Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Drudkh]

I'm talking about all the "tranny" comments and the like, unless he'd say that he can tell someone is a tranny just from their voice.

 

[Excidium II]

Infinitron hates trannies!!

 

[Jack]

I'm talking about all the "tranny" comments and the like, unless he'd say that he can tell someone is a tranny just from their voice.

Eh, it sure sounds like a tranny to me.

 

[Shevek]

That Axe of the Blood God Interview was pretty great. He asked a series of meaty questions that required substantive answers. Good stuff.

 

[Zetor]

Wow! Josh admits they implemented hard counters by adding the various immunities in 2.0/3.0. "Or the possibility for hard counters".

That's another one of those situations where I get to laugh at the fanboys parroting developer points, this time at those who turned into the greatest critics of hard counters the minute they read Josh was against them.

Well, I just completed a POTD run of White March, and really didn't like how hard counters were implemented (and I don't really have anything for or against them on a design level).

Thing is, each hard counter is the same -- a fast-casting party-wide ability at each priest level, removing and giving immunity to various debuffs (level 1: fear/terror; level 2: weaken/sicken; level 3: hobbled/stuck; level 4: dazed/confused; level 5: paralyzed/petrified; level 6: charmed/dominated), which is really just Remove Fear with a different name and graphic. Since this is actually really easy to pull off, most of the threat from enemies using otherwise-deadly status effects is removed. There is also no counterplay from the enemies' side, since the only enemy I noticed that actually tried to remove / shorten buffs was Thaos. OK, fine.

The problem is, these abilities are so powerful that there is really no alternative to them, so if you don't have a priest, all you have is Suppress Afflictions (also a priest spell, though at least it's on a few commonly-found items)... but it has a slow casting time, so it won't save anyone who just got petrified or paralyzed on your frontlines. There is also Liberating Exhortation, but it's single-target and 1/encounter, plus your paladin may be taking better abilities anyway. These hard counters also significantly devalue abilities that decrease debuff time and improve saving rolls -- I had the level 2 chant reducing fear/terrified duration, but running it 24/7 essentially did fuckall when facing multiple enemies with fear auras (and usually even just one, if they managed to get a crit on the debuff time), and the level 4 chant giving bon uses to will and charm saves still had my critical people getting dominated/charmed left and right. So I just had my chanter use the ~big dps~ chants and pop priest scrolls / use the mace that gave 1 per-rest cast of Prayer against Treachery instead. Having the final upgraded form of the 1h sword give fear/terrify immunity also made my monk one of my most reliable damage-dealers, but there was no such option for my paladin and cipher.

But what made it really over the top was the heavy reliance on encounters in TWM that strongly recommended using one of these immunities: fampyr group in the woods, petrifying spiders, and a shitload of enemies with fear/terrify auras that turn your attackers into helpless kittens: death knights at Cragholdt, Cean Gwla, etc. These encounters were rather common, especially spirits (Josh even posted that spirits were by far the most common enemy type earlier, I think?). Essentially, if your party doesn't have a priest, a lot of encounters become really annoying and frustrating, while with a priest you can just cruise through them at the cost of a single per-rest spell slot.

The best-implemented aspect of hard counters was improved itemization: the helm giving immunity to Stuck, gloves giving Paralyze immunity if the user isn't near anyone else, and the aforementioned sword are good examples. Those made for some actually interesting strategic gear choices before fights... it's too bad the rest of it devolved to "buy a shitload of priest scrolls for the tank/chanter".

 

[AwesomeButton]

The most interesting thing to me from that interview is when Josh said "I think that's a fair criticism" after the interview stated something along the lines of "TWM I is mostly a dungeon crawl, and all the good stuff came in part II" The way i see it, that comment isn't just a criticism, it's simply the case.

That made me really curious to reach TWM2 sooner, because I think TWM1 is already pretty good.

Well, I just completed a POTD run of White March, and really didn't like how hard counters were implemented (and I don't really have anything for or against them on a design level).

I was going to point out their weaknesses and repetitiveness here, but you've done that below. Still, the game's combat is much better with them than it was without them.

Thing is, each hard counter is the same -- a fast-casting party-wide ability at each priest level, removing and giving immunity to various debuffs (level 1: fear/terror; level 2: weaken/sicken; level 3: hobbled/stuck; level 4: dazed/confused; level 5: paralyzed/petrified; level 6: charmed/dominated), which is really just Remove Fear with a different name and graphic. Since this is actually really easy to pull off, most of the threat from enemies using otherwise-deadly status effects is removed. There is also no counterplay from the enemies' side, since the only enemy I noticed that actually tried to remove / shorten buffs was Thaos. OK, fine.

You are right, countering afflictions with a Priest is easy, but the only difference with the IE games here is that in the IE games you could cast the protective spells before the combat. Besides casting defensive spells that give immunities to certain afflictions, there are also damage type immunities that a player needs to take into account.

This makes the beastiary important and I find myself looking for enemies of a certain type in the Russetwood for example, just so I can gather information for future encounters. The wussies who first play on Normal/Hard and then bash the game for being too easy don't do this and instead cry that the game is dumb because it doesn't shower them with XP, as if this is the only reward in a game.

Of course learning the enemies' stats won't feel like a reward when you are playing on an easy difficulty.

BTW, I cleared out Longwatch Falls (excluding the cave) yesterday. The Lagufaeth colony in the north took me like 3 attempts and some baiting, in order to limit the number of enemies to around 6-7 each time, otherwise they just swarm you with sneak attacks from range and drain one or two party members' health very quickly. BTW, call to slumber works very well against Lagufaeth Sidewinders, they are the ranged type with the sneak attacks.

Then the Gleaming Society took me 3 attempts until I beat them, thank God for Aloth's tentacle spell. Then the other Lagufaeth, and the fight vs the spirits in the North East were all very challenging and required some tuning of the party, to increase our chances and damage vs the respective enemy types.

The vampires in Russetwood I defeated from the first attempt, with a lvl 9 party. The trick is to 1) cast Prayer Against Fear (fuck it - "Protection from Fear"), 2) prevent them from reaching your casters, and 3) Dump all the fireballs and Shining Beacon, etc. on them.

Suppress Afflictions (also a priest spell, though at least it's on a few commonly-found items)... but it has a slow casting time, so it won't save anyone who just got petrified or paralyzed on your frontlines.

In fact as long as your priest is under your control and able to cast, you may have your whole party paralyzed, but if you cast Prayer Against Imprisonment it will give them the immunity AND remove the Paralyzed affliction at the same time. The same applies to all the other afflictions and their counters.

I think Josh's idea was to have a big number of factors that each affect the party's survivability to a small degree, and have the player combine their effects - character equipment bonuses, customized weapons causing specific damage types to which the enemy is more vulnerable, party formation, resting bonuses, which wizard spells you will prepare, and finally if a player has made use of every possible advantage, combined they make a significant difference in battle. That battle has to be on PotD, of course. It kind of reminds me of how I had to prepare during Monster Hunt missions in Witcher 3, although preparation there was interwoven with the quests' story.

I strongly agree with his criticism of combat pacing, if this was slowed down, combat would have been much easier to read and control, the game would have felt a lot closer to the IE games.

 

[Infinitron]

I suggested to Josh that instead of changing the Prayer spells to immunity, he could add a new series of immunity-granting "Improved Prayer" or "Greater Prayer" high level spells, so the hard countery stuff at least becomes a late game-only thing (and not even fully available in base PoE)

 

[Zetor]

I'd prefer some sort of opportunity cost too... right now they are just an IWIN button, whether in priest, scroll, or item ability form. Fast cast, hits entire party, removes effect in addition to immunity, no side effects, zzzz.

F'rex, the chanter invocation that gives fear immunity (think it's new to WM) is great: it means the chanter is not going to be able to use a "better" chant for a while, the area of application is limited instead of essentially hitting the entire party, and the hp regen portion of the chant can also make it a proactive ability... most importantly, the chanter needs to pick it instead of more appealing invocation options at levelups. Sure, the chanter can respec into it when facing tough fear-using enemies, but that sounds like ~degenerate gameplay~!

 

[prodigydancer]

Prayers should grant immunity. First, this actually makes Priest a valuable member of the team at lower levels (in vanilla PoE Priest was nearly worthless until level 7). Second, this has great synergy with certain Druid and Wizard spells. E.g. Tanglefoot and Binding Web are actually useful now. Fetid Caress also will also benefit from the combo but not as much (because Sickened isn't such a big deal).

 

[Infinitron]

Umm.

 

[prodigydancer]

A small price to pay...

 

[Excidium II]

Umm.

Looks like an achievement for ignoring half the active userbase.

Also you people say 3.0 made the game a lot better than 1.0 but then you say immunities ruined combat? Choose one FFS

 

[Seaking4]

I finished part 2 last night. I thought it was good too but also different than part 1. I stealthed the two biggest combat parts of the map (although stealth may not be an applicable term for the 2nd one). Definitely more epic than the first complete with getting PoE's version of Crom Faeyr. Overall, I thought the White March was better than the base game but I hadn't played since release so maybe the rest of the game is improved as well. Will be hard to tell given how overlevelled I am.

I also found where PoE lifted that bridge fight from (the one from part 1). It's identical to a fight you get in Icewind Dale.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Any idea where I can find good spell & talent guides which are still pertinent post white march 2 updates ? The exhaustive nerdcommando to be found on steam is filled with obsolete tips and obsidian's forum is much too quiet.

 

[Excidium II]

Any idea where I can find good spell & talent guides which are still pertinent post white march 2 updates ? The exhaustive nerdcommando to be found on steam is filled with obsolete tips and obsidian's forum is much too quiet.

Nag Pope Amole II to update his content.

 

[Zetor]

Also you people say 3.0 made the game a lot better than 1.0 but then you say immunities ruined combat? Choose one FFS

Who is "you people"? Pretty sure everyone who played WM had different opinions about it.

For me, immunities didn't ruin combat (and I pointed out that sometimes they are implemented OK, ie. items and the fear immunity invocation), they just make many encounters relying on status effects dull and possibly trivial if you have a priest or any other way to cast them and horribly annoying otherwise, plus they make a ton of the previously-balanced soft counter abilities obsolete. I said 3.0 is better because encounter design and itemization is better... I complained plenty about various aspects of the combat like how it was possible to defeat a top-level WM bounty on POTD full of dangerous casters by chokepointing the AI and killing them without taking more than a few scratches. Still, a lot of WM encounters have genuinely interesting enemies that actually use abilities now, so that's going to be a plus no matter what.

 

[Excidium II]

Speaking of which, do you still have to police yourself and not cheat by blocking doorways with tanks? Always felt like ultra cheap tactics in 1.X since the AI wasn't really equipped to handle that.

 

[Zetor]

Most of the time yea, though there are a few enemy warrior types that will knockback your tank with Clear Out and probably screw your group if you do that... happened to me a few times, good thing my offtanks could hold them back. This is a genuine improvement imo.

e: ninja'd... sorta

 

[Excidium II]

it would also be good to have cowardly/rational creatures just not engage you at all, if they see someone blocking way they should just try to avoid engagement, use ranged aoe, block LoS and force you inside.

 

[Infinitron]

More generally, in the future, I think Obsidian should try to design encounters that mimic the players' own chokepointing/turtling behavior. (Think Myth: The Fallen Lords, if you've played that. The AI there was really smart about standing its ground and making you wonder how you were going to crack through the enemy formations.)

Of course, they'd have to find a way to make those enemies resistant to your AoE spam.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Any idea where I can find good spell & talent guides which are still pertinent post white march 2 updates ? The exhaustive nerdcommando to be found on steam is filled with obsolete tips and obsidian's forum is much too quiet.

Nag Pope Amole II to update his content.

I see... I 'll nag, then.

Is he by any chance related to the famous Guac Amole ?

 

[Seaking4]

Speaking of which, do you still have to police yourself and not cheat by blocking doorways with tanks? Always felt like ultra cheap tactics in 1.X since the AI wasn't really equipped to handle that.

Sometimes. Wraiths will pull some characters across the room. It seemed like more enemies had ranged/aoe attacks. Barbarian enemies jump behind your front line. Same for monks. There weren't as many opportunities to use doorways as there were in the base game but when it was there it was an effective tactic.

 

[Excidium II]

I see, that's better.

 

[prodigydancer]

I see... I 'll nag, then.

He's already released TWM2 guides.

 

[AwesomeButton]

More generally, in the future, I think Obsidian should try to design encounters that mimic the players' own chokepointing/turtling behavior. (Think Myth: The Fallen Lords, if you've played that. The AI there was really smart about standing its ground and making you wonder how you were going to crack through the enemy formations.)

Of course, they'd have to find a way to make those enemies resistant to your AoE spam.

I used to intensively fool around with Myth II: Soulblighter's editing tools back in the day (my early teens), it's the same engine as Myth TFL, and you can actually designate a perimeter beyond which an enemy won't pursue the player's units. The tools were pretty advanced for their time I think.

PoE's enemies also have a maximum distance for chasing you since TWM1 and patch 2.0, but it's easier to bait them out of it if you have a speedy charater in the party.

Obsidian are already imitating player tactics by creating variants of enemy creatures (ogres and laguafaeth) which are casters or marksmen. It's working pretty well if they are positioned in accordance with the combat area. It was something I noted as a positive change here.