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

IHaveHugeNick

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I didn't really use any consumables.
 

MicoSelva

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Review by ARS Technica (they like it).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...-deadfire-review-oh-the-places-youll-plunder/

The Good
  • More balanced real-time combat than Pillars of Eternity
  • Fascinating depth and detail to the world
  • Reputation and dice rolls add unexpected drama
  • Incredible amount of well-constructed side content
  • Full voice acting (usually) adds charm
The Bad
  • Ship-to-ship combat is a letdown
  • Less-macabre main plot isn’t quite as memorable
The Ugly
  • There’s a lot of back story to take in if you didn’t play the first game
The Verdict: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a broad, deep, and excellent RPG in the tradition of Baldur’s Gate. And it has pirates. Buy it.
 

ScrotumBroth

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And done.

They've toned it down from PoE1 and it immediately brightened the mood.
Would've preferred a bit more elaborate ship gameplay, with more variety in sea battles, and perhaps more random faction conflict encounters.
The concept's potential for a fun tabletop mini game initially gave me a stiffy, but eventual lack of meat on the bones has reduced it to a confused semi.


Narrative leads won't be basking in fortune and glory from this game, that's for sure. In many ways, it reminds me of shallow Andromeda writing, but in return, it has allowed for exploration to shine.
:slamdunk:


Had they nailed the combat and removed retarded things, it could've been modern Icewind Dale, in my opinion.

It's shit when compared to the cRPG oldies, but it did provide good moments. I rate it:
obama-jenkem1.jpg



Surprised water shaping died off, considering I've snatched the thing for Tekehu near the end.
Does it require for him to be in the party at the time of looting? Or is it purely dependent on releasing the dragon? :retarded:

Did anyone choose a faction? I've got a pretty chaotic ending for choosing none. :dance:
 

IHaveHugeNick

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I went with Rautait. In a conflict, always side with people who have the biggest cannons.

Next run I think I'll do the Huana. Would be cool if the Huana final quest had you beating other factions into submission and then having a massive dindu tribal orgy where you cook the flesh of your enemies and feed it to children.

But I'm not holding my breath.
 

AwesomeButton

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  • Ship-to-ship combat is a letdown
After all the work the team poured into something that was to be a sideshow, suddenly all reviewers treat it working under the assumption that it was concieved as a core gameplay feature.


I'm not saying it's anyone's fault, and I can't make a suggestion what should have been done instead.
 

Prime Junta

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After all the work the team poured into something that was to be a sideshow, suddenly all reviewers treat it working under the assumption that it was concieved as a core gameplay feature.

My grandpa used to say that if something isn't worth doing well, it's better not to do it at all.
 

AwesomeButton

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I'm asking myself why is this confusion happening in the first place. Could it be caused, counter intuitively, precisely because the ship combat system is fairly well-developed, leading people to mistake it for a core gameplay feature?

I mean if it was some kind of a quick rock-paper-scissors game (allusion to D:OS completely unintentional), which ends with either enemy ship destroyed or a boarding, with varying degrees of damage, maybe then all those reviewers, youtubers and such filth would have gotten the message that ship combat isn't the main thing about this game, and would have managed their expectations.

It's easy to imagine how they can get confused - the game lets you wander around the map on a ship, so an uninformed player is prone to expect a fully-fledged real time with pause ship combat. Like the one that say Patrician III has, which isn't bad, but is still fairly simple compared to PoEII's, though it's more "exciting".
 
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IHaveHugeNick

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Ya I can't wrap my head around all the whining about the ship. It's nothing special but it still a lot more robust than I expected it to be.
 

Prime Junta

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I'm asking myself why is this confusion happening in the first place. Could it be caused, counter intuitively, precisely because the ship combat system is fairly well-developed, that people mistake it to be a core gameplay feature?

There's a lot of stuff in the game that supports ship to ship combat. Ships, upgrades, supplies, morale, crew mechanics with specialisations, experience, injuries, recruitment, and so on and so forth.

If after all that the combat itself is a bit of a squib, it's disappointing and worth pointing out.
 

AwesomeButton

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I'm asking myself why is this confusion happening in the first place. Could it be caused, counter intuitively, precisely because the ship combat system is fairly well-developed, that people mistake it to be a core gameplay feature?

There's a lot of stuff in the game that supports ship to ship combat. Ships, upgrades, supplies, morale, crew mechanics with specialisations, experience, injuries, recruitment, and so on and so forth.

If after all that the combat itself is a bit of a squib, it's disappointing and worth pointing out.
Yes, that's a good point. I guess it comes down to problems with messaging and, again, marketing. If the more informed players know what to expect from the game's features and the less well-informed ones don't, the question to ask seems to be why don't these guys know what to expect? Who is responsible for forming their expectations of the game?
 

Maculo

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Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
Surprised water shaping died off, considering I've snatched the thing for Tekehu near the end.
Does it require for him to be in the party at the time of looting? Or is it purely dependent on releasing the dragon? :retarded:

Did anyone choose a faction? I've got a pretty chaotic ending for choosing none. :dance:
I went with the Principi under the belief that no one would truly control the deadfire or Urkaizo.

I was wrong as fuck. Everything just went to shit and more shit.

It sounded more like a chaotic evil ending, and I tried to play a benevolent character. What was I thinking?
 

Trashos

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Would any of you design a game and put in it Deadfire's ship combat? It's just a bad boring feature.

JarlFrank, not sure whether they half-assed it or that's the level of talent they have.
 

MicoSelva

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I said it before, but making the party combat RTWP and THEN making ship-to-ship combat turn-based (and text-based) is so completely unintuitive, that it hurts my head.

The other way around would make sense.

Both being RTWP would make sense.

Both being turn-based would also make sense (somewhat).

They chose the worst possible option.
 

Shadenuat

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I'd say there are a lot of potentially very good encounters in the game, but again it's a question of devs putting in enough difficulty so that the player can actually experience it
There is one fundamental problem with how increasing difficulty works in PoE, and that's that it leads to longer battles and in the end, to safe rotation routines. The amount of monsters increases, their hp pool (already extra large, in hundreds) increases, and their defences increase to the point that penetrating them requires many abilities, and at the same time, their defences against decreasing defences increase. Best example is trying to lower fighters' armor with lower resistances spell, which targets fortitude, when their fortitude is at ~120sh levels, which gives debuff err about 0% to 3% chance to land.

Strangely enough I pointed this, what looked an odd design to me, during PoE1 beta (spells that decrease defences often grazing/failing against defences they have to decrease) but it doesn't seem like folk are as confused by this design as I am.

By finely micromanaging abilities and/or exploiting AI (because the AI is very stupid), you will eventually beat any encounter and outlast the enemy, but the principle will, generally, remain the same on any difficulty, it's your time which will suffer the most. Consumables, yes, maybe, but so far (level 10), I've yet to encounter anything that can't be beaten by same tactics as PoE1.

You find some narrow space, you try and CC/distract with summons the extra PoTD mobs, put as many debuffs on enemy as possible and gang up on a single dude, because they're so tough mano-o-mano and "builds" matter way less (single one-handed weapons with higher penetration preferable here for beginning of the game). And thus you proceed from 2-3skull/redskulls dude after dude until it is over.

IE games difficulty only increased damage you receive, in battles that would increase the gap for a mistake and make you lose more, but they did not waste extra time of yours.

Thankfully you can pace the fighting how you want it, as game lacks the required population levels of lion prides to make you literally go mad. Otherwise, I can easily see maximum difficulty, well, just becoming tedious quickly. At least fighting just human armored dudes for me already became tedious after (insert number) valera 3 skull halbedier with autoheals/x pirate pistoleers teleporting around for AI lulz.
 
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ScrotumBroth

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I went with the Principi under the belief that no one would truly control the deadfire or Urkaizo.

I was wrong as fuck. Everything just went to shit and more shit.

It sounded more like a chaotic evil ending, and I tried to play a benevolent character. What was I thinking?

That sounds about the same as mine. Everyone's fighting while VTC is raping the land, Nekataka becomes a ghost town.

But at least the life of Roparu improved greatly, I assume right up to the point when the city dispersed lol.

Animancers and wizards are doing as much harm as good, Watcher fucked off back to rebuild Caed Nua, yet despite the collective outcome, the narrator is confident it'll all work out.

God bless
Lucy.jpg
 

Sizzle

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I said it before, but making the party combat RTWP and THEN making ship-to-ship combat turn-based (and text-based) is so completely unintuitive, that it hurts my head.

The other way around would make sense.

Both being RTWP would make sense.

Both being turn-based would also make sense (somewhat).

They chose the worst possible option.

It's not that it's (just) a bad system - it's a boring one.

The ships rarely present a threat, and you can sink and board them too easily.

Coupled with too few ship/crew-related events, and you've got a system that makes the Stronghold from PoE1 (with the quest and adventures they added in v2) seem more involved.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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I see a lot of bitching, but I don't see any ideas how to actually improve the ship system. What would you have done? Make the combat harder and pirate ships more aggresive? I am not sure if that's the best idea, because you don't want to cockblock the exploration. Occasional hard fight I wouldn't mind, but ship battles are just a minigame, I don't want to mow through 20 galeons just to explore a little bit outside of main quest area.

So what can you do to improve that system exactly, I am not quite sure.
 

Sizzle

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Well, for starters, you could make it more realistic - all those faction flags you pick up, you could use them to fool enemies (just like real-world pirates did).

Besides the opening Pirate quest, those flags aren't used anywhere else.
 

Rinslin Merwind

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Agreed about flags, and (yeah I know, I ask for too many) make sea combat not "text based", but like in Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) - you perform maneuvers by your hand. so your cannons can damage enemy/you can eveade enemy fire and storm their ship.
 

Dwarvophile

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Well, for starters, you could make it more realistic - all those faction flags you pick up, you could use them to fool enemies (just like real-world pirates did).

Besides the opening Pirate quest, those flags aren't used anywhere else.

Of course you can. Everytime a Principi ship approached to attack me I raised their flag and they turned back. At least I assumed they turned back for this reason but maybe they just realized they had left their swords at home.
 

yes plz

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I'd definitely blame marketing for anyone even having moderate expectations for the ship stuff.

The game's website under 'game overview' on ships says:
Your trusty ship, the Defiant, is your main means of getting around the Deadfire’s open-world. It’s also your home base, and that of your companions, and your crew.

You’ll be able to upgrade it, hire new crew members, and even take it into combat using a dedicated ship-to-ship combat system developed especially for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Build up enough wealth, and you’ll be able to buy larger, and more impressive ships, too!

On Steam and GOG it says:
Captain your ship across the seas – as your stronghold on the seas, your ship is much more than simply a vessel for exploring. Upgrade your ship and crew and choose what skills you improve in order to survive dangerous encounters along the way.
 

TT1

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What could be done to improve ship:

- sea monsters
- fishing
- use the ship as a stronghold hub/ mechanics
- more variety of ships, guns, layouts, special rooms, customization
- use companion abilities to gain tactical advantage
- use special sailors abilities to gain tactical advantage (imp, ogre, vithrak, undead, etc)
- have some ships really tough somewhere in the map (like AC black flag)
- make food and supplies not so abundant/ not infinite
- random events in the world map
- random ships from outside deadfire lore

Now, the ship is just a wasted opportunity like stronghold was in PoE
 
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