Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Safav Hamon]

Deadfire is tough until about 12-14 levels when the difficulty drops. There are still high level fights (Floating Hangman, Splintered Reef, Fampyr Cave, Concelhaut, Nemnok, Druids, Guardian, ect.) but by this point you will have outlevelled most of the content and scaling is a bandaid.

Thankfully the DLC will all be designed for high levels. Beast of winter is level 14-15, and the following DLC will be even higher levels. Another easy fix would be for them to decrease experience gain and raise the level scaling cap, which some mods already do.

 

[Mortmal]

From what I've seen they have oldschool offices instead of cubicle hell or open space idiocy.

So the only hope for osbidian is suprising death of upper managment and sjw writters?

No hope after such sales, its likely their future is phone games.

 

[Mortmal]

Deadfire is tough until about 12-14 levels when the difficulty drops. There are still high level fights (Floating Hangman, Splintered Reef, Fampyr Cave, Concelhaut, Nemnok, Druids, Guardian, ect.) but by this point you will have outlevelled most of the content and scaling is a bandaid.

Thankfully the DLC will all be designed for high levels. Beast of winter is level 14-15, and the following DLC will be even higher levels. Another easy fix would be for them to decrease experience gain and raise the level scaling cap, which some mods already do.

It should be end game content, its the logical thing to do, expanding the main storyline. So it will be mid game content breaking even more the pacing, adding no loot of worth and forcing us to reload the save before Ukaizo.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Pretty sure when they say it's designed for level 14-15 party, they mean level 14-15 playing on Normal. Throw in PoTD modification and level scaling, and it should be a challenge even for max levels.

 

[Lacrymas]

If it's 14-15th lvl content, I don't see why they wouldn't make it scale all to way up to 20, so yeah, it should be.

 

[Safav Hamon]

In the stream they mentioned that the "Deck of Many Things" will add one of the toughest fights in the game, so I'm planning to try that before starting Beast of Winter.

 

[FreeKaner]

They are doing opposite of what they should do, they should have end-game content not only tuned for max level, but also possibly have enemies that are overscaled past that point too so they are actual challenges. Yet they are making what should be toughest fights in the game in mid-range, what sort of logic is this?

If they want to say if anyone finds it easy they should scale it up, well if someone finds it difficult they should scale it down. Why are have such little trust in their playerbase?

In fact, this is the mood that I get from this dumpsterfire in general, it feels like it is trying to make it so no one "misses out" on anything "accidentally", like an overly concerned parent they are trying to get the playerbase to drain every last bit of content whether they want it or not, lest they miss it.

 

[Safav Hamon]

No, they're doing the right thing. If they tune everything for max level, then you still have levels 12-18 which are lacking in challenges. Level 19-20 challenges would be cool, but they're not as important.

Your argument is that level scaling will help with this, but balancing the game around level scaling is what got them into this mess in the first place. Adding in challenges tuned for the levels they're needed most (mid-game) is the correct move.

 

[FreeKaner]

If they tune everything for max level, then you still have levels 12-18 which are lacking in challenges. Level 19-20 challenges would be cool, but they're not as important.

They shouldn't tune everything to max level, there should be some encounters that are max level though, especially in DLC content instead of them treating 15 as max level.

Your argument is that level scaling will help with this, but balancing the game around level scaling is what got them into this mess in the first place. Adding in challenges tuned for the levels they're needed most (mid-game) is the correct move.

That's not my argument at all, I am saying they probably left majority of end game encounters, including upcoming DLC bosses, at mid-level with level scaling in mind. I am saying they should design as if the level scaling didn't exist, and only let level scaling handle the open-ended nature of exploration. That is, they should have 20 level encounters at end game content, as well as DLC content so there is challenge to be had after 15 levels. Them making their literal end game only at 75% of the cap and in general avoiding any sort of max-level gating, on top of ease in which you can reach these levels makes the game become a snorefest at end game. By trying to save the experience of few people who might encounter end game content earlier than intended, they are ruining the game's exploration and end game.

Moreover the "mid-game" is basically end-game for most content, while there are hardly any naturally level 20 encounters in the game.

 

[Sensuki]

The entire problem with KOTOR2 is that it's an obvious rush job. It's a testament to the strength of the ideas and the writing that it succeeds so well despite consisting largely of uniform empty corridors.

There's something about the lack of content that just works. Hard to describe the feeling other than it fits the atmosphere. The whispers of Kreia's voice in your head and the fleeting music, and the empty corridors and the backstory of Malachor V make for a feeling of desolation. I don't think the game would have the same feeling if there was too much stuff.

 

[2house2fly]

Honestly though the Obsidian's decision to do a direct sequel AND double down on gods retardation is momumental mistake.

It could have been done well, but they kept (and made even more prominent) the most boring parts of the gods (namely - their bickering and passivity).

What you end up with is a pantheon that's at once so dull, incompetent, and yet still arrogant - you want to bitch slap them all. And I doubt that was the experience they were aiming for.

I think "wanting to bitch slap the gods" was one of their goals:

 

[2house2fly]

It shows serious lack of confidence that they had to get Berath to threaten you, AND say that Eothas stole part of your soul, before they felt satisfied the player would go investigate Eothas. Since one of the main points of any rpg is exploration, why on earth did they feel the need to add those two prods? As if ''giant statue walks around smashing things'' wasn't sufficiently hamfisted as a plot hook already? PoE2 made me realise I am a massive storyfag by triggering me with its bad writing.

In the first game people complained that the character wasn't given enough of a motivation to follow the main quest. Hence.

 

[Sentinel]

it's like he actually wants people to hate the setting. Impressive.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Level 15 isn't mid game.

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer's philosophy makes sense when you realize that the Watcher is his self-insert and the gods are Everyone Else.

 

[Safav Hamon]

They also said that each subsequent DLC will be tuned for progressively higher levels. SSS will probably be levels 16-18, and Forgotten Sanctum levels 18-20.

I believe in the end it will work out nice. There will be challenging content no matter what level you are.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Sawyer's philosophy makes sense when you realize that the Watcher is his self-insert and the gods are Everyone Else.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Eothas was dependent on the adra pillars and the Watcher can fuck around with adra pillars. Not hard to put 2 and 2 together there and make a more interesting story.....

But then we go back to people, including Sawyer himself, talking as if stopping Eothas would consist of hitting the giant statue with an axe, and praising not allowing the player to do this as some next level writing.

Only one character, and it's not even the PC, has agency, how can that possibly ever be a good story?

How is Obsidian's writing THIS bad? Was Avellone the only one holding it up? But even aside from Durance and GM, which were just Ravel/Kreia and Visas Marr rehashes anyway, PoE1 had some perfectly decent writing, for example White March. What happened? I guess it really is just Sawyer acting out some cuck fetish like Roguey suggests.

 

[Safav Hamon]

I'm not understanding this 'no player agency' argument. There are four cases of player agency in the main quest

1. Determining which faction confronts you at Ukaizo (based on a calculation of which opposing faction is strongest)
2. Determining which allies support you in the final naval battle (Wahaki, Slavers, Rathun, Endless, Ruquapa, Water Dragon)
3. Deciding which faction controls Ukaizo (Valian Trading Company, Royal Deadfire Company, Principi sen Patrena, Huana)
4. Telling Eothas what to do after destroying the wheel (destroy the world, turn his body into an afterlife, empower Berath, disperse his essence, or do nothing)

In addition, how you resolve various sidequests and companion quests will alter the ending slides.

 

[aweigh]

All perfectly balanced... as all things should be - Thanos/Sawyer

 

[Safav Hamon]

There are also 9 final bosses, which I think is cool

- Captain Furrante
- Captain Aeldyls
- Queen Onezaka
- Prince Aruthi
- Hazanui Karu
- General Secretary Atsura
- Two Eyed Pim
- One Eyed Pim
- Count Nirro

 

[BING XI LAO]

1. Determining which faction confronts you at Ukaizo (based on a calculation of which opposing faction is strongest)
2. Determining which allies support you in the final naval battle (Wahaki, Slavers, Rathun, Endless, Ruquapa, Water Dragon)
3. Deciding which faction controls Ukaizo (Valian Trading Company, Royal Deadfire Company, Principi sen Patrena, Huana)
4. Telling Eothas what to do after destroying the wheel (destroy the world, turn his body into an afterlife, empower Berath, disperse his essence, or do nothing)

1,2,3 - The factions don't have much to do with the drama about the Gods and the wheel. People, including myself, seem to be satisfied enough with the faction plotlines.
As for 4, ending slides are not a substitute for having something to do in the plot of the game itself. And the conversation with Eothas is pathetic, you don't seem to need any stats, items or knowledge to persuade him. You can try to persuade the literal God of Redemption to annihilate all life, and if you fail to persuade him by giving a lame non-reason, he still does it anyway. It's ironic, you are finally granted agency with Eothas but it's retarded: you can persuade him of anything for no reason. It's like turning up to the Master in Fallout, telling him he's wrong. But you don't say his mutants are sterile and you don't have the evidence of it anyway. So he ignores your non-existent argument. But then he ''feels doubt'' and self destructs anyway. That's literally how bad the last conversation of PoE2 is.

 

[Safav Hamon]

1,2,3 - The factions don't have much to do with the drama about the Gods and the wheel. People, including myself, seem to be satisfied enough with the faction plotlines.

They still count as examples of player agency. To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

the conversation with Eothas is pathetic, you don't seem to need any stats, items or knowledge to persuade him. You can try to persuade the literal God of Redemption to annihilate all life, And if you fail to persuade him by giving a lame non-reason, he still does it anyway.
It's ironic, you are finally granted agency with Eothas: when you can persuade him of anything for no reason.

You can argue the presentation was bad, but it's still player agency. There are 13 different endings based on what you tell Eothas to do in the final conversation.

 

[Glaucon]

lolol, if you're in battle and one of your characters is in stealth, another one that isn't can push the stealthed character along at full speed.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm not understanding this 'no player agency' argument. There are four cases of player agency in the main quest

1. Determining which faction confronts you at Ukaizo (based on a calculation of which opposing faction is strongest)
2. Determining which allies support you in the final naval battle (Wahaki, Slavers, Rathun, Endless, Ruquapa, Water Dragon)
3. Deciding which faction controls Ukaizo (Valian Trading Company, Royal Deadfire Company, Principi sen Patrena, Huana)
4. Telling Eothas what to do after destroying the wheel (destroy the world, turn his body into an afterlife, empower Berath, disperse his essence, or do nothing)

In addition, how you resolve various sidequests and companion quests will alter the ending slides.

1. Not main quest related.
2. Not main quest related.
3. Not main quest related.
4. 1111 or 222222 or 3333 or 4444. So much agency.