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

[Shadenuat]

Pulling is obvious. That's the thing, it works more or less on anything. Pull around the corner and kill.

fragile party with lots of CON dumpers

I kinda leave CON at 10 for everyone always.

I mean, most of average fights I just blatantly outheal so it's no big deal. What's the point of CON anyway? So instead of 200 hp you would have 260 against enemies that consistently do 50+ damage. will save you against 3 rogues focusing you down? I don't think so. I have oh shit thingies for this.

That's what extra difficulty be about though? Pulling extra mobs until they're not so extra anymore?

I think I did see some new abilities though. I believe death knights (in a tomb where dumb scale armor heal 1 hp every 3 secs for 9 secs when you get crit) now use their fighter abilities better, and aside from aura, have an acid AOE. Pretty brutal. Fighting one on my level 9 was like trying to take down Sauron with a party of hobbits by tickling him.

 

[Chris Avellone]

He's responsible for all the major narrative design decisions. Pallegina is terrible, but that's a minor issue. The plot, companions, and companion quests were the main blunders. And MCA didn't say the Cain/Boyarsky project had the same structure, only that the partners thought it had the same issues. Even if it does have the same structure and problems, I don't see how that makes PoE2's shortcomings any better.

To clarify as best I can: I believe was that Indiana was accused of having potential story problems by the owners (or the owners called the meeting based on another’s opinion of Indiana).

The problem was that PoE2’s storyline had the exact same issues that were being raised against Indiana and apparently PoE2 did not get the same sort of intervention (the similarity to PoE2 doesn’t sound like it was part of the meeting, but something that became apparent when the specific objections were raised as they were present in PoE2's story). I wasn’t at the meeting, obviously, but I’d be doubtful on any negative story critique of Indiana based on what I’ve read of Leonard’s designs and work before/after on other projects. I’m sure either Josh or Leonard could speak to this if asked.

I don’t know what the issues were, only that it felt like a double-standard was in place (or if PoE2 had gotten an intervention, it didn't seem like anything had changed).

Personally, I am still confused who did what on PoE2, story-wise – I was curious who wrote the story (which is why I asked a few times). As far as I could tell, Carrie’s co-lead (?) title felt like it was announced late, which further confused me, as I don’t think that was her title at the start of the game – but again, I have no idea. I imagine Josh could answer the divisions and responsibilities if asked – or if someone has a quote, feel free to share it. I'd love narrative breakdowns for sure.

The most I know is that I believe Josh had said that the choices of returning companions weren't his (possibly to deflect from Pallegina and favoritism, even though she has ties to the setting of PoE2, so it does make sense she’d be there and slightly odd if she wasn’t), and I think he cited Carrie and Eric as having suggested Aloth, Eder, and Pallegina. I’m sure it’s in a podcast interview somewhere. If I'm wrong, happy to be proven wrong.

But back to the clarification with the story elements: Part of my point with the story intervention was that Pillars and the higher-level devs on Pillars often got a pass on certain elements, including procedures like project “check-ins” (team would provide a progress report on the game to the owners, although those often got canceled, delayed, etc. which didn’t instill much faith in them) – however, Pillars would often ignore them while I was there.

Now, projects that did do these presentations arguably got damaged and lost time and resources for following the “procedure” vs. projects that didn’t have the same level of scrutiny or exposure (this isn’t anything new in my experience, but the problem is the double-standard – you’re actually punishing teams for doing what you want and indirectly rewarding those that don’t who ignore the things you ask for). I didn’t have this issue on Tyranny, only because I wasn’t on Tyranny for most of these check-ins. Anyway. Hope this helps.

 

[Shadenuat]

aahh!!





thread hijacked by storyfags, abandon ship

 

[FreeKaner]

While everyone is discussing the story I would like to remind everyone that they directly copied New Vegas structure, but failed. The reason cannot be only 4 quests and step by step chasing the villain.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don’t know what the issues were, only that it felt like a double-standard was in place (or if PoE2 had gotten an intervention, it didn't seem like anything had changed).

Could also be caused by a reasoning in the lines of "let's not repeat what happened with Deadfire's story".

While everyone is discussing the story I would like to remind everyone that they directly copied New Vegas structure, but failed. The reason cannot be only 4 quests and step by step chasing the villain.

Yep, I mentioned this, I think even before the game was actually out. In New Vegas you get hit by a mobster on the head and then go after him. In Deadfire it's a god. You interact with factions on the way, through which the world is presented to you. Similar structure.

 

[Tigranes]

Pulling is obvious. That's the thing, it works more or less on anything. Pull around the corner and kill.

fragile party with lots of CON dumpers

I kinda leave CON at 10 for everyone always.

I mean, most of average fights I just blatantly outheal so it's no big deal. What's the point of CON anyway? So instead of 200 hp you would have 260 against enemies that consistently do 50+ damage. will save you against 3 rogues focusing you down? I don't think so. I have oh shit thingies for this.

That's what extra difficulty be about though? Pulling extra mobs until they're not so extra anymore?

I think I did see some new abilities though. I believe death knights (in a tomb where dumb scale armor heal 1 hp every 3 secs for 9 secs when you get crit) now use their fighter abilities better, and aside from aura, have an acid AOE. Pretty brutal. Fighting one on my level 9 was like trying to take down Sauron with a party of hobbits by tickling him.

'Pulling' should have been disabled by design on all the IE games and POEs, as some IE mods would do with the 'call for help' mechanisms. I don't even know why every ability in POE2 has those loudness qualifiers, when it feels like enemies are just as blind and deaf as they ever were in these games. Maybe it matters when you try to solo stealth?

I've found that the fights where I just shrug and autoattack have become quite rare, though it does require me to not cheese Empowered spells or pulling or whatever.

 

[Parabalus]

Pulling is obvious. That's the thing, it works more or less on anything. Pull around the corner and kill.

fragile party with lots of CON dumpers

I kinda leave CON at 10 for everyone always.

I mean, most of average fights I just blatantly outheal so it's no big deal. What's the point of CON anyway? So instead of 200 hp you would have 260 against enemies that consistently do 50+ damage. will save you against 3 rogues focusing you down? I don't think so. I have oh shit thingies for this.

That's what extra difficulty be about though? Pulling extra mobs until they're not so extra anymore?

I think I did see some new abilities though. I believe death knights (in a tomb where dumb scale armor heal 1 hp every 3 secs for 9 secs when you get crit) now use their fighter abilities better, and aside from aura, have an acid AOE. Pretty brutal. Fighting one on my level 9 was like trying to take down Sauron with a party of hobbits by tickling him.

I had 3 CON and 3 RES on my Assassin/Ascendant on the release PotD difficulty, enemies would instantly focus him and drop him. The instant he went out of stealth everyone in range would turn on him - I had to constantly immune attacks with Shadowing Beyond, was fun though.

With the PotD buffs some defenses like 10 CON 10 RES are likely the best way to go.

Pulling is obvious. That's the thing, it works more or less on anything. Pull around the corner and kill.

fragile party with lots of CON dumpers

I kinda leave CON at 10 for everyone always.

I mean, most of average fights I just blatantly outheal so it's no big deal. What's the point of CON anyway? So instead of 200 hp you would have 260 against enemies that consistently do 50+ damage. will save you against 3 rogues focusing you down? I don't think so. I have oh shit thingies for this.

That's what extra difficulty be about though? Pulling extra mobs until they're not so extra anymore?

I think I did see some new abilities though. I believe death knights (in a tomb where dumb scale armor heal 1 hp every 3 secs for 9 secs when you get crit) now use their fighter abilities better, and aside from aura, have an acid AOE. Pretty brutal. Fighting one on my level 9 was like trying to take down Sauron with a party of hobbits by tickling him.

'Pulling' should have been disabled by design on all the IE games and POEs, as some IE mods would do with the 'call for help' mechanisms. I don't even know why every ability in POE2 has those loudness qualifiers, when it feels like enemies are just as blind and deaf as they ever were in these games. Maybe it matters when you try to solo stealth?

I've found that the fights where I just shrug and autoattack have become quite rare, though it does require me to not cheese Empowered spells or pulling or whatever.

PoE1 and PoE2 do have calls for help, you can pull just to have advantageous geometry, since enemies blob around corners, you can't actually isolate enemies a la IE games. Still degenerate, but a bit less.

In PoE1 all enemies were much faster than you so pulling was discouraged that way, I think Dumpsterfire nicked that.

I think Empower should just be ignored as a mechanic, unbalanceable - best to treat it as a built it cheat code.

 

[Maculo]

Better yet, disabled empower on PotD or expert mode.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

While everyone is discussing the story I would like to remind everyone that they directly copied New Vegas structure, but failed. The reason cannot be only 4 quests and step by step chasing the villain.

In New Vegas, there was a much stronger relationship between the initial main quest and the factions. The sequence also made a lot more sense. When you catch Benny, you hold the key to the balance of power in the Mojave and then the factions become the main quest.

If New Vegas were designed like Deadfire, you would only find Benny after doing the faction quests to determine who controls the Strip. That would make everything feel tacked together and much less compelling. The factions in New Vegas become the main story, whereas in Deadfire they're kind ancillary, or at best incidental.

 

[Shadenuat]

With new difficulty Empower more or less fits (although arguably I don't have any characters this time to exploit it, no evokers/dd caster specialists/pure barbs). Not always, but sometimes does. Like wave/ambushes fights in isolated areas. Although I still end up using it only on my single caster in party since he simply runs out of everything. Other party members do not rely on limited abilities, but their abilities also do not benefit from empower that much (lel empower meh stunning strike).

Hm, I think one can get rid of Empower by giving classic casters more spell picks and an extra cast per level, really. And maybe adding more abilities like barbs/paladins "do this, and you get to refund your power point" to not chanters/monks/psionics.

Then go easier on DOUBLE ALL MONSTAHS CUT THE COOL SHIT FOR PLAYERS, improve enemies scripts, and you'll get a really good difficulty.

 

[Maculo]

My main issue with PoE2's story structure is that it exists just to set up PoE3. What also did not help was how incredibly short the critical path turned out. I am not a huge proponent that games have to be long, but that critical path was way too damn sparse for my liking.

NV felt more self-contained and was not just a setup for Fo4. Even PoE1 with all its faults felt more self-contained.

 

[AwesomeButton]

My main issue with PoE2's story structure is that it exists just to set up PoE3. What also did not help was how incredibly short the critical path turned out. I am not a huge proponent that games have to be long, but that critical path was way too damn sparse for my liking.

NV felt more self-contained and was not just a setup for Fo4. Even PoE1 with all its faults felt more self-contained.

Is it shorter than Fallout's?

 

[Parabalus]

Can you get Eothas to just kill you at any point? Can't remember seeing anything to that effect.

With new difficulty Empower more or less fits (although arguably I don't have any characters this time to exploit it, no evokers/dd caster specialists/pure barbs). Not always, but sometimes does. Like wave/ambushes fights in isolated areas. Although I still end up using it only on my single caster in party since he simply runs out of everything. Other party members do not rely on limited abilities, but their abilities also do not benefit from empower that much (lel empower meh stunning strike).

Hm, I think one can get rid of Empower by giving classic casters more spell picks and an extra cast per level, really. And maybe more abilities like barbs/paladins "do this, and you get to refund your power point".

Might be because you're underleveled? I used empower on release when going against higher level stuff, and it "fit" there.

I'd rather they removed it and balanced around per encounters entirely though.

 

[Shadenuat]

I am level 10 and it feels like I often am. But I derped around differently than before, only bought some fine/exceptional weapons in Neketaka and began doing stuff without getting too invested in Neketaka itself. Went to fight Titan instead of doing Grublord dungeon. Maybe they increased the main story/faction quests levels everywhere. Or maybe level scaling now actually works.

I had 3 CON and 3 RES on my Assassin/Ascendant on the release PotD difficulty, enemies would instantly focus him and drop him. The instant he went out of stealth everyone in range would turn on him - I had to constantly immune attacks with Shadowing Beyond, was fun though.

Many enemies seem to have similar scripts that do not randomize or shuffle priorities so yes you often have 3 dd's focusing down you lowest hp character no matter the costs. Just like PoE1.

 

[Maculo]

My main issue with PoE2's story structure is that it exists just to set up PoE3. What also did not help was how incredibly short the critical path turned out. I am not a huge proponent that games have to be long, but that critical path was way too damn sparse for my liking.

NV felt more self-contained and was not just a setup for Fo4. Even PoE1 with all its faults felt more self-contained.

Is it shorter than Fallout's?

I would say yes. If I recall correctly, you could technically speed run through the Fallouts quickly, provided you had metagame knowledge. In Deadfire, the factions practically eat out of your hand by Hasongo (second pillar?).

Still, I enjoyed the game overall, despite the faults.

 

[Lacrymas]

My main issue with PoE2's story structure is that it exists just to set up PoE3.

Well, that was hastily optimistic on their part.

 

[Maculo]

My main issue with PoE2's story structure is that it exists just to set up PoE3.

Well, that was hastily optimistic on their part.

Honestly, I do not know. I know many rushed to call it a failure sales-wise, but I am not sure a figstarter/kickstarter needs good sales relative to a publisher backed game. Obsidian just needs enough positive reviews and hype to fuel another campaign.

By that same logic, the PoE2 figstarter should never have gotten off the ground to begin with, especially with all the divisiveness caused by PoE1.

 

[Shadenuat]

lol, you can kill children like street urchins and loot them of their coins

just uhh "accidentally" exploded bunch of pirates with powder kegs & empowered fireball and there was uhh a kid there

oops

reputation with huana lost: minor

 

[Parabalus]

I am level 10 and it feels like I often am. But I derped around differently than before, only bought some fine/exceptional weapons in Neketaka and began doing stuff without getting too invested in Neketaka itself. Went to fight Titan instead of doing Grublord dungeon. Maybe they increased the main story/faction quests levels everywhere. Or maybe level scaling now actually works.

I had 3 CON and 3 RES on my Assassin/Ascendant on the release PotD difficulty, enemies would instantly focus him and drop him. The instant he went out of stealth everyone in range would turn on him - I had to constantly immune attacks with Shadowing Beyond, was fun though.

Many enemies seem to have similar scripts that do not randomize or shuffle priorities so yes you often have 3 dd's focusing down you lowest hp character no matter the costs. Just like PoE1.

LS should have been fixed.

The second point, that made the Fampyrs were incredibly funny.
Their domination gaze is instant, so my PC would reliably get charmed in the same split second he went out of stealth, regardless of how long the Fampyrs were already fighting my other 4 party members.
Ended up precasting Liberating Exhortation and timing it so it removes the dominate instantly .

 

[Kaivokz]

Spoiler

Nalpazca monk. Only self buffs except the 27% damage from Xoti. Some more optimization could happen, probably, but this character is already total overkill against anything in the game. In addition to easily achieving critical hits of 2000+, it demolishes entire groups as fast as an evoker. Faster if they're spread out.

Almost one shot the fire dragon, but she is immune to fire damage. Inner Death + Whispers of the Wind killed her and all of her magma oozes in about 10 seconds, though.

 

[frajaq]

wait you can get the fire vikings to help you out?

 

[Tigranes]

I know I'm a broken radio here, but I really think ignoring Empower altogether improves the experience. I imagine that it's important for solo play, though, where you use it to replenish power resources on long fights.

Does anyone know if the giant grub in Old City got any changes? In 1.00 POTD, never really a threat. In 1.1, I knew that if it does the grabbing attack, it would typically crit on my 10-RES rogue and 1HKO, so I had to use Escape to get away and/or have other characters interrupt/paralyse. At one point Aloth was firing every debuff spell one after another while Serafen is throwing stun grenades. Nothing super difficult, but at least there's a dynamic to the fight, which is more than most RPG fights, really.

 

[Shadenuat]

Fuck the shuffling for party's "Aloth" is just killing me. You can literally block bloodthirsty enemy by moving your guys around for infinite tango. So dumb.

Also the shuffling itself is so absurd. Characters can switch positions and end up meters away from where they were. These pulling/pushing moves piss me off.

monk +500%

1.011 monk nerfed to 5.73% per wound on crit every 3 seconds for 6 seconds

 

[Sensuki]

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

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?

All they had to do was treat the ship like the Ebon Hawk (or the Normandy,) that's it.

You would think that the developer of KotOR2 would snatch the most obvious opportunity ... but then again this general concept was a BioWare thing and I suppose JES hasn't even played KotOR, KotOR2 or Mass Effect for long enough to understand.

The good Strongholds were made good because of CONTENT that involves the location, not because of systems, how fucking hard is that for them to understand.

I'm guessing is your ship is probably not even referenced in the game outside of the ship minigames. Ships are generally known in Pirate settings, does anyone ever address you as 'Captain of the X' ? I remember in Pillars there were a few references to you as being the new 'owner' of Caed Nua, but I haven't seen any evidence of this type of thing in 2 so far.

I feel more and more that Sawyer approach is:
- slice player abilities x2
- increase amount of monsters x2
= perfection

dat Sid Meier doubling and halving

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Spoiler

Nalpazca monk. Only self buffs except the 27% damage from Xoti. Some more optimization could happen, probably, but this character is already total overkill against anything in the game. In addition to easily achieving critical hits of 2000+, it demolishes entire groups as fast as an evoker. Faster if they're spread out.

Almost one shot the fire dragon, but she is immune to fire damage. Inner Death + Whispers of the Wind killed her and all of her magma oozes in about 10 seconds, though.

How do you have a base damage roll of 206.5? That's not even factoring in any of your buffs/inner death..