Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[MajorMace]

Why all the disagreement? Pillars is a bad, a very bad game. It is known.

Very true. It is so obvious that it was known months if not years prior to its release.

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Why all the disagreement? Pillars is a bad, a very bad game. It is known.

Honestly, the base game isn't bad. The White March Expansion was genuinely a good experience, IMO. Aesthetically, the game's 2d prerendered backgrounds combined with certain water/light effects were quite pleasing and well done.

 

[Faarbaute]

The game was always bad.

 

[Nikanuur]

I don't know, it just feels like it's catching to criticise is all. Making few beefs into the whole content and stuff. It's prevalent (here). Cheap. Saddening. To fail to find beauty and talk mostly about the undone like the whole thing - THAT is bad. Whatever, just go be like others, what do I care. It's your minds that boil with that bitter and all-is-shit attitude every day, not mine :D

 

[Jvegi]

Lol, yeah, enjoy the beauty of your shortbus. It has pretty lights.

Spoiler

It's cool if you like the game, all power to you. I tried to, but it wouldn't let me.

 

[Decado]

Don't really remember which armor I've used. Sanguine Plate maybe? Extra Frenzy uses could be handy. Plus it looks great.

Cool, thanks. I have this quest already so I might as well do it now.

But make sure to buy Hours of St. Rumbalt greatsword from Dyrford ASAP. That, combined with Carnage and high Intelligence is just the coolest barbarian combo ever.

Is Hours better than Tidefall for a barb?

Edit: Dumb question, nevermind. After looking at it, Hours seems to be better. Tidefall is great but 1) The heals are somewhat unnecessary at this point, since I've got two per encounter Endurance boosters and 2) Tidefall raw DoT is nice but things are usually not alive long enough for the full effect and it seems like the 50% (!!) Crit modifier is a better bet. Brb, buying a new sword . . .

Since this post, and a break to play through Elden Ring, I have beaten the game with my 2-hander barb. It was a quite a bit of fun, I think perhaps even more fun than my monk playthrough. Towards the end I was basically unstoppable. I'd say the last 1/3rd of the game (including the Adra and Alpine dragons) I don't think my Barbarian, Eder, or Zahua died a single time. Occasionally, an enemy would get in the back ranks and fuck with Durance, Aloth, or Hravias but nothing major. I ended the game with Hours of St. Rumbalt and wearing the Sanguine Plate/Sanguine Helmet.

The conversations we had in this thread about rogues had me interested in starting another one -- a proper assassin, taking advantage of stealth to land backstabs, etc. But once I started him up, I quickly grew bored with another DPS-melee focused character, so I decided to try something different. I rolled a priest.

My intention is to build a DPS/Support hybrid and it seems to be working out well, so far. The goal is to stack fire damage, so Scion of Flame is inevitable. Despite not being billed as a damage dealer, the priest actually has some pretty good high-damage spells, mostly revolving around burn/fire damage -- Divine Mark, Shining Beacon, Searing Seal, Pillar of Holy Fire, Cleansing Flame, and Storm of Holy Fire. As a priest of Eothas, I'll also get the 8th level Symbol of Eothas, which is another burn-based spell. Then there's the Radiance spell and all of it's variants, including increased burn damage on vessels.

Equipment-wise, I'm taking advantage of the Eothas-specific talent and using flails/morningstars, but the latter as a weapon category feels a bit underwhelming early in the game. Eventually, I could bill myself as undead-hunting cleric type, once I get Daybreak. I'm not sure yet, and this is mostly what I'm trying to work out -- what kind of weapon/armor to take. I'm not even trying to off-tank with this guy, but shield and flail seem to be getting the job done okay, even though my accuracy and deflection are nothing to write home about. The point is that some melee engagement is necessary because unlike, say, the rogue or barbarian, most of my damage-dealing is going to be done via per-rest abilities (spells) and I can't be stopping to rest after every few fights. So the challenge (and the fun) is figuring out how to keep this guy in the running as a competitive damage dealer while not draining his battery of spells too fast. Because that will quickly get annoying. One thing I'm thinking of doing is taking Aggrandizing Radiance, which will limit the self-heal but increase stats, etc. This should make me more competent in melee combat. We'll see how that works out.

 

[Faarbaute]

The game was always bad.

I feel like I should elaborate on this a bit.

The thing is, this game is not a flawed gem or a first ambitious attempt at making a RPG by some nobodies. This is Obsidian intentionally going against conventions and in every case, ending up with a worse product then if they had just done things by the book and made the game their fans were expecting them to make. (and the game that was promised)

Things like no combat kill exp, no spellcasting outside of combat, per encounter stuff, individual recovery, the overly convoluted armor/pen, the preoccupation with balance, the postanago, the muscle wizards, the list goes on and on and absolutely everyone who was following along during development pointed these things out ahead of time.

The game is intentionally bad, it's by design. Josh Sawyer was just that far up his own ass that he didn't care what anyone thought because he knew better.

 

[Decado]

I think he tried a little too hard to balance stats, for example using might to determine your melee/ranged/spell damage and healing, or letting a really smart barbarian hit more targets (this makes no fucking sense whatsoever). I mean, I understand he wanted to avoid dump stats but he just traded one kind of min-maxing for another, while allowing for sublimely stupid shit such as the abovementioned smart barbarians. Or classes who can dump entire stat pools anyway (rogues, for example, don't need intellect). So what exactly was accomplished?

But even this is one of those things that I don't think bothered me originally. It has only emerged via multiple playthroughs as something that seems silly.

 

[Faarbaute]

I think he tried a little too hard to balance stats, for example using might to determine your melee/ranged/spell damage and healing, or letting a really smart barbarian hit more targets (this makes no fucking sense whatsoever). I mean, I understand he wanted to avoid dump stats but he just traded one kind of min-maxing for another, while allowing for sublimely stupid shit such as the abovementioned smart barbarians. Or classes who can dump entire stat pools anyway (rogues, for example, don't need intellect). So what exactly was accomplished?

But even this is one of those things that I don't think bothered me originally. It has only emerged via multiple playthroughs as something that seems silly.

It's funny you should say that because I had the opposite reaction. Despite my harsh criticism here I've actually mellowed out and my opinion is more forgiving now then it used to be.

Perhaps it's down to indifference or the blow beeing lessened by the passage of time but in hindsight, I can appreciate what they tried to do. Even then though, I still think the outcome was bad and foreseeably so.

 

[Haplo]

The game was always bad.

Things like no exp,combat kill no spellcasting outside of combat, per encounter stuff, individual recovery, the overly convoluted armor/pen, the preoccupation with balance, the postanago, the muscle wizards, the list goes on and on and absolutely everyone who was following along during development pointed these things out ahead of time.

I will adress the issues you listed one by one.

1. no exp,combat kill
Meh. I'm not bothered. There is arguably too much xp anyway. I'm not too attached to traditional levelling system.

2. no spellcasting outside of combat
A very good change IMO. Hate the buffing routine of 10+ buffs per character per rest. This way you have to consider which buffs are really worth it - and which may save your skin in a given situation. Of course you still use the same old buffs too much, but its a, pardon... balancing issue.

3. per encounter stuff
Yeah, not a fan of this change in PoE2. But it does work decently enough IMO.

4. indvidual recovery
And here I'm proud of our Joshua Sawyer. He was brave to try to push the genre forward and take advantage of the calculating abilities of computers, introducing an actual real time based system - instead of fake turns. Also allowing variable attack rates basing on armor type, modal stances, abilities and weapon speeds, as well as variable pulses of spell/ability effects (most effects pulse every 3 seconds, but beams and walls pulse every 1 second).
Now as we all know, he wasn't entirely successfull. The split second effect duration calculations are a bit ridiculous and the flow of combat is difficult to read and follow due to effects lasting extremly variable time units and expiring in a difficult to control manner. I think he should have normalized spell/ability effects to like 3 second durations after all.
Still, it was progres, moving things forward. I do applaud his efforts.

5. the overly convoluted armor/pen
Yeah, its... not very good. Don't know why more games don't copy systems like Fallout 1 & 2. Or Underrail. Still beats THAC0 in clarity for me And combat in PoE2 is generally very fun, so it can't be that bad.

6. the preoccupation with balance
So you believe in memes? Noted.
I mean there were some balancing efforts, sometimes dubious, like the item nerfs in early PoE2 patch (some justified, others - not so much). But overall these games are are very far from balanced. In fact, they are lovely unbalanced.

7. the postanago
Meh, they did their best to create a new setting, new factions. Is it all brilliant writing? No. Is it good enough? For me - yes.

8. the muscle wizards
Guess that was a balancing act also. All stats have clear, specific functions - regardless if physical or... spiritual in nature. Such clarity works well for me. Also we went from having 2-3 useful stats (from 6) to 4-5. Again, progress, development. Huge INCLINE in my book!

In my opinion these games are indeed beautiful, if somewhat flawed, gems.

 

[Faarbaute]

So you believe in memes? Noted.

What a useless comment.

In my opinion these games are indeed beautiful

I agree when it comes to the pre-rendered backdrops, not so mutch with the models of the characters and so on.

 

[Haplo]

In my opinion these games are indeed beautiful

I agree when it comes to the pre-rendered backdrops, not so mutch with the models of the characters and so on.

What a way to miss the point.

Hint: I was not writing about the graphics.
Although actually yes, those are pretty much unmatched in their convention as well.

 

[Faarbaute]

What a way to miss the point.

Hint: I was not writing about the graphics.
Although actually yes, those are pretty much unmatched in this convention as well.

I was beeing charitable. I thought it was obvious that we disagree on the overall point.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

3. per encounter stuff
Yeah, not a fan of this change in PoE2. But it does work decently enough IMO.

no, it doesn't

it was a disastrously bad change made entirely for ~muh balanse~ reasons

 

[Haplo]

~muh balanse~

That your obsession, fetish or something?

 

[wishbonetail]

My main gripe with PoE1 is loading time/frequency. SSD doesnt help. In my one and only 130 hours playthrough about 2 hours i spent staring into loading screens. Thats why the game seemed boring in the long run and i dont see myself replaying it someday.

 

[Nano]

My main gripe with PoE1 is loading time/frequency. SSD doesnt help. In my one and only 130 hours playthrough about 2 hours i spent staring into loading screens. Thats why the game seemed boring in the long run and i dont see myself replaying it someday.

Kingmaker must've made you suicidal.

 

[MajorMace]

I feel like I should elaborate on this a bit.

My, I wonder why.

 

[Sannom]

One critic of PoE 2 that I still can't wrap my head around is that its armor/penetration system is "convoluted". It's simpler than before, you only need to remember one system rather than two and the effects are clearly indicated in the UI. Do those people mean something else ?

If anything, the system that is convoluted in PoE 2 (and partly because they didn't make a good UI for it, thank god for mods) is the attribute-specific (de)buff system, with 36 names to remember, each with different effects, and interactions between them that are not always clear.

 

[Butter]

One critic of PoE 2 that I still can't wrap my head around is that its armor/penetration system is "convoluted". It's simpler than before, you only need to remember one system rather than two and the effects are clearly indicated in the UI. Do those people mean something else ?

If anything, the system that is convoluted in PoE 2 (and partly because they didn't make a good UI for it, thank god for mods) is the attribute-specific (de)buff system, with 36 names to remember, each with different effects, and interactions between them that are not always clear.

People call THAC0 convoluted. IIRC PoE1 armor is just a flat reduction to incoming damage, and penetration is a flat reduction of the reduction. It's very intuitive, while PoE2's system is more abstract, and it's not something that you can just grok when you first look at it.

 

[Sannom]

PoE2's system is "the incoming damage is reduced by 25/50/75% damage because the enemy's armor is too high". How the fuck is that more abstract than having to make two separate calculations ?

 

[Butter]

PoE2's system is "the incoming damage is reduced by 25/50/75% damage because the enemy's armor is too high". How the fuck is that more abstract than having to make two separate calculations ?

The first system has a very direct relation to damage. 1 penetration increases damage by 1, 1 armor reduces damage by 1. The second system using a percentage is not intuitive, and there's no way of knowing that it's 25% reduction per point without reading the rules. There's no way of knowing that you get a 30% damage boost with double penetration without reading the rules. Nobody had to read the rules to understand the first system.

 

[Decado]

I do not understand all of this complaining about complexity re: damage.

1) You're on the fucking Codex, you're supposed to like complexity.
2) It's not that complicated. Deflection, damage, DR, penetration, they're all fairly intuitive.

It makes sense to have two different calculations -- one to determine if you've been hit, and then another to determine how much damage has been done after accounting for damage mitigation (read: armor). I don't know how anyone could complain about this.

 

[MajorMace]

People don't complain about complexity, they complain about convoluted systems, ie. complexity despite little reward for meddling with said systems, because you can copy paste your approach and it will work fine in 90% of the fights in poe1 and 80% in poe2.
It's a much legitimate complain I do believe.

Also I don't loathe the AR AP system of deadfire like some people here. But the overall gripes about systems make sense. Especially for tactical combat enthusiasts.
As Grunker, I believe, pointed it out in his review though, it's not that worse than the IE games that PoE originally intended to reiterate upon.

But it would take quite a lot of digressions to explain why people make poe's flaws to be more important than they are to the IE experience.
It becomes uncomfortable to talk about this game because there seems to be quite a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum of dogmatic screeching, and it gets tiresome to have to skew through cautionary posts which, despite what you would expect from the codex, are not much about the game and rather often about the poster and his (im)posture.

 

[mediocrepoet]

PoE2's system is "the incoming damage is reduced by 25/50/75% damage because the enemy's armor is too high". How the fuck is that more abstract than having to make two separate calculations ?

The first system has a very direct relation to damage. 1 penetration increases damage by 1, 1 armor reduces damage by 1. The second system using a percentage is not intuitive, and there's no way of knowing that it's 25% reduction per point without reading the rules. There's no way of knowing that you get a 30% damage boost with double penetration without reading the rules. Nobody had to read the rules to understand the first system.

You dislike games where you need to read the rules?