Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
Maia leaving is pretty cool.
So I'm a fair way into the game now, level 10, digging up some Poko ruins, having explored half the map.
On difficulty, POTD upscale for a nonoptimised 4-man party has served me OK so far. It is certainly easier than POE1 POTD blind, there's no question - but part of it seems to do with the nonlinearity. I disabled difficulty markers, and I routinely run across ship battles or dangerous minidungeons that the party isn't equipped for. I suspect that, first of all, the difficulty is significantly undertuned, and then on top of that, if you do something like doing every noncombat quest in Neketaka and picking up resources before venturing out, then you're further ahead of the curve. The loss of attrition gameplay also hurts; injuries seem not much more debilitating than POE1, and the switch to full per-encs along with empowers mean that I don't even need to rest very often, and I'm using all my abilities every single battle. Decline.
Otherwise, though, I'm enjoying the game. I'm a huge fan of the colonial / pirate / etc stuff they put into the setting, and it tickles me nicely to see typical but quite historically genuine moments: a native chief embracing foreigners that disrupts their existing relationship with the nearby environment, while the second-in-command is far more cynical; the native unable to comprehend what the hell this 'contract' the expedition is offering them even means; and so on. I haven't really seen any cringy overdone BUT THE NATIVES ARE PEOPLE TOO or whatever, and it so far feels like a sensible depiction for the most part without overwrought drama one way or another.
I'm also totally fine with Gozilla just being a hook and the bulk of the game spent in SOZ-style wandering and questing and factioning. I'm hearing that the faction interplay isn't well developed enough, and if that's true that's another place they dropped the ball, but I'm enjoying the moment to moment so far, almost treating it as again an improved SOZ.
So I'm a fair way into the game now, level 10, digging up some Poko ruins, having explored half the map.
On difficulty, POTD upscale for a nonoptimised 4-man party has served me OK so far. It is certainly easier than POE1 POTD blind, there's no question - but part of it seems to do with the nonlinearity. I disabled difficulty markers, and I routinely run across ship battles or dangerous minidungeons that the party isn't equipped for. I suspect that, first of all, the difficulty is significantly undertuned, and then on top of that, if you do something like doing every noncombat quest in Neketaka and picking up resources before venturing out, then you're further ahead of the curve. The loss of attrition gameplay also hurts; injuries seem not much more debilitating than POE1, and the switch to full per-encs along with empowers mean that I don't even need to rest very often, and I'm using all my abilities every single battle. Decline.
Otherwise, though, I'm enjoying the game. I'm a huge fan of the colonial / pirate / etc stuff they put into the setting, and it tickles me nicely to see typical but quite historically genuine moments: a native chief embracing foreigners that disrupts their existing relationship with the nearby environment, while the second-in-command is far more cynical; the native unable to comprehend what the hell this 'contract' the expedition is offering them even means; and so on. I haven't really seen any cringy overdone BUT THE NATIVES ARE PEOPLE TOO or whatever, and it so far feels like a sensible depiction for the most part without overwrought drama one way or another.
I'm also totally fine with Gozilla just being a hook and the bulk of the game spent in SOZ-style wandering and questing and factioning. I'm hearing that the faction interplay isn't well developed enough, and if that's true that's another place they dropped the ball, but I'm enjoying the moment to moment so far, almost treating it as again an improved SOZ.
