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

[Urthor]

Eder is much better this game however, PoE1 Eder was boring as shit, PoE2 is hilarious dorky dad Eder and he's much better written than Pallegina or the Aloth even if the backstory is resident sleeper.

Honestly what I really want is to see the Zahua references, I fucked up my import and didn't set companion histories so there's no Caroc or Zahua or most companion references ingame, which sucks.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Should I mix up passive skills for my party now that there's so many? For example, a character not just focused on History, but History and Arcana or whatever?

 

[Prime Junta]

Eder is much better this game however, PoE1 Eder was boring as shit, PoE2 is hilarious dorky dad Eder and he's much better than Pallegina or the Aloth.

You must be a Minsc fan.

 

[Jezal_k23]

DOS2 has some the worst itemization I have ever seen. Enjoy your shiny new item for the minutes it might last. Also, the uniques were boring, even without considering they last 10 minutes.

Wait, there is unique in DoS2? All I can remember is that one two-hand weapon you have to do a long ass quest to get, which is utter useless unless you intentional delay the quest till you are level 20.

Other than that all I can remember is random generated weapons and armours.

There are uniques but you can't remember them, because they were shit, and you had them for a whole 5 minutes before replacing them with a generic weapon a level higher.

 

[Urthor]

Should I mix up passive skills for my party now that there's so many? For example, a character not just focused on History, but History and Arcana or whatever?

I believe the math says that you should get everyone to a minimum skill of two in the important ones (ie bluff, intimidate, diplomacy, history, metaphysics) for reasons, but I could be wrong.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Eder is much better this game however, PoE1 Eder was boring as shit

Nah PoE1 Eder was great. He was just a guy looking for meaning in his brothers death. I get that. He was by far the most believable and relatable NPC.

 

[Urthor]

Yeah but that's backstory, on paper that was a good character. The execution of Eder though was very plain and his responses were stock standard and generic, always. Eder this time around's responses are far, far better, and achieves his on paper potential as an actual angry dad in the midst of all this chaos.

 

[aweigh]

I been fiddling around with the SetClassLevel command and it works just fine, and I changed my Eder to Fighter/Barbarian.

However I can't get the SetSubClass command to work no matter what, even when the game says it worked. Oh well.

They really should've allowed more freedom in respeccing.

EDIT: It's a tiny bit depressing that mixing every class with /Fighter is probably the most numerically optimal in terms of Health, Deflection and the Stances. Close second is mixing everything with /Paladin. I wish it wasn't that obvious.

 

[2house2fly]

Also no one cared about Pallegina or Aloth as they were two of the trash (well 2nd tier at best) companions in PoE1. Still have no idea why they brought them back.

Best guess is that they wanted to retain some bland companions since all of the new ones are actually colorful and interesting for a change. Probably didn't want to overdo it in the other direction and have every companion be a wisecracking weirdo.

They wanted to bring back 3 party members and decided on these ones because Eder has an interest in Eothas, Aloth has an interest in stuff to do with the gods and the Leaden Key, and Pallegina has an interest in the Vailian Republics. They have stronger ties to the plot of this one than any of the others (possible exception of Durance who would be into getting revenge on a god but would really require Avellone back, and Kana who is Rauataian but really not a loyalist, and Sagani who lives in the archipelago somewhere but would probably prefer to hunt moose with her tribe than stick her nose in a big faction conflict) and they wanted to stick to 3 returning party members to avoid overshadowing the new ones

 

[Niklasgunner]

So, I'm about 8 hours in on Hard mode. I feel like if you put a bit of thought into min-maxing hard mode is a joke and I'm considering restarting on PotD because I'm a very serious gamer. Does the game get more difficult as you progress?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Is it just me or it seems like this aweigh character has spent like 30 minutes actually playing the game and close to 40 hours diddling around in console, editing the game files and rearranging the mods in alphabetical order.

Some levels of autism require medication, bud.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Also no one cared about Pallegina or Aloth as they were two of the trash (well 2nd tier at best) companions in PoE1. Still have no idea why they brought them back.

Best guess is that they wanted to retain some bland companions since all of the new ones are actually colorful and interesting for a change. Probably didn't want to overdo it in the other direction and have every companion be a wisecracking weirdo.

They wanted to bring back 3 party members and decided on these ones because Eder has an interest in Eothas, Aloth has an interest in stuff to do with the gods and the Leaden Key, and Pallegina has an interest in the Vailian Republics. They have stronger ties to the plot of this one than any of the others (possible exception of Durance who would be into getting revenge on a god but would really require Avellone back, and Kana who is Rauataian but really not a loyalist, and Sagani who lives in the archipelago somewhere but would probably prefer to hunt moose with her tribe than stick her nose in a big faction conflict) and they wanted to stick to 3 returning party members to avoid overshadowing the new ones

To use the BG1 -> BG2 analogy the problem is that Aloth is no Edwin and Pallegina is no Jaheria. If you are going to bring over NPC's from one game to another they should be memorable and useful.

 

[Jenkem]

Is it just me or it seems like this aweigh character has spent like 30 minutes actually playing the game and close to 40 hours diddling around in console, editing the game files and rearranging the mods in alphabetical order.

Some levels of autism require medication, bud.

I don't think that's a very nice way to treat your customers.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Is it just me or it seems like this aweigh character has spent like 30 minutes actually playing the game and close to 40 hours diddling around in console, editing the game files and rearranging the mods in alphabetical order.

Some levels of autism require medication, bud.

Why not tell us more about your specific playstyle again before you start throwing the autism tag around.

 

[Life of the Party]

The only thing I remember about Pavagina is being surprised by her willingness to share all of her secrets, including the political ones, with a foreigner she just met. And didn't her boss then do the same? There's probably a cuck joke or two somewhere in there. Aloth had some Scottish dwarf inside of him and not in a way our LGBT friends would find intriguing.

If they couldn't bring more interesting companions back then they should've just went with new ones. Say, a failed painter turned dictator would make a fine companion, if you ask me. His quest could revolve around some unfinished business, for example. He could have some unique physical trait, like funny mustache or whatever. I don't know, just thinking out loud.

My gripe with the romances is that they aren’t gated by your stats. Making all the romance-ready companions functionally bisexual is merely lazy, but making your behavior the only thing they judge you on is downright unbelievable. At least some of them should only be into characters with high enough might or constitution or dexterity or intelligence or even resolve.

This would work better with skills since they basically represent your interests, and it is mostly common interests that draw us closer to other people, rather than how dexterous they are. Although dexterity too can be useful, no question.

 

[HanoverF]

I'm mostly repeating the reasons already in this thread but anyway, sales isn't high as expected because:
1. underwhelming post reception of the first game.
2. a lot of people heard this game being a direct sequel that requires playing the first game to understand what's going on, so I can imagine some try to digest the first game before jumping into this game.
3. 3 announced expansions that probably triggered a lot of "patient gamers" into waiting for a GOTY edition.
4. high price, especially when casuals are used to spending 10 bucks less for DOS2, combined with season pass and you guess the rest.
5. yesterday was saturday for me so i went digging a bit in comment sections on reddit, journalist sites and so forth, I noticed a remarkable amount of bias against real time with pause. This one is my favorite

I can't really follow 10+ characters actions in 2 real time seconds.

basically "I can't get into a game because it requires brain functioning"
6. some people are iffy against ship management and combat, these are the minority though.
7. the marketing as Infinitron mentioned, is absofuckinglutely botched. It got released on the same day as Conan Exiles and that stupid survival game had an enormous banner on Steam's front page, 2 days later it got replaced by Dota 2 Battlepass. It simply has no mainstream spotlight at all.

You forgot Chris Avellone's sales torpedoing sabotage postings

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Is it just me or it seems like this aweigh character has spent like 30 minutes actually playing the game and close to 40 hours diddling around in console, editing the game files and rearranging the mods in alphabetical order.

Some levels of autism require medication, bud.

Why not tell us more about your specific playstyle again before you start throwing the autism tag around.

I talked about my specific playstyle because people were asking why I started the game on Normal.

But hey, you tried.

 

[Dreed]

Why the hell is that okay but many characters not being cis isn't?

What the fuck does that even mean? Are you a chiral molecule and a diastereomer? Then are you Zusammen or Entgegen? Like or Unlike?

I don't think the game is patricularly SJW-esque anyway, at least it's less so than Numenera, D:OS 2, Tyranny or any Beamdog shit.

I'm 25 hours in the game and I like it so far, it's better than the first one and I enjoy exploring the Polynesian islands on my ship La Boudeuse

As far as bugs are concerned I only got one CTD, when changing team members on the boat.

 

[Morality Games]

Itemization is good

wat

DOS2 has level-scaled/locked loot which totally ruins itemisation. Your kewl unique item stays relevant for like 10 minutes. It’s a soul-crushing grind.

Don't know what that means. If you get a purple item in the middle of Act 1 it is going to be a good choice well into Act 2.

Also not convinced that a Diablo-style loot scale = bad itemization. It's just instead of specific items you are looking for specific kinds of items (purples).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I don't think the game is patricularly SJW-esque anyway, at least it's less so than Numenera, D:OS 2, Tyranny or any Beamdog shit.

I would bet a $100 that this was posted on the 1st page of Deadfire's NPC design guidelines.

 

[Grunker]

Itemization is good

what what the the fuck fuck?

DoS2 itemization is literally more table-based than Diablo. There’s a set of stats for each item type corresponding to your level and almost 0 unique effects. In ACT 2+, “new exciting” items are obsolete after one or two levels and are mostly only better than your old items due to higher numbers. There are a few exceptions but those items are still obsolesced by a standard higher number item soon enough.

DoS2 is in the running for worst itemization in the history of RPGs

 

[Morality Games]

Itemization is good

what what the the fuck fuck?

DoS2 itemization is literally more table-based than Diablo. There’s a set of stats for each item type corresponding to your level and almost unique effects. In ACT 2+, “new exciting” items are obsolete after one or two levels and are mostly only better than your old items due to higher numbers. There are a few exceptions but those items are still obsolesced by a standard higher number item soon enough.

DoS2 is in the running for worst itemization in the history of RPGs

I mean, even if I accepted the purples could be rendered obsolete in the way described, I would have to weigh that against items like the Gloves of Teleportation which I was still using both in combat and utility into Act 4.

 

[Trashos]

- Bad writing.
- Unchallenging combat

Even when I put politics aside, why should I be sad if this game flops, again?

The only actually intriguing thing about the game that I have read in the 100 pages here is Athkatla Neketaka. Which is a big deal for me, since I love Athkatla, but it's not enough on its own. If the game has other strong merits, they have not been communicated well itt. And no, itemization is not important if the combat is not challenging.

 

[toro]

Finished it. 31 hours. Lvl 19. On Normal with main quest scaling. Never used or crafted a potion, never changed or upgraded the original boat.

Last 4 or 5 hours were spent rushing cause honestly I could not take it anymore. Contrary to other opinions: I don't think the game is an improvement on the original PoE besides the obvious engine updates.

Overall is the same bland experience with extra cringe from badly written companions. Even more retarded is the fact that the main story can be summarized in less than 3 phrases.

Someone was praising the loot itemization. Nope. It's not great. You will probably loot a lot of unique/legendary one-handed weapons but it's a completely different story for the two-handed weapons. I was stuck with a Superb Greatsword :/

And at some point I stopped checking the loot cause most items were simply too similar and it was a wasted of time checking for +5% bonuses or for some useless spell.

The entire game is a huge time sink. On some islands you can travel to specific vendors from specific locations however on others you had to go through 3 loading screens to reach a similar location.

Not to mention the naval fights which took forever and are as much fun as watching paint dry. Yeah, waste 30 seconds to chip away 8 dmg from a ship with 120 hp. Awful.

The things which enraged me the most were the combat system and the skill trees. Each fight devolved in some chaotic mess. Several times I killed my own party members because there were like 5 selection circles everywhere on the battle field.

Then the skill trees are unfocused and bloated with useless spells so much that in the case of Xoti I never used her main spells (!?). Also for some reason the AI was able to cast spells faster than me therefore by the end of the game I was simply watching without any kind of input from myself how my party was massacring whatever group of mobs they encountered. The game played itself :/

Honestly, besides the nice visuals there isn't much under the hood. Spells per encounter were a nice addition compared to the first game. There are no backer NPCs and that's about it.

In the end, I cannot recommend it unless someone is a hardcore BG2 fan (which I'm not).

 

[FreeKaner]

The itemisation is definitely not important if the combat is not challenging. However that will be addressed. Basically I think at this point it's a mistake to play the game right now, before bugfixing and tuning.