Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Lomer2]

I've always been of the opinion that PoE has a great setting and well thought out lore. It just doesn't do anything with it though. They were doing through the necessary motions with development of the first game, hitting the necessary stretch goal promises, nothing more. It was the expansions when they first got to afford themselves giving more detail to the world.

Maybe the connection of the actual game with the setting could have been developed even futher but the main story, the sidequests and the companions are still closely tied to the lore. For instance:

• The main story was closely related to the origin of the pantheon and the concept of the souls’ eternal cycle;
• Eder and Durance are closely connected to the conflict between the gods Eothas and Magran. Durance is
  Spoiler

  even involved in the Eothas’s demise and survives murder attempt from Magran;
• Kana Rua represents Rauatai civilization;
• Pallegina serves as window to the culture of the Vailian Republics;
• Hiravias is an instrument through which the domains of two gods are explained as he is contemplating his spiritual path: Galawain and Wael;
• Grieving Mother is closely tied to the consequences of the Hollowborn curse and also has connection with the goddess Hylea;
• Sagani is also a vehicle to explore the concept of souls’ rebirth and represents the culture of Naasitaq people;
• Devil of Caroc is a result of an extremely advanced application of Animancy and the latter is a major theme in the setting;
• Maneha is used to explore certain aspect of the goddess Ondra (memory gift);
• Zahua represents Nalpazca culture;
• Aloth has connection to
  Spoiler

  the main antagonist and his organization, thus is also connected to the pantheon and its purpose;
• In the course of the main quest, side quests and through certain locations all existing gods are introduced and explored.
• The history of Dyrwood is very often referenced in dialogues and books.

 

[Bubbles]

Damnit, it seems we're not likely to watch Josh Sawyer's presentation from GDC Europe 2016. They've marked the video as "members-only", unlike his previous presentation there. And there are videos from the previous GDC 2016 which are still members-only today. So likely this one will remain paywalled for a long time, possibly forever.

If audio-only is fine for you:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ogn0bdxw758qjc/160816_0025.MP3?dl=0

 

[Sensuki]

And before Sensuki blames it all on engagement again

Most casual players probably don't even know what it is, or at least how it works.

A more unified recovery system would be better for pacing reasons though, as demonstrated by the Infinity Engine games

 

[AwesomeButton]

If audio-only is fine for you:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ogn0bdxw758qjc/160816_0025.MP3?dl=0

Cool, I'll try listening to it. Thanks!

And before Sensuki blames it all on engagement again

Most casual players probably don't even know what it is, or at least how it works.

A more unified recovery system would be better for pacing reasons though, as demonstrated by the Infinity Engine games

Honestly I fail to comprehend how they can't have noticed this (the combat pacing difference) in the first place. I suppose they just didn't have time to iterate on it. I would have thought that anyone claiming he is, or ever was a fan of the IE games should be able to tell the combat is nothing like the IE games immediately. I know this was the first thing that struck me when I started the beta. What was on my mind was "Ok, this combat is just a placeholder until you make it like the IE games, like you promised you would make this game... right?"

 

[BlackAdderBG]

My biggest gripe with the lore is the abundance of magic or even why is it in the game.Wizards and Druids were just tacked on for sake of it.We have 4 types of magic-classical Wizards,Druids,animancy and ciphers.It would be more fitting to just have two of them and focus more on animancy.They could had gone with conflict within soul magic-ones are more in favor of technology side others like ciphers on spiritual or druidism and naturalism.
On top of that we have holy magic with paladins and priests ,it's just very poorly realized in Pillars universe.It could easily been part of the soul magic.

 

[Monkeysattva]

Fuck the lore. The narrative is disjointed, I mean so badly disjointed and stupid I couldn't stomach more than 5 hours.

After you leave the caravan and lose your companions (who are unimportant and have no connection to you whatsoever) you see the magical ritual of whatever (which is just vague bullshit) andcome to a village with a corpse tree. People don't seem to mind the corpse tree, and you can read a mini biography of random people of no importance. There's a dwarf inkeep. Somethin something about a Duke/Count. "Animancy" (btw, the most astoundingly stupid concept I've ever heard, that reeks of animu bullshit) You go to the castle sent by whoever and meet a mage - beat him and the castle is your base! Hurrah!

That's literally all I remember. After five hours. There is no urgency, no incentive, no hook. Every NPC feels like a waxwork figure with dialogue attached to him.

 

[Infinitron]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/150049575026/a-spoiler-ish-question-about-poe-setting-the

galagraphia asked: A spoiler-ish question about PoE setting: the machines which The Leaden Key activates, they harvest the souls before the babies are born? Or do they prevent the souls from reaching the babies? For example, is there a chance that Aufra's (pregnant woman from Gilded Vale) baby will be born with a soul after the machine in Cilant Lîs was activated?

They (or rather, the bîaŵacs that the machines create) prevent the souls from ever reaching the babies by tearing them apart in the Between. The machines are activated at irregular intervals, so it’s always possible that a baby can be born with a soul.

 

[CyberWhale]

I have to say that I'm pretty shocked Obisidan/Paradox still haven't released an expansion bundle on a slightly reduced price. For example, instead of having to buy two parts of The White March separately for 15 €/$, they could have given customers an opportunity to buy both of those in package for 25 Shekels instead.

 

[Infinitron]

I have to say that I'm pretty shocked Obisidan/Paradox still haven't released an expansion bundle on a slightly reduced price. For example, instead of having to buy two parts of The White March separately for 15 €/$, they could have given customers an opportunity to buy both of those in package for 25 Shekels instead.

? http://store.steampowered.com/sub/75481/

 

[CyberWhale]

? http://store.steampowered.com/sub/75481/

My Steam search doesn't show anything. Weird shit.

P.S. Wait, you have to open the store page of one of the parts and THEN you'll see the option to buy them bundled. Jesus fucking Christ, that was a terrible idea.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

24 euro Got both for 8,50$ on g2a

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Whose fault is that and why would I care.Fraudulent credit cards can be used to buy from anywhere,Ubisoft even removed origin,steam and their own keys in the past.

 

[mutonizer]

Since it seems to have reached stable/no more patch status and never bothered going through White March, been toying around the idea of doing another run of PoE instead of my yearly BG/BG2 runs.
Before I invest time in there though, any reason why it'd be worth it compared to release? Any major changes worth mentioning?

 

[Roguey]

Since it seems to have reached stable/no more patch status

They're currently working on 3.04.

All the major changes are noted at the top of the 2.0/3.0 changelogs.

• Companion AI - You may now set your companions to use AI. For those of you that do not want to micromanage your party, you may now choose to have the AI perform basic commands for you. You can activate and deactivate the AI control at any time, so you can still have ultimate party control when you need it. Each class has specialized AI packages and we will be adding more in the future.
• Improved Creature AI - Creatures and NPCs will now act more intelligently and make better use of their abilities and spells.
• Character Retraining - You may now retrain your character and modify their stats for a small fee.
• Individual Stealth - You may now place individual party members into scouting mode. If some of your party enters combat you will no longer have your entire party leave stealth.
• Range Indicators - There are now range indicators to let you know the casting range of spells and abilities. Now you will know if your wizard is going to move before he casts that Fireball. =)
• Accuracy Indicators - You are now shown the chance to hit on all attacks, abilities, and spells by mousing-over a potential target.

• New content for the Stronghold that has you, as lord or lady of Caed Nua, decide the fate of your vassals and send your companions on new and exciting adventures.
• There is also a new quest line that allows you to defend your claim to Caed Nua (will be released in 3.0 final).
• Knockout Injuries have been added as an option for those that want it. Injuries are added to characters that are knocked out in battle and are only removed by resting.
• Story Time mode has been added. This difficulty setting is for people that want to experience the Pillars of Eternity story without having to build a party of adventurers focused on combat.
• Athletics has been revamped so that it allows characters to cast Second Wind. A powerful healing ability. A higher Athletics skill increases the size of the heal.
• Survival now grants rest bonuses. A higher Survival skill will unlock more rest bonuses or increase the strength of existing bonuses.
• Many new creatures have been added to the Bestiary.
• The Action Bar has been reorganized so that it is easier for players to see their Per Encounter, Per Rest, and Watcher abilities.
• The end of the game (Act 3 and second half of Od Nua) has been revised to remove the number of "trash" encounters and increase their difficulty.
• A high level scaling option has been included for anyone that enters Act 3 at a high level.

In-between they also added creature immunities and changed the "resistance against" spells to immunity-granting spells.

 

[mutonizer]

They're currently working on 3.04.
All the major changes are noted at the top of the 2.0/3.0 changelogs.
[..]

Perfect answer, thanks Roguey.
Looks interesting enough to skip a year in my BG/BG2 tradition to at least give another go at PoE I guess.

 

[FreeKaner]

If you add a round system to the game might as well just make it turn-based (which I would prefer).

The round system in BG games is why I felt the game was badly realised real time done from corpse of a turn based ruleset. Pacing in PoE could definitely use work though, it is just too fast and combat can devolve into chaos if you lose control for few frames, often I was pausing every other frame and the combat took me upwards of a minute in real time when in game time it took 10 seconds. Recovery times need work and balancing but these are nothing past fixing with tuning overall. I think the main direction they should be working on is their narrative direction rather than combat, which worked fine, it was no RTS in its tactical aspect but it was strategic enough to require you to think about your composition and positioning before and during combat.

However then again I was never a fan of IE combat and prefer strategy to tactics in real time but overall prefer turn-based, some people are upset that the game is not BG2 and I am glad it improved upon the formula which felt stuck between worlds like a lot of genres from the time did as the possibilities of technology were being explored while not wanting to stray too far from the path. Real time is pop-a-mole anyhow.

 

[HoboForEternity]

However then again I was never a fan of IE combat and prefer strategy to tactics in real time but overall prefer turn-based, some people are upset that the game is not BG2 and I am glad it improved upon the formula which felt stuck between worlds like a lot of genres from the time did as the possibilities of technology were being explored while not wanting to stray too far from the path. Real time is pop-a-mole anyhow.

agreed. i am glad PoE didnt jsut right away copy the DnD game ruleset. it has problems like the chaotic mess the combat is, but DnD ruleset turned videogames, especially real time is a friggin mess in general. PoE tried to fix all those problems, but in the end, it has hard to make rtwp that isnt a chaotic mess to begin with, unless it's just 2 people party like the first NWN, or at most 3 like the KOTOR games.

 

[vortex]

Is there some news when will 3.04 happen?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

However then again I was never a fan of IE combat and prefer strategy to tactics in real time but overall prefer turn-based, some people are upset that the game is not BG2 and I am glad it improved upon the formula which felt stuck between worlds like a lot of genres from the time did as the possibilities of technology were being explored while not wanting to stray too far from the path. Real time is pop-a-mole anyhow.

agreed. i am glad PoE didnt jsut right away copy the DnD game ruleset. it has problems like the chaotic mess the combat is, but DnD ruleset turned videogames, especially real time is a friggin mess in general. PoE tried to fix all those problems, but in the end, it has hard to make rtwp that isnt a chaotic mess to begin with, unless it's just 2 people party like the first NWN, or at most 3 like the KOTOR games.

After beating PoE I've spent a whole year making fun of Sawyer's obsession about balance, but once I replayed the entire game after WM came out, I realized that he was right. The ruleset is quite complex and allows lots of wild experimentation. But on launch everything was so unbalanced, you just didn't need to look for that complexity, because even on PotD you could roll over everything with standard brand of tank&spank. It's really a completely different game now. I take a peak on Obsidian forums every now and then, and I continue to be amazed by crazy ass builds people come up with.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88805-304-update-on-our-next-patch/?p=1841455

Hey guys/gals,

We have a few more confirmed fixes to add to our list. I'll post an update Friday.

- Sking

Delaying the update until Monday. We got a few more fixes in that I can't verify until Monday.

- SKing

 

[HoboForEternity]

Can someone give me tips on alpine dragon? Level 15 level scaled to high level, currently soing part 2 of TWM.

I can hold on decently, cleared the weak mobs, then when it is showdown on him and my party alone, i cannot do significant damage on him. My physical attacker do scratch damage, my spellcasters spells are useless. I used the scale break stuff, and did decent damage, but in the end i always got wiped out

 

[Sentinel]

Can someone give me tips on alpine dragon? Level 15 level scaled to high level, currently soing part 2 of TWM.

I can hold on decently, cleared the weak mobs, then when it is showdown on him and my party alone, i cannot do significant damage on him. My physical attacker do scratch damage, my spellcasters spells are useless. I used the scale break stuff, and did decent damage, but in the end i always got wiped out

I just used Durance to buff Accuracy then spammed Petrify on him and he died relatively quickly. I was Lv13, no upscaling.
Hiravas/Druid's Relentless Storm is also extremely useful to keep all the ice mobs stunned through the entire fight. Remember to have one tank divert his attention and then have your entire party move to the opposite side of the area. It is vital that the alpine dragon is distracted so that he doesn't use the frost breath on your entire party. However be careful to not stand too close to him because he has a tail sweep that can still fuck you up.

If the fight drags on for too long focus on removing those frightened debuffs with your priest or rings of suppress affliction. They make hitting the dragon almost impossible.

 

[Sentinel]

I'm just now playing through White March Part 2. Did Sawyer forget that Icewind Dale rewarded the player in some way or another for fighting all the monsters?
This entire Abbey Moon area is some of the shittiest content in PoE. Fighting hordes of 10 enemies every 5 seconds, fights that can last 5~10 minutes each time, and the areas have nothing interesting at all to reward the player. You don't get exp since the enemies don't have bestiary entries, there's no interesting items, there's no world building of any kind or any books/notes to provide new information on existing characters (such as expanding on Ondra). I'd really like to know who the fuck designed this area. What the hell were they thinking.
So far a story that seemed pretty interesting is completely ruined by the pointless pseudo-dungeon crawling.

 

[Sensuki]

I found the majority of Pillars areas to be like that.

 

[Sentinel]

I found the majority of Pillars areas to be like that.

I just played through the game a second time with the 3.0 patches, they seemed to have rectified a lot of that, as I never felt this disgusted throughout the 50 hours it took me.
It strikes me as odd that they'd fix the main game and then make the same mistake in the 2nd part of the expansion, except this time it's much worse. At least in PoE 1.0 it was trash mobs, in White March Part 2 it's groups of fucking NPC monks, wizards and ciphers that you have to fight over and over and over and over and over again in battles that last some 10 minutes each. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I'm surprised that someone who does such a poor job at area design has a job as an area designer.