Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[TedNugent]

without the Berath's cheats or mercenaries.

What is that bullshit about, anyway? I was reading about it on the wiki and started blinking dumbfoundedly.

Is that supposed to be crutch mode for people who forgot their console keybind? Or is the game tuned for having +2 to all stats? Then why the fuck would they not give you that many to begin with without this awkward menu...

I feel like easy/normal/hard/very hard was straightforward enough.

 

[Delterius]

Berath's Blessings are for Ultimate Runs.

 

[TedNugent]

Alright, back to the Wiki (grumble)...

 

[Butter]

without the Berath's cheats or mercenaries.

What is that bullshit about, anyway? I was reading about it on the wiki and started blinking dumbfoundedly.

Is that supposed to be crutch mode for people who forgot their console keybind? Or is the game tuned for having +2 to all stats? Then why the fuck would they not give you that many to begin with without this awkward menu...

I feel like easy/normal/hard/very hard was straightforward enough.

You picked one of the few incline features of Deadfire to call bullshit. The game lets you customize the difficulty up the ass. How is that a bad thing?

 

[Pink Eye]

. Examples of bad difficulty: PoE

Oh fuck off. How is this cheesing or all-right click:


Don't answer that question. It's rhetorical. Pillars of Eternity, haven't played Deadfire and have no interest in doing so; has some of the best Real Time Based Combat in the genre. So much so that it has surpassed the clunky Infinity Edge gameplay - some people think Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale have better gameplay, lmao.

 

[Parabalus]

without the Berath's cheats or mercenaries.

What is that bullshit about, anyway? I was reading about it on the wiki and started blinking dumbfoundedly.

Is that supposed to be crutch mode for people who forgot their console keybind? Or is the game tuned for having +2 to all stats? Then why the fuck would they not give you that many to begin with without this awkward menu...

I feel like easy/normal/hard/very hard was straightforward enough.

It's something you only get on subsequent runs, it's supposed to cut some of the tedium out and spice things up. For that it works great, but depending on your choices it reduces the early difficulty somewhat.

 

[TedNugent]

without the Berath's cheats or mercenaries.

What is that bullshit about, anyway? I was reading about it on the wiki and started blinking dumbfoundedly.

Is that supposed to be crutch mode for people who forgot their console keybind? Or is the game tuned for having +2 to all stats? Then why the fuck would they not give you that many to begin with without this awkward menu...

I feel like easy/normal/hard/very hard was straightforward enough.

It's something you only get on subsequent runs, it's supposed to cut some of the tedium out and spice things up. For that it works great, but depending on your choices it reduces the early difficulty somewhat.

So it's a new game+ thing and not intended for your first playthrough?

 

[Delterius]

haven't played Deadfire and have no interest in doing so

one of the companions is a cute girl monk

 

[Roguey]

How does Path of the Damned improve combat ? I've finished PoE1/2 on normal when I played them for the first time and after all DLC's had been released on Hard/Veteran a second time. Everything just got "bullet-spongier", which is not the kind if difficulty increase that I like. Combat was just as dull as before, it simply took a bit longer. My estimate was that PotD would just increases the tedium by bloating numbers further. Am I missing something ? Divinity:OS had tactician mode that actually changed encounters, is PotD like that ?

Difficulty modes in Pillars don't touch enemy stats. Hard replaces some creatures with stronger versions and adds more on top of that. Path of the Damned is the one that inflates their stats, and story time does the opposite, increasing your stats.

 

[Pink Eye]

one of the companions is a cute girl monk

You seem to mistake me for Anonymous Wife Scholar Nonetheless. It's not a game I'm interested in.

 

[Delterius]

one of the companions is a cute girl monk

You seem to mistake me for Anonymous Wife Scholar Nonetheless. It's not a game I'm interested in.

but the operating word was monk

 

[Lacrymas]

story time

Imagine playing PoE for the story. You are in for a rude awakening, let me tell you.

 

[Roguey]

Imagine playing PoE for the story. You are in for a rude awakening, let me tell you.

It was patched in due to demand! People wanted this even though Sawyer said he was against it during the Kickstarter.

I am grateful, I had to dial it down to story time to beat Thaos in my second playthrough because I had only done the critical path and was significantly underleveled for post-release buffed up Thaos. Managed to make my way to him and got brickwalled.

 

[deem]

Which difficulty would you recommend for a first play-through?

 

[Pink Eye]

Which difficulty would you recommend for a first play-through?

Do the Triple Crown Challenge. Why not. Has potential to be fun.

 

[TedNugent]

Difficulty modes in Pillars don't touch enemy stats. Hard replaces some creatures with stronger versions and adds more on top of that. Path of the Damned is the one that inflates their stats, and story time does the opposite, increasing your stats.

What the fuck - does PotD change the enemy base stats or not.

I don't care about story time/hard mode. I just want to know if PotD level scales enemies or artificially gives them free stat budget.

 

[deem]

What the fuck - does PotD change the enemy base stats or not.

I don't care about story time/hard mode. I just want to know if PotD level scales enemies or artificially gives them free stat budget.

Yes it does.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/687020-pillars-of-eternity/faqs/74194/difficulty-level

Further, this difficulty level buffs the enemy's stats with +15 to accuracy and +15 to all defenses, and is the ONLY difficulty that does this.

 

[TedNugent]

What the fuck - does PotD change the enemy base stats or not.

I don't care about story time/hard mode. I just want to know if PotD level scales enemies or artificially gives them free stat budget.

Yes it does.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/687020-pillars-of-eternity/faqs/74194/difficulty-level

Further, this difficulty level buffs the enemy's stats with +15 to accuracy and +15 to all defenses, and is the ONLY difficulty that does this.

Ew.

 

[Roguey]

Which difficulty would you recommend for a first play-through?

Depends on your own level skill. If you're really bad at games and don't care to understand them, easy/story-time. If you have the level of skill of the average Obsidian designer and kinda/sorta have an understanding of RPGs, normal. If you're like me and have a good understanding of RPGs but can't be bothered to put in the effort to master systems, hard. If you powerbuild and powergame everything and can't not play this way, damned path.

 

[Parabalus]

without the Berath's cheats or mercenaries.

What is that bullshit about, anyway? I was reading about it on the wiki and started blinking dumbfoundedly.

Is that supposed to be crutch mode for people who forgot their console keybind? Or is the game tuned for having +2 to all stats? Then why the fuck would they not give you that many to begin with without this awkward menu...

I feel like easy/normal/hard/very hard was straightforward enough.

It's something you only get on subsequent runs, it's supposed to cut some of the tedium out and spice things up. For that it works great, but depending on your choices it reduces the early difficulty somewhat.

So it's a new game+ thing and not intended for your first playthrough?

Yes, you can't even activate it without playing. You need points which you get from cheevos for the blessings.

 

[Pink Eye]

If you're like me and have a good understanding of RPGs but can't be bothered to put in the effort to master systems, hard. If you powerbuild and powergame everything and can't not play this way, damned path.

Don't see much point to playing base Path of Damned if you're not even going to Iron Man it. Triple Crown is actually a fun way of playing Pillars of Eternity because of the extraordinary risk it imparts onto the playthrough; thus making it engaging, as each mistake can cost you dearly. My opinion of Pillars changed tremendously after I did Triple Crown then Ultimate Challenge. I always thought Level 1 Heart of Fury Solo in Icewind Dale was the bee's knees. However, Pillars blows it out of the water. There is a lot more demanding encounters in Pillars than Icewind Dale. At least. In my opinion anyways. Of course, difficulty kind of tethers out once you get to late game content. I think it's like that for most games though, where stuff gets easy in end game.

Only games that I've played where that rule isn't true is Dungeon Rats (Emperor's Fight + Constructs Guarding Extract is tough in Solo Play on Hard Difficulty) and Knights of the Chalice 2.

 

[FreeKaner]

Difficulty modes in Pillars don't touch enemy stats. Hard replaces some creatures with stronger versions and adds more on top of that. Path of the Damned is the one that inflates their stats, and story time does the opposite, increasing your stats.

What the fuck - does PotD change the enemy base stats or not.

I don't care about story time/hard mode. I just want to know if PotD level scales enemies or artificially gives them free stat budget.

It's more like rest of the difficulties operate on a reduced statline for enemies. POTD is when a similarly equipped enemy will have closer defences and accuracy to yours. However not even that considering you can get 145+ defences and only dragons and such will ever reach that.

 

[Sunri]

Difficulty modes in Pillars don't touch enemy stats. Hard replaces some creatures with stronger versions and adds more on top of that. Path of the Damned is the one that inflates their stats, and story time does the opposite, increasing your stats.

What the fuck - does PotD change the enemy base stats or not.

I don't care about story time/hard mode. I just want to know if PotD level scales enemies or artificially gives them free stat budget.

It's more like rest of the difficulties operate on a reduced statline for enemies. POTD is when a similarly equipped enemy will have closer defences and accuracy to yours. However not even that considering you can get 145+ defences and only dragons and such will ever reach that.

It's just stat bloat no new enemies behavior or any additional content, this is the worst kind of higher difficulty that just waste your time with sponge enemies.

 

[Lacrymas]

Uhm, akshually, the enemies in PoE needed the stat boost. It's not bloat at all.

 

[Grunker]

There is good difficulty and dumb difficulty in RPG combat. Examples of good difficulty: Battle Brothers, Underrail, Age of Decadence. Examples of bad difficulty: PoE/Deadfire, D:OS/2, Witcher 3.

A characteristic of dumb difficulty is that no matter how you set it, it's never fun. Either it's select all-right click, or it requires some kind of cheesing.

Never understood why people praise AoD's difficulty, and I certainly disagree about PoE. It's one of the very, very few games that takes it's hardest difficulty seriously.

AoD on the other hand is so simple once you "get it" that all that's left to provide difficulty is the RNG.