Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Lacrymas]

So, while waiting for P:K to be finished and PoE2's last DLC, I decided to go for another playthrough of PoE1, this time with companions instead of mix-maxed mercenaries. Basically rushed through to WM in a few hours. Going with Bleak Walker Paladin. And about those companions which aren't min-maxed - Devil of Caroc and Hiravias are grotesquely overpowered. Devil being immune to basically everything and Hiravias' form doing retarded damage is obscene. Aloth is also mowing down hordes of enemies with Kalakoth's and dangerous implement.

That said, I'm severely disappointed in the Devil, she's much more castrated than I had anticipated. Everyone was hyping her up as this psycho murderer, but they injected some backstory about her home being burned down and she seeking revenge. It kinda waters down your own choice to keep her in the party, it adds this unnecessary and flat moral ambiguity that makes it easier for us to justify her actions. I'm not advocating for her being chaotic stupid, but I would've preferred another, less concerned with morality, backstory for her.

Zahua is a bit more interesting, especially his musings about the value of suffering. The problem I see with him is that his goal and philosophy is flat out wrong. His intention of achieving an end to suffering never seems to come, he is old and has mutilated himself countless times, yet there is no end in sight. If that was the way to end it, when is he going to reach it now that he's literally 60+ years old? By inflicting more pain on himself, he has effectively negated his own philosophy. I hope we can talk to him about this, but I somehow doubt it. Not to mention his desire to get rid of "vanity", he has already tried to get rid of it by scarring his face, but he continues doing it by bathing in dead fish. When is it going to be enough? His methods are clearly not working.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Out of curiosity - why wait for the final DLC? You won't exhaust the content before it's out, and if you want to start it at a particular stage, you can just make save at some point and return to it when the DLC is out.

 

[2house2fly]

People like to play games all in one go, which I guess is why they prefer post-game DLC which is basically a sequel, or DLC which is a complete different thing like the Far Cry 5 DLC set on Mars

 

[Lacrymas]

Out of curiosity - why wait for the final DLC?

Two reasons. The first being that I dislike my current PoE2 character. They completely butchered the Skaen Priest's playstyle by removing Prey on the Weak, forcing you to go Rogue multiclass if you want it to be the same (with duplicate abilities that are wasted), but I went Fighter instead because I wanted to be a Priest/Rogue/Fighter multiclass, however Fighter and Priest with the limited spells is extremely boring and it doesn't play like I was envisioning it. There is also no reason to use stilettos without the sneak attack and accuracy bonuses Prey on the Weak offered, while I was extremely giddy about using those. I thought going dual-wield battle axes would be cool instead of stilettos, but the build itself feels weak and ineffective. Basically, they murdered my character for no reason whatsoever and it isn't the same. I also dislike my party, it's composed of one-trick ponies that I don't see doing very well in SSS or BoW.

The second reason is that the last DLC is very close, so I can do everything with the current character I'm running through PoE1 (which is going to be a Paladin/Rogue) without having to keep a separate save file for it especially. It might be a personal problem, but I dislike booting up an old save just to do what boils down to a very elaborate side quest and then go back to finish the game when I've already done that, seems weird and forced to me. I might start it before the DLC is out and then prolong my playthrough to when it is out so I can do it then, we'll see.

 

[Grunker]

Devil-of-Caroc is a straight up boring companion IMO, and much weaker than an average rogue, due to the huge reaction penalty you’re forced to live with.

 

[Prime Junta]

I never was able to like rogues in P1. They need such a lot of micro and don't have any really fun abilities to counterbalance that.

Rogues play a lot better in Deadfire, thanks to the easily-available invisibility abilities which makes backstabbing fun again.

 

[Haplo]

I agree. BUT in Deadfire you don't actually need to go stealth to be a major rogue DD. You can multi to a tanky class, like Fighter or Paladin. Trickster on its own is a good offtank and works well with something like a monk or soulblade.

 

[Tigranes]

Like DAO, Deadfire rogues are mostly about superhigh DPS pied-a-pied. I prefer the IE style rogues generally, but POE1/2 rogues are pretty fun. I'm currently toying around with a Barbarian / Rogue duo for POE1.

 

[Lacrymas]

I never was able to like rogues in P1. They need such a lot of micro and don't have any really fun abilities to counterbalance that.

I find that Devil doesn't need a lot of micro, mobs don't target her that often (maybe due to her DR) and her immunities to the majority of debuffs make her a fire and forget character. If she's in trouble, it's nothing a Shadowing Beyond can't fix.

 

[cloudropis]

As someone who only has Roxor's review as point of reference, how did the many updates and expansions improve the game?

 

[Prime Junta]

As someone who only has Roxor's review as point of reference, how did the many updates and expansions improve the game?

greatly

Seriously, it's almost like a whole different game. Encounter density, encounter compositions, mechanics, items, enemy AI, and so on and so on.

 

[haderlump]

Has it got much easier in recent patches?

I thought I'd fire it up again because I hadn't played the expansion yet and as I'm waiting for the big Patchfinder patch.. Now up until the end of the defiance bay quests all I've done is basically select all and click on one enemy after the other with few exceptions.

I still don't understand the system, choose more or less random stuff on level up and don't care who wears which item.
I'm playing on normal difficulty and I can remember that over two years ago from the start on I had to do a lot of micromanaging in combat and reload an awful lot.

 

[Prime Junta]

Has it got much easier in recent patches?

No.

If you play on PotD there will be legit hard encounters here and there, especially in the expansions. Trouble is that if you're at all approaching completionism, you'll outlevel the main quest PDQ after which it'll turn into a snooze.

 

[Haplo]

The trouble seems to be you're playing on normal, which is not challenging enough if you know what you're doing.

 

[Grunker]

As someone who only has Roxor's review as point of reference, how did the many updates and expansions improve the game?

As to how - read the latter part of my review.

 

[Grunker]

normal

Even hard can be fairly easy with basic understanding of the game's mechanics. PotD is where it's at

 

[haderlump]

Well, I'll certainly increase the difficulty then. Although I absolutely don't know what I'm doing, the PoE System appears totally opague and unintuitive to me.

 

[Prime Junta]

normal

Even hard can be fairly easy with basic understanding of the game's mechanics. PotD is where it's at

Yeah. Hard is the new Normal, PotD is the new Hard, and there isn't a Heart of Fury.

 

[Prime Junta]

Although I absolutely don't know what I'm doing, the PoE System appears totally opague and unintuitive to me.

At its core it's pretty straightforward rock-paper-scissors. What's unintuitive or opaque about it?

 

[haderlump]

Although I absolutely don't know what I'm doing, the PoE System appears totally opague and unintuitive to me.

At its core it's pretty straightforward rock-paper-scissors. What's unintuitive or opaque about it?

I don't know, maybe that it looks like DnD on first glance but isn't. I just didn't put much effort into understanding it, or even having a thorough look at it until now.

 

[2house2fly]

You want to have as much accuracy as possible to get more critical hits, and as much deflection as possible to avoid damage. That's all you need to get through hard mode

 

[Prime Junta]

You want to have as much accuracy as possible to get more critical hits, and as much deflection as possible to avoid damage. That's all you need to get through hard mode

Won't cut it in PotD though when you get hit by disabling attacks targeting your other defences.

(ACC is very very important though -- but in PotD you can't beat tough fights with brute-force ACC either, you have to use buffs and debuffs, which means that you can afford a little lower PER than if you're playing select-all-and-attack in Hard as they will be sufficient to bring even middling PER past the threshold where you're hitting more often than grazing.)

 

[Haplo]

Yeah stack, Accuracy and debuff enemies.
Note even if the debuff is a measly Graze, it will still lower enemy defenses - and make a breach possible, if you continue hammering their weakened defenses.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The whole point is that you start debuffing from the enemy's weakest defense, or if that's not possible - start buffing yourself so that you can more easily target the weakest defense, and use debuffs' durations as a window of opportunity for lowering the other defenses and/or causing damage. A balanced party should have the capacity to unravel enemies with any defence or armor type, while also having the capacity to sustain itself through healing long enough.

With RNG being of little importance especially after the first 6-7 levels, that's how I would summarize PoE combat. It's like a little puzzle where you have to figure out which buffs to use on yourself (if needed) and then which defenses to target in what order. The puzzle only gets fair on Hard and complex on PotD.

 

[FreeKaner]

You know I was thinking, despite being in love with age of exploration, sail ships in gunpowder era, history of colonialism and all else this game is supposed to be about, why I couldn't get into dumpsterfire at all, while I played PoE1 twice.

It's because both games feel lifeless and sterile due to a lack of ability to invoke emotion and the whole thing feeling like a drudge go through especially in text, however in PoE1 this accidentally adds to the atmosphere of the game because the game becomes a lot more melancholic and depressive which actually supports whatever narrative there is. It feels sufficiently entertaining because it gives off an aura of wading through despair.

In dumpsterfire, the game is not supposed to feel like this. It's supposed to be high in energy and conflict, yet it still feels lifeless and sterile. If it wasn't the fact the exploration actually feels like a legitimate exploration then it would be downright unplayable.