialogue screen) than I ever was in any part of PoE1's story, and at least this time we have some context for our hunt. On the other hand the villain's ambitions are still vague as fuck and it seems like we once again will have this problem where we can't know anything about the main quest before its culmination due to the nature of the writing.

Roxor also played on Hard anyway.

Yeah, hence my comment about that. I don't see how any veteran can get full enjoyment out of the mechanics without PotD.

POTD difficulty was improved in early patches, and 1.0 also had stupidly generous bonuses with many items. [...] It's a different experience if you're playing now on POTD, and also, as Hamon says, you should pace your exploring instead of scooping up all the noncombat XP. (Obviously the game should do a better job of pacing the XP.)

I am playing on PotD, but I cleared every encounter (the 6 or 7 I've played through) since the starting area extremely easily. I feel like the starting area had the difficulty just right, though maybe going a bit overboard with Drake and Grorecci street. It's like the game assumes you have a full party for those fights but then when you actually have a full party it doesn't scale the encounters to match. Hopefully it gets better, I have only taken on early sideencounters so far after all.

Difficulty is highly variable because of it being open world

Not so much, in my experience, because of the scaling of encounters up to my level and avoiding higher level than mine quests and foghts.

Unfortunately I only turned on level scaling for crit path and I'm starting to think that was a mistake.

story loses a lot of the urgency

This is done for the "at my own pace" whiners. Eothas' challenge adds back the urgency quite well.

I really dislike timers because I like to take my time during an initial playthrough. Dunno if that makes me a whiner but...

 

[AwesomeButton]

I really dislike timers because I like to take my time during an initial playthrough. Dunno if that makes me a whiner but...

No offence, I was imagining the kids who would write the whiny steam reviews.

Unfortunately I only turned on level scaling for crit path and I'm starting to think that was a mistake.

Never tried it with scaling only the crit path. If you feel like it, restart, why not. I can't tell if it won't make combat too involved for you though, because the 7-8 or 9 enemies vs your 5 will often be the case.

 

[Grunker]

If you feel like it, restart, why not. I can't tell if it won't make combat too involved for you though, because the 7-8 or 9 enemies vs your 5 will often be the case.

I believe someone (Safav Hamon ?) mentioned that it will rarely get as hard as Gorecci street or the drake fight. If that's the case, it's not a problem.

 

[AwesomeButton]

If you feel like it, restart, why not. I can't tell if it won't make combat too involved for you though, because the 7-8 or 9 enemies vs your 5 will often be the case.

I believe someone (Safav Hamon ?) mentioned that it will rarely get as hard as Gorecci street or the drake fight. If that's the case, it's not a problem.

Then go for it. My feeling was that on PotD I suddenly had to pick very carefully which combat to take and which to avoid, but my party is kind of under optimized, and I also have the god's challenges which limit my "xp farming" time, which is something you don't need to worry about in your case.

Which areas did you find too easy that made you consider turning scaling on for everything?

 

[Safav Hamon]

If you feel like it, restart, why not. I can't tell if it won't make combat too involved for you though, because the 7-8 or 9 enemies vs your 5 will often be the case.

I believe someone (Safav Hamon ?) mentioned that it will rarely get as hard as Gorecci street or the drake fight. If that's the case, it's not a problem.

I never said that. There are fights I've thought were harder than both of those. The reason those fights stand out is because they're low level and your characters don't have many tactical options.

But again, it's an open world game. If you think it's too easy at your level then go to a higher level location like Splintered Reef, Drowned Barrows, Sayuka, or Poko Kohara. It's only as difficult or easy as you choose to make it.

 

[Grunker]

Which areas did you find too easy that made you consider turning scaling on for everything?

Just one example is the Xaurip island. There is a big golem fight with 7 enemies followed by a cave with both a Champion AND a Priest besides all the trash. I could basically Auto Attack + Lay On Hands through that fight. I did lose a guy to Priest's Pillar of Faith because it one-shot, but I mean, that didn't really make the fight any harder when my guys were immortal for the remaining duration.

If you feel like it, restart, why not. I can't tell if it won't make combat too involved for you though, because the 7-8 or 9 enemies vs your 5 will often be the case.

I believe someone (Safav Hamon ?) mentioned that it will rarely get as hard as Gorecci street or the drake fight. If that's the case, it's not a problem.

I never said that. There are fights I've thought were harder than both of those. The reason those fights stand out is because they're low level and your characters don't have many tactical options.

But again, it's an open world game. If you think it's too easy at your level than go to a higher level location like Splintered Reef, Drowned Barrows, Sakura, or Poko Kohara. It's only as difficult or easy as you choose to make it.

Fair enough, but I often complete 75%+ of a game's content when I do complete them. The reason I didn't turn on general level-scaling at first is that I don't mind low-level content being easy once I've leveled.

But if having level-scaling turned off means I will be over-leveled for a majority or hell just more than 25% of the content, then I'm going to turn it on.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[AwesomeButton]

Just one example is the Xaurip island. There is a big golem fight with 7 enemies followed by a cave with both a Champion AND a Priest besides all the trash. I could basically Auto Attack + Lay On Hands through that fight. I did lose a guy to Priest's Pillar of Faith because it one-shot, but I mean, that didn't really make the fight any harder when my guys were immortal for the remaining duration.

Ah, so you went exploring instead of to Deadlight. Well, if you're not feeling to lazy to replay the beginning, restart it.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Is he not able to activate it from the settings?

 

[Grunker]

I might be (I'm at work so I can't check), I just seem to recall something about scaling only being activatable on a new game.

I am an RPG-autist however so I can handle the restart, even if I would rather avoid it.

EDIT: Google doesn't offer much help - it wasn't possible before but apparantly they were working on it: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101199-change-level-scaling-mid-game/

 

[2house2fly]

Also: can anyone tell me whether multiple unique enchant paths are mutually exclusive? For instance, Saint’s War Armor has two unique upgrade paths - can I upgrade both?

Generally, if you see two options split off form one they're mutually exclusive. I don't know if that's true in every case (I seem to have the first two enchantments available after Second Chance on the Saints War Armour) but it's best to assume it is and pick the enchantment you want the most first

This is done for the "at my own pace" whiners. Eothas' challenge adds back the urgency quite well.

This is annoying because the first game already let you go at your own pace, a major factor of which was there being no external force "telling" the player character to do anything. For this one they tried to satisfy the "my character doesn't want to follow the story" whiners by having a god tell you that you have to do it, a breathtakingly insane move

On the other hand the villain's ambitions are still vague as fuck and it seems like we once again will have this problem where we can't know anything about the main quest before its culmination due to the nature of the writing.

The main quest is extremely short and involves visiting five locations in order. Once you go to the fourth area you'll have pretty much all the stakes of the plot

 

[AwesomeButton]

This is annoying because the first game already let you go at your own pace, a major factor of which was there being no external force "telling" the player character to do anything. For this one they tried to satisfy the "my character doesn't want to follow the story" whiners by having a god tell you that you have to do it, a breathtakingly insane move

You are right, what can I say. Things like this is why Fallout 1 is a genius RPG.

More abstractly, I think for an RPG to be good, the gameplay has to enforce some constraints on the set of possible stories the game could have.

 

[Lacrymas]

I might be (I'm at work so I can't check), I just seem to recall something about scaling only being activatable on a new game.

Pretty sure you can activate and deactivate it at any point, scaling (afaik) works when the area is loaded for the first time, so only the areas you've visited won't be scaled after activating the option in the middle of a game.