Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Turjan]

Meh. In a game that's based on uncovering maps, it gives you something else to find than yet another trash encounter. It isn't overly exciting, but it doesn't really bother me, either.

 

[Sigourn]

Hmmm, so 24 hours and a half later, $152,000 extra dorrar.

 

[Maculo]

Has anoyone actually expressed disagreement with this?

You got a point. I tried to think of other games, but I can't do it.

Otherwise, I know some people dislike the witcher, and alchemy tree in the Witcher 2 was just broken (you can one shot the final boss), but that is a tangent.

 

[Grunker]

Has anoyone actually expressed disagreement with this?

You got a point. I tried to think of other games, but I can't do it.

Otherwise, I know some people dislike the witcher, and alchemy tree in the Witcher 2 was just broken (you can one shot the final boss), but that is a tangent.

Yeah some people complained that the Alchemy was too complex, which it wasn't (it was pretty simple, really), it just had an obtuse interface that made people assume they couldn't figure it out. I meant anyone in this thread.

EDIT: supposedly "hardcore" critical game reviewer Yahtzee even had a joke about how you needed to go through an 8 weeks correspondence course... for what was pretty much a "click on desired potion, game automatically checks for the needed ingredients" system

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Picking up ingredients from monsters feels like being rewarded. To stay in the preposterous comparison, clicking on herbs is similar to if all monsters were pre-killed.

If plants were rare, there'd be a point. By Witcher 3, plants are so bountiful you can literally spend tens of hours just clicking on plants.

I agree that there should always be a point to doing something in an RPG. Skyrim is an example where there's too many potions, too many herbs and nothing really rare to find. Lords of Xulima is an example of a game where herbs are very useful and almost necessary for survival. It depends on the system and how the devs implement it on whether it's good or not, and that goes for pretty much any RPG mechanic in existence, IMO.

 

[undecaf]

Someone just made a rather big investment on the game apparently. I could swear not long ago the counter just reached 1.7M and now all of a sudden it's 1.75M.

 

[ushas]

I must admit I have appreciated alchemy more in games where it's more like one of the main spellcasting systems, like in Darklands or the mentioned Witcher. Though I have experience only with the first one. Is Alchemy in the Witchers 2 & 3 significantly different?

 

[Grunker]

Picking up ingredients from monsters feels like being rewarded. To stay in the preposterous comparison, clicking on herbs is similar to if all monsters were pre-killed.

If plants were rare, there'd be a point. By Witcher 3, plants are so bountiful you can literally spend tens of hours just clicking on plants.

I agree that there should always be a point to doing something in an RPG. Skyrim is an example where there's too many potions, too many herbs and nothing really rare to find. Lords of Xulima is an example of a game where herbs are very useful and almost necessary for survival. It depends on the system and how the devs implement it on whether it's good or not, and that goes for pretty much any RPG mechanic in existence, IMO.

True, which was kind of my point. Xulima does indeed do it right. The game has a very Sawyerist design philosophy for the most part btw, Josh should play it

 

[Maculo]

I must admit I have appreciated alchemy more in games where it's more like one of the main spellcasting systems, like in Darklands or the mentioned Witcher. Though I have experience only with the first one. Is Alchemy in the Witchers 2 & 3 significantly different?

A little. In W2, alchemy provided decent buffs, but the highlight was the alchemy tree in my opinion. The alchemy tree gave a lot of buffs in addition to the potion(s) you drank. By late game, you were the juggernaut and you could one shot most enemies.

In W3, I would argue that simplified potion creation and use, as well as cut back on the strength of the alchemy tree. In addition, a lot of the potions were geared towards certain monsters and encounters.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Witcher games aren't probably a good example, because Geralt supercharging himself with elixirs is an important part of the lore. Witcher without alchemy would be like wizard without fireball.

 

[twincast]

Has anyone already noted what a cool subtitle it has? Completely unlike that turd Deathfire Henkel came up with.
(I'm too lazy to browse through all 68 pages of the thread, sorry)

Well, I certainly remembered immediately. And somebody posted in one of the PoE2 threads a screenshot of Henkel going full bitchy diva on Sawyer for "stealing" his marvelous coining. Worth digging up.

So, quickly covering a few recent matters of discussion: I vastly prefer evenly numbered parties in CRPGs as well and consider 6-10 to be the ideal range, preferably 8, so the reduction to 5 really irks me. Yay for party AI control. Meh on alchemy and crafting in general; rarely interesting, let alone fun.

 

[Sentinel]

I must admit I have appreciated alchemy more in games where it's more like one of the main spellcasting systems, like in Darklands or the mentioned Witcher. Though I have experience only with the first one. Is Alchemy in the Witchers 2 & 3 significantly different?

A little. In W2, alchemy provided decent buffs, but the highlight was the alchemy tree in my opinion. The alchemy tree gave a lot of buffs in addition to the potion(s) you drank. By late game, you were the juggernaut.

In W3, I would argue that streamlined the process, and cut back on the strength of the alchemy tree. In addition, a lot of the potions were geared towards certain monsters and encounters.

They didn't streamline it, they made it similar to how it worked in W1, except you no longer had to mix herbs again everytime you ran out of that potion. Also Alchemy in W3 is EXTREMELY powerful, hands down the most ridiculous build if you use the decoctions. You're quite literally immortal. Since it also boosts the damage oils provide as well as bombs, your damage goes through the roof. Alchemy has been OP in all the Witcher games imo.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

True, which was kind of my point. Xulima does indeed do it right. The game has a very Sawyerist design philosophy for the most part btw, Josh should play it

Not sure what a "Sawyerist" design is. Something balanced? Serious inquiry, I don't know what that is.

Xulima has a very tight balance, at least 60 hours in on Hardcore. If you aren't picking herbs you will be suffering, IMO. But I think that's good on harder difficulties when you want a challenge and tight resource management.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Lol, I just noticed that the Codex apparently raised $9420 out of a $5000 target for PoE(1), or 188% of the target. The irony.

 

[Maculo]

They didn't streamline it, they made it similar to how it worked in W1, except you no longer had to mix herbs again everytime you ran out of that potion. Also Alchemy in W3 is EXTREMELY powerful, hands down the most ridiculous build if you use the decoctions. You're quite literally immortal. Since it also boosts the damage oils provide as well as bombs, your damage goes through the roof. Alchemy has been OP in all the Witcher games imo.

I knew word "streamlined/simplified" would land me trouble.

As for W3, I also played the decoction build, but I thought it was less powerful than the W2 equivalent. W2 alchemy was just insane damage, paired with near immortality for just drinking two (2) to (3) potions. In contrast, W3 added a few steps to get to that point, such as specific recipes, oils, etc. Still, you have the right of it, alchemy was always strong.

Edit: 50K jump in an hour? I just hope they do not hide "turn based mode" behind some impossibly high stretch goal (not likely to happen ever, but that would be such a dick move).

 

[Grunker]

True, which was kind of my point. Xulima does indeed do it right. The game has a very Sawyerist design philosophy for the most part btw, Josh should play it

Not sure what a "Sawyerist" design is. Something balanced? Serious inquiry, I don't know what that is.

Xulima has a very tight balance, at least 60 hours in on Hardcore. If you aren't picking herbs you will be suffering, IMO. But I think that's good on harder difficulties when you want a challenge and tight resource management.

Focus on BALANCE in game systems, universal attributes that all have use for all classes, party inventory with shared stash, all classes have equal combat focus (except one but it's mandatory), resting is structured around a resource system. A few other things.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Focus on BALANCE in game systems, universal attributes that all have use for all classes, party inventory with shared stash, all classes have equal combat focus (except one but it's mandatory), resting is structured around a resource system. A few other things.

Interesting. Thanks!

 

[Prime Junta]

I just hope they do not hide "turn based mode" behind some impossibly high stretch goal (not likely to happen ever, but that would be such a dick move).

If you want to worry about something unlikely, worry about California seceding or something. 'Cuz that one ain't worth it.

 

[Blaine]

Focus on BALANCE in game systems, universal attributes that all have use for all classes, party inventory with shared stash, all classes have equal combat focus (except one but it's mandatory), resting is structured around a resource system. A few other things.

Thanks to Josh Sawyer, we have the world's first fantasy cRPG with consumable camping supplies.

It's been too long since I've played it to remember properly, but as I recall I never used them and instead always made the trip to sleep at certain inns with nice rested bonuses.

So much effort wasted because PEOPLE CAN'T BE ALLOWED TO ABUSE THE REST SYSTEM! Can't control yourself? Don't worry, Josh will do it for you, like a remote helicopter parent.

 

[Ninjerk]

If the supplies had been an extra gameplay space, it might have made sense (although it would have taken it farther away from being the IE spiritual successor).

 

[Lacrymas]

Swordflight managed to prevent rest spamming by having really difficult random encounters on some rests and having a high difficulty in general, with need to conserve your resources, so you really can't regularly eat random encounters. It also had a moment in one dungeon where you can't go back to rest in camp, quite a moment let me tell you. Funny that.

 

[Turjan]

Thanks to Josh Sawyer, we have the world's first fantasy cRPG with consumable camping supplies.

It's been too long since I've played it to remember properly, but as I recall I never used them and instead always made the trip to sleep at certain inns with nice rested bonuses.

The camping rest bonuses stacked with the multi-day bonuses you got from some inns or the stronghold, which means it wasn't completely for naught.

 

[Roguey]

I suggest you swing by the Obsidian forums, SomethingAwful and a few others. You'll get a feel for it.

My take? It's a mix. There are a few grogs who rage about it but play it anyway. There's significant overlap with BioWhores who whine about no romance but play it anyway. There's a bunch of casuals who happily turn the difficulty down to Story Mode and go on adventures and post portraits of their PC on DeviantArt. There's a bunch of systemfags who go hog-wild with minmaxing and quirky builds. And then there's a large population of people who have a mix of all of these characteristics to varying degrees.

I'm glad I'm unique enough not to fit into any of these.

Thanks to Josh Sawyer, we have the world's first fantasy cRPG with consumable camping supplies.

Storm of Zehir had alarm stones, though aside from the final dungeon, no area in the game was large enough to make them worth using.

It's been too long since I've played it to remember properly, but as I recall I never used them and instead always made the trip to sleep at certain inns with nice rested bonuses.

So much effort wasted because PEOPLE CAN'T BE ALLOWED TO ABUSE THE REST SYSTEM! Can't control yourself? Don't worry, Josh will do it for you, like a remote helicopter parent.

The survival bonuses added in 3.0 were great.

 

[Blaine]

I finished the game within the first two weeks of release and have no desire to play it ever again, so I missed this 2.0/3.0 crap.

 

[Sentinel]

I finished the game within the first two weeks of release and have no desire to play it ever again, so I missed this 2.0/3.0 crap.

I did the same but I forced myself to replay it in the summer of 2016 with the 3.0 patch expecting to drop it after 1 hour and I actually had a good time and played through the entire thing + white march.