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

[MajorMace]

Yeah soulbound items are completely pointless. I'm not gonna wait half the game until item becomes good when in the late game there's master/legendary weapons dropping left and right.

Thoose are bugs they are not supposed to drop

Pretty sure he's talking about unique items. Generic legendary items shouldn't drop according to Sawyer. It ain't the same.

 

[FreeKaner]

Engagement system has the same problem it always had; the penalty for breaking it is too light (just a provokes an Attack of Opportunity) and fighters have no way to force an opponent to engage them via taunts. Spell/Missile weapon ranges are so low that there's virtually no distinction between a front and back line anyway. So the enemies who are scripted to gank your mages will pretty much always be able to do so.

The people who criticise engagement system generally do so other way around. Saying it shouldn't exist at all and that AoO is bad design in RTwP, that people should be able to move around.

 

[ArchAngel]

I just bought the season pass on GOG to help struggling Obsidian :D
Keep going Josh, you have to tune up this game to perfection for us!

Giving money to Feargus's kids, how nice of you.

 

[Shadenuat]

Engage as a melee physical class specific system is ok. There is even a fighter kit based around increasing bonuses to engage and items. You just make a dual like fighter/barb and jump into cluster of enemies with biggest baddest weapon, lit with passives and artifacts for extra bonuses to engage like a christmas tree, and collect your extra damage. And if they just stand there, press heart of fury/clear out then until they all die.

In that respect, this sort of character, or maybe a duelist that also has some sort of slowing/crippling debuff on enemy who disengaged him, is just one of the ways you can go about playing the game.

Making engage a core mechanic means making game about lack of mobility and trenches and is not fun. It can be tuned/worked on, but is ok as it's own thing. No need to make it better for everyone.

And let's not go into the realm of threats and aggro. Previous game was tank&spank and this game can be played tank&spank and it is already TOO effective anyway, even after tuned down engage.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

No, it's now tied to few items and abilities.
Better put, it's something martial classes have access to as a choice. Enemy fighters and paladins often times have it.

Good, that was my suggestion for the first game as an obvious way to make fighter builds distinct from other builds, although i would have limited it to fighter builds specifically.
And then add enhancements of it for higher levels-skill investment.
Is that what you mean by "martial classes have access to as a choice"? The other classes cannot get it or can only by taking proper fighter/martial abilities?

You can also move around while engaged,

Do you mean you can only move a little bit, not just move away without any cost since that would nullify the point of engagement?

creating a whole lot of problems that Sensuki identified right at the very beginning of the first game's beta.

Sensuki didnt do any such shit. In fact, he only went screaming how my idea about changing engagement is nonsense.
While i was saying it has various bad effects on the gameply, as it was back then, such as making combat needlessly static.

 

[Prime Junta]

And I repeat that I do not have to believe what he says. Lately he has said a lot of things.

You're free to believe or disbelieve whatever you like, but Josh is not known for being a big-league bullshitter. Until and unless that changes, it's smarter to take his pronouncements at face value.

 

[MajorMace]

With all the mobility abilities and items, engagement is kind of superfluous. Which is better than how it worked in poe1.
Sensuki was right. #RemoveHisCuckTag #SensukiDidNothingWrong #NotMyRtwp

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The people who criticise engagement system generally do so other way around. Saying it shouldn't exist at all and that AoO is bad design in RTwP, that people should be able to move around.

I'm not saying it shouldn't exist or that it's bad for RTwP, I'm saying it doesn't accomplish the goal it seems intended for (controlling the battlefield.) Older IE games didn't have engagement/AoO mechanics and they also didn't have back-line gank. That's because you could put your fighters well ahead of the group to naturally capture aggro, movement speeds were slower, and any enemy who tried to get around the front line would be subject to several rounds of attacks. In Pillars a bow has a range of 20 ft, everyone is oddly nearsighted, and enemies run like rabbits.

 

[MajorMace]

Do you mean you can only move a little bit, not just move away without any cost since that would nullify the point of engagement?

I mean you can move around the target as long as you don't leave the enemy range you're cool.

 

[Trashos]

You're free to believe or disbelieve whatever you like, but Josh is not known for being a big-league bullshitter. Until and unless that changes, it's smarter to take his pronouncements at face value.

As far as I am concerned, he recently lost that privilege.

 

[Prime Junta]

but more important than the stupidity of some codexers is why an obsidian rpg has an option for level scaling. they are openly admitting with audacity that encounters were not handcrafted and balanced.

P2 is an open game with a ton of side content. If you balance it for completionists, casuals will scream bloody murder as the endgame will be too hard for them. If you balance it for the average player, completionists will scream bloody murder as they'll outlevel the content, unless they really enjoy cruising through the latter part of the game because they feel it's a worthy reward for their hard work.

Optional level scaling that you can even set to "only scale upwards" solves this pretty well, except for the occasional retarded edgelord who thinks it means the game "isn't handcrafted and balanced," but I think we can safely ignore them, don't you?

 

[FreeKaner]

With all the mobility abilities and items, engagement is kind of superfluous. Which is better than how it worked in poe1.
Sensuki was right. #RemoveHisCuckTag #SensukiDidNothingWrong #NotMyRtwp

Sensuki's cuck tag is not because of engagement. I mean my first post in this forum is criticising engagement system. It's because of his reaction to neutral-positive review.

 

[Delterius]

What I don't understand is that we all agree that level-scaling sucks for other games, yet people use it here.
I get that it's the "only scaling up" that people like, but it still makes you meet super buffed low level critters and fucks up the bestiary consistency.

I played with level scaling off, it's fine really.

I think the choice of altering just the critical path could be interesting, at least.

I kinda hate how in D&D games the challenge scaling makes for a weirdass world. A single guardsman from Amn could genocide the whole of Baldur's Gate. And so on.

With critical path scaling (up) you could have a challenging main story with a more 'organic' side content. That is what a DM would do, at least.

 

[Shadenuat]

P2 is an open game with a ton of side content

This is quite important in the realm of IE games btw. PoE2 is the most open err calling itself "IE game" of them all. Even BG2 just wasn't as open as this game, while IWD, for example, would easily provide rising difficulty due to being linear 100%. You can have anything, at any time. Legendary items and high quiality equipment are just at your fingertips on second playthrough, almost all of them. It strongly makes me wish PoE2 had some sort of time based events which would scale difficulty up, like monsters moving into ruins if you don't clear them in time, bosses getting extra resources and sidekicks and so on.

Naturally we won't ever get this stuff, so we're just getting shitty level scaling. I hate level scaling. But if it means dragons won't get one-shotted I can tolerate it... to an extent. Because as your party grows in abilities and legendary items, even level scaling won't stop your power growth and wiping the floor with simplier/critical path encounters. And if they would indeed go and retouch encounters so they won't feel samey, level scaling would mean you will just play tough more crafty encounters and won't die of boredom chunking through 200 defence not-kobolds.

 

[MajorMace]

Delterius
Yeah but I would rather have a crit path properly tuned up (Ashen's Maw is tuned for level 10 or so, which results in a non sensical monster design with a dragon being far less dangerous than some eotens or some vampires. It just makes no sense).

Crit path player would have a hard time ? Big fucking deal. This game has 5 difficulty settings and all of them suffer from this stupid design rule.
Story mode is all crit path players ever need. Make a properly escalating crit path or gtfo I do declare aimico.

 

[Maculo]

With all the mobility abilities and items, engagement is kind of superfluous. Which is better than how it worked in poe1.
Sensuki was right. #RemoveHisCuckTag #SensukiDidNothingWrong #NotMyRtwp

I thought his cuck tag was due to how he flipped out and leaked a review from Prime Junta, because he thought he was fighting shilling and/or gatekeeper the honor IE games against Sawyer.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

Game is less trench warfare although at the end all my characters could engage, even spellcasters, and druid could engage like 3+ enemies simply by carrying a shield and having a pet (barbs/fighters etc. can go into somewhat crazy numbers like holding 5+ enemies at the same time). Enemies, however, do not seem to use all these shields, feats, unique items and multi classing, so they don't engage you and AOO you as the character system actually allows to. It's not like you ever have to deal with really strong fighters actually rushing you, with that extra tanking kit that can engage hellton of enemies and AOOs with absurd bonuses to acc & pen.

Obvious two issues that would need to be changed so only fighter builds can have engagement - and of course have enemies use it to full extent.
That would make for better more challenging gameplay and make fighter builds more valuable and distinct from other builds - which have plenty of their own unique abilities.

Engagement system has the same problem it always had; the penalty for breaking it is too light (just a provokes an Attack of Opportunity) and fighters have no way to force an opponent to engage them via taunts. Spell/Missile weapon ranges are so low that there's virtually no distinction between a front and back line anyway. So the enemies who are scripted to gank your mages will pretty much always be able to do so.

In my view penalty for trying to disengage would be one of the starting effects that would increase with higher levels, while other more offensive effects and perks need to be added to make the ability really flourish and reach its full potential. As a fighter specific/unique ability. Which would then solve the age old problem of fighter builds being underwhelming or boring and simplistic.
I never liked taunting as an idea, or how it works. But there are other ways to make fighters able to force engagement aggressively.
Shame about the lack of longer range fighting. Thats also one of the major faults.

 

[MajorMace]

With all the mobility abilities and items, engagement is kind of superfluous. Which is better than how it worked in poe1.
Sensuki was right. #RemoveHisCuckTag #SensukiDidNothingWrong #NotMyRtwp

I thought his cuck tag was due to how he flipped out and leaked a review from Prime Junta, because he thought he was fighting shilling and/or gatekeeper the honor IE games against Sawyer.

Oh yeah.
You guys are taking my post too seriously.
He asked MCA what he thinks of engagement a few days ago, who oh surprise let us know that - like any sane person - he doesn't give a shit.
He's not over it

 

[Sensuki]

Hyperbole.

Engagement is also nothing compared to the drollness of per-encounter ability spam, dialled up to 11 in the sequel for your enjoyment

 

[canakin]

Played this for a few hours, if there ever is a game that needs the much controversial awesome button it's this one. Oh the boredom, this game is fucking digitalized boredom.

 

[MajorMace]

You should have asked MCA about per encounter versus per rest abilities.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Hyperbole.

Engagement is also nothing compared to the drollness of per-encounter ability spam, dialled up to 11 in the sequel for your enjoyment

 

[FreeKaner]

PoE's RTWP is not any more or less popamole than IE, in fact it's more complex. The fact is this is a shit derivative system and turn-based is better.

 

[Shadenuat]

Hyperbole.

Engagement is also nothing compared to the drollness of per-encounter ability spam, dialled up to 11 in the sequel for your enjoyment

This is a fair point, but how many party based RPGs you know that did a complete systemic win over rest spam and did good resource management at the same time? All while being open world.

 

[Delterius]

Delterius
Yeah but I would rather have a crit path properly tuned up (Ashen's Maw is tuned for level 10 or so, which results in a non sensical monster design with a dragon being far less dangerous than some eotens or some vampires. It just makes no sense).

Crit path player would have a hard time ? Big fucking deal. This game has 5 difficulty settings and all of them suffer from this stupid design rule.
Story mode is all crit path players ever need. Make a properly escalating crit path or gtfo I do declare aimico.

Well, its going to happen ultimately because PotD and Hard are too easy. I won't even play the game until the patch.