Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Seari]

monk>barb>fighter>rogue

 

[Lacrymas]

I completed almost the entirety of Defiance Bay and I'm pretty confident I can do the whole game if I don't do any of the optional things. The "critical path" is comically easier than everything else. It's also worth noting that the start is the rockiest when going for Triple Crown. The closest fights I've had up to now are the 2 animat fights in Ondra's Gift and the spirits in the main hall of Caed Nua. I'm surprised that I managed to get this far tbh, it's a bit easier than I had imagined it to be.

 

[Jason Liang]

I completed almost the entirety of Defiance Bay and I'm pretty confident I can do the whole game if I don't do any of the optional things. The "critical path" is comically easier than everything else. It's also worth noting that the start is the rockiest when going for Triple Crown. The closest fights I've had up to now are the 2 animat fights in Ondra's Gift and the spirits in the main hall of Caed Nua. I'm surprised that I managed to get this far tbh, it's a bit easier than I had imagined it to be.

It's why people speedrun solo the main game...

 

[FreeKaner]

I completed almost the entirety of Defiance Bay and I'm pretty confident I can do the whole game if I don't do any of the optional things. The "critical path" is comically easier than everything else. It's also worth noting that the start is the rockiest when going for Triple Crown. The closest fights I've had up to now are the 2 animat fights in Ondra's Gift and the spirits in the main hall of Caed Nua. I'm surprised that I managed to get this far tbh, it's a bit easier than I had imagined it to be.

The hardest part of POTD (and the game in general) is the Raedric fight and Caed Nua, after that you get to optimise your party and develop synergies so it becomes progressively easier except few spikes here and there (Mushroom fight in WM2 was particularly tough for me and took several tries and change of tactics)

 

[Trashos]

I completed almost the entirety of Defiance Bay and I'm pretty confident I can do the whole game if I don't do any of the optional things. The "critical path" is comically easier than everything else.

I think Josh has a conscious (and probably official) strategy of doing just that (separate the hard fights from the main quest), which is acceptable in my view. It's a way of catering to players of different abilities. Here is the main content (easy), here is the optional side content (of varying difficulty, some of it reasonably hard).

My issue is that even his hard content is not very hard or satisfying- as it fundamentally relies on the same weak learning curve- but I have no issue with the strategy itself.

 

[Lacrymas]

What I fundamentally dislike about this run is what people have been repeating for a while - that there is a single catch-all tactic that works for every enemy group. This is mostly due to the general weakness of many of the spells, especially as a Druid. The only really useful level 1 spells are Tanglefoot and Sunbeam. Level 2 are Autumn's Decay and Taste of the Hunt. Level 3 are Beetle Shell and Returning Storm and sometimes Nature's Balm. Level 4 are Moonwell and Form of the Delemgan. etc. Given this very limited number of useful spells, it's no surprise you default to a single tactic for everything. Not that you can't find a use for the other spells, but they are just extremely situational and most of the time it's better to use the generally useful ones.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Not that you can't find a use for the other spells, but they are just extremely situational and most of the time it's better to use the generally useful ones.

Isn't this the case with most of cRPGs?

 

[Lacrymas]

Not to this extent, no. Fights in the IE games are much more dynamic and call for a variety of spells to be used. The way PoE's entire system is laid out (especially with Accuracy and the defenses) funnels you to a tactic that you find works best and sticking to it. If you had a more reliable way to debuff all defenses, then maybe it will be more spicy, but as it stands now, it's very static.

 

[FreeKaner]

I think it has 100% with encounter design and not the systems itself because they do not test you in general but there are few fights that actually do test you and you have to adjust and change tactics then. As I said here:

I agree that PoE is lacking in strategic diversity and aside from a few key encounters, mainly centred in expansions unfortunately also, means that you will basically using same template in most fights diverging only to react to occasional differences. I don't think it is because of character system though, I think it's because lacklustre encounter design and a general lack of strong counter-play. You either start pro-actively and keep that going, using your momentum to overwhelm the fight or start defensive with buffs and win by attrition, for 95% of the fights there is no variance to choosing one of these. This was improved a bit with later patches as encounters were a bit more diversified, and some encounters required specific counter-plays & positioning etc. but it was not on the level of BG2.

Ultimately and unfortunately PoE1 became about more shaping a party around a general strategy and applying that tactically whenever possible rather than playing reactively according to your environment and what you encounter except very few cases which throws you off and requires you to change your tactics; These being Alpine Dragon fight where positioning and strong single target nuking is extremely important, Concelhaut fight especially because his unique spell that can remove a party member from the fight right at the start, second Raedric fight where they are all undead and cast charm, fight against Llengrath because she is a defensive battle-mage that needs to be countered and shut-down directly, WM fight against the Mushroom and WM fight(s) against the Eyeless. Even bounties that are generally challenging do not deviate much from the aforementioned building of a general party strategy and applying that either offensively or defensively.

Overall though I liked the basis of the system, it was just not very well developed and the encounter design except very few cases in a very long game made it rather samey.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Not to this extent, no. Fights in the IE games are much more dynamic and call for a variety of spells to be used. The way PoE's entire system is laid out (especially with Accuracy and the defenses) funnels you to a tactic that you find works best and sticking to it. If you had a more reliable way to debuff all defenses, then maybe it will be more spicy, but as it stands now, it's very static.

Spell usage in IE games was actually pretty similar to PoE - most of the time you just threw same stoneskins, fireballs/skull traps, haste, breach etc, with rest of the spells being situational.

The reason why this appeared more dynamic is probably the encounters design, which was better in BG2, like Kaner is saying.

 

[ilitarist]

The hardest part of POTD (and the game in general) is the Raedric fight and Caed Nua, after that you get to optimise your party and develop synergies so it becomes progressively easier except few spikes here and there (Mushroom fight in WM2 was particularly tough for me and took several tries and change of tactics)

Do you have to visit Raedric in Act 1? And by Caed Nua do you mean that mad Watcher?

I think Josh has a conscious (and probably official) strategy of doing just that (separate the hard fights from the main quest), which is acceptable in my view. It's a way of catering to players of different abilities. Here is the main content (easy), here is the optional side content (of varying difficulty, some of it reasonably hard).

My issue is that even his hard content is not very hard or satisfying- as it fundamentally relies on the same weak learning curve- but I have no issue with the strategy itself.

This is a good approach. Strange that it's rare to see in Western RPGs but is a default mode for JRPGs - those games always allow you to ride the main story without much trouble and hide vanity rewards behind strong challenges. IIRC Baldur's Gate had those in big designated bonus dungeons but most other BioWare games and classic RPGs in general didn't have anything like that. I think Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda have things like that. Which is kinda a waste due to their mechanics.

 

[FreeKaner]

Do you have to visit Raedric in Act 1? And by Caed Nua do you mean that mad Watcher?

You have to visit Raedric before going into Defiance Bay yes, by Caed Nua I mean the fights with spirits there, in the courtyard and the hall.

 

[Piotrovitz]

You have to visit Raedric before going into Defiance Bay yes

Do you?

Maybe I have some memory leak, but I'm pretty sure I always went for Raedric after visiting DB

 

[Sizzle]

You only have to visit Raedric if you want to finish that quest (it gets locked out once you enter DB), but it isn't part of the critical path.

 

[ilitarist]

When you go from act 2 to 3 you get a message about him turning undead so I suspect you have to deal with him till the end of act 2. Maybe later. This area certainly feels like you have to do it after act 1.

 

[FreeKaner]

If you want to kill him initially you have to do it in act 1, after you complete act 2 Raedric will return as undead.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Whoah, didn't know about this - always thought he's returning undead anyway.

 

[Haplo]

Not to this extent, no. Fights in the IE games are much more dynamic and call for a variety of spells to be used. The way PoE's entire system is laid out (especially with Accuracy and the defenses) funnels you to a tactic that you find works best and sticking to it. If you had a more reliable way to debuff all defenses, then maybe it will be more spicy, but as it stands now, it's very static.

Well, perhaps the devs should include much greater variation in enemy defences: Deflection, Fortitude and Will, as well as damage type resistances to encourage the use of more varied spells countering different saves plus the right weapons to handle enemies. As it is now, once you land some debuff, you've made a breach and focus on exploiting it (probably testing the same defense). But enemies having very specific (and varied) natural weaknesses to exploit would promote more varied strategies.
This happens, of course. But I feel that the impact is not sufficient considering the high numbers this game operates on.

 

[Piotrovitz]

But enemies having very specific (and varied) natural weaknesses to exploit would promote more varied strategies.
This happens, of course. But I feel that the impact is not sufficient considering the high numbers this game operates on.

Isn't this actually implemented pretty well?
You feel the difference when fighting ogres with corrosive stuff or undeads with fire. Same with trying to go ranged with high pierce dmg resistant mobs like drakes.

Also, four basic defenses types + DR from armors are imo enough. Stuff like save vs breath or vs petrify is just redundant and very situational - BGs defenses just boil down to AC in BG1, and save vs spells in BG2.

 

[Lacrymas]

Not really. Yeah, some mobs have 10ish less Reflex than Fortitude (f.e.), but since you don't always have a way to reduce all kinds of defenses, you still target the one you actually can, then raise Accuracy if need be. This is especially true in the beginning, then you become so overpowered that it doesn't matter what you target.

 

[Haplo]

Well, it's not that bad I suppose. But often the difference between low defence and high defence boils down to some 10-15 points, which isn't a lot of I can debuff it by 20-30 and buff my own attack by another 20. I would rather see more enemies who have like 70 Fort / 35 Will or 80 Will / 30 Fort or 60 Fort / 20 Relex. More drastic differences. Of course then either the level/class bonus system would need to be reworked... or enemies would follow slightly different rules then player characters.

 

[Parabalus]

But enemies having very specific (and varied) natural weaknesses to exploit would promote more varied strategies.
This happens, of course. But I feel that the impact is not sufficient considering the high numbers this game operates on.

Isn't this actually implemented pretty well?
You feel the difference when fighting ogres with corrosive stuff or undeads with fire. Same with trying to go ranged with high pierce dmg resistant mobs like drakes.

Also, four basic defenses types + DR from armors are imo enough. Stuff like save vs breath or vs petrify is just redundant and very situational - BGs defenses just boil down to AC in BG1, and save vs spells in BG2.

Not really. Yeah, some mobs have 10ish less Reflex than Fortitude (f.e.), but since you don't always have a way to reduce all kinds of defenses, you still target the one you actually can, then raise Accuracy if need be. This is especially true in the beginning, then you become so overpowered that it doesn't matter what you target.

Ogres have something like 50 deflection and will, contrasted 130 fortitude and high health. Should have been more mobs with such skewed stats, ogres are cool since you can handle them early (lvl 4) if you're prepared, but also get easily wiped later if you don't pay attention.

Do you have to visit Raedric in Act 1? And by Caed Nua do you mean that mad Watcher?

You have to visit Raedric before going into Defiance Bay yes, by Caed Nua I mean the fights with spirits there, in the courtyard and the hall.

If there is any cutoff it's possibly the end of Act 2, you can definitely do it after you enter DB.

 

[Anthedon]

I also started another playthrough (as a druid) in preparation for the second game. Was the cat form always this strong? You can't take much of a punch, but the melee damage output is insane. I'm level 5 right now.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition [PC/Mac Code - Steam] - £6.74

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077GV6J9P/?tag=centrepoint01-21

 

[Ulfhednar]

I got tired of waiting for the beta mechanics update, so I started a new PoE 1 playthrough on PotD, and I have to say the new Deadfire items make a real difference in the early game if you can put together enough money for them. I picked up the arbalest One-Eyed Molina and the Captain's Cap for my cipher, and she does enough damage on her alpha strike to immediately generate focus for tier II abilities. Still trying to put together the money for the Sabre of the Seas.

I've done most everything up to Caed Nua except for Raedric himself (I save him until after I've cleared the first, second and fourth levels of the Endless Paths), and the only party wipe I've had was when I absently-mindedly walked out the front door of the keep forgetting that I hadn't taken care of the paladins, rogues and archers outside on the front landing.