Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Sizzle]

Yeah, this is silly. Seeing as I own (on GOG) the base game and both expansions, I was expecting an automatic upgrade to the Definitive Version, but nope.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah looks like it's kinda screwed up with the way GOG works. The Definitive Edition is getting negative reviews there because of it.

 

[Roguey]

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

Seems incredibly, incredibly late for this to make a difference with regard to PoE 2.

 

[Quillon]

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

Seems incredibly, incredibly late for this to make a difference with regard to PoE 2.

Didn't Sawyer say they had the telemetry data processed etc. Guess everyone was opted in before

 

[Roguey]

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

Seems incredibly, incredibly late for this to make a difference with regard to PoE 2.

Didn't Sawyer say they had the telemetry data processed etc. Guess everyone was opted in before

I don't recall anything like that.

According to https://steamcommunity.com/app/362960/discussions/0/1470841715953782967/ they only added telemetry to Tyranny a few months ago.

 

[Quillon]

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

Seems incredibly, incredibly late for this to make a difference with regard to PoE 2.

Didn't Sawyer say they had the telemetry data processed etc. Guess everyone was opted in before

I don't recall anything like that.

According to https://steamcommunity.com/app/362960/discussions/0/1470841715953782967/ they only added telemetry to Tyranny a few months ago.

Hmn, I misremembered it seems, they were working on implementing it, they did with this patch:

How do you guys stay on top of all these learnings?

Josh: Well, one of the things we’re working on integrating now is telemetrics. So, there’s a lot of subjective stuff you can get from observing Twitch and YouTube, and while we haven’t done it in a while, we do occasionally invite people in to play the game and then we’re in another room watching the feed. You can get a lot out of that. But telemetrics allow you to sort so much data from a larger pool – it goes beyond the anecdote of an individual player’s experience and you see a lot of patterns emerge, such as things they miss, or drop, what chests they open or don’t open, what paths they take through and in what order, did they notice a secret door, where they stop, or where they die, or where they quit playing. There’s all sorts of things that we can get out of that.

It’s not something that Obsidian has a ton of experience doing, but we’re realizing increasingly that there’s a lot of data that you can’t even get through polls. Polls, in a lot of cases, involves a specific community and a very specific type of player. I remember talking to a guy who did brand management for Lucasfilm, and he said, “who would you guess is the most popular character in the prequel movies?”. And I said, “I dunno, maybe like Jango Fett or someone like that?” and he said, “it’s Jar Jar Binks.” I said, “there’s no way” but he told me that if you go online and look at forums, then the answer you’ll get is that it’s never going to be Jar Jar Binks, but when you ask people anonymously in a different context outside of a community setting, a lot of people will then go for Jar Jar – often it’s kids or people who feel intimidated by online communities.

So it’s not that that’s the case with Pillars characters or anything, but what people tend to do versus what they say, especially within a community, can be very different, and telemetrics can tell a different story. It’s not that one story is the whole picture – it’s a matter of just getting more insight into informing our understanding of how people actually use the games that we make.

 

[2house2fly]

Yeah, this is silly. Seeing as I own (on GOG) the base game and both expansions, I was expecting an automatic upgrade to the Definitive Version, but nope.

I got it on steam, so I guess it's a gog thing. Gog really seems to have been built about bundling old games as a single installer. Selling current games with DLC and patches seems to be a bit of a finicky process for them

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Guess it's time to actually play through the whole game now. As a GOGite the lack of an upgrade is kinda bullshit though, not that it's a deal breaker.

 

[2house2fly]

My DLC list on steam says the royal edition content has been added, but it isn't in the game folder. I can't tell actually if the fuckup is me not having the items or me having the royal edition content listed among my DLC

 

[Iznaliu]

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.

No RPG has perfect system design, so that hardly makes BG stand out from the competition.

 

[2house2fly]

I'm insanely angry because the royal edition upgrade is in my DLC list, and the checkbox is checked and I verified the local files and steam thinks everything that should be there is there, but the royal edition stuff is not there. I don't even want the damn royal edition stuff, but stuff not working drives me up the fucking wall.

 

[santino27]

I'm insanely angry

Come on, now. Even for the Codex, this is a bit hyperbolic, no?

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

did they do something to loading times in the recent patches? Started a new play and I could swear that they are shorter. Even loaded old save games. I always used IE mod to disable autosave on map transition.

BTW: can we have another review now?

 

[PulsatingBrain]

but the royal edition stuff is not there

Well this is annoying to hear. I even got the pop-up when I started a new game, telling me that it's in there, but now I'm not sure it's actually in there either, it's not specified in my game folder anywhere. What exactly was in the Royal edition?

 

[Infinitron]

I'm insanely angry because the royal edition upgrade is in my DLC list, and the checkbox is checked and I verified the local files and steam thinks everything that should be there is there, but the royal edition stuff is not there. I don't even want the damn royal edition stuff, but stuff not working drives me up the fucking wall.

Are you sure it's not there? The weird thing for me is that I've had the Royal Edition content from the beginning, despite never buying it or pledging to a Kickstarter tier high enough to get it. Maybe the same happened to you, so you're not seeing anything new?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Anyone got the list of new items? Worth doing another playthrough?

 

[Sizzle]

Anyone got the list of new items? Worth doing another playthrough?

Here you go. There are a couple of items that aren't mentioned in that thread, but those are the most important ones. Also, there may be some other items as well (the Plus a couple of "secret" items, too! part on GOG certainly seems to indicate so), but I haven't come across any yet.

 

[2house2fly]

He only posted one of the three outfits because they're statistically identical, and basically visually identical too.

Fun fact: there's conversation files that suggest the unique items were originally meant to be found through exploration, one in Caed Nua and one in Gilded Vale. In the actual DLC they're just sold by a guy at Anslog's Compass. The assets added by the DLC include a bunch of things called "soul armor" which I think is just regular armour worn by ghosts in visions. At a guess, there would have been a vision of a ghost accompanying an item, or leading you to it.

 

[Sizzle]

He only posted one of the three outfits because they're statistically identical, and basically visually identical too.

One gives +20 to Fortitude, the other +20 to Reflex and the last one +20 to Will. Other than that - they are the same.

Fun fact: there's conversation files that suggest the unique items were originally meant to be found through exploration, one in Caed Nua and one in Gilded Vale. In the actual DLC they're just sold by a guy at Anslog's Compass. The assets added by the DLC include a bunch of things called "soul armor" which I think is just regular armour worn by ghosts in visions. At a guess, there would have been a vision of a ghost accompanying an item, or leading you to it.

Saw that mentioned somewhere. Too bad, would have been a lot more interesting than this (even though it's basically what BG2 did with the PST items - putting them all on a Special Merchant in the Adventurer's Mart).

 

[2house2fly]

They always get longer as they go on and the size of the save file increases

 

[Parabalus]

Anyone got the list of new items? Worth doing another playthrough?

You have 3 light armors which have OP bonuses, so they are likely the new "best" no-recovery armors. Next up is a thrash blunderbuss and an interesting saber which spellchance casts the druid wave spell (same which is spellbound on the white plate armor), that was is pretty cool and likely worth building/playing around.

Both soulbound weapons seem decently strong but nothing terribly interesting. The Hat and Belt are basically condensed stat sticks, hat giving mind debuff immunity and the belt having the Firebrand summon, from the druid spell and same as the existing gloves, so it's somewhat cool if you were doing a flame sword build since it doubles your casts to 6/r.

The soulbounds disappointed me, was expecting something a bit more wild. The only exciting part is that they are hat + belt, new slots.

Anyone got the list of new items? Worth doing another playthrough?

Here you go. There are a couple of items that aren't mentioned in that thread, but those are the most important ones. Also, there may be some other items as well (the Plus a couple of "secret" items, too! part on GOG certainly seems to indicate so), but I haven't come across any yet.

I doubt there is anything else really, they probably forgot to remove that part when they put them all on a merchant. Would be glad to be wrong tho.

 

[Parabalus]

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.

This is just plain wrong. The only AD&D attribute COMPARABLE to PoE's in effectiveness is Strength <==> Might in the role of buffing melee damage. All other DnD attributes are blown out by PoE's on a per point basis, but PoE's attributes also have secondary uses.

You can criticize PoE's system but the attributes are something it def. did right.

 

[Tom Selleck]

https://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_deadfire_pack

Free? DLC? From Paradox?

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't think Paradox have much say in what happens with PoE. They are more involved with Tranny.

 

[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.

This is just plain wrong. The only AD&D attribute COMPARABLE to PoE's in effectiveness is Strength <==> Might in the role of buffing melee damage. All other DnD attributes are blown out by PoE's on a per point basis, but PoE's attributes also have secondary uses.

You can criticize PoE's system but the attributes are something it def. did right.

What? Let's look at the other stats then.

DEXTERITY
15: -1AC
16: -2 AC, range THAC0 -1, +5 thief skills
17: -3 AC, range THAC0 -2, +20 thief skills
18: -4 AC, range THAC0 -2, +55 thief skills
..25: -6 AC, range THAC0 -5, +210 thief skills

CONSTITUTION
15: +1 Warrior HP/ level, racial savings throw -4
16: +2 Warrior HP/ level, racial savings throw -4
17: +3 Warrior HP/ level, racial savings throw -4
18: +4 Warrior HP/ level, racial savings throw -5
...25: +7 Warrior HP/ level, +1 hp regen/ 10 seconds, racial savings throw -5

INTELLECT
16: 11 wizard spells/ level max
17: 14 wizard spells/ level max
18: 18 wizard spells/ level max
19+: all wizard spells/ level
In addition, in PnP intellect affects known skills and languages -> dialogue choices

WISDOM
15: 2/1/0/0 priest spell bonus
16: 2/2/0/0 priest spell bonus
17: 2/2/1/0 priest spell bonus
18: 2/2/1/1 priest spell bonus
...25: 3/3/3/4/4/3/1 priest spell bonus

CHARISMA
15: +3 reaction adjustment
16: +4
17: +4
18: +5
In the game this is reflected in dialogue and quest rewards, etc...

But more importantly, extreme stats in AD&D affects vastly different things, whereas every stat point in PoE equates to ~ +3% combat bonus. If not in one form, it is in another form, but the difference is marginal, whereas the difference between 17 STR, 18 WIS and 18(xx) STR, 17 WIS is significant. In PoE, a PC with flat stats isn't going to be tactically much less effective than a PC with min/ maxed stats. Slightly more damage vs. slightly more accurate vs. slightly quicker attacks doesn't make a significant tactical difference. PoE's rule set design is fail.