Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Reinhardt]

Is Berath's Blessing like a New Game+ kind of thing? Does it affect monsters or only your statistics?

It's just free stuff, like +2 to watcher stats or 50k gold from the start.

 

[FreeKaner]

Game being most difficult right at the start and getting easier after you finish it first time around

 

[AwesomeButton]

Wow, forget everything I've said about Paradox, they are nice dudes. PoE is 40% off on GoG, Tyranny 50% off: https://af.gog.com/partner/pdxcon_2018?as=1649904300 This should boost sales for Deadfire as well.

The patch is out on GoG already. Impressive.

Infinitron, go pester JSE to ask their programmers to write a blogpost how they make the shadows and how they managed to bake normals into 2d textures....

Like the table legs are dynamically lit and the top has z component.

Its pretty nifty. Its like they rended this scene completely in 3d beforehand.

Some objects are 3D. I've noticed trees are for example.

 

[AN4RCHID]

1. Fort Deadlight is incline in terms of quest design, imo.

It is, sadly I'm getting into the endgame and I don't think it's been rivaled. First 10 hours of the game gave me the impression this would be dungeon crawling heaven, but most of dungeons since then are very short. Notable exception of The Old City. I still have most of the right side of the map unexplored so maybe there is a trove of optional content left, but islands so far have been one or two encounters tops.

 

[FreeKaner]

1. Fort Deadlight is incline in terms of quest design, imo.

It is, sadly I'm getting into the endgame and I don't think it's been rivaled. First 10 hours of the game gave me the impression this would be dungeon crawling heaven, but most of dungeons since then are very short. Notable exception of The Old City. I still have most of the right side of the map unexplored so maybe there is a trove of optional content left, but islands so far have been one or two encounters tops.

All the DLCs sound like they are p. much dungeon crawls with flavour.

 

[MajorMace]

1. Fort Deadlight is incline in terms of quest design, imo.

It ain't the only case.
Arkemyr's manor has several entrances for a sneaky approach, letting you fool the residents, rob the imp from the key, fight your way through, break into from the roof or from the underground.

Several faction quests and related stuff have various entry points and various ways to start the quest, sometimes from different standpoints regarding the objective. Most stuff in the gullet and the whole business around Crookspur.

Problem is most of these being buggy, it's not really enjoyable atm. But design-wise, these are very cool.
Then there's a whole lot of mediocre/linear ones.

Wow, forget everything I've said about Paradox, they are nice dudes. PoE is 40% off on GoG, Tyranny 50% off: https://af.gog.com/partner/pdxcon_2018?as=1649904300 This should boost sales for Deadfire as well.

inb4 we learn that Paradox big hats have invested through fig

Lighting is gorgeous.
If someone from obsidian is lurking this for some twisted reason, tell the designers to make a dungeon which revolves around this in a dlc.
Like some pitch dark place inhabited by critters which react to light.
Or having puzzles which revolve around placing a torch and revealing stuff through shadows. (and not a scripted one which triggers accidentaly, you hacks)
You can do this, and it would be fucking awesome.

 

[AN4RCHID]

1. Fort Deadlight is incline in terms of quest design, imo.

It is, sadly I'm getting into the endgame and I don't think it's been rivaled. First 10 hours of the game gave me the impression this would be dungeon crawling heaven, but most of dungeons since then are very short. Notable exception of The Old City. I still have most of the right side of the map unexplored so maybe there is a trove of optional content left, but islands so far have been one or two encounters tops.

All the DLCs sound like they are p. much dungeon crawls with flavour.

That would be ideal given the strengths and weakness of the current team. Content distribution similar to The White March with Deadfire systems and art =

 

[DexRiwus]

1. Fort Deadlight is incline in terms of quest design, imo.

It is, sadly I'm getting into the endgame and I don't think it's been rivaled. First 10 hours of the game gave me the impression this would be dungeon crawling heaven, but most of dungeons since then are very short. Notable exception of The Old City. I still have most of the right side of the map unexplored so maybe there is a trove of optional content left, but islands so far have been one or two encounters tops.

All the DLCs sound like they are p. much dungeon crawls with flavour.

2-nd one definitely is. 1-st one sounds like mix of story (there is some cult) and dungeon crawling (some dimension called The Beyond). 3-rd one seems to be more story oriented (MaybeSpoiler: supposedly it is about mage guild that you meet in Arkemyr's waterskype).

 

[Parabalus]

I don't recall finding Baldurs Gate II challenging on my first playthrough, but maybe that's just because BG1 was a lot harder. The amount of cheese tactics means it was poorly balanced.

I am not a big fan of autistic balance (*some* balance, of course, is always recommended). The cheese tactics vs challenging opponents needed a lot of experience and reloads to figure out. Obsidian's games are designed to be easy right out of the box, no experience (with the game at hand, not in general) required.

Is there even any encounter which doesn't die to out of sight cloudkill spam in vanilla Bg2?

SoA on Hard (not even Insane) is plenty challenging, while PoE1 PotD isn't.

After a while in PoE1 (no WM) I couldn't die even if I tried, with the exception of a couple of fights. In BG2 you die all the time if you are not careful and don't use cheese. BG2 may have become easy for some of us 2 decades and 20 playthroughs later, but I doubt any such people found PoE1 challenging at all.

Difficulty does little for SoA since it only adds damage unmodded. I haven't played PoE1 below PotD, but I guess it's easy enough - SoA insane vs PoE1 PotD I'm not so sure.

On Insane, 2 crits in a row and Jaheira is unraisably dead. I know, because it has happened to me.

Why would Jaheira get hit? She has Iron Skins, the number of enemies who will cast Breach or DM on that in unmodded can likely be counted on one hand.

Beholders

Beholders?

Beholder: "Hooga-boooga-bugaaaa!"
Me: "Say hello to my little friend!" <pull up Balduran's Shield>
Beholder: Death

The shield wasn't part of the original game, it came with the Collector's Edition.

The original game has unnerfed cloak of mirroring .

 

[Sentinel]

Darth Roxor Did you finish the game before writing the review (in case you were serious)? I'd suggest you do that, you'll have more to complain about.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Anyone try out the combat now that level scaling is supposedly working?

 

[Wolfe]

It'd be nice if you could enable level scaling mid-fucking-game..

 

[Darth Roxor]

Darth Roxor Did you finish the game before writing the review (in case you were serious)? I'd suggest you do that, you'll have more to complain about.

sorry, no can do, it's already being processed

it should go up this night or maybe around tomorrow noon

 

[Parabalus]

The cloak of mirroring.

I think it was changed to just absorb magic damage. Meaning beholder could still : kill you/summons, turn to stone, slow, breach your magic defences & dominate you. It's only pure damage attack was something like priest wound spell.

The vanilla balduran shield ofc was cheese.

The SCS beholders though are hilariously nightmarish as supposed to be.

Frankly, even vanilla beholders, even if they added similar item, are too oldschool to exist in PoE. Vampires in PoE2 come closest to IE enemy design, but still are nearly not as dangerous in pure design terms.

SCS beholders die in one round to right click, only Death Tyrant/Elder Orb even use stoneskin and warrant Breach. The shield is also made useless since they just pull it.

I don't think 100% lock&key design is required, but it's something that can be worked on. PoE1 WM PoTD had an ice dragon with absurd ice attacks. You could beat it without particular items, but dealing with him with Zahua with flaming fist abilities & using protections helped greatly. There were similar encounters there, like golems with strong acid attacks.

PoE2 instead of expanding on this, lowered the bar tremendously. I'd say game right now doesn't have even Adra Dragon level mob.

One of the main differences between old RPG and nuRPG is in the modern games you have "builds" with "choices." In Baldur's gate your cleric gets every spell. The whole list! You can't do that in a modern game because balance. Gotta have limited choices now. The result is the designer can't plan for any group to have any specific ability. In Baldur's gate, everyone will have the cleric spell list and most of the mage spells, so go nuts. If you don't have them, you can get them. In PoE, you're always going to have a subset of abilities, so the designers have to make every encounter beatable without specific abilities.

This is one of the cases where I feel modern RPGs have missed the mark. By making character progression overly limited and restricted, you limit your ability to challenge the player. In an old-school game like Wizardry, there are no problems that can't be solved by more grinding. In PoE we can't have that because combat XP is fascist or something, and quest XP is finite. They put respec options in there as an acknowledgement of this. Instead of fixing the limitations of the game, they give you a built-in cheat to circumvent them.

Who sane would grind in a single player CRPG when MMOs exist? Bestiary XP is pure

Do the reputations affect anything this time round?

I'm pretty sure how long you can keep whoring yourself out to different factions and whether your companions tolerate it is tied to reputations.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Who sane would grind in a single player CRPG when MMOs exist? Bestiary XP is pure

It allows developers to create challenging encounters without worrying if the player will be too weak or unprepared for them. If you can't get past it, just grind more. It's a form of self-balancing gameplay.

It's a better solution than level scaling encounters (which never feels right) or respec (which feels like a cheat). It gets rid of the issue of developers trying to over-balance the game or make it so every party can get past every obstacle.

 

[Jenkem]

The real question is, why are sea shanties sung by what sounds like a predominantly female choir?

I somehow imagined pirate ships being full of rowdy, half-drunk men, not female choir soloists.

it depends on the make up of your crew iirc, mine are mostly men singing, so you must have more female crew than males.

how progressive of you

 

[Iskramor]

sorry, no can do, it's already being processed

it should go up this night or maybe around tomorrow noon

How do you review the game which you didnt even beat???

 

[DexRiwus]

Who sane would grind in a single player CRPG when MMOs exist? Bestiary XP is pure

It allows developers to create challenging encounters without worrying if the player will be too weak or unprepared for them. If you can't get past it, just grind more. It's a form of self-balancing gameplay.

It's a better solution than level scaling encounters (which never feels right) or respec (which feels like a cheat). It gets rid of the issue of developers trying to over-balance the game or make it so every party can get past every obstacle.

It creates another problem of player beefing up on 1000000-s of rats and becoming able to kill demigods with backhand slap. Reroll is always better option than grindable exp in single-player games with ability/skill/talent based progression.

 

[Shadenuat]

Can't believe how easy Roxor has it with new ppl. I am sorta jealous

It's like he's trolling on Bioware or Bethesda forums

Btw in one of Codex reviews for PoE1, Vault Dweller didn't finish the game. played like to act 2.

 

[Lacrymas]

Choir soloist is an oxymoron. At most, there can be "a person who sings some solo part in a larger choral piece", but otherwise no. You are either a choir singer or a soloist at any one time.

 

[Suicidal]

sorry, no can do, it's already being processed

it should go up this night or maybe around tomorrow noon

How do you review the game which you didnt even beat???

A true gaming journalist should know how to write a review without even beating the tutorial.

 

[fantadomat]

Darth Roxor Did you finish the game before writing the review (in case you were serious)? I'd suggest you do that, you'll have more to complain about.

sorry, no can do, it's already being processed

it should go up this night or maybe around tomorrow noon

Are you aiming at IGN for a job? They have a lot of reviews in progress.

 

[AwesomeButton]

sorry, no can do, it's already being processed

it should go up this night or maybe around tomorrow noon

How do you review the game which you didnt even beat???

A true gaming journalist should know how to write a review without even beating the tutorial.

Two caramel frappuchinos' / latte machiattos' time is perfectly enough playing time for a 50-hour game review.

 

[Mazisky]

Memory leak still there. Game choppy and slow after 1 hour gameplay. Patch did nothing

 

[Iskramor]

Memory leak still there. Game choppy and slow after 1 hour gameplay. Patch did nothing

How about posting that on obs forums.