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Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

ferratilis

Arcane
Joined
Oct 23, 2019
Messages
3,043
Codex's relationship with PoE:
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AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,861
I started a new playthrough a week or so back too. I appreciate the world building more than I did on release. On the other hand, I have even less patience for the micromanagey clusterfuckedness of it all. I made it up to the ghost-infested lighthouse in the ghetto, and I think I'm done for now.

Someone should explain decision fatigue to Sawyer. It is not enjoyable to constantly have to choose between a million near-identical options. Like, I can kind of respect the philosophy of making every build and item viable in theory, but in practice much of this game is really a drag.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
37,052
I started a new playthrough a week or so back too. I appreciate the world building more than I did on release. On the other hand, I have even less patience for the micromanagey clusterfuckedness of it all. I made it up to the ghost-infested lighthouse in the ghetto, and I think I'm done for now.

Someone should explain decision fatigue to Sawyer. It is not enjoyable to constantly have to choose between a million near-identical options. Like, I can kind of respect the philosophy of making every build and item viable in theory, but in practice much of this game is really a drag.
You can always auto level companions. :M
 

muckguppy

Prophet
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
Messages
203
World building was ok but lacked balls for all the grimdark it pretends it is.

Decision fatigue is a bit more tolerable at slow mode on potd where ability use and build starts to count. Insane micro makes me long for turn based but I'm not ready for pillars 2 for a... while I'd say.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,986
Pathfinder: Wrath
They are 15, yeah, but they get smaller and smaller on the way down. 14 is literally a single room.
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
2,947
Location
The Present
6 Chanters are busted, but so are 6 Ciphers. Cast ectopsychic echo on each other and then run laps around the encounter. I discovered this on my first playthrough when I had my MC cipher and Grieving Mother. When you have your whole team doing it, it's like a spoked wheel of doom. It's so powerful, that beyond the initial laugh, it's not even fun.
 
Self-Ejected

MajorMace

Self-Ejected
Patron
Joined
May 6, 2018
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2,008
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Souffrance, Franka
What would be the worst combinations ?
6 Rogues ? 6 Priests ?

6 Wizards is indeed very fucking strong, even at level 2 if only because of the raw damage from their 2-times available per encounter arcane blast (wtf sawyer) which can't even damage your allies... I'll keep on playing since i'm on ironman and I expect a modicum of sweat during some specific encounters.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
37,052
How many fucking levels of Endless Paths of Od Nua are there, and who ever said the game is too easy?

:x

And here I thought the stupid Drake *was* the Master Below.
You're not supposed to do it all at once. You gain levels and come back.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,986
Pathfinder: Wrath
What would be the worst combinations ?
6 Rogues ? 6 Priests ?
6 Priests will literally never die. Maybe 6 Fighters would be the worst. Martial classes in general I'd say, with the exception of Ranger because you have 6 pets on top.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,558
But what are the rules here exactly, are we talking 6 x same class with the same build, or are you allowed to build them differently to fit different roles.
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,855
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
You'll be happy to learn then that I've "definitively" "broken up" (again) with the guy I was "with" for the past 5 years. But honestly I'm ready to move on now, especially if this long Covid I have doesn't kill me at one point, so we'll see how that goes.
Honey, who cares if you're still with him or not? Open up Grindr and start hooking up with some good looking guys.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,191
Currently playing the first Pillar, while searching for builds manage to stumble upon this article, not neccessarily agree with the writer but I do found Pillar 1 enjoyable enough to play while waiting for all the season 2 DLCs from Pathfinder WOTR to drop.

Forget Baldur’s Gate 3, I’m playing a CRPG from 2015​

Pillars of Eternity was the first massive video game Kickstarter hit, a spiritual sequel to the original Baldur’s Gate, and it’s taken over my life.
Pillars of Eternity screenshot - adventurers stand around a statue of a woman with one arm upraised

I’m lucky enough to write about Warhammer 40k and DnD for a living, and with the Baldur’s Gate 3 release date looming at the start of August, good sense says I should spend my evenings delving deep into the Early Access build while bracing for launch. As I’m not a sensible man, I’m instead forty hours deep into 2015’s Pillars of Eternity.

I can’t fully explain why I started a new playthrough of an eight year old RPG, but it has captivated me utterly. It’s definitely good: our sister site PCGamesN published a glowing Pillars of Eternity review when it first released. Looking at it today, the sheet gulf between Pillars and Baldur’s Gate 3 reveals just how much has changed in the world of PC gaming since then; changes that Pillars itself helped kick start.

Pillars of Eternity screenshot - a dungeon battle beside a mysterious structure

Pillars of Eternity is an isometric RPG with pre-rendered backgrounds, a huge fantasy world, an epic storyline involving gods and mortal schemes, and a party of oddball characters each with their own narrative threads to pull on. It may sound like a stereotype of the genre, but it’s more accurate to call it an archetype. Pillars of Eternity was Baldur’s Gate 3 long before Baldur’s Gate 3 existed.

Not officially, of course. Obsidian Studios launched the Kickstarter for “Project Eternity” in 2012, promising a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate RPG series and the era of isometric RPGs that it inspired. At the helm was a dream team of lead designers from multiple landmark CRPGs, including Planescape Torment’s Chris Avellone, Fallout’s Tim Cain, and Neverwinter Nights II’s Josh Sawyer.



I was one of over 70,000 backers who threw money at the screen to make this game happen. It was one of the first Kickstarter mega-hits, raking in almost $4 million, and still sits as the fifth most funded video game Kickstarter. So what did we get for our money?

Launching in 2015, Pillars of Eternity ditches the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons. All the familiar DnD Classes and one or two DnD races make it in, but the DnD stats have been overhauled in a way that’s simply fantastic; there just aren’t any dump stats.

The Might stat controls damage output, whether you’re punching someone or casting a spell; Intelligence controls the Duration and Area of Effect of abilities, whether you’re a Wizard casting Dazzling Lights, or causing Carnage with the Barbarian’s wide swings. This video presentation at GDC by Game Director Josh Sawyer gives an exhaustive breakdown of the reasoning behind the changes:

The system makes most builds playable, if perhaps a little weird. You can also optimise your build around what you want to achieve in non-combat interactions without sacrificing your combat capability. That’s a distinct problem in Baldur’s Gate 3, in which building a high Charisma character to succeed at delicious conversation skill checks means you’ve got to run a DnD Paladin (urgh), Warlock (fine), or Bard 5e (no thanks, that’s my life already).

The original Baldur’s Gate games tell an amazing story within the Forgotten Realms, bringing into focus the parts of the world that enhance that tale while leaving other parts in the background. Obsidian had the luxury of building a cosmos from scratch for Pillars of Eternity. And boy did they build one.

Pillars of Eternity screenshot - a boss fight against a dragon and a horde of drakes

Pillars is a thorough piece of world building. It goes to great lengths to answer one question: what would it be like if we knew that souls were real? So our story takes place in the Dyrwood within the world of Eora, where a supernatural plague is causing children to be born without souls. No-one has answers, everyone is scared, and most of them are angry.

Some see it as divine retribution for the killing of Saint Waidwen, a burning prophet who recently waged a holy war: others think that his God’s religion itself is to blame. ‘Animancers’ loot the ruins of the ancient Engwithan society, seeking relics that will advance the art of soul manipulation and perhaps find a cure – but their hastily prototyped ‘solutions’ have often been disastrous.

The central plot begins with the player character caught in a soul-shredding supernatural blizzard. This ‘Awakens’ memories of a past life trapped within their soul, and reveals them to be a Watcher, a natural soul-scryer who can see and interact with the souls of others. The search for answers, and the threat that their mind will fall apart with its new knowledge, drives the player’s quest.

The player’s adventure is tied into the fundamental laws of this fantasy universe. Yet the world manages to feel much bigger than just your adventure in it. History rests on top of history in the Dyrwood, with multiple generations of settlement, rebellion, and war. Its a metropolitan fantasy world, with visiting cultures from nations you’ll never see first hand making themselves felt in the story. Each culture jostles for a place in the world, and has its own memories of events both recent and distant.

Pillars of Eternity screenshot - a fight in the docks

Pillars of Eternity has an approach to liberal values that could only have been made in 2015 – by which I mean, it’s complicated. Sometimes it’s cheerful and unexamined: boreal dwarf ranger Sagani is on a multiple-year quest to find the reincarnation of a tribal ancestor, leaving her husband in the traditional role of child-rearing. No questions asked.

The elf wizard Aloth shares his personality with a previous incarnation, a tribeswoman, and he’s far more disturbed by her manners than her gender. A visit to the brothel in port district Odra’s Gift reveals that the patrons are both male and female, and the professionals come from every gender and species on Eora.

At other times, the game is all too eager to explore the nastier consequences of its setting. Descriptions of infanticide and miscarriage resulting from the supernatural curse are present from very early in the story, and prevalent throughout.

Pillars of Eternity screenshot - a mysterious pool of blood

The colonial history of the region is brutal, and an early plot point involves a Watcher who discovers that his soul once belonged to a war rapist, and then the son of that assault who eventually burnt down his father’s village in retribution.

It’s an unconsciously confrontational approach to potentially upsetting themes – like I say, very 2015. Nevertheless, it has me hooked. It has been a very long time since I cared this deeply about the setting and story of a digital RPG. The Witcher 3 came close, but mostly that was Geralt’s voice. Before that, we’re talking Planescape Torment.

Pillars of Eternity screenshot - a fight in an underground theatre

Pillars is no slept-upon Indie darling. Its Kickstarter success made waves, proving there was huge demand for isometric RPGs at a time when the industry had largely abandoned them. That kicked off a mini renaissance for the genre that eventually gave us hits like Disco Elysium and, yes, Baldur’s Gate 3 itself.

What strikes me as most remarkable is how similar Pillars of Eternity and Baldur’s Gate 3 can be, while remaining totally different. Both are the product of passionate, experienced teams, masters in their respective fields. Both grapple with the legacy of the original Baldur’s Gate games in their narrative scope and design choices. Both strive to provide an authentically DnD experience, often in spite of the tools that DnD provides. Both are great.
 

processdaemon

Scholar
Patron
Joined
Jul 14, 2023
Messages
648
I like Pillars but I'm not sure I really get what the author of that article is going for with this bit
It’s an unconsciously confrontational approach to potentially upsetting themes – like I say, very 2015.
I don't think it makes sense in a setting where brutal things happen as a matter of course for them to be treated with great sensitivity in-game, it weakens their narrative impact. If you want people to know that something is wrong you should make them feel like it's wrong, you shouldn't have to tell them, and being confrontational is a part of that.
 

Shalashaskka

Novice
Joined
Apr 23, 2020
Messages
1
Some people would rather just put their heads in the sand than come face to face with potentially unsettling themes. They get a dopamine rush of pointing to something and yelling "problematic," then pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Good narration doesn't shy away from that.
 

goregasm

Scholar
Joined
Aug 19, 2016
Messages
212
I'm trying to finish PoE before getting on to PoE 2. I have had both since launch but finally got back to my late game save on the first one, since then my life has changed considerably, kids, moving, houses etc.

Trying to finish up WM2 in PoTD and holy shit the encouters are a..well a slog. I have only been back on since Friday and the fuckin temple has 10 deep mobs around every corner.

I thoroughly enjoyed the setting for pillars (one at least, as I haven't gotten to 2) I didn't even mind the exposition dumps folks seem to get so butt hurt about, I dig the bleakness of the setting, but encounter design is really, really fucking exhausting on the higher difficulty levels for WM at least.

I'm not dying or anything in them, it's just there are so fucking many. I realize why I put the game down 4 years ago after my first kid.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,419
Yeah, PoE on PoTD is a fucking pain in the ass. They even have the nerve to ask you to upscale if you get too high a level, which makes it even more of a pain in the ass.

The problem with these difficulty settings in games like PoE is how are they going to increase difficulty exactly in an isometric tactical RPG?

One way they do it is by inflating enemy stats. So now every kobold has more health than an Ogre, hits like a dragon, and can avoid your attacks. Great... In PoE, also, almost every fucking enemy has non-stop spam CC, so have fun with your entire party constantly Charmed, Dominated, Stunned, Petrified, Stuck, etc. Why would anyone think this would be fun? Cast a defensive spell against this shit, they switch to some other cc.

Another way, is they have all these "realistic" ways to increase difficulty. So now every enemy targets your backline, or the party member low on health. Enemies have ways to get past your front line. Enemies can pull in your party members and teleport them around. Enemies have endless CC.

This turns every fight into a game of chess. The thing is, I don't want to play a game of chess 4,000,000 times in an RPG. If I wanted to do that, I would just play actual chess. I don't want to buff my party with 20 spells and 30 consumables to be able to survive some basic fight. I don't want to have to plan and retry a fight 20 times every single time. Games are supposed to be fun, some reasonable challenge is good, you don't want to roll over everything, you want to have tactics, have tanks up front, healers, dps, want to apply cc and counter some enemy cc, and heal, and so on, but this shit they do now on hardest difficulty settings is just retarded.
 

goregasm

Scholar
Joined
Aug 19, 2016
Messages
212
It is. I remember the spams on WM1 upscaled PoTD. Im on part 2, but thankfully about to jump in the pit in the base game, so right by the end I think.

Anyway, the save is from 2019, I even played through on a new save a few years back, just due to restartitis.

I enjoy the difficulty of the game in the beginning, even understand *certain* enemies being a bitch to fight, vampires, some undead, dragons, etc.

I think the issue I have with at least PoTD is each area (as I recall) would just spam the same groups over and over.

Now I'm battling these supposedly self interred mooks in an abbey, that are *supposed* to be rather old etc, and they are like masters of death, well the first few fights were a bitch, but now it's just resource drain, but each fight has like..2 (bastard ass) monks, 2 nukers, 2 archers, 2 ciphers, 2 paladins, 2 fighters..over and over.

Again, I still thoroughly enjoy the game overall, don't get the hipster hate on it, but criticisms I can understand, this is my major one.

I guess I would appreciate a little bit of less is more, I would mind the mobs less in WM2 if there was 20% less of em
 

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