Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Nuclear Explosion]

You should have seen it before the patches, mate.

Years from now, I know I'll be reinstalling and replaying BGII, IWD, IWDII. You know who will be reinstalling and replaying PoE five, ten years from now?

Fucking nobody. And that's the main difference between a good game and, well, a derivative.

The original IWD is not a good game (the expansions are better, though). It is combat focused and yet it is extremely easy; almost all the fights are select all -> right click on the enemy. For most fights there is no need to even use spells, and pre-buffing is mostly unnecessary as well. Encounter design is not one of the game's strengths. I am not even good at RTwP RPGs; I rest spammed and pre-buffed my way through BG2, but I did not need to do either in IWD. Even BG1 is better.

 

[Jason Liang]

Both IWD and IWD II are terrible. But at least IWD II had a cool rule set. That can go a long way.

Pillars' rule set is shit.

 

[Lacrymas]

There is not much wrong with 3.0's ruleset, it's just the distribution of combat through time and enemy AI that are shit. I am getting more and more convinced that a game designer for RTwP systems should play a musical instrument and read sheet music, just to get a sense of how to structure time.

 

[Jason Liang]

Whatever Bioware did to get RTwP right in BG1/ BG2, it isn't replicable. Even Bioware themselves couldn't replicate it. I'd even argue that IWD/ IWD II is shit RTwP just like all the other crap. NWN's RTwP combat is shit too.

As for Pillars' rule set. Some would argue that the problem is 20 strength MIGHT wizards, but I'd argue the problem is 20 strength MIGHT wizards when attributes don't make shit difference anyway. Would you like 3% more damage, accuracy, effect duration, attack recovery speed or defense? IT DOESN'T MATTER. It's an illusion.

And also, Pillars' spellbooks blow compared to D&D. That is all.

(drop mic)

 

[Whiny-Butthurt-Liberal]

Whatever Bioware did to get RTwP right in BG1/ BG2, it isn't replicable

Because they didn't get it right.

Oh vey, click REST whenever and all your injuries and status effects are magically healed!! Not enough? Ok, let's throw you a billion healing potions, items, spells and abilities as well! Oops, that makes the game broken, better make 10% of areas not restable, and make a 20% chance of spawning random trash mobs, so that rest is now a pain in the ass to use!!

Perfect. Now on to a multitude of trash mobs, useless items and shit spells no one will ever use.

 

[Sizzle]

Just a heads up - the guy selling the new items (some of which look pretty OP... but that's to be expected, I guess) is at Anslog's Compass.

 

[Lacrymas]

Are people still stuck on the 20 MIGHT wizards? What is the problem?

 

[2house2fly]

I can't help but wish they'd gone with something slightly less low-effort than a guy near the starting area just straight-up selling OP items. Like I dunno, make the guy a beachcomber and have some Lore about how there was a big naval battle out at sea and the ocean currents drift these items to shore where he scavenged them and sells them to you one at a time, and he gets a new item per stronghold turn or something. Or make them loot from new mid-level bounty quests that he gives you. Or just scatter them as loot in existing dungeon areas, play through the game and figure out which dungeons are least exciting and put the items in them to liven them up a bit. Scattering them about might also make it less obvious to new players that they were added by the Reffing The Sequel DLC. Still the items seem cool so whatever I guess.

 

[Jason Liang]

Are people still stuck on the 20 MIGHT wizards? What is the problem?

I'm not stuck on 20 MIGHT wizards, although its silly. The bigger problem is that, unlike Pillars, under AD&D 2nd Edition, at least at the extremes (16+) attributes start to have a significant and increasing impact on tactical performance. This is NOT true in Pillars.

 

[Infinitron]

New portraits:

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE's attributes give much more varied stats than pure damage. The stats in BG1/2 are only used either for pure damage or for more spell slots. There is also no other way to build a wizard other than 18 intellect. PoE fixes that. There is so much more to rag on PoE, but attributes aren't one of those things.

 

[Ninjerk]

Are people still stuck on the 20 MIGHT wizards? What is the problem?

I'm not stuck on 20 MIGHT wizards, although its silly. The bigger problem is that, unlike Pillars, under AD&D 2nd Edition, at least at the extremes (16+) attributes start to have a significant and increasing impact on tactical performance. This is NOT true in Pillars.

That's because they didn't have Perfect Linear Scaling™ (which is perfect for players, btw).

 

[2house2fly]

It's true that the way they settled on making all builds viable was by minimising the difference between builds, which is annoying. It's worse combined with stacking suppression on items- if two items give me +3 might then why not just let me have +6 might?

 

[2house2fly]

The Chubby Elf

 

[Zed]

i like the blonde orlan girl. rest looks like paint-overs of developers

 

[Infinitron]

Btw they didn't remove Evilore (lol)

 

[Roguey]

I can't help but wish they'd gone with something slightly less low-effort than a guy near the starting area just straight-up selling OP items.

It's how BG2 did it with their bonus merchants.

Btw they didn't remove Evilore (lol)

Good, he paid for that portrait after all.

 

[Infinitron]

BTW this counts as a new patch, which also adds TELEMETRY: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94328-pillars-of-eternity-patch-307-the-deadfire-pack-is-now-live/

Pillars of Eternity Patch 3.07 - The Deadfire Pack - Is Now Live!

Today is the day! Not only is the Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition out now on Steam and GOG, but we are also happy to announce the release of the free Deadfire Pack DLC!

What you can expect to find in this DLC:

Deadfire Pack

• Ponamu Bird-Scorned, a merchant from the Deadfire, has washed ashore in Anslög's Compass.
• Added nine new Deadfire-themed items sold by Ponamu Bird-Scorned. These include four new soulbound items.

New Portraits

• Added ten new player portraits from backers of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

Miscellaneous

• Added opt-in telemetry for people who want to share information about their game.

This DLC is a thank you from us to all of you who have supported Pillars of Eternity throughout the years. You're all incredible.

Obsidian is watching you save-scum!

 

[Roguey]

It's worse combined with stacking suppression on items- if two items give me +3 might then why not just let me have +6 might?

It gets harder and harder to tune combat encounters as the gulf between power gamers and total idiots widens.

 

[Taluntain]

Shameless plug for our just-finished complete walkthrough of Pillars of Eternity & The White March.

 

[Iznaliu]

I can't help but wish they'd gone with something slightly less low-effort than a guy near the starting area just straight-up selling OP items. Like I dunno, make the guy a beachcomber and have some Lore about how there was a big naval battle out at sea and the ocean currents drift these items to shore where he scavenged them and sells them to you one at a time, and he gets a new item per stronghold turn or something. Or make them loot from new mid-level bounty quests that he gives you. Or just scatter them as loot in existing dungeon areas, play through the game and figure out which dungeons are least exciting and put the items in them to liven them up a bit. Scattering them about might also make it less obvious to new players that they were added by the Reffing The Sequel DLC. Still the items seem cool so whatever I guess.

They probably want to focus on working on the sequel rather than do something too complicated that will need to be bugfixed etc.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

As far as I'm aware, the definitive edition is just the previously available shit plus the Deadfire pack (which we got for free today). It's just a rebundle of all available stuff plus a free DLC.

 

[2house2fly]

Do other games let you do that? I don't really mess with "editions" but if you can normally "upgrade" from one package to another then yeah I guess it's weird that it didn't happen in this case. Not sure how much of that is Obsidian's plan versus Paradox though.

 

[Grunker]

You know who will be reinstalling and replaying PoE five, ten years from now?

Played it once at release, once after all patches and will be re-installing it when I got on vacation a month from now.

Would really like to replay BG as well, but am waiting for L1NPC to be updated for EET.

 

[Infinitron]

As far as I'm aware, the definitive edition is just the previously available shit plus the Deadfire pack (which we got for free today). It's just a rebundle of all available stuff plus a free DLC.

And that includes the extras of the "Royal" edition, not just the base game plus The White March. So why not let us upgrade our copies to the all-inclusive package? Whether for free or for a small cost, it's ridiculous that the different editions are kept segregated and unupgradable, and an insult to those who actually bought the game on release.

The "Royal" extras appear to have disappeared from Steam - no longer available for sale. You may in fact have been upgraded to them.