Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Roguey]

Honest question, can anyone explain to me the appeal of physical boxes in this age of digital distribution? I had a bunch of old ones and just tossed them when I was cleaning out the attic some years ago.

(I do get the appeal of collector's editions, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Just the basic deal, of a box with a DVD and a booklet in it.)

Paging Roguey.

a) saves me bandwidth
b) a digitally distributed game may come with DRM, ensuring that all you're purchasing is a license to play a game. With a physical copy you can resell it if need be, let someone borrow it, whatever.

 

[Jenkem]

It's fairly easy to understand, I think: Versus Evil is smaller than Paradox so they surely agreed to have a smaller share of the profits, so Obsidian gets to keep more money and also has a bigger role in this partnership probably so that maybe they'll be able to publish PoE3 by themselves.

but who will make the console version of deadfire if paradox isn't involved?

 

[Fry]

Just because they aren't publishing Deadfire doesn't mean Obs won't license a console version to them.

Depends more on how the first one sells.

 

[Rev]

but who will make the console version of deadfire if paradox isn't involved?

Hopefully no one.

 

[Prime Junta]

Fighter HP

In P1 wizards and fighters receive the same HP on level-up. Only the base is different. I haven't heard that this has been changed for P2 (although of course they might have, since they got rid of the End/Health split, and the End/Health ratio served to differentiate classes.)

 

[Ulfhednar]

Fighter HP

In P1 wizards and fighters receive the same HP on level-up. Only the base is different. I haven't heard that this has been changed for P2 (although of course they might have, since they got rid of the End/Health split, and the End/Health ratio served to differentiate classes.)

Really?

I just checked in the character creation interface and I see:

Fighter: 42 + 14/lvl (Average)
Wizard: 36 + 12/lvl (Very Low)

Could be because I'm using v3.03 (never upgraded cause I missed the last few patches on GOG and will have to redownload the whole game to catch up... blargh.)

This example probably isn't the best, since the starting values and growth rates are similar/same.

I just looked it up and in my outdated version of the game there are actually only 3 tiers of HP growth:

Very High (48 +16/lvl)
Barbarian

Average (42 + 14/lvl)
Fighter Monk Paladin

Very Low (36 + 12/lvl)
Chanter Cipher Druid Priest Ranger Rogue Wizard

My thought was that multiclassing for tanks might be a fairly high cost proposition if you average a high HP class with a low HP class. For people that just wanted to dip a class and take mostly talents from the sturdier side of their talent trees, you might unexpectedly lose a lot of endurance relative to the single class.

Really, I was more concerned with ACC and DEF growth and averaging, but since we know that both of those stats are changing, it's hard to say anything meaningful there. I also didn't realize that all classes have the same ACC growth.

 

[Prime Junta]

Huh, they changed it at some point. I wasn't aware of that.

 

[Space Satan]

The weakest story part so far for me is why the hell all characters will start at lvl 1?

 

[santino27]

The weakest story part so far for me is why the hell all characters will start at lvl 1?

Well, yeah. It's clearly mechanics-driven, first and foremost (because of all they're changing), and then they shoehorned in a plot reason for it. But even then, their explanation only "makes sense" for the main character.

For that matter, given that we already got ending card epilogues for party members, it's a little awkward to now pick them up again and potentially (probably) have entirely different endings by the final scenes of POE2.

I would've rather they just picked up with a new character and new companions, myself. Would have been okay with the same PC and all-new companions too. But I guess Eder's gonna Eder.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Figuring out the dumpstat for each class was maybe what I was getting at?

There isn't a dumpstat for each class. That's kind of the point of the attribute system. You, however, can figure out specific builds, tactics, and item choices that make minmaxed characters work.

D&D stats are almost pointless because there's only one way to distribute them for each class; you might as well not have stats and bake the bonuses/penalties into the classes.*

*This does not apply to PnP games using the original, strict character creation rules...

This doesn't apply to any PnP where the DM can decide you simply don't have enough intelligence to understand something. Videogames are videogames first, the player also has a part in making an RPG play as an RPG.

 

[Background Character]

I would've rather they just picked up with a new character and new companions, myself. Would have been okay with the same PC and all-new companions too. But I guess Eder's gonna Eder.

Eder smoked too much weed and is back to level 1, it happens all the time irl.

 

[Lacrymas]

The whole premise is shitty since it invalidates one of the most interesting conflicts in the lore and shits all over people like Durance and Eder who were part of the war. I also don't understand why it has to be the same Watcher from the first game, it's not like watchery is a unique trait only s/he has, if it's absolutely necessary for the PC to be a Watcher. The "BG2 did it" justification is very poor.

 

[Sizzle]

Considering that even in PoE1, the level of the companions was tied to the level of the PC, it was already pretty meta-gamey from the start.

 

[Infinitron]

"I don't understand why people want to take their character on a journey through multiple games" is such an autistic thing to say on an RPG website

 

[Rahdulan]

I just hope Versus Evil/Obsidian do a better job of marketing the game because good god if Tyranny and subsequent expansion showed anything it's that Paradox doesn't really know how to market RPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah... I'd love to do a blind test of anyone's ability to tell the difference between vinyl and lossless high sample rate digital.

It's been done. Under good conditions, it is possible to tell the difference. Vinyl is lower-fidelity and a good ear will pick up on it.

Another experiment that has been done is comparing a CD-quality bitstream with a direct analogue feed (no recording medium in the middle), from an ensemble playing live. Turns out these two are indistinguishable by the human ear.

CD fidelity is good enough that you'll have to prepare highly artificial samples to make it detectable by human perception. For example if you play a note that fades into nothing and then amplify the bejeesus out of it, you will eventually be able to hear something towards the quiet end -- but this requires amplifying it way more than you would ever do for real music; you'd need a rock-concert-grade amplifier, plus the fortes would blow out your eardrums.

Yeah it's been done and anybody can train their ear to detect differences specifically on blind tests, holding one short sample in the memory while another plays out.

The thing is, that kind of test is really missing a point. The difference is really subtle and only truly noticeable over long sittings. It's like with Hi-Fi speakers. My buddy once bought professional studio monitors instead of commercial household speakers, and we all thought it's the best bargain deal ever. The sound was so clean and rich in detail, it was like something from totally different price class. But overtime it just started to bug him, it was too clean, almost sharp, felt like you're about to bleed from your ears after couple of hours. Obviously we were stoned out of our mind at the time, but still. He sold that shit and switched to normal speakers and it was almost a relief. Cleanest sound isn't necessarily the most pleasurable, although you can certainly try and mimic vinyl distortions digitally.

 

[Prime Junta]

That's a cool-looking weapon, exotic without going full anime. Mechanically a greatsword?

 

[Lacrymas]

Ok, oonga-boonga Savannah spearman, but with a bear pelt. I guess bears are plentiful in the DESERT at that time of year.

 

[Jimmious]

Ok, oonga-boonga Savannah spearman, but with a bear pelt. I guess bears are plentiful in the DESERT at that time of year.

Looks much more like a wolf pelt to me, at least the head looks very wolfy

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, it might be a wolf now that you mention it. Also, I think that's Eder.

 

[Frusciante]

Ok, oonga-boonga Savannah spearman, but with a bear pelt. I guess bears are plentiful in the DESERT at that time of year.

Lol you're such a downer sometimes, it looks good right? And from what I understand deadfire is not only desert, thought they said it very expansive with different climates. Think for example about Chile which has the driest desert on earth as well as tropical and arctic regions.

 

[Prime Junta]

Ok, oonga-boonga Savannah spearman, but with a bear pelt. I guess bears are plentiful in the DESERT at that time of year.

That's not a spear.

That's not a bear.

Deadfire isn't (only) desert.

Other than that, GG

 

[Infinitron]

Pelts = oonga-boonga tribesmen? Hardly:

 

[Lacrymas]

I didn't know Chileans used that kind of attire, kind of 5000 BC era fashion, but 'k.