Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Pizzashoes]

Man the Codex pet is funny. Look forward to it.

 

[Cross]

please tell me thats a photoshop (((cringe intensifies)))

Only one sentence of descriptive text.

That must be Photoshopped.

 

[MajorMace]

Blunderbusses are terrible for backstabbing

Why that's surprising.

 

[MajorMace]

Haven't explored the huana kingdom and the Royal Deadfire Company at all. I'm more inclined towards the Vailians.

Regarding their quest on Poko Kohara.

Spoiler

1. get a job from the VTC
2. get a counter-offer from the Rauatai
3. do as Rauatai wants and fuck up VTC operations
4. let the locals know how the VTC are a bunch of fuckheads by giving some compromising document to them
5. go back to the VTC "sorry dudes, couldn't do anything " and get paid for the job anyway



I get new vegas vibes from some of those quests.
I appreciate that they didn't push the reputation systems to a caricatural gain/loss automatic system. The VTC still likes me quite a lot.
I wish it had more implications than discounts and faction shops and services. Damn this would have been cool if they designed the main quest around them, new vegas style.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Spoiler

Is there a better summary of how silly the plot is then the player character yelling at a god through the astral plane, "you destroyed my castle and at my soul, jackass"

 

[Infinitron]

Spoiler tags plz

 

[Daedalos]

Man this game is fucking long.

So many quests and side quests and stories :D I love it. 32 hours in, and I feel like I'm only half way there, just left and done everything in neketaka and tikiwara, so now onto hasongo and the other islands.


Is there no way to upscale everything once you have chosen? I only upscaled the critical path, and I feel im abit overleveled now at lvl 12. I want to upscale the rest.

 

[Spectacle]

Ok, so the Watcher was de-leveled to level 1 because Eothas drained his soul, but what is the explanation for every returning companion also reverting from level 16 to total noob? Especially the ones who were nowhere near Caed Nua when the incident occured.

 

[veevoir]

Spoiler

Is there a better summary of how silly the plot is then the player character yelling at a god through the astral plane, "you destroyed my castle and at my soul, jackass"

Actually.. option 1 also is a good summary of the plot. "I don't give a fuck about mainquest, but there is someone having an almost literal noose around my neck."

 

[aweigh]

Thought some of you might find this interesting/helpful:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98679-mechanics-attack-speed-recovery-time-reload-time/

Additionally here's a mini-FAQ:


Q1. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE1 to PoE2-beta3?
A:
- Recovery time of almost all weapons was almost doubled if not tripled.
- Firearms have lost the recovery phase, and now go into reload immediately after firing.
- Weapons started to deal damage at the end of attack phase (not in the middle). This was was relevant to Quick Switching.
- Majority of "+% attack speed" effects have been converted into "+% action speed". And now they affect not only recovery by all 3 phases: attack, recovery and reload.
- Dual-wielding was nerfed from -50% recovery time to -30% recovery time.
- The system itself and stacking formula was heavily rewritten. In PoE1 stacking speed effects was granting increasing returns (until you hit zero-recovery). In PoE2 stacking speed effects is subject to diminishing returns, and you can't achieve zero-recovery. On the other hand: in PoE1 you could achieve a x2.5-x3 faster rate of attack compared to the base values, while in Deadfire this can go up to x4.
- The new system uses double inversion in order to deal with negative numbers from maluses. This results in negative effects having a higher impact than positive ones of the same displayed value.
- Deleterious Alacrity of Motion potion was substituted with Potion of Deftness (+25% plus 5% per 1 alchemy point) and Potion of Relentless Striking (+50% plus 1% per 1 alchemy point)
- PoE1 Attack Speed mechanics: link
- Speed calculator for PoE2-beta3: link


Q2. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE2-beta3 to PoE2-beta4?
A:
- All effects that were influencing only recovery phase, now do affect reload phase as well. This includes armor penalties.
- Speed calculator for PoE2-beta4: link


Q3. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE2-beta4 to PoE2-v1.0?
A:
- Two-Weapon Style was nerfed from -20% recovery/reload time to -15%
- Potion of deftness base value was nerfed from +25% action speed to +15%
- Potion of relentless striking base value was nerfed from +50% action speed to +15%

Q4: How is the final value of each action phase (attack, recovery, reload) is actually computed?
A: The new system works in the following manner:
- for each phase it gets a list of non-suppressed effects that affect that phase
- it iterates through each effect, takes it's coefficient and converts it (via a special rule) into step_coefficient
- after that it adds all step_coefficients together and gets step_sum
- this step_sum if after that converted (via a specific rule) into the final coefficient and your base attack/recovery/reload time is divided by it.

Can someone smarter explain that about double inversion and negative numbers and maluses?

 

[Infinitron]

Cool links, the latest version of the PoE2 speed calculator is here: https://naijaro.github.io/deadfire-speed-calculator/

 

[2house2fly]

Ok, so the Watcher was de-leveled to level 1 because Eothas drained his soul, but what is the explanation for every returning companion also reverting from level 16 to total noob? Especially the ones who were nowhere near Caed Nua when the incident occured.

There is none. What's the explanation for Eder starting Pillars 1 at level 1 when he's a war veteran in his 30s? Or Sagani who's been on a quest for 5 years but never had any experiences that caused her to gain levels before meeting the player? The characters return to level 1 because gaining levels is part of RPG gameplay.

 

[Prime Junta]

Steam charts aren't looking so hot.

If it does flop, I wonder why? It's had a solid marketing campaign, good long-term fan engagement, it's an established IP, it got a 90% Metacritic average, and it's got all the buttsecz these millennials seem to enjoy, so ... what could have gone wrong?

oh and it's a pretty good game too

 

[aweigh]

Seriously, do people really care that much about this de-leveling thing? To me it's like the walk-toggle thing.

 

[2house2fly]

All games are flopping because there are too many games and nobody has any time

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Steam charts aren't looking so hot.

If it does flop, I wonder why? It's had a solid marketing campaign, good long-term fan engagement, it's an established IP, it got a 90% Metacritic average, and it's got all the buttsecz these millennials seem to enjoy, so ... what could have gone wrong?

oh and it's a pretty good game too

As you probably noticed a number of indie and not so indie sequels have done very poorly lately, selling anywhere from 10 to 30% of the original title - XCOM2, Banner's Saga 2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Blackguards 2, etc. My explanation of this phenomenon is that unless you have a AAA blockbuster with massive appeal, you don't go for a sequel because it would never sell as much as the original because the public perspective would be "it's more of the same".

Now, let's be optimistic and assume that the breakdown goes something like that (based on the reviews and impressions):

- core supporters - 25% - love it, want more
- core haters - 10% - fucking hate it, will never buy another ITS game again
- kinda liked it - 50% - liked it but ... This "but" ranges from minor to major issues
- meh - 15% - played for a couple of hours and moved on, no strong emotions, no urge to play more

So if we make AoD 2, we get the core supporters and some % of the kinda liked it camp. We'll also get some new players, probably no more than 20%. So our best case scenario is selling 3/4 of what AoD sold, worst case - less than half. Thus moving to a brand new setting with different systems but the same core design is the safest bet even though it looks like the riskiest.
...
Back in June:

Original vs sequel:

Legend of Grimrock: 936,949 vs 246,684
Blackguards: 471,616 vs 178,528
XCOM: 3,304,215 vs 823,999
Shadowrun: 723,457 vs 613,408 vs 188,034 (arguably Hong Kong was the best iteration but few people cared at this point)
The Banner Saga: 592,139 vs 43,826

Success of the first game often fools developers into thinking that they can do even better or at least as good with a second 'bigger and better' game, but it's rarely the case. The only exceptions to the rule are games that offer building, sandbox, and well-executed killing loop activities that people never seem to be tired of. Darkest Dungeon is a fucking monster but I bet if they go for a sequel it will sell less than a third of the original.

 

[Malpercio]

Why the hell not?

Because it adds nothing and has no relevance to anything in the plot. It's not even treated as a controversy in the game world. It's a pandering checkmark that at the end of the day very few people give a shit about.

Most of the things that appeal to people in videogames are pandering. Do you think all those hot women in impossible clothes that want to fuck YOU, you big stud of a player are not pandering? Seriously "It's pandering" is one of the most moronic and out of touch argument someone can come up with.

I really fucking wonder why you people are talking about whether bisexuality is okay. I mean, yeah, this is the Codex, so I might be stupid to expect otherwise, but man.

My objection is that, barring backer NPC garbage I didn't read, it didn't exist in the first game, at least not remotely to this extent. Maneha was the canary in the coal mine. A throwback to 90s fantasy rolled left just like every other fucking thing (because of course homosexuality is also totally normal and accepted by all societies in this setting why wouldn't it be, just like every other fucking thing).

My question is why does that bother you so much? .

Because the codex at this point is mostly a bunch of conservatives, hence they get triggered by homosex (And with homosex I mean male homosexuality, no one would gave a shit if all the women were bi. Go ask these people what they think of Bloodline's world in which all women like vagoo)

Ironically, despite the fact they constantly bitch about "SJW being easily triggered and censoreship" they spend their time bitching about devs putting stuff they don't approve off. (There are people that are still mad about the romance in fucking DIVINITY)

Not that all companions being bi sorta doesn't cheapen the setting, but you can tell by the way most talk about it what's the real issue (COCK IN MOUTH LMAO).

 

[Prime Junta]

Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss I read that. The explanation sounds a bit ex post facto to me. It also doesn't account for the counterexamples, like DOS2 for example.

 

[2house2fly]

Seriously, do people really care that much about this de-leveling thing? To me it's like the walk-toggle thing.

To find out why people care, look at what they don't care about. Killing an ogre, getting XP, gaining a level and learning a new spell out of nowhere in the middle of a dungeon is a sequence of events that makes no real-world sense at all, but nobody complains, because it makes them feel cool and strong. Starting over from level 1 is a puncture in the power fantasy. Look at all the people saying Pillars 2's opening is better than Pillars 1's. 2's opening is comically worse, but it's more empowering. First there's an epic cataclysm, then you meet with a god, make a choice (they even make one choice end the game, to give your choice weight) and beat up some pirates. The fights on the starting island are all really easy, there's no noob traps like the bear cave in Pillars 1, or the Eothas Temple. More empowering

 

[Raghar]

Steam charts aren't looking so hot.

If it does flop, I wonder why?

Two similar games in the row, and the first had two expansions.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss I read that. The explanation sounds a bit ex post facto to me. It also doesn't account for the counterexamples, like DOS2 for example.

You make business decisions based on what works most of the time, not on exceptions. At the end of the day, nobody has a clue what makes the exceptions, exceptions.

 

[Infinitron]

Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss I read that. The explanation sounds a bit ex post facto to me. It also doesn't account for the counterexamples, like DOS2 for example.

Wonder if it would have done better at its original April release date (which handily was before Frostpunk and BattleTech).

Anyway I think at a minimum it's looking like a sure thing that if Obsidian ever make another isometric game, it will jump on the D:OS multiplayer wagon like Wasteland 3 did. (Eternity Nights with a modding toolset?)

 

[Alienman]

In 2 years time there will only exist battle royale games.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Most of the things that appeal to people in videogames are pandering. Do you think all those hot women in impossible clothes that want to fuck YOU, you big stud of a player are not pandering? Seriously "It's pandering" is one of the most moronic and out of touch argument someone can come up with.

The problem is not the pandering of fantasy setting and common tropes, but the promise of these traditional themes "improved" by the modern sensibilities of developers that dislike these themes and despise their target audience. It doesn't feel like the genuine article at all, because the story, quests, companions are an expression of the personalities of a development team that has nothing in common with the team behind the original BG2. James Ohlen and Kevin Martens were AD&D players using their past campaigns to flesh out the game. Their development team was in a very different context from the nuObsidian of today.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Ldidn't pay any attention to who you could or couldn't pay to have sex with in the brothel. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Regardless, as far as I'm concerned, being gay for pay means little.

Rough trade Roguey confirmed.