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

[2house2fly]

Spoilers:



Noice.

Too bad they are all ingrates and there's no reactivity if you actually helped them.

That's perfectly in-character. In the first game the gods ask your help in stopping Thaos, then at the beginning of this game Berath goes "once you needed the gods, now we need you." What a bitch

 

[Reinhardt]

So i've started that lesbian sword quest, finished first part - kill one kith and then just sailed to dunnage and talked to her previous owner. And now she's fully upgraded.

 

[2house2fly]

That sword says it only upgrades if you kill kith, but it turns out it upgrades if you kill any enemy at all

 

[Quillon]

In the first game the gods ask your help in stopping Thaos, then at the beginning of this game Berath goes "once you needed the gods, now we need you." What a bitch

Like what they helped with is something only "gods" could do. There shoulda been an option to craft a very long rope ladder or to hire some glanfathans to dig a tunnel

...

is this old news?

Spoiler

oh its codex' pet

 

[Darth Roxor]

i knew this was coming and yet it still made me barf

also, i laffed at xoti going apeshit on pallegina and then wotcha reacting with 'just cuz her opinioun is different doesnt mean itz ronk, better learn to respekt it'

i'd take this sort of reply more seriously if both me and the wotcha didnt know that the gods are a bunch of engwithan dipshits who dont give a fuck about anything

 

[Quillon]

i'd take this sort of reply more seriously if both me and the wotcha didnt know that the gods are a bunch of engwithan dipshits who dont give a fuck about anything

eothas cares yo! maybe abydon too

 

[Reinhardt]

Funny. I'm playing as female and in two playthroughs no one from my crew tried this.

 

[Projas]

I don't know how you guys keep getting these gay cabin boy encounters. Didn't happen to me once in 50 hours. Maybe you are leading them on.

 

[dragonul09]

There's way too much homo shit in this game and also most leaders are broad shouldered dykes with an attitude, no agenda my ass.

 

[Quillon]

I don't know how you guys keep getting these gay cabin boy encounters. Didn't happen to me once in 50 hours. Maybe you are leading them on.

There's way too much homo shit in this game and also most leaders are broad shouldered dykes with an attitude, no agenda my ass.

And I thought I was the only one not considered he might be playing as fem-wotcha.

 

[Reinhardt]

Maybe they don't try this gay shit with my watcher because i slept with Xoti in first run and now i'm fucking Maia?

 

[Maculo]

I never had the gay cabin boy encounters, but that is hilarious. Something is broken with the romance options, that much is certain.

 

[LESS T_T]

Paradox on its relationship with Obsidian, from an interview about Tyranny: https://www.pcgamesn.com/tyranny/tyranny-2-obsidian-paradox

Paradox bankrolled the whole project, solidifying a relationship with Obsidian that began with publishing Pillars of Eternity. It seemed like a perfect match - yet the studio decided to instead partner with Versus Evil for Pillars of Eternity’s sequel, and all has been quiet on the Tyranny front since a modest expansion last September. What’s to become of this RPG world that is, frankly, too good to waste?

“Obsidian wanted to do Pillars of Eternity II on their own because they had ideas on business terms where we couldn’t agree,” Paradox CEO Fred Wester tells us. “It’s nothing more than that. I really like the Obsidian people and I’m a big fan of their games as well.”

At last year’s PDXCON, the publishers told us that Tyranny sold below their expectations; that “everyone was hoping that it would do better.” But Paradox and Obsidian never fell out according to Wester. In fact, their relationship is perfectly healthy.

“I’m going to have a beer with Feargus Urquhart at E3 this year as usual,” he says. “It’s more that, they want to be more independent and do their own things, and we want to publish things where we are in control. It’s not really compatible on a corporation level. On a personal level, there’s no problem.”

Well apart from the things MCA has implied, I guess Paradox may wanted something to do with Paradox Account while Obsidian wanted to do that with Obsidian.net account.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Multi-level dungeon with open-ended design, about a dozen different ways to go through it, with plenty of reactivity depending on how you approach it (ie if you do it full stealth he will have less guards for the final fight.)

It's also one of the only decent set-piece boss fights in the whole game, and then another one decent fight in the end game, if you sided with Kolsc.

Overall, Raedrik's Hold was the best PoE1 had to offer, and they knew it, which is why they put it already at the start of Act 1.

Durgan's Battery in White March and Fort Deadlight in Deadfire are definitely better dungeons, though.

Look, I get what you are trying to say. But please also see it from a point of view of a person outside that perspective. Raedrik's hold is the best dungeon in PoE. But is it an example of a great dungeon? Most certainly not. In fact, should "dungeons" as RPG tropes be considered a great example is itself a question. In my opinion, the real object for criticism is the encounter design, of which dungeon is an enclosed type (i.e. encounter inside something).

An example of Great encounters in RtwP can be IWD2 starting town of Targos. There is a fantastic setting; you arrive at a town already under attack, solve where the hidden source of the problem is and then defend the town against serious odds that feel overwhelming. An example of a dungeon done well is the Moathouse in ToEE. There are levels to it all of which make sense and without feeling like trash mobs provide an experience of each part.

Raedrik's hold feels nothing like that. Maybe the reason it feels okay is because of being one ray of sunlight in the blight that was PoE encounter design.

Oi mate, sounds like you have forgotten quite a lot. You get a wonderful introduction to Raedrik's Hold through foreshadowing in Gilded Vale. Creepy bell rings and everyone freezes in terror. Then you hear plenty about the setting from the villagers. Then you meet Wirtan in Eothas temple and find out Raedrik has sealed some dudes inside to starve. Then you have a scripted meeting with Kolsc at the crossroads. Then you finally get into the fortress and see the dude pretends to be very religious and even has his own chapel upstairs. Meanwhile, in the basement he has torture chambers and a weirdo animancer doing fucked up experiments.

That place is really, really fucking nicely integrated into the story and the whole of Dyrwood. Unfortunately, the rest of the game usually isn't integrated to anything and mostly feels like random locations put together in a hurry during Kickstarter.

Now, is that fortess a great dungeon? Opinions may vary. But I will argue that it's a fucking perfect template for a great dungeon. Because what I want from a dungeon is this:

1) Multiple approaches. At the very least, stealth, speech, and frontal assault. - Check.
2) Self-contained story with an open-ended quest chain, but still properly integrated into the setting. - Check.
3) Some good set piece-fights - Check.
4) I'd rather have a couple floors with tight level design over 50 levels of Cad Nua. - Check.
5) The usual - traps, secret doors, puzzles, dancing nude Orlans - Check.

So when I say that I want more Raedrik-like dunegons, I mean Raedik template, not that it was some peak of game design. Fort Deadlight and Durgan's Battery wipe their asses with Raedrik.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Well, it's not clear whether they cut the game up. The Fig campaign promised DLCs, so it was certainly known DLCs will come. The shitty part is they disregarded the DLC poll and, instead of making a huge expansion like they should, they are making 3 smallish ones that will inevitably be a bit unsatisfying and unsatiating.

Like I said the previous time - how did you arrive at the conclusion that they disregarded the poll?

They have probably looked at the poll and thought, this is what the current player base rates at third place, but we are going for a playerbase that would rate it first, and the difference between second and third isn't that big. That's regarding question 3 (preferred dlc features).

Look at questions 4 and then 5... It seems that what players say they want is directy opposed to what they really seem to want when asked the same in a different way. https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/9/entry-206-the-results-of-our-recent-dlc-survey/

"We like big beefy DLC, but we'll only buy a DLC if it comes out soon after the game's release".

Should I produce the type of thing they say they love most, or the type of thing they are most likely to buy, even though they don't love it that much? If you are the manufacturer, it's obvious what how you should react to this data.

 

[Xeon]

I think the only thing that feels unfinished from content wise is the Arch mage's quest line. Don't think I noticed any other similar quests that felt as if ended abruptly.

I kinda like the small dungeons since it helps avoiding trash combat but I would like one or 2 bigger dungeons to spice things up with puzzles and things, doesn't have to be mega dungeons like Od Nua and Watcher's Keep or whatever but bigger dungeon that you can have decent bite of.

 

[Maculo]

I think the only thing that feels unfinished from content wise is the Arch mage's quest line. Don't think I noticed any other similar quests that felt as if ended abruptly.

I kinda like the small dungeons since it helps avoiding trash combat but I would like one or 2 bigger dungeons to spice things up with puzzles and things, doesn't have to be mega dungeons like Od Nua and Watcher's Keep or whatever but bigger dungeon that you can have decent bite of.

I think it will be wrapped up in the DLC Forgotten Sanctum.

The Forgotten Sanctum will be available in November 2018, and will test your party’s allegiance and morality in a quest to help (or obstruct) the great wizards of Eora. Will you befriend, betray or befuddle these venerable mystics as you uncover secrets lost to the generations? Your decision will ripple across the Deadfire Archipelago.

Spoiler

I was annoyed that I defeated Concelhaut for the second time and they refused to let me on the council. All I got was a so-so grimorie.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised at all if DLCs end up making Archmages the 5th faction.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

Oi mate, sounds like you have forgotten quite a lot. You get a wonderful introduction to Raedrik's Hold through foreshadowing in Gilded Vale. Creepy bell rings and everyone freezes in terror. Then you hear plenty about the setting from the villagers. Then you meet Wirtan in Eothas temple and find out Raedrik has sealed some dudes inside to starve. Then you have a scripted meeting with Kolsc at the crossroads. Then you finally get into the fortress and see the dude pretends to be very religious and even has his own chapel upstairs. Meanwhile, in the basement he has torture chambers and a weirdo animancer doing fucked up experiments.

That place is really, really fucking nicely integrated into the story and the whole of Dyrwood. Unfortunately, the rest of the game usually isn't integrated to anything and mostly feels like random locations put together in a hurry during Kickstarter.

Now, is that fortess a great dungeon? Opinions may vary. But I will argue that it's a fucking perfect template for a great dungeon. Because what I want from a dungeon is this:

1) Multiple approaches. At the very least, stealth, speech, and frontal assault. - Check.
2) Self-contained story with an open-ended quest chain, but still properly integrated into the setting. - Check.
3) Some good set piece-fights - Check.
4) I'd rather have a couple floors with tight level design over 50 levels of Cad Nua. - Check.
5) The usual - traps, secret doors, puzzles, dancing nude Orlans - Check.

So when I say that I want more Raedrik-like dunegons, I mean Raedik template, not that it was some peak of game design. Fort Deadlight and Durgan's Battery wipe their asses with Raedrik.

All those are good points. I agree. The dungeon is still far from great because it still has trash mobs, still has a terrible structure (population, area etc) and only exists to showcase "look, we like Durlag's tower".

 

[Infinitron]

Raedric's Hold has never been held up as a "great dungeon". It's held up as a great adventure scenario.

 

[FreeKaner]

Well, it's not clear whether they cut the game up. The Fig campaign promised DLCs, so it was certainly known DLCs will come. The shitty part is they disregarded the DLC poll and, instead of making a huge expansion like they should, they are making 3 smallish ones that will inevitably be a bit unsatisfying and unsatiating.

I thought that too, at first. However the way deadfire is structured and the gameplay flows I think 3 DLCs added into the world to fill the blanks and provide substance for exploration, while creating a satisfying layer between the megacity of Neketeka and scattered 10 min dungeons is probably the best. Godwilling it will be like Concelhaut and Llengrath episode but with better level design and dungeons. It plays to strengths of the development team and the gameplay itself.

 

[Xeon]

Yeah, the only thing I remember about Raedric's Hold is why couldn't that place be ours to rule instead of Od Nua, it would have been optional and if we decided to rule it then there was already a village to rule over. They could have stuck the mega dungeon's entrance somewhere in the basement/sewers and be done with it.

 

[Quillon]

Take a team of 6 guys to fight 100 guys who did no wrong to kill 5 who did. Sounds like a plot from an Arnie movie. And yes, you can fight and kill each of the 100 without any consequence.

Well, you can kill everyone you see in the game with those 6 guys apart from Lady Webb & Icantha, and can finish the game.

 

[Tygrende]

Take a team of 6 guys to fight 100 guys who did no wrong to kill 5 who did.

You can reach Raedric without killing anyone. The game even acknowledges it if you do.

 

[Jason Liang]

Could be argued that companions are fulfilling role of other players in pnp, if so then its at very heart of dnd.

The heart of D&D is combat.

Luke K. said something about how BG fans writing fan-romances caused BioWare to include romances in BG2.

This is a prime example of why devs shouldn't take note of what fans are doing/saying.

This is an interesting point.

I think we must ask ourselves why *did* romances work in BG2? And why isn't that replicable in other rpgs?