Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Saxon1974]

Update Notes 3.01 https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84555-update-301-is-now-live/

Spoiler

Major Fixes

• Fixed a problem where players were unable to loot containers in Ondra's Gift at night.
• Using Abydon's Hammer will now properly unequip offhand items.
• Fixed an issue to prevent the game hanging on completion of some Stronghold adventures.

White March Specific

• Marunn's door in the Great Hall will no longer be sealed if the area, for any reason, resets its persistence data upon returning to it from lower levels of the battery.
• Various balance fixes to combats and skill checks in the Abbey of the Fallen Moon.
• Fixed white box effect appearing on tentacle emerge in Maneha's cutscene in Burden of Memory quest.
• Cleaned up the infiltration option into the Abbey of the Fallen Moon so it will feel less confusing.
• Fixed an issue where attacking Kaoto after peaceful dialogue, then sneaking into Halls of Silence unseen by any other guards, and then selecting a particular dialogue option if discovered by guards in Halls of Silence, will no longer cause the game to hang.
• Adjusted Maneha's stats down to 78. Previously they were at 81.
• Fixed an issue in the Ice Floes scripted interaction in Cayron's Scar so it will display the correct name when a Dexterity check is failed.
• Picking up Grey Sleeper while your character's inventory is full will no longer delete your character's previously equipped weapon.
• Fixed issue with a guard in Cragholdt Bluffs that barks "You had your chance" after every dialogue ending.
• Fixed issues with Mowrghek Ien where combats could be started with enemies that the player could not reach.
• Updated Kraken Poison Cloud to use correct icon/name.
• Fixed problem where the fort gate may not open during an Eyeless attack.
• Ending interstitial now plays proper VO.

Spells and Abilities

• Lowered Reaping Knives focus gain to 30% so that it'll be the correct amount after Soul.
• Updated Healing Chain so its no longer a Spell Chance and now it correct functions as a Spellbind.
• Fixed Triumph of the Crusaders so it is now working correctly.
• Characters now gain Second Wind correctly.
• Fixed a problem where characters were getting Second Wind twice.
• Fixed Distant Advantage accuracy bonus applying as a penalty.
• Updated Hope Eternal so that it now works correctly.

Items

• Infinite-duration status effects from missing equipment will be removed on load.
• Added the Outmanuvering Name to the 2nd unlock for Steadfast for certain classes.
• Steadfast now has the correct unlock for Druids.
• Gyrd Haewanes Stenes will now present a pop-up UI on its final level up.

Gameplay

• Updated new traps so they're using the correct icons and names. Also updated the the Part I Killing Bolt Trap and Storm of Fire Trap.
• Fixed some resting options in dialogues that were not working correctly.
• Option to buy veteran troops for the battle of Yenwood will no longer only display once. It will stay available until purchased.
• Fixed issue with traps not being marked as "Detected" soon enough. This was causing high Mechanics party members to detect friendly "traps" from some spells.

UI

• Fixed area maps so the fog of war correctly covers the entire map in some areas that were having problems.
• Added the sketch to Abydon's Hammer.
• Hooked up new icons for various Eyeless abilities.
• Fixing some bestiary bugs. Eyeless Stonepiercers using the wrong names and Snow Bears not counting to the right Bestiary entry.
• Snow Bear added into the bestiary.
• Fixed grimoire learn buttons not showing the first time a grimoire was opened.
• Form of the Delemgan should have redundant entries in the UI removed.
• Better UI formatting for abilities that reduce affliction durations.

Nice, OK maybe I'll play now...even though I'm sure there will be more

 

[prodigydancer]

Well, DW Rogue is a beast in 3.0 - at least in early game. Maybe it's just me but as far as I can recall in vanilla they were mostly good at dying. Now they inflict so much damage so fast nothing lives long enough to touch them. With 22 Dex (20 natural + 2 from Fulvano's Gloves) dual sabers attack speed is insane and sneak attack hits for ~30. And it's not so hard to hit stuff even on PotD when you have Acc 48 at level 2. In fact, you can have 50 if you roll a Hearth Orlan (with some hit->crit conversion to boot).

At higher levels I guess AoE is still king but when the party doesn't have so many AoE abilities yet having a character that can quickly reduce the number of enemies is great.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Maybe it's just me but as far as I can recall in vanilla they were mostly good at dying

Probably you just couldn't play with them. My first playthrough was with a rogue, and he was just as effective, again with dual sabres and maxed out Dexterity. The thing that's changed now is that you can upgrade your Accuracy by pumping up Perception and give yourself a good boost in the early levels.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Found all the missing mobs from earlier parts,don't think they balanced TWM that much

Spoiler

5 meters to the west,oh crap more missing mobs

Spoiler

 

[AN4RCHID]

I am at that part from 1st pic now. the encounters are so highly concentrated I keep triggering the next group of enemies while still fighting the first one.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Hahah yea if I knew there is a lot more after that would had rushed to aggro the whole group just to see all the glory in action ,there is maybe 40 mobs total in that corner.And the fuckers are attacking mad fast too,you had to pull them separately 3-4 at time,if that are the better encounters some people say TWM have I call them bulshiters.

 

[Anthedon]

Those dense packs are fun when you use mind control spells. Confused enemies love to pull shit from all over the map.

 

[Nihiliste]

Started a new game on PotD. The patches have definitely improved the gameplay experience a bit. Looking forward to getting to the expansion areas.

 

[Rivmusique]

Finished it. Was great. Did it on PotD by continuing from a save I'd made right at the end of Part 1 main quest. Was level 10 on my return to rebuilt stalwart.

Spoiler

First thing I did after running around the village vacuuming up side quests was try to do the mine stuff. Jesus Christ, I actually had to leave the Vithrack part with 2 fights remaining to rest at the inn. Went back in, beat up those 2 fights, then went in to the 'boss' room and got absolutely destroyed, the tentacle mobs 3 shotting my toughest party members, ended up going back in there only after completing the part 2 main quest. I guess I should have checked my bestiary, them being level 13-15 was probably my queue to get out. Odd to put the hardest encounters (besides the new bounties (the one in dyrford crossing being the best) and those in the new cragholdt bluffs equivalent area, which was excellent for a 16 party) in the closest location though, I suspect I'm not alone in thinking that was a good thing to do first.

Most of the new soulbound weapons are good, still not happy with how you upgrade most of them though (kill x enemies, one even has kill x enemies with a critical hit, thank god I still had ~1/2 of act 2 and all of Od Nua to go, actually going for that against same level enemies would suck). The sword had a broken ability, forums say I should have got something that lets its attack target will instead of deflection, but I just got "Missing Ability-1".

The final boss of part 2 main quest seemed to do practically nothing, the tentacles immediately surrounded my whole party, only to get absolutely shredded by barbarian carnage/spark of the righteous, meanwhile the head just sat up the back. After the tentacles dropped everyone just auto-attacked the head to death then some eyeless came out. No one even dropped below 50%. Thaos was tougher imo. Concelhaut and his new rival are the best boss fights, but having similar difficulty on the crit path might upset people.

Monk enemies remain the most dangerous non-boss foes. I don't know what's up with them, I think maybe they don't use resources? A few times they seemed to do that "charge target, damage those in path" ability right off the bat, and that should cost 3 wounds. Then they just hit super fast and hard + have high defenses.

Act 3 scaling wasn't enough to bring the enemies up to compete with a 15-16 party, I'm not even sure which fights were buffed. I didn't really notice encounter reductions too much, did notice some new group compositions (eg. sporelings among Dyrford Beetles, druids among burial isle spirits, a lot more Adragans all over the place really.

The new Keep stuff is pretty cool, the quest chain ending in a battle was great, especially the CYOA-giving-orders bit and the allies based on what you've done. The minor, major, grand adventure stuff have all been given text telling you what you're sending your party members to do and more text telling you how it went when it is done. The item rewards from them are now very interesting, often limited use, quite powerful abilities eg. a 7 use resurrection item, a 5 use suppress effects on enemy item, a book that goes in your pet slot and has 1 cast of a variety of spells. Still can't fail them and it's quite absurd what they get up to in such a short amount of time (it's based on you completing/progressing quests, so they occasionally go all around the world in a few minutes/hours ).

The new Cragholdt followup was great, but probably too easily missable. You have to go to stalwart village after killing Concelhaut, but if you play it un-scaled like I did, it's not unlikely that you'll be completely done with stalwart before you go to Cragholdt. I only ended up going back because I could see that the legendary enchant for armour required bog dragon's scales and I was ready to comb the whole damn place for something I missed, only to find the lead in in the middle of the village now that I had murdered Concelhaut. I don't know, maybe have the stronghold receive a message if you're 16 and Concelhaut is dead? The new spells you get from her grimoire (if you kill her, you can end this one peacefully for an alternate reward) are amazing, sans the highest level one which is only really useful for her to use on you (it conceals HP and causes sickness, I don't think the AI would mind). My favourite was the summon weapon, it's auto attacks leave a ball at the targets feet that explodes in a little while for huge AoE raw damage vs reflex. That combined with alacrity of motion (haste) is devastating damage.

Really looking forward to PoE 2. But we are so damn powerful and have so many abilities at this point, if they continue the Watcher's adventures there's going to have to be a level down or something, a new player seeing this massive toolkit would lose it.

 

[Nihiliste]

Yes as much as I complain about some of the flaws of PoE, I hope they announce a sequel. Now that they have the foundation to build on I imagine the 2nd game will be much better, since they can focus on the creative process.

Was this game profitable enough for Obsidian to go back to the well? I saw that it sold 500k by late October - seems it wasn't as much of a revenue generator as D:OS which completely changed Larian's outlook.

 

[Rev]

Yes as much as I complain about some of the flaws of PoE, I hope they announce a sequel. Now that they have the foundation to build on I imagine the 2nd game will be much better, since they can focus on the creative process.

Was this game profitable enough for Obsidian to go back to the well? I saw that it sold 500k by late October - seems it wasn't as much of a revenue generator as D:OS which completely changed Larian's outlook.

They've sold about 700k copies on Steam alone, so considering GOG and other selling platforms they should've at least be around 800k, which are good numbers given the budget of the game and the fact that most of it came from KS and not from their own pockets.
So yeah, it was fairly profitable and Obsidian has already hinted at a sequel in many occasions over the last months (it may turn out to be the Project Louisiana that was teased by Sawyer on Twitter).

 

[Grotesque]

How does the itemization changed in regard to the original release?
Still feels like munching on wood chips?

 

[Jinn]

Hey, I seem to recall an outline by Josh Sawyer posted earlier in this thread that detailed his recommended path through the OC and TWM I&II in terms of experience gain and level and I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Can someone with a better memory than me link me to the page or just post what they recall? It would be much appreciated.

 

[Rev]

How does the itemization changed in regard to the original release?
Still feels like munching on wood chips?

It's not BG2, but the soulbound weapons are a nice addition: most (if not all) of them have unique properties and they also "level up" and get better stats when you meet certain requirements.

Hey, I seem to recall an outline by Josh Sawyer posted earlier in this thread that detailed his recommended path through the OC and TWM I&II in terms of experience gain and level and I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Can someone with a better memory than me link me to the page or just post what they recall? It would be much appreciated.

It's not from Sawyer but maybe this can help:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84292-order-to-play-the-game-through/#entry1777169

The only post I remember about Sawyer and XP gain is Infinitron's post in the last page.

 

[Jinn]

Ahhhh. That's who it was from. Thanks a lot, Rev.

 

[bloodlover]

How exactly does Story Mode balance things in the player's favour? I can't find any reliable info except this and no limit to campfires. Apparently it's still normal difficulty.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post456604552

Cagedund never made it beyond the initial concept phase. Forton was also displaced at the same stage because we just didn't have enough time to do every initial character concept. Eder's appearance and temperament shifted from the initial write-up because RPGs did not need another brooding, pensive, dark-haired, beardsly guy. Aloth and Sagani remained close to their initial concepts, though I think Sagani may have had a snow leopard in her first line drawing.

Eder switched from fighter to rogue and back again. Pallegina's earliest concept was actually a rogue working as a spy for the Vailian Republics, but that shifted pretty early on.

How exactly does Story Mode balance things in the player's favour? I can't find any reliable info except this and no limit to campfires. Apparently it's still normal difficulty.

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/134863055396/any-details-available-on-what-story-time-mode-will

 

[Roguey]

We didn't want this thing, so we made him a more grounded Alistair.

As far as brooding, pensive, dark-haired, beardsly guys go I like Blackwall well enough.

 

[Infinitron]

We didn't want this thing, so we made him a more grounded Alistair.

In some ways he sounded more like Alistair during the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/315214

Oh and we have a little piece of artwork to share as well. The following is one of our traditional race and class combinations - the Human Fighter - but he's not just any Human Fighter. He has an integral role in the story that we will be hinting at soon. Don't worry, we will also be sharing more and more of the non-traditional options in the days and weeks to come.

Eder isn't really integral to anything at all, no heir to the throne he.

I still call him an expanded Bevil Starling.

 

[AN4RCHID]

It's not from Sawyer but maybe this can help:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84292-order-to-play-the-game-through/#entry1777169

I'm basically following this path. I would probably recommend doing Dyrford before TWM though - hitting the white march at 7th level is pretty tough, and Dyrford at 11th - 12th is going to be a complete faceroll.

 

[Athelas]

RPGs did not need another brooding, pensive, dark-haired, beardsly guy.

 

[Roguey]

Durance is the funny-kind of brooding though, I imagine Josh was referring to the "played-seriously" kind.

 

[Infinitron]

He means this kind:

Interestingly, having dark hair is an integral part of this trope, so an Aryan blonde guy like Eder actually averts it. An interesting twist to a complaint that's usually SJW-tinged.

 

[CptMace]

People still aren't done with their complex of inferiority to Rome ay

 

[Bleed the Man]

Damn, Whispers in the Dark (the stalwart mines quest from part 2) is pure dungeon crawl greatness. It's very likely the best PoE has offered in terms of encounter design by a fair margin I think.