Pillars of Eternity Thread [Pre-Expansion]

[Bubbles]

"Instagibbed"? A level 4 wizard has 60 endurance and 19 base deflection, a rogue has 72 endurance and 29 base deflection, and a fighter has 84 endurance and 34 base deflection. Anything that instagibs a wizard would fell a similarly built and equipped fighter in two to three hits, which means you're probably underleveled or poorly built for the content. Build and equipment make a big difference.

 

[Duraframe300]

Yes, while your actions have weight (and they do already through other C&C) a main factor in how people percieve you has the biggest impact in how you are viewed.

Like you can come off as helpful and as a jackass by doing the same action

Extreme example

Glad I could help

vs

Man you guys couldn't have done this without me

There are other factors too like body language but thats harder to emulate.

And it doesn't have to be that obvious. Its a lot of the little things that over time give people in general an impression of you

Subtelty!.

Edit: Same way you come now off as a complete jackass by posting these pictures instead of making the same argument but formulate differently.

Edit2: In terms of honesty this means by speaking honestly, you are getting to be known as honest.

Edit3: Not that the system doesn't have a few problems and needs a bit of stretching. Its still a million times better and more flexible than good/evil rep.

Honesty in opinion and honesty in business aren't even the same thing.

Saying "I don't know" to some question doesn't mean you are honest in general.

No it doesn't. But it gives the impression of a straightforward, honest person. Thats the important thing.

It alone can already have an impact. Its surprisingly often the small things.

Continued use can then make that impression stick.


I'm interested in perception in general, but I notice this myself more and more as I work at a radio station now

 

[Duraframe300]

How does this give you a reputation for being deceptive?

It's impossible for anyone else to know that you are lying except for your party members.

The same way many criminals get caught - eventually, someone would find out you lied or find the truth from another source. Yes, it's abstraction - that's how a reputation system works.
.

Exactly

 

[Athelas]

Can a storyfag get some feedback on the quality of writting and companions?

Seems like journalsts like it, but who can trust these philistines?

It's not Mask of Betrayer.

I'm still in Gilded Vale (no spoilers plz), but so far the plot has quite a few similarities to Mask of the Betrayer's - curse of a dead god that makes people's everyday lives in a certain region harder.

So far, I'd say the writing is less uneven than Mask of the Betrayer's, which had a big gap in quality between the Myrkul/Kelemvor/Kaelyn stuff and the rest of the writing.

 

[Owlish]

No it doesn't. But it gives the impression of a straightforward, honest person.

Fine.

 

[Duraframe300]

No it doesn't. But it gives the impression of a straightforward, honest person.

Fine.

Eh, I understand.

Honestly the system still sucks to what I would like. One of the reasons I'm such a big Obsidian fan boy is that they're the only big company who actually really try (imo)

If I did a real critique on it I'd rip it a new one. I'm glad for every improvement though.

 

[Haba]

AFAIK the reputations like deceptive, honest, benevolent etc are used for paladins and priests, if the god you worship as paladin/priest favors deceptive, and you use it in dialogue, certain abilities should get getter the your gain the points on them.

Edit: I dunno if deceptive is used in dialogue too though.

There is gated content that you can only access with certain reputations. But then again there seem to be several checks (diplomatic 2 OR benevolent 2, etc.).

Owlish is just being a dumbfuck. It is a perfectly rational game mechanic, and if it bothers you - turn on the "show personality/reputation" and keep choosing the choices that have no rep effect whenever possible. I wish the reputation system was the biggest problem the game has...

 

[Shadenuat]

Haha, so many butthurt crybabies complaining about teleporting shadows! The kickstarter was worth it for this alone. Especially since it's not only Gamespot/IGN comment sections, but on the Codex. My short guide for you:

1. Play on Easy.
2. Learn to play.
3. If the above doesn't fix your problem, go back to playing Skyrim.

I was searching for Edgy icon but dropped it since this is not even edgy, just shitty trololo

And everyone who agrees with it should wait until they realise that games is *heavily* overusing that same enemy type everywhere, and not in a smart way where you mix monsters with different abilities together, but just drops these same spectre/shadow packs inside a lot of places which quickly becomes a chore to hack and slash through.

It's the same for some other enemy types too, it's very rare for game to mix monster types together. You'd think designer would throw a bunch of barbarians or druids together with pack of lions, but no you get 6 lions - that's your encounter. Or you get 6 ghouls. Sometimes there are a few casters in the mix, caster/tanky sort mixes which also seem to repeat (trolls and Kurvas... DWywas... fuck I forgot those witchy druid types)

I am finishing Defience Bay too and so far, if you ask me if there are truly memorable and difficult fights in the game, BG2-level, I would say - none. Not a single one. Maybe for some shadows count since they are at least incredibly annoying, but even Roedrick fell to my tank&spank with spells. It feels incredibly safe, and nothing in particular breaks the pace or the challenge, crappy pathfinding and lolrushing enemies aside.

So far, I'd say the writing is less uneven than Mask of the Betrayer's, which had a big gap in quality between the Myrkul/Kelemvor/Kaelyn stuff and the rest of the writing.

So far it's like all parts except Myrkul/Kelemvor/Kaelyn and I love Safiya, Okku & Many as one and even Gann too. To me it's underwhelming cause I am used to get amazed at at least something in Obsidian writing.

Durance carries everything so far and interactions of other party members with Sagani since she's the only one who has a sense of humor, even if it is dry.

 

[Jaedar]

So I've played up until and finished most of defiance bay (I'm sure I'll be back several times, but I think I took care of most of the local quests).

The game is ok, even good. But the fears of *balance* were certainly justified. The entire system just feels so stale.

And I want to complain a bit about spells. First of all, both priests and wizards seem to suck pretty badly. Priests because they seem to be intended as buffbots, but chanters do that better. And wizards because they have very limited amount of spellcasts, and have a lot of issues with friendly fire, which just makes chanters better. But even with chanters there are major issues. So far I'm not entirely sure if its just the case that most spells suck or just that the higher level ones are shittier than lower level ones. Maybe I just happened to pick the best level 1 spells, and bad spells of the other tiers, but 90% of my casting is the mental shockwave(knockdown entire enemy army is good) and paralysis(stun one enemy for 20s) with the other 10% being the bounding missile attack for clearing out trash mobs faster. It's especailly damning when you look at the costs. I could keep all the enemies knocked down for 15 seconds in a row while doing like 150 damage to one of them.... or I could put an incredibly slow acting and low damaging DoT on one of them. Seems pretty cut and dry. The same sort of applies to wizard spells too, burning hands still seems like the best option for doing damage.

The writing is also incredibly mediocre so far.

 

[RK47]

Weapon Focus: Nigger

 

[Bubbles]

And wizards because they have very limited amount of spellcasts

Their lower level spells turns into per-encounter abilities later, so their power level development in perfectly consistent with the usual Baldur's Gate mage progression.

 

[dragonul09]

Jesus fucking christ, this game is infested with kick backers npcs and damn, they feel so out of place most of the time.Instead of wasting time with crap like this ,they could have done something better ,like making the fucking stronghold actually matter ?
Next time ,fuck the backers(i'm one of them) ,send them a fucking poster and a flyer and leave them out of my game.

 

[Haba]

Yeah, it is obnoxious as fuck. Especially the fucking retards like GAMEBANSHEE.COM. This isn't any worse than plastering the place full of Coca Cola adverts.

 

[Diablo169]

I think the implementation of backer NPC's could have been better certainly.

 

[Rake]

Can a storyfag get some feedback on the quality of writting and companions?

Seems like journalsts like it, but who can trust these philistines?

It's not Mask of Betrayer.

I can't but have the feeling I'm playing Baldur's Gate 1 but just with a lot more quality. Running around empty houses searching for quests in main city adds to experience.

And the companions are "just there". A chuckle sometimes but nothing really extraordinary.

Can a storyfag get some feedback on the quality of writting and companions?

Very descriptive, details and ambiance focused, which I like a lot.
Can't really say it's "good english" since I'm not a native speaker but it flows within the context pretty nicely even though it's a bit..hmm..flowery (?) at times.

Story so far (think around end of Act 1) is interesting but I'm a fantasy sucker so that might not be saying much. Nothing blew my mind yet though I like the dark tones here and there. It just..fits.
Companions are a bit too...extreme for me, as usual for companions. I'd like some fucking rationale non crazy human being from time to time. Their stories haven't developed enough for me to judge however, but seems fine so far.

Can't say you'll fall in love with the writing overall, but I don't think you'll get disappointed either. It's just decent at worst, pretty good at best so far.

Shit, now i'm worried. Anyone here that has a different opinion about the writing/companions/NPCs?

 

[Owlish]

AFAIK the reputations like deceptive, honest, benevolent etc are used for paladins and priests, if the god you worship as paladin/priest favors deceptive, and you use it in dialogue, certain abilities should get getter the your gain the points on them.

Edit: I dunno if deceptive is used in dialogue too though.

There is gated content that you can only access with certain reputations. But then again there seem to be several checks (diplomatic 2 OR benevolent 2, etc.).

Owlish is just being a dumbfuck. It is a perfectly rational game mechanic, and if it bothers you - turn on the "show personality/reputation" and keep choosing the choices that have no rep effect whenever possible. I wish the reputation system was the biggest problem the game has...

If my monitor is broken and displays blue as red opting for grayscale doesn't fix it. I still want to see the colors.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

This game is fun if just for the full team arbalest/arquebus salute at the start of every battle.
Have to make sure to keep a variety of armor sets to ensure the region encounters dealt very low damage on my characters.
The initial solitary encounter for every enemy is pretty helpful in knowing their damage types and DR.
Make all the later mass battle encounters easy as shit when they can't do shit and anyone that can do shit have already been gunned down.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Jesus fucking christ, this game is infested with kick backers npcs and damn, they feel so out of place most of the time.Instead of wasting time with crap like this ,they could have done something better ,like making the fucking stronghold actually matter ?
Next time ,fuck the backers(i'm one of them) ,send them a fucking poster and a flyer and leave them out of my game.

Yeah, it was a very stupid idea. Maybe they will add an option to remove this crap in one of the future patches.

 

[Bleed the Man]

Can a storyfag get some feedback on the quality of writting and companions?

Seems like journalsts like it, but who can trust these philistines?

It's not Mask of Betrayer.

I can't but have the feeling I'm playing Baldur's Gate 1 but just with a lot more quality. Running around empty houses searching for quests in main city adds to experience.

And the companions are "just there". A chuckle sometimes but nothing really extraordinary.

Can a storyfag get some feedback on the quality of writting and companions?

Very descriptive, details and ambiance focused, which I like a lot.
Can't really say it's "good english" since I'm not a native speaker but it flows within the context pretty nicely even though it's a bit..hmm..flowery (?) at times.

Story so far (think around end of Act 1) is interesting but I'm a fantasy sucker so that might not be saying much. Nothing blew my mind yet though I like the dark tones here and there. It just..fits.
Companions are a bit too...extreme for me, as usual for companions. I'd like some fucking rationale non crazy human being from time to time. Their stories haven't developed enough for me to judge however, but seems fine so far.

Can't say you'll fall in love with the writing overall, but I don't think you'll get disappointed either. It's just decent at worst, pretty good at best so far.

Shit, now i'm worried. Anyone here that has a different opinion about the writing/companions/NPCs?

Don't be, writing holds up to Obsidian's rep. The lore is great too.

 

[mutonizer]

Yeah, it was a very stupid idea. Maybe they will add an option to remove this crap in one of the future patches.

Or just rename them all to "citizen" or something and keep the rest, which unlike names, takes you actually checking it out.
And yea it's fucking annoying. I get that backers are nice and all, but no need to punish non backers with all that shit.

 

[Zombra]

If you don't pick the same "rep" option every time you arbitrarily lose dialogue options. It's like Mass Effect 3 dialogue wheel.

But if you do pick the same option every time, you are losing all other options. So ... don't do that unless you like maxing a number for no reason. You don't get a candy bar for being Super Stoic.

"remove them in the option"
wtf are you talking about?

Literally, in the game menu ... remember that option you deliberately turned on (you must have, because it's off by default): "Show Personality/Reputation"? Go turn that off again.

Does anybody know when you take health damage? Is it a percentage from stamina damage?

You take Health damage every time you are hit, I believe. Same amount as Stamina damage. You just have a lot more Health so you can survive several fights even if you get knocked out over and over.

 

[Mortmal]

"Instagibbed"? A level 4 wizard has 60 endurance and 19 base deflection, a rogue has 72 endurance and 29 base deflection, and a fighter has 84 endurance and 34 base deflection. Anything that instagibs a wizard would fell a similarly built and equipped fighter in two to three hits, which means you're probably underleveled or poorly built for the content. Build and equipment make a big difference.

Build has nothing to do about it , i use aloth , so i barely have t any input into the build, as for the equipment i rarely find anything out of the usual . Maybe it was underelveled for the content, theres no way to know if its the intended diffculty or areas better left for later.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Obsidian's strengths are supposed to be writing and atmosphere, but so far, with a few exceptions (Durance is cool, and so is the story of Eothas), I find the setting and dialogue boring so I just skim / fast click through it. It's trite, it's verbose, it's rarely fascinating. The quests have been pretty banal, too. The soul stuff has potential but I still feel like the setting fails to support it and so it feels disconnected and wasted.

Amusingly enough for an Obsidian game, where I find PoE fun is in experimenting around with different builds, equipment, party setup, etc. Thanks Sawyer!

 

[Bleed the Man]

Yeah, it was a very stupid idea. Maybe they will add an option to remove this crap in one of the future patches.

Or just rename them all to "citizen" or something and keep the rest, which unlike names, takes you actually checking it out.
And yea it's fucking annoying. I get that backers are nice and all, but no need to punish non backers with all that shit.

If the name is inside a yellow rectangle: backer npc. They have highlight them differently so people know it.

 

[Jarpie]

Not sure how much time and effort they put into backer NPCs as, unless I'm wrong, the actual writing of the short stories is from the backers themselves.