Eternity Pillars of Eternity II Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Maculo]

Guys how is the writing in the beta? Any obvious changes for better or worst?

So-so at the moment. I think the individuals lines and descriptions can get shaky. One area I think PoE2 does better is consistency of the themes or undercurrents to the story. Honestly, I am not sure what to call it. For example, the tribe members all have opinions about foreigners. The tribal elder believes the future of the tribe is in trade and good relations with foreign powers, even though the current island is a death trap and they are wasting their last stores of food to remain. In opposition, the local Priestess believes the tribal elder is retarded to put all his hope in foreigners, and that the tribe should instead resettle to a more habital island. This plays out in other ways, such as small characters showing panic about food (i.e., the vendor was a hunter, but now there is nothing to hunt) or the quests. One quest is to determine who stole the last remnants of a fruit used in a religious ceremony, which the tribal elder wants to perform to improve moral (if I remember correctly).

Spoiler

A farmer pins the theft on a local asshole that no one likes. The farmer believes the tribal elder is stupid to hold the ceremony, because it requires the entire fruit be eaten, meaning there will be no seeds to plant for future harvests. Thus, the fruit would be wasted on a shallow gesture and it would likely be the tribe's last chance at a religious ceremony.

The farmer cannot object, because the tribe operates on a strict caste system, where the word of the farmer means nothing.

This village has a central dilemma (stay and potentially starve, or leave and lose out on the chance of a lifetime), and you can see how your character could take a stance and have a significant impact on the village. In contrast, I felt PoE (not including the White March) characters and quests could be decentralized or disconnected. For example, the Dyrwood Village had an ogre quest, a dragon egg quest, a fugitive fleeing capture, and a kidnapping cult quest that shoehorned class struggle into it. There was no one central issue. You found books that showed how many people the cult had kidnapped, but you never got the sense that the village suffered from kidnappings or class struggle in the first place. Furthermore, whether you decide to help or destroy the cult does not seem to have much of an impact on the village, because it was never presented as a huge issue to begin with.

At this point, I would not call the writing amazing or view it on the same level as Planescape Torment, but I do believe the writing has improved. Also, in full disclosure, I was okay with PoE and I enjoyed parts of the Thaos storyline (although they wasted a good villain in my opinion), and so that makes me 1 of possibly 5 people okay with PoE on the Codex.

Edit: I meant to add, one concern I have is the lack of the significance of being a Watcher. It does make an appearance in the main dungeon quest (you see the explorers running from a giant shadow, and they slowly go insane in the dungeon and die one by one), but I have not found it all that relevant in the other quests. I was hoping Obsidian would find a way to make being a Watcher more relevant to finding solutions to quests. This may be a controversial comparison, but in the Witcher 3 the skills/ability of a witcher were critical to solving quests, whether that be tracking scents, knowing potions/rituals, or catching minuscule details. From what I played of PoE2, you still are a problem-solving adventurer that incidentally sees ghosts, as opposed to a ghost-seeing adventurer that puts that skill/trait to solve problems.

 

[fantadomat]

Guys how is the writing in the beta? Any obvious changes for better or worst?

So-so at the moment. I think the individuals lines and descriptions can get shaky. One area I think PoE2 does better is consistency of the themes or undercurrents to the story. Honestly, I am not sure what to call it. For example, the tribe members all have opinions about foreigners. The tribal elder believes the future of the tribe is in trade and good relations with foreign powers, even though the current island is a death trap and they are wasting their last stores of food to remain. In opposition, the local Priestess believes the tribal elder is retarded to put all his hope in foreigners, and that the tribe should instead resettle to a more habital island. This plays out in other ways, such as small characters showing panic about food (i.e., the vendor was a hunter, but now there is nothing to hunt) or the quests. One quest is to determine who stole the last remnants of a fruit used in a religious ceremony, which the tribal elder wants to perform to improve moral (if I remember correctly).

Spoiler

A farmer pins the theft on a local asshole that no one likes. The farmer believes the tribal elder is stupid to hold the ceremony, because it requires the entire fruit be eaten, meaning there will be no seeds to plant for future harvests. Thus, the fruit would be wasted on a shallow gesture and it would likely be the tribe's last chance at a religious ceremony.

The farmer cannot object, because the tribe operates on a strict caste system, where the word of the farmer means nothing.

This village has central dilemma (stay and potentially starve, or leave and lose out on the chance of a lifetime), , and you can see how your character could take a stance and have a significant impact on the village. In contrast, I felt PoE (not including the White March) characters and quests could be decentralized or disconnected. For example, the Dyrwood Village had an ogre quest, a dragon egg quest, a fugitive fleeing capture, and a kidnapping cult quest that shoehorned class struggle into it. There was no one central issue. You found books that showed how many people the cult had kidnapped, but you never got the sense that the village suffered from kidnappings or class struggle in the first place. Furthermore, whether you decide to help or destroy the cult does not seem to have much of an impact on the village, because it was never presented as a huge issue to begin with.

At this point, I would not call the writing amazing or view it on the same level as Planescape Torment, but I do believe the writing has improved. Also, in full disclosure, I was okay with PoE and I enjoyed parts of the Thaos storyline (although they wasted a good villain in my opinion), and so that makes me 1 of possibly 5 people okay with PoE on the Codex.

Thank you mate for the well written answer. I agree with you on the lack of impact and sense in the first game. To be honest i liked the cult quest the most from the whole game,it didn't make much of environmental sense as you said,but it felt like something you can come by in a Torment. It was the most atmospheric part of the game.

 

[Sizzle]

Edit: I meant to add, one concern I have is the lack of the significance of being a Watcher. It does make an appearance in the main dungeon quest (you see the explorers running from a giant shadow, and they slowly go insane in the dungeon and die one by one), but I have not found it all that relevant in the other quests. I was hoping Obsidian would find a way to make being a Watcher more relevant to finding solutions to quests. This may be a controversial comparison, but in the Witcher 3 the skills/ability of a witcher were critical to solving quests, whether that be tracking scents, knowing potions/rituals, or catching minuscule details. From what I played of PoE2, you still are a problem-solving adventurer that incidentally sees ghosts, as opposed to a ghost-seeing adventurer that puts that skill/trait to solve problems.

Agreed, that was disappointing (again). Although I hope that the Watcher's abilities will play a greater role in the full release.

I don't know if this was already discussed (haven't seen it brought up anywhere), but is there any indication that the Watcher's abilities will have greater use in combat - maybe even having their own separate skill tree, only available to the PC? Infinitron, could you maybe ask JS's Tumblr about this if you have the time?

That would, in part, alleviate the problem (at least from a mechanics side, not so much from an RP perspective).

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem is that the Watcher business is too specific. To make full use of it it would require a different type of game, either an adventure game where you are a detective who can incidentally see ghosts (the whole "see ghosts" thing is a bit cheap in general) or a Luigi's Haunted Mansion style ...whatever that genre is. It just doesn't really work well in this style of RPG, it adds nothing that couldn't have been added by good detective skills, it even detracts from investigations because it provides ready answers in the form of ghost witnesses. Outside of gaining access to forgotten or obfuscated knowledge there is nothing else to it.

 

[2house2fly]

Guys how is the writing in the beta? Any obvious changes for better or worst?

It looks like they're going to be leaning more into weird stuff- there's a bit where you go to a weird afterlife dimension and talk with some dead people, which looked pretty cool. Writing seems ok in general, a bit too much of characters exclaiming in their native language like a Mexican guy saying "dios mio"

 

[Sizzle]

In the first game, they already sorta went for the MoTB-lite version of your powers, so there was: putting souls to peace, obliterating them, etc.

For the sequel, they really should look into expanding that, role-playing wise. Considering that this is a world where practically everything revolves around souls, it shouldn't be too hard to make a bunch of quests that further explore, and make use of, your abilities.

 

[Lacrymas]

MotB wasn't really about the powers/curse, it was about the destruction and conflicts it caused and how you go about fixing them/making them worse. Poetic justice is also on the menu. The game tells you that some people fear Watchers, but you are never given a reason why, you aren't given the chance to do anything that would cause such fear. The most vile choices you are given is sacrificing one of your companions to the blood pool and sacrificing the baby (can you actually do it? Never tried), but they aren't linked to you being a Watcher at all. Being a Watcher was all incidental and last-minute-y. MotB was about loyalty, justice, punishment and the sins of the past, PoE wasn't about anything.

 

[Sizzle]

MotB wasn't really about the powers/curse

Well... yeah, it really was. It gave you one of the best guiding motivations in CRPG history, and it was brilliantly interwoven, both mechanically and RP, into the game.

it was about the destruction and conflicts it caused and how you go about fixing them/making them worse.

That's the overall theme, backstory, and C&C of your actions - the basis of the game is finding out how to cure your condition/take control of your powers.

The game tells you that some people fear Watchers, but you are never given a reason why, you aren't given the chance to do anything that would cause such fear.

For example, you can force someone to Awaken against their will. I'd say that's a pretty good reason alone to distrust and fear Watchers.

Besides, like I said - this is a world where everything revolves around souls. Someone who can manipulate them (and it's almost outright stated that Watchers poses a greater capacity for doing this than the Gods themselves), would definitely be considered a threat, or as someone who can get certain unique jobs done, depending on the circumstances.

The most vile choices you are given is sacrificing one of your companions to the blood pool and sacrificing the baby (can you actually do it? Never tried), but they aren't linked to you being a Watcher at all.

Only you can hear Skaen (as well as Wael in the scroll quest), so it's probably something to do with your Watcher status. As for the baby - yes, you can help sacrifice it.

Being a Watcher was all incidental and last-minute-y.

It just wasn't very well thought out and integrated into the game as well as it should have been.

Looking at TWM, where they actually thought up of some interesting ways to involve your powers in the story, shows that it can be done.

 

[Sizzle]

Now, back to our regular backer beta discussions :D

 

[2house2fly]

This may be a controversial comparison, but in the Witcher 3 the skills/ability of a witcher were critical to solving quests, whether that be tracking scents, knowing potions/rituals, or catching minuscule details. From what I played of PoE2, you still are a problem-solving adventurer that incidentally sees ghosts, as opposed to a ghost-seeing adventurer that puts that skill/trait to solve problems.

I certainly hope there's more quests themed around the main character's uniqueness, but more general quests are fine as long as they write them decently and/or give me decent options. In the setting you're also a ship captain and a former Dyrwood roadwarden, so there's a good few angles they could take to give quests Main Character flavour.

 

[Ulfhednar]

That's better!

 

[Lacrymas]

Penetration sounds like a shit mechanic even on paper tbh. You have to hit way too specific points for it and those vary wildly between mobs, so you better be ready to stack that thing like you stacked Accuracy in 1. I dunno, it sounds not very well thought-out.

 

[FreeKaner]

I think penetration mechanic is fine, it gives another concern that is not accuracy that must be considered. In vacuum it's not very good but in accordance with everything else in the game it is.

 

[2house2fly]

There needs to be a reason the best weapon isn't necessarily the highest-pen weapon- more pen means less damage maybe, like AP ammo in a shooter. It's Pen vs Armour, right? If you have elemental damage that an enemy is weak against that would presumably increase your pen against them

 

[Maculo]

The problem is that the Watcher business is too specific. To make full use of it it would require a different type of game, either an adventure game where you are a detective who can incidentally see ghosts (the whole "see ghosts" thing is a bit cheap in general) or a Luigi's Haunted Mansion style ...whatever that genre is. It just doesn't really work well in this style of RPG, it adds nothing that couldn't have been added by good detective skills, it even detracts from investigations because it provides ready answers in the form of ghost witnesses. Outside of gaining access to forgotten or obfuscated knowledge there is nothing else to it.

Given what happened in PoE and the White March, I think Obsidian could make being a Watcher more significant. Seeing ghosts is certainly one benefit, but there also were instances of manipulating, consuming, or binding souls. Specifically, the choices you had with Maerwald, Thaos, and the Dwarves. With the Dwarves in particular, you could bind the souls of the dead to operate the defensive cannons against the Eyeless. Another example is the White March quest to open the stronghold, where you needed to find a reincarnated dwarf to learn how to open the doors, although that came at the expense of the villager.

I think there is room to expand the significance of being a Watcher, Obsidian just needs to do something with it.

 

[Infinitron]

There needs to be a reason the best weapon isn't necessarily the highest-pen weapon- more pen means less damage maybe, like AP ammo in a shooter. It's Pen vs Armour, right? If you have elemental damage that an enemy is weak against that would presumably increase your pen against them

Somebody should post the specs of all the basic weapons. Let's see what the typical correlation between penetration, speed, damage, etc is.

 

[Lacrymas]

Given what happened in PoE and the White March, I think Obsidian could make being a Watcher more significant. Seeing ghosts is certainly one benefit, but there also were instances of manipulating, consuming, or binding souls. Specifically, the choices you had with Maerwald, Thaos, and the Dwarves. With the Dwarves in particular, you could bind the souls of the dead to operate the defensive cannons against the Eyeless. Another example is the White March quest to open the stronghold, where you needed to find a reincarnated dwarf to learn how to open the doors, although that came at the expense of the villager.

I think there is room to expand the significance of being a Watcher, Obsidian just needs to do something with it.

The problem is not what can be done with it, they can ass-pull whatever, the problem is that it's gimmicky and focusing on that gimmickness (not a word) is the wrong choice. What it needs to do is create conflicts that people can react to, not solve the conflicts. It's a Chosen One in sheep's clothing. These problem-remover and plot-insulation qualities are my main issues with it. Not to mention that the powers themselves are vague and we don't know their limits, which either leads to deus ex machinas or plot holes.

 

[mortimermcmire]

*deep breath*

a few things 1. yes you can mod in just about anything like

a new weapon

a brand new skill

you can edit existing skills just as easily

penetration levels, as shown above in that tweet. I was in a discussion on the obsidian forums and someone had a neat idea to base penetration levels off (armor minus weapon) rather than (armor / weapon) which before wasn't possible to change but they've put it in! Looking forward to playing with that later

things you cannot do with modding so far: place things in the world, add new custom assets

as for the weapon stats

enemies to compare to:
xaurip armor has armor rating 5, with slash 3 and burn 7
"elite" xaurip armor has rating 8, slash 4 burn 10

no weapons equippable by the player has pen lower than 5

basic weapons with pen 5
rod
wand
hunting bow
sword
spear (wtf)
sabre
rapier (wtf)
quarterstaff
pike
hatchet
greatsword
flail
dagger
club
pistol
blunderbuss

no equipment has pen 6

basic weapons with pen 7
mace
warhammer
morningstar
pollaxe
stiletto
crossbow

basic weapons with pen 9
estoc
arquebust
arbalest

fan of flames has pen 7, most other magic is between 7 and 9 pen. Traps are between 9-12 pen.

All magic will do at least full damage against an elite xaurip.
All level one BASIC blunt weapons will do at least 1x damage unless you're debuffed. You shouldn't be using basic gear if you're facing advanced xaurips. If you want to pierce through with basic weapons let's say you're on the estoc train, you deal 11-16 damage (x1.3) with average attack speed. A dagger does 11-15 (x1.0) with high attack speed.

you do about the same damage in the current (now outdated by 5 minutes) system whether you engage with the penetration mechanic or not, at least with nonboss enemies

 

[Maculo]

Given what happened in PoE and the White March, I think Obsidian could make being a Watcher more significant. Seeing ghosts is certainly one benefit, but there also were instances of manipulating, consuming, or binding souls. Specifically, the choices you had with Maerwald, Thaos, and the Dwarves. With the Dwarves in particular, you could bind the souls of the dead to operate the defensive cannons against the Eyeless. Another example is the White March quest to open the stronghold, where you needed to find a reincarnated dwarf to learn how to open the doors, although that came at the expense of the villager.

I think there is room to expand the significance of being a Watcher, Obsidian just needs to do something with it.

The problem is not what can be done with it, they can ass-pull whatever, the problem is that it's gimmicky and focusing on that gimmickness (not a word) is the wrong choice. What it needs to do is create conflicts that people can react to, not solve the conflicts. It's a Chosen One in sheep's clothing. These problem-remover and plot-insulation qualities are my main issues with it. Not to mention that the powers themselves are vague and we don't know their limits, which either leads to deus ex machinas or plot holes.

I understand your point about "chosen one" or plot convenience, but what do you mean by conflict that people can react to? For example, using the power causes unforeseen consequences? Or, the very existence of a Watcher causes the conflict (e.g., Jedi Exile)?

 

[2house2fly]

It would be a cool wrinkle if admitting you're a Watcher caused a loss of reputation around characters who didn't already know or something. So far the coolest Watcher thing was in White March 2 where you go to read a guy's memories but you just see your own memories, because he's a Watcher as well and he's reading you

 

[Lacrymas]

I understand your point about "chosen one" or plot convenience, but what do you mean by conflict that people can react to? For example, using the power causes unforeseen consequences? Or, the very existence of a Watcher causes the conflict (e.g., Jedi Exile)?

I mean it needs to be a source of some kind of drama, being only there to solve problems (like it was in P1) is cheap and like a McGuffin that the protagonist always has access to. The Jedi Exile thing is a good idea, yeah. They need to focus on the choices the protagonist and those around him make regarding the Watcher thing, not focus on the actual uses of it. Make it unpredictable or uncontrollable (while watching out for deus ex machinas), you only being able to try to suppress it (like in MotB) as opposed to use it to solve all the plot. That's only one example, but you get the idea. The protagonist having special powers that are granted by fate is always ripe for all kinds of contrivances and Chosen One territories, so it needs a skilled hand to keep it in check. Being like Oedipus Rex is another example of a good way to handle it, the 'powers' of the protagonist causes the prophecy to happen.

 

[Maculo]

Provided I understand your full point, making a Watcher into a curse/burden, as opposed to some sixth sense to whip out at a convenient notice? For example, being a Watcher causes otherwise normal people to "awaken" or go insane with past memories?

 

[fobia]

I agree. The whole "no sleep for the Watcher" in the first part should have had mechanical effects as well.
The whole problem should've been more than information gathering, maybe you could have rested easier if you'd done certain things. Destroying other souls, or whatever. Eating them.

I hope there'll be a twist like that in Deadfire. More creative than mine ofc.

 

[FreeKaner]

It would be actually great if sometimes when you got those scenes about being unable to sleep you got a debuff for fatigue.

Anyhow can someone from beta showcase rapier models? Do they still look like modern fencing epees, it would be really sad.

 

[fantadomat]

Does anyone know what the goal/mystery will be in the game? They messed up in the first by unavailing the gods are windows's bugs. I would take it that it will have more fampires and ancient beings that created the buggy software. Also the watcher was in the game so you could read the backers stories in my not so humble opinion.

MotB wasn't really about the powers/curse

Well... yeah, it really was. It gave you one of the best guiding motivations in CRPG history, and it was brilliantly interwoven, both mechanically and RP, into the game.

it was about the destruction and conflicts it caused and how you go about fixing them/making them worse.

That's the overall theme, backstory, and C&C of your actions - the basis of the game is finding out how to cure your condition/take control of your powers.

The game tells you that some people fear Watchers, but you are never given a reason why, you aren't given the chance to do anything that would cause such fear.

For example, you can force someone to Awaken against their will. I'd say that's a pretty good reason alone to distrust and fear Watchers.

Besides, like I said - this is a world where everything revolves around souls. Someone who can manipulate them (and it's almost outright stated that Watchers poses a greater capacity for doing this than the Gods themselves), would definitely be considered a threat, or as someone who can get certain unique jobs done, depending on the circumstances.

The most vile choices you are given is sacrificing one of your companions to the blood pool and sacrificing the baby (can you actually do it? Never tried), but they aren't linked to you being a Watcher at all.

Only you can hear Skaen (as well as Wael in the scroll quest), so it's probably something to do with your Watcher status. As for the baby - yes, you can help sacrifice it.

Being a Watcher was all incidental and last-minute-y.

It just wasn't very well thought out and integrated into the game as well as it should have been.

Looking at TWM, where they actually thought up of some interesting ways to involve your powers in the story, shows that it can be done.

For me MotB was about annoying atheists and taking my soul back. I let the retarded priest to suffer for eternity in the wall even if i had his mask. True stupidity in the face of knowledge should be punished. I didn't like that i couldn't kill the hunger and let his soul suffer,with is contradictory to the story. The hunger existed because he changing places with the victim and thus taking your soul and returning his to the wall should have stopped the hunger.