Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[AwesomeButton]

With this, for me Sawyer is absolved from blame about much of PoE's flaws. I hope PoE2 will demonstrate what they wanted to have in the first place.

 

[Lacrymas]

All hail St. Sawyer, the flawless demiurge who doesn't have much blame for PoE's problems! Of course he isn't to blame for the majority of PoE's flaws, that was obvious before this. Using him as a scapegoat was always a pretty stupid move. He is to blame for the combat being a trainwreck, though.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

All this whining makes me want to do a 3rd playthrough.

Time to improve my passive auto-play party. The last one had the backline of ranged Cypher, ranged Fighter and ranged Paladin, front two of Eder and tank Chanter, with reach weapon glass cannon Barb in the middle.

Ideas?

 

[Lacrymas]

If you don't want a passive party you'd have to intentionally gimp everyone so you have to do something beyond rolling out the buffs with your priest. I'd say the most active party would be one with a non-optimized druid, priest, wizard and chanter in it. Don't include a cipher, they are absolutely broken and will dominate everything once they get Amplified Wave and totally trivialize the whole game when they get Defensive Mindweb, but DM is an end-game spell. If going for Trial of Iron, though, it's different and I don't have suggestions :p But I assume you'd have to play very defensively.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Passive party is exactly what I want, because RtwP is an abomination that needs to die in fire. So Cypher is non-negotiable since it's the best passive class in the game because it doesn't rely on per-rest spells so you can just let the AI manage everything.

 

[Lacrymas]

Ah, I thought you meant you want a more active party. Passive party is easy - 6 chanters singing Come, Come Soft Winds of Death, I think that was the one which stacks with itself and is absolutely broken. If it isn't that exact chant, it's still one of the chants or invocations.

 

[Roguey]

‘If this game does not come out in March, you guys are both gone after this project.’

It came out all right, but it wasn't anywhere near finished.

 

[Iznaliu]

With this, for me Sawyer is absolved from blame about much of PoE's flaws. I hope PoE2 will demonstrate what they wanted to have in the first place.

We've been telling you this all along.

 

[Fry]

He was the project director. Blame ultimately falls on him.

Regardless, the reasons behind PoE's failures are understandable in context.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The important thing is they are improving.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Since they have experience with the tech now, hoping Deadfire will be like their BG2.

 

[Sherry]

Just completed Cragholdt and one-shot every encounter, including Concelhaut. Concelhaut's Crushing Doom surprised me and, since I had no idea what it did, I just Withdrew everyone he cast it on. What is there more to say? You know what every mob does by this point and it was pretty easy to anticipate how the fight will go, so I just preemptively buffed my team with the appropriate spells when the combat started. Only my Ranger got knocked out. I thought Concelhaut will do more damage. Every other encounter was pretty boring and uneventful. The reveal of what his phylactery actually is was inventive and cool. The fight was also cool and it wasn't over in 15 seconds. The game really needs a better interface, at least one which shows the debuffs you have on more clearly.

Hi!

gosh this was a tough battle for me to slog through because the first time I thought it was going well but everyone was in the main chamber so I had no bottle necks to manipulate and use to my advantage and despite Concelhaut being the last one to take down I still lost that battle. The second time I used the doorway to control the fight using crowd control methods and spells and focusing on Concelhaut from a safe distance. The whole area is one of my favorites in White March and I truly enjoyed how it continued to the swampy region afterwards as the story and legend progressed. By far the best part of White March experience for me. I am really looking forward to more of such combat and story experiences in Deadfire and as White March has shown, Deadfire is going to be a wonderful gem we can shine for many years to come.

Thanks,
Sherry

 

[Fairfax]

Sawyer can't be blamed for the 2nd city or the story, but the buck stops with him, and he was personally responsible for bad decisions like forcing 150 maps.

 

[AwesomeButton]

He was the project director. Blame ultimately falls on him.

Regardless, the reasons behind PoE's failures are understandable in context.

This is what I mean.

All hail St. Sawyer, the flawless demiurge who doesn't have much blame for PoE's problems! Of course he isn't to blame for the majority of PoE's flaws, that was obvious before this. Using him as a scapegoat was always a pretty stupid move. He is to blame for the combat being a trainwreck, though.

Your edgyness doesn't amuse me.

 

[Prime Junta]

I assume you'd have to play very defensively

As usual, you assume wrong. Defensive tactics are not always -- not even usually -- the lowest-risk, let alone most effective ones.

Spoiler

Those would be based around aggressive CC and disrupting their back line through summons or highly mobile characters.

 

[Quillon]

and he was personally responsible for bad decisions like forcing 150 maps.

Maybe 120 maps would have been the worse decision, prolly not tho He wanted to make it between BG1 & BG2 in terms of size for nostalgic fuckers.

Also didn't the game end up with 170 maps or something?

 

[Lacrymas]

I assume you'd have to play very defensively

As usual, you assume wrong. Defensive tactics are not always -- not even usually -- the lowest-risk, let alone most effective ones.

Spoiler

Those would be based around aggressive CC and disrupting their back line through summons or highly mobile characters.

Ok. Good to know. It's not like I have 20 playthroughs like you, and the one I did do on PotD I played 'wrong', so eh.

 

[Roguey]

he was personally responsible for bad decisions like forcing 150 maps.

As I recall, Sensuki was disappointed that the maps weren't tall enough for his liking, so there's no pleasing everyone here.

 

[Lacrymas]

They could've easily copy pasted a lot of interior maps, like BG1. I don't think anyone would've blamed them for it. They are also much smaller than what BG1 offered, so if they had organized their workload a little bit more, they could've squeezed blood from the stones as it were. I think they put too much work into frivolities and trivialities which could've had the same results if they had taken short cuts, like the aforementioned copy pasting of interior maps. PoE is a budget game, there's no denying that, wishing it to be something that it isn't wouldn't have been a smart decision, so they could've lessened their Herculean tasks. Even though I hate the majority of the game, I can still see they've put in the hours and I can respect that, and they did want it to be a good game, despite its lack of actual thought. There was no need for 150 maps, most of Caed Nua's sub-maps could've been cut, they are literally pointless, like the whole of Brighthollow, the shops, the library, the barracks etc. If I could give one advice to Obsidian, I know they don't care, but anyway, it would be "work smarter, not harder". Yeah, it's a cliche, but it's a good and very appropriate one in this case.

 

[Quillon]

They could've easily copy pasted a lot of interior maps

Isn't the whole point of 2D is unique beautiful maps where you don't see repetitive visual content? Whenever I said I'd have preferred 3D for pillows, this always came up

 

[Prime Junta]

The stronghold was a major faceplant in most ways; the extra content and improvements in 3.0 just made it go from actively unpleasant to just wasteful. As you say, two each (before and after repairs) of a ton of unnecessary maps with no content to match.

I don't think that's true for the rest of the game though, for the most part that maps are used fairly intelligently, content-wise. The quality varies a lot though, from many forgettable levels in Od Nua to the excellent Raedric's Hold (not to mention some of the WM maps).

It bears repeating: most of the major problems with it stem from the chaotic and poorly-managed Kickstarter: the unfortunate pacing with the two half-empty cities, the entirely unnecessary stronghold, the lacklustre megadungeon, the unnecessary proliferation of classes, and so on. If you have to assign blame, then blame that on Adam Brennecke, he was in charge of that part. Even so, they did deliver a higher-quality result than most Kickstarters, it did turn the studio's fortunes around, and it gave them a second chance. With Deadfire they have no excuses.

 

[Delterius]

They could've easily copy pasted a lot of interior maps

Isn't the whole point of 2D is unique beautiful maps where you don't see repetitive visual content? Whenever I said I'd have preferred 3D for pillows, this always came up

haven't played baldur's gate eh

 

[Quillon]

Nope but yeah the biggest reason is nostalgia.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

What? Good maps and level design are a critical ingredient to a quality isometric game. That's the worst conceivable way to try and cut costs.

 

[Lacrymas]

Good maps and level design don't have anything to do with copy pasted interior maps which don't matter, alla BG1. Think before you post, what the fuck.