Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Grunker]

Oh lol. Only now do I realize you were talking about WM2 specifically. Yeah that’s not possible. Earliest you can get to WM is about 4, and I think I was level 8 when I got to WM2. So you probably can’t do it without being at least around 8

 

[ferratilis]

If you want to get the good ending, ideally you'd do WM2 before the end of Act 2, for story reasons. But that's hard, and annoying, so I usually leave it for last. And it's not like the good ending in WM2 matters much when you import your savegame to PoE2.

Didn't even know there are multiple endings in White March. Fun topic to google/youtube later.

It is indeed fun, the whole dynamic between Ondra and Abydon was more interesting than relationship between other gods imo. Sadly, it doesn't have a big influence on PoE2, other than being able to talk shit to Ondra once or twice.

However, tempering Abydon (which can be described as the good ending) is a bitch because you need to present six perfect arguments (two for each catergory):

1. That history doesn't always serve progress or provide a good example;
2. That memory can be a burden, and;
3. That some knowledge should be forgotten due to the inherent danger it poses.

Two of these are tied with Aloth's quest and the animancy trial, and most players will actually make a choice that doesn't agree with the thinking of the Eyeless, thus making this almost impossible. So it might be considered a good challenge to finish WM2 before ending Act 2, just to see how the story unfolds.

 

[Axel_am]

Shame that I didn't want Aloth in my party. He seems to be in the middle of everything interesting that happens from Act 2 onward. And the spells you get in WM are just ridiculous.

Hopefully I haven't missed much by putting him on the sidelines and not doing his quests. I didn't like how he acted in the Animancy University. Asking for someone to take a look at his soul problem and then wanting to steal the research because he wants no one to know about it. Very beta. Also didn't fit the style I was going for with my monk.

I don't like that whatever decisions you make they feel deflated. It's like no matter what choice you make the game is still going to be played the same way. Probably this will be better in the sequel.

 

[Parabalus]

If you want to get the good ending, ideally you'd do WM2 before the end of Act 2, for story reasons. But that's hard, and annoying, so I usually leave it for last. And it's not like the good ending in WM2 matters much when you import your savegame to PoE2.

Didn't even know there are multiple endings in White March. Fun topic to google/youtube later.

It is indeed fun, the whole dynamic between Ondra and Abydon was more interesting than relationship between other gods imo. Sadly, it doesn't have a big influence on PoE2, other than being able to talk shit to Ondra once or twice.

However, tempering Abydon (which can be described as the good ending) is a bitch because you need to present six perfect arguments (two for each catergory):

1. That history doesn't always serve progress or provide a good example;
2. That memory can be a burden, and;
3. That some knowledge should be forgotten due to the inherent danger it poses.

Two of these are tied with Aloth's quest and the animancy trial, and most players will actually make a choice that doesn't agree with the thinking of the Eyeless, thus making this almost impossible. So it might be considered a good challenge to finish WM2 before ending Act 2, just to see how the story unfolds.

Tempering is also slightly cool because you can't create that state with Deadfire's History Creator, it's really import only.

 

[BruceVC]

I have this game but not the DE

I am considering playing it as my next game, I helped fund it but never played it. I dont know the ruleset and I was wondering the following

• is the DE worth getting
• Whats a good class to start with? I dont know the game mechanics at all and I want to avoid playing for 10 hours only to find I "chose " the wrong party which puts you at disadvantage in combat

In party based RPG like IE games I normally select 2 x tanks. 1x healer\fighter like a cleric. 2 x magic users and one hybrid thief

Do you need a thief in POE and what would be a good overall party recommendation based on how the game defines classes which I see is not like D&D games?

 

[Lacrymas]

If you have both White Marches, DE is basically everything together, so no, it's not worth getting. As for party, tanks are pointless in this game. Not that they are necessarily useless, just worse than anything else you can get, so if you are trying to min-max avoid them. You want a Priest if you are min-maxing, the game is substantially harder without one. Everything else is up to you. Rogues don't have an inherent ability to open locked doors/chests, so don't feel the need to get one because of that. If you've played an RPG before, you'll get your bearings fast enough with whatever class you choose as the PC.

 

[Lacrymas]

Oh, and play on the hardest difficulty. The systems don't make sense on anything lower.

 

[Just Locus]

Okay, I just finished the Old Watcher Quest, I thought there would've been a Resolve attribute check that would calm Maerwald but nope - Also the voice acting for Maerwald was.... meh.

 

[BruceVC]

If you have both White Marches, DE is basically everything together, so no, it's not worth getting. As for party, tanks are pointless in this game. Not that they are necessarily useless, just worse than anything else you can get, so if you are trying to min-max avoid them. You want a Priest if you are min-maxing, the game is substantially harder without one. Everything else is up to you. Rogues don't have an inherent ability to open locked doors/chests, so don't feel the need to get one because of that. If you've played an RPG before, you'll get your bearings fast enough with whatever class you choose as the PC.

Do you recommend any mods., I see on Nexus there is a mod that is the most endorsed that creates more IE experience? But there dont seem to be any " must have " mods?

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/1

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE is notoriously difficult to mod, so there aren't many mods. You can use the IE mod, but its best feature is the xp reduction. You level way too fast and can get to max level halfway through the game without some kind of xp reduction.

 

[Just Locus]

Yeah, modding in PoE looks exceptionally tedious.

 

[Axel_am]

Whats a good class to start with? I dont know the game mechanics at all and I want to avoid playing for 10 hours only to find I "chose " the wrong party which puts you at disadvantage in combat

I'd say Cipher and Monk are pretty safe bets. Strong through out the entire game and fun to play. Ranged Cipher specifically could be very op.
Path of the Damned is the shit, but keep in mind that most people don't finish the game if playing on it.

 

[Delterius]

Priest is a great class to be yourself. Amazing buffs and amazing nuking ability, plus occasionally good RP here and there depending on the god.

 

[Lacrymas]

Skaen Priest.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Muscle Wizard procing all the fire shit is where it's at. Frozen Crown with that big dick swinging bastard. Did make a custom party, though.

 

[Haplo]

I have this game but not the DE

I am considering playing it as my next game, I helped fund it but never played it. I dont know the ruleset and I was wondering the following

• is the DE worth getting
• Whats a good class to start with? I dont know the game mechanics at all and I want to avoid playing for 10 hours only to find I "chose " the wrong party which puts you at disadvantage in combat

In party based RPG like IE games I normally select 2 x tanks. 1x healer\fighter like a cleric. 2 x magic users and one hybrid thief

Do you need a thief in POE and what would be a good overall party recommendation based on how the game defines classes which I see is not like D&D games?

You want a Priest - for protective buffs, healing, but most of all - for the accuracy buffs and defensive debuffs.

My favorite classes include the Cipher and Barbarian.

I'd say a Barbarian with maxed Int, Perception and high Might is very fun. They get a special kind of cleave effect in this game called "Carnage", which basically makes a large part of their attack damage aoe.
The fun part is that the Carnage aoe also delivers on hi and on crit weapon attack effects.
And there are some fun weapon... like Prone on crit - while crits are achieved by significantly exceeding the enemy defense (hence Priest... a barb also gets to target enemy Fortitude rather then Deflection if lower).
So you can make entire groups of enemies helpless... without even spending resources.

 

[cretin]

still cant get over how dumb it is that a minmaxed barbarian is high int

 

[Just Locus]

still cant get over how dumb it is that a minmaxed barbarian is high int

Or how in scripted sequences, given the usefulness of the "Might" attribute to magic builds, your scrawny mage is all of a sudden this hulking beast of a man lol

 

[Haplo]

Or how in scripted sequences, given the usefulness of the "Might" attribute to magic builds, your scrawny mage is all of a sudden this hulking beast of a man lol

True, that's one one serious inconsistency, that was fortunately fixed in Deadfire.

 

[Just Locus]

Not gonna lie, I'm enjoying the Stronghold system in this game besides the obvious issue of construction time being tied to in-game hours which you can easily abuse by just traveling to faraway places back & forth - although I think the rest system needs some rework, There are a lot of moments amid a dungeon where rather than venturing forth, I decided instead to go back to my stronghold and rest with zero cost to any resources and since most quests aren't 'timed' AFAIK, I can do this to my heart's content, since the only thing that's at cost is my time, which can easily be shortened with the convenient fast mode that the game provides.
I've never really found a use for the Camping supplies outside of the Endless levels of Od Nua because even the Nighthound Inn in the Gilded Vale has a free room, although I can certainly see their usefulness in harder difficulties where you're too deep in a dungeon and have to keep progressing in the dungeon or how the more you level up your Survival skill you get extra bonuses with resting.

 

[Lacrymas]

That's because Josh (or someone else at Obs) didn't have the balls to lock us in a dungeon.

 

[Just Locus]

Do the DLCs fix this at all? Or at least lessen the blow?

 

[Just Locus]

Even in games like Diablo 1 where dungeon crawling was the mainstay for the entire game, It was always too easy to just... exit the dungeon and proceed to refill all of your resources, and come back as if nothing happened, especially how in the late game you get a fuckload of money that purchasing healing potions become a no-brainer.

 

[Lacrymas]

Very few RPGs have ever locked us in a dungeon, so it's not like this is an industry standard. However, since they refuse to do this they kinda defeat the purpose of there being limited resources in the first place, so they try to design around that or remove resource attrition in general (like in PoE2). This rarely works out well because balance is something they rarely get right too, so the gameplay devolves into the same tactics for every group of enemies.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Very few RPGs have ever locked us in a dungeon, so it's not like this is an industry standard. However, since they refuse to do this they kinda defeat the purpose of there being limited resources in the first place, so they try to design around that or remove resource attrition in general (like in PoE2). This rarely works out well because balance is something they rarely get right too, so the gameplay devolves into the same tactics for every group of enemies.

In order to make it worthwhile, you'd have to go back to something like set camp sites like in KOTC or some jrpgs or blobber random encounters so leaving the dungeon is still a resource management consideration.

This latter solution tends to fit more with most presentations of the dungeon situations where they're supposedly still dangerous despite you butchering every room you entered along the way.