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

[Brancaleone]

Such grand themes, yet sound so laughable in the context of PoE.

That's their trademark in general, going for lofty and pretentious stuff which they haven't got the talent or skill to execute even passably, but which they can babble about ad libitum, so that their fans can wank off to the tune of "my chosen type of entertainment might not be very entertaining, but by golly, I feel such an Intellectual!".

 

[Salvo]

We all know which characters are the best,but what about the worst. So guys who do you think is the worst character in PoE?

Maneha's the only character I actively dislike. She feels odd and too modern.

 

[Quillon]

My main party had Eder AND Durance

My main party had to have Durance AND GM most of the time cos MCA designed their quests to be updated and completed at uncertain points of the game/story and through resting, which meant I had to have them in the party and urged me to rest more often then needed to make sure I complete their quests. This privileged design made companion choice incoherent, biased towards having Durance and GM in the party for completionists like me. When I arrange a party, a given companion's relevance to the area I'm in and quests I'm doing come first, this limited that flexibility while trying to keep a viable party. In a way MCA forced me to play with the companions he wrote. This would have been fine if there were only 5 companions/no party choice. And even if this was not the case I think I'd have Durance in the party most of the time anyway, cos of his class and he's not half bad a character :D GM on the other hand costed me time spent with Hiravias the most; who otherwise could have become one of my mains, he/a druid can also replace a priest in a party more easily.

Here's hoping they won't pull shit like this in Deadfire.

 

[Lacrymas]

Here's hoping they won't pull shit like this in Deadfire.

They won't, they don't know how to do pacing, so everyone will say whatever it is they want to say in the first minute you meet them, don't worry. There's no danger of having coherent characters in DF.

 

[Cross]

My main party had Eder AND Durance

My main party had to have Durance AND GM most of the time cos MCA designed their quests to be updated and completed at uncertain points of the game/story and through resting, which meant I had to have them in the party and urged me to rest more often then needed to make sure I complete their quests. This privileged design made companion choice incoherent, biased towards having Durance and GM in the party for completionists like me. When I arrange a party, a given companion's relevance to the area I'm in and quests I'm doing come first, this limited that flexibility while trying to keep a viable party. In a way MCA forced me to play with the companions he wrote. This would have been fine if there were only 5 companions/no party choice. And even if this was not the case I think I'd have Durance in the party most of the time anyway, cos of his class and he's not half bad a character :D GM on the other hand costed me time spent with Hiravias the most; who otherwise could have become one of my mains, he/a druid can also replace a priest in a party more easily.

Here's hoping they won't pull shit like this in Deadfire.

God forbid you actually have to spend some time with people before they open up to you.

 

[fantadomat]

We all know which characters are the best,but what about the worst. So guys who do you think is the worst character in PoE?

Maneha's the only character I actively dislike. She feels odd and too modern.

Wasn't she like unfinished? She didn't even had that much dialogue. For me the worst character was the shark idiot.

 

[Quillon]

God forbid you actually have to spend some time with people before they open up to you.

This would have been fine if there were only 5 companions/no party choice.

Interpret it however you want, GM & Durance have unfair advantage over others, you may not care but its a fact.

FYI, I think Pallegina, Kana and Sagani spill their guts from the get go while the rest don't so I don't think this has anything to do with their quest structure which I'm criticizing. Durance also does it but there is the arbitrary limit in his dialogue per session, such pacing.

 

[Bester]

Best character: Calisca
Worst character: the rest of the lot

 

[fantadomat]

Best character: Calisca
Worst character: the rest of the lot

Joke aside,i really felt disappointed when she died. Really liked her for the 10 minutes she lived. She must have been the love interest until they scraped the idea. The only thing that i wanted to fuck in the whole game.

 

[2house2fly]

Maneha, definitely. Her voice acting and dialogue just feel way off for the mind of character she is. Too much annoying Biowarey quirkiness

 

[roll-a-die]

My main party had Eder AND Durance

My main party had to have Durance AND GM most of the time cos MCA designed their quests to be updated and completed at uncertain points of the game/story and through resting, which meant I had to have them in the party and urged me to rest more often then needed to make sure I complete their quests. This privileged design made companion choice incoherent, biased towards having Durance and GM in the party for completionists like me. When I arrange a party, a given companion's relevance to the area I'm in and quests I'm doing come first, this limited that flexibility while trying to keep a viable party. In a way MCA forced me to play with the companions he wrote. This would have been fine if there were only 5 companions/no party choice. And even if this was not the case I think I'd have Durance in the party most of the time anyway, cos of his class and he's not half bad a character :D GM on the other hand costed me time spent with Hiravias the most; who otherwise could have become one of my mains, he/a druid can also replace a priest in a party more easily.

Here's hoping they won't pull shit like this in Deadfire.

So I'm gonna tell you a story.

I play a game to get my rocks off, a literal porn game. This game has a number of characters, companions and crew mates really.

I found myself the other day, going through one of the characters dialogues, fucking them, and then literally sleeping for multiple days, and pestering them to trigger a story advance to unlock more of their story.

This is the same behavior and urge you are describing. A drive to complete, for completions sake.


For fucks sake, the game has 8 companions. Why the fuck are you more concerned with completing the ones you seem to not like, when you could be concerned with actually enjoying your time?

I fucking hate this modern completionist mindset. If you find yourself doing something in your leisure time. you don't enjoy. Stop, think, "Are there any skills I could be learning, any thing else I could do that I might enjoy more than this."

But no, "I spent 30 bucks on this game, and I'm not enjoying it. So I'm gonna spend hours bitching on a forum about how the developers put in characters that 'wasted' my timey wimeys."

If you aren't enjoying something, bitch about not enjoying it. Don't fucking go playing it to completion to prove an arbitrary point. It's not an achievement to do something you don't enjoy, in time you should've spent on something fun. Stars and stones man, that's not called an achievement, that's called a god damn waste of time.

Calisca is probably my favorite dies in the opening NPC since, "Oh shut up and get on with it" summarily gets his head cut off guy from Skyrim. I wanted to play that guy, and have bad ass one liners, and just be a generally belligerent asshole to everyone around me. But nope, instead I have to be mediocre generalist dragon soul eating guy who does everyone elses bidding mostly without question.

 

[2house2fly]

Man I'd forgotten about that guy in Skyrim. He was cool.

 

[fantadomat]

Man I'd forgotten about that guy in Skyrim. He was cool.

What guy?

 

[Quillon]

Don't fucking go playing it to completion to prove an arbitrary point.

Sure, I'm not perfect and am a completionist, I could be so much more and shit thanks for the advices. I don't play games to completion to prove anything, arbitrary things learned comes naturally. Tho you don't have to be a completionist to see the quest structure difference between GM-Durance and the rest.

 

[2house2fly]

Man I'd forgotten about that guy in Skyrim. He was cool.

What guy?

One of the other prisoners in the intro, he keeps talking shit to the imperials and when they march him out to be beheaded he says "OK yes cool let's do this" and as they've got him kneeling down he says "my ancestors are smiling on me, can you people say the same"

 

[fantadomat]

Man I'd forgotten about that guy in Skyrim. He was cool.

What guy?

One of the other prisoners in the intro, he keeps talking shit to the imperials and when they march him out to be beheaded he says "OK yes cool let's do this" and as they've got him kneeling down he says "my ancestors are smiling on me, can you people say the same"

Oh yeah that guys,he is total boss, i hope i go out like him or even better if it is in battle!

 

[Alienman]

So what is the consensus on the Pillars 2 beta? Better, worse?

 

[Cross]

If Eder was written by Avellone and Durance by random dude...codex would have been like:

"Omg Eder best written character of Poe, that personal struggle i almost cryed so intense,"

"Omg Durance so edgy why those crap writers need to make borderline characters just to being noticed, so boring omg"

Let's face the reality

What a stupid scenario. Eder and Durance would've been written completely differently if that happened.

Eder would have been suspicious of everyone and talked about everything in terms of light, dawn, and the harvest. He would actively hide the fact that he even had a brother until you had unclear visions which turned out to be Eder killing a Raedceran soldier on the battlefield, a man who he realised too late was... his brother. He would carry unique weapons completely unsuitable for a Fighter. He would describe himself due to survivors guilt as a stalk of wheat just waiting for the reaper to notice he was still standing and cut him down, but due to the dawn of your insight dispersing the mists of his ignorance he would realise that he was the reaper all along.

Now if Durance was written by the guy who wrote Eder, who can say what that would be like.

Where do you get the idea from that Avellone couldn't write a 'normal' character? Even in a setting like Planescape, he made a relatively mundane character like Annah one of the companions to give a face to the lowliest of Hive dwellers.

That's another issue with PoE's companion roster: variety, or rather, the lack thereof. With the exception of Durance and the Grieving Mother, everyone is mild-mannered, conscientious and mostly well-adjusted, even 'wild' characters like Hiravias. Not only is it boring, but it also feels artificial that such a diverse group of people would all behave so similarly.

 

[Jezal_k23]

So what is the consensus on the Pillars 2 beta? Better, worse?

From what I can gather, since I can't play it, they made some questionable decisions but it is nevertheless much more polished than PoE's backer beta.

 

[CptMace]

I'll step forward and dare to say what most people think. PoE2 is a solid candidate to the 10 best crpg beta access of all time.

 

[Quillon]

I'll step forward and dare to say what most people think. PoE2 is a solid candidate to the 10 best crpg beta access of all time.

List 10 crpgs that have/had beta access

 

[Grotesque]

Eder resonates with folks that grew up with their father's frontline Vietnam war stories, lost a brother/sister to drugs or armed robbery, now have children to take care of and must work off their asses through honest means because they have an intrinsical healthy moral compass due to a proper upbringing.

Durance is for the still inept that grew on (as rednecks call it) "young adult" vampire fantasy fiction and has the basement room walls filled with posters of Bruce Willis and wanks off to Sabrina's nipples that pierce her swim-suit in the "Boys Boys Boys" video and occasionally steals from stores as his way of fighting the savage capitalism.

 

[fantadomat]

So what is the consensus on the Pillars 2 beta? Better, worse?

From what i read here,it is both. Writing is better,new class system is retarded. Yet there is still hope of becoming masterpiece.

 

[Sizzle]

If Eder was written by Avellone and Durance by random dude...codex would have been like:

"Omg Eder best written character of Poe, that personal struggle i almost cryed so intense,"

"Omg Durance so edgy why those crap writers need to make borderline characters just to being noticed, so boring omg"

Let's face the reality

What a stupid scenario. Eder and Durance would've been written completely differently if that happened.

Eder would have been suspicious of everyone and talked about everything in terms of light, dawn, and the harvest. He would actively hide the fact that he even had a brother until you had unclear visions which turned out to be Eder killing a Raedceran soldier on the battlefield, a man who he realised too late was... his brother. He would carry unique weapons completely unsuitable for a Fighter. He would describe himself due to survivors guilt as a stalk of wheat just waiting for the reaper to notice he was still standing and cut him down, but due to the dawn of your insight dispersing the mists of his ignorance he would realise that he was the reaper all along.

Now if Durance was written by the guy who wrote Eder, who can say what that would be like.

Where do you get the idea from that Avellone couldn't write a 'normal' character?

He wrote Cass from Fallout: New Vegas, and she's pretty normal.

 

[Maculo]

So what is the consensus on the Pillars 2 beta? Better, worse?

My quick take aways:

• Far more stable than PoE1, especially PoE1 beta. Loads times are much improved.
• A lot of potential combinations with multiclass system. At the same time, single class characters feel left behind, if not a little too streamlined.
• Combat is more clear in my opinion. An icon over top each characters shows what the character is doing (casts, melee attack, etc) and lets you see recovery (i.e., how much time is left until the action completes or when the next attack occurs).
• Personally (cannot emphasize this enough), I think the initial village and quests/npcs/story are more consistent than PoE1. Granted, I have only one village to base this off of, but my impressions are more positive than Dyrwood village. I like the dilemma presented to the player over whether the tribe should stay on a barren island (well positioned for trade) in the hope that trade and foreign powers will save it, or move to a more habitable island, albeit potentially losing the opportunity of a life time. Many of the npcs and quests seem to tie into that struggle. I liked it.
• The adventure panels are great (not sure what to call them really). I ran into a special encounter in which I had the choice to send my rogue in to scout first, and then choose whether to ambush, summon a drake, cast a lightning, or turn back. After you make your choices, you zone in to the area.
• Continued debate on whether the spell/ability changes are a good thing. First, spells and abilities are all now per encounter, except for the new empower system that has a limited number of charges. An empower charge can strengthen an ability or grant additional charges of spells (great if you need more heals). Second, the health/endurance system was replaced by wounds. A wound happens when a character is knocked out. Each wound reduces health and stats, and a total of 3 wounds (number may depend on difficulty) means instant death. The wound system is too easy and forgiving in my opinion (see suggestion below).

Ultimately, I am positive about the beta, but I would like to see some changes. Specifically, I would like general feats return for single class characters. Moreover, I would like Obsidian to expand on the wound system to give certain enemies the ability to wound a character without the need to knock out a character (e.g., when the Titan Watcher throws a character, have the throw produce a wound) . In conjunction, I would give Priests and Druids limited means to remove wounds in combat (high level ability), and give Fighters/Paladins a way to shrug off wounds (again, I would make it a high level ability).