Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Ent]

Whats the quickest way to get primal rocks? I made an edgy bleak walker paladin and I have fought quite a few of the other elementals except the earth one to get that corrosion lashing.

 

[Hyperion]

Endless Paths of Caed Nua. The floor with the 4 prisms, which is the same one where Kana's quest is triggered. I think you can buy them from one of the merchants in Ondra's Gift in Defiance Bay. Either the black market at night, or the Vailian Republic trader, outside the warehouse on the opposite side of Pallegina.

 

[ilitarist]

What are your goals with difficulty curve? Do you expect players to complete main questline with minimal effort and look for challenge in side activities and DLC? Is Pillars of Eternity Path of the Damned difficulty level supposed to make main questline a challenge even for completionist player?

The critical path in PoE is not meant to be particularly challenging outside of a few key encounters. Side content is supposed to be more challenging in general. Even among completionists, there’s wide variation in system mastery and patience (the latter of which is vital for several of the different challenge playthroughs). PotD is supposed to be more challenging (and require more system mastery) than Hard, but that’s all relative to the individual player.

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/153567054631/what-are-your-goals-with-difficulty-curve-do-you

Oh, he answered my question.

I know Sawyer didn't work on Tyranny and it seems he has the right idea about how difficulty is supposed to work but Tyranny guys didn't get the memo.

 

[Ent]

Does killing the back npcs do anything? Some of them look like they are carrying some nice weapons.

 

[Sizzle]

Does killing the back npcs do anything?

Only if you kill them with a specific soul-bound weapon

 

[Sentinel]

Does killing the back npcs do anything? Some of them look like they are carrying some nice weapons.

I once tried it and the whole of Defiance Bay was on my ass. Had to reload.

 

[gunman]

Is PotD easy from mid-game on? I am party-level 10 and beside some very rare spikes of difficulty the combat is trivial: select all, click on enemy, fire salvo killing it, rinse and repeat. I have enchanted some kick-ass guns, and they really are the ultimate weapons in this game. I am doing quests in Dyrford Village and I didn't start WM yet. Will it be easy too at levels 10-11 even with scaling?

Also I'm playing with in the Ironman mode and the closest I was of dying was somewhere in the endless paths where 4 of 6 party members were KO, with the remaining 2 fleeing. I don't like the Expert mode though. I finished my very first run with it (on normal difficulty), but now I like to customize my options because I need to know what happens behind the presented options. Also having AOE indicators alleviate somewhat the mess that are the combat visual effects in this game. Fighting those wind blights is an insult, the whole screen goes white and my computer chokes.

 

[Roguey]

Is PotD easy from mid-game on? I am party-level 10 and beside some very rare spikes of difficulty the combat is trivial: select all, click on enemy, fire salvo killing it, rinse and repeat. I have enchanted some kick-ass guns, and they really are the ultimate weapons in this game. I am doing quests in Dyrford Village and I didn't start WM yet.

Level 10 is overleveled for Dyrford/anything in Act 2.

 

[gunman]

I didn't do anything special, just trying to finish all quests for an area before moving to another. I remember on my first playthrough I was around the same level in Act 2, the only difference being I was playing on normal.

 

[Excidium II]

It's always gonna get easy, PotD just delays it.

 

[Infinitron]

Level 10 sounds high for "mid"-Act 2. IIRC you reach level 10 after you've done almost everything in Act 2.

 

[Excidium II]

It's not like you can lock your xp. What you gonna do, stop leveling up or avoid content so content doesn't get easy? P. degenerate.

 

[Sentinel]

All the challenge is in the expansion.

 

[Excidium II]

But you can't do the expansion or you'll end up overleveled and with op gear when you return.

 

[CptMace]

Overleveled for what, all the challenge is in the expansion.

 

[Roguey]

I didn't do anything special, just trying to finish all quests for an area before moving to another. I remember on my first playthrough I was around the same level in Act 2, the only difference being I was playing on normal.

The challenge levels for enemy groups in the base game aren't balanced for doing Od Nua, the bounties, and every sidequest. Even after the xp-reduction patch, they didn't want players required to do everything just to be even-leveled.

 

[Sentinel]

But you can't do the expansion or you'll end up overleveled and with op gear when you return.

What? Isn't that sort of mandatory?
IIRC you can't do the expansion content post-final boss. Regardless, it's not like the final fight is a big challenge anyway.

 

[Excidium II]

But you can't do the expansion or you'll end up overleveled and with op gear when you return.

What? Isn't that sort of mandatory?
IIRC you can't do the expansion content post-final boss. Regardless, it's not like the final fight is a big challenge anyway.

Well, you technically can, by just keeping an old mid-level save around.

 

[Sizzle]

But you can't do the expansion or you'll end up overleveled and with op gear when you return.

What? Isn't that sort of mandatory?
IIRC you can't do the expansion content post-final boss. Regardless, it's not like the final fight is a big challenge anyway.

There's optional level-scaling for Act III content.

 

[Bubbles]

The idea is to do one playthrough for the expansion, one playthrough for Od Nua, one playthrough for the main story without sidequests, and one playthrough for the sidequests. Massive replayability.

 

[Sentinel]

But you can't do the expansion or you'll end up overleveled and with op gear when you return.

What? Isn't that sort of mandatory?
IIRC you can't do the expansion content post-final boss. Regardless, it's not like the final fight is a big challenge anyway.

There's optional level-scaling for Act III content.

Then what's the problem here? He can do expansion content now if he wants to. He won't be "OP as fuck" if there's level scaling, even though I doubt level scaling does anything more than pump HP into enemies.

 

[Excidium II]

But how well does it work?

 

[Bubbles]

The "high level" option only adds a certain fixed amount of levels independent of party level, and it only adds the levels to a small amount of enemies, not to all of them. At level 10 he will have outleveled most of the WM Part 1 content no matter what.

 

[Sentinel]

I still found WM1 quite challenging and I went in at level 9.

 

[Bubbles]

It's designed for 6-7.