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

Ezeekiel

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
Messages
1,783
Mind telling us a bit about the mechanics? I'm afraid the gaming press unsurprisingly dropped the ball there, so it's up to you now, hero of the soviet union -san!

Everything per-encounter, spells as abilities rather than a separate system, single fully regenerating health bar with knockout wounds rather than health + endurance.
What do you mean by saying "everything per-encounter"?
Probably that you don't have abilities that recharge while resting anymore. I.e. no D&D style "x spell slots/casts per rest", but everything you use up is fully available again when the next battle starts, regardless of whether you rested or not.
 

Doma

Augur
Joined
Apr 20, 2010
Messages
311
Location
Norway
Finished the "starter island". Got my ship going and are sailing around heading for deadlight.

So far the game seems very easy. Like way too easy.

Looks pretty though. And loadtimes and performance are so much better than POE1.
 

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
Steam delivering uncomfortable truths already, or devious seditionist who knows a bit of grognard lingo? YOU decide!

Start the game, begin campaign. Completely inappropriate narrator explains to me all the worst parts of the previous game. 3 years of ruminating over all the things I didn't like about the first one flood back into me in one moment. I remember the reviews describe the things in the first game that were already bad (such as the narrative) are even worse in this game. And I know other things that were bad (like companions) will be even worse since they don't even have Avellone contributing to them anymore. [Editor's note: :lol:] I'm still listening to the narrator, wondering why it bothers me so much.

Then it hits me.

This game is trying to be SERIOUS. It's a fantasy game about dragons and wizards and litearlly a giant ♥♥♥♥ing god stomping around crushing people with his massive statue feet and it's trying to be solemn and serious and realistic. Images of playing the game flash before my mind. More obnoxious worldbuilding, with sentences filled with irrelevant proper nouns for people and places I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about and that have nothing to do with the story. More idiotic preschool-level philosophy for morons about the nature of the gods (another area, incidentally, where Avellone's input is sorely missed: Guy isn't the next Hume or Kierkegaard or whoever but he knows how to tell these simple pop-philosophy stories well, unlike the current rabble of idiots writing for Obsidian, who apparently don't even realize that you can't prove a negative, e.g. that there are no gods). More terrible, badly-overwritten "quirky" companions so obviously insane that you wouldn't willingly get within 30 feet of one without your weapon drawn never mind keep them around in your party (or so uninteeresting and forgettable you'd rather recruit a merc so you can at least decide their stats), the only saving grace of which is the double-edged sword that there are hardly any of them to begin with; a double-edged sword in that if there were 20+ of them then most of them being ♥♥♥♥ wouldn't be the problem it becomes when you don't even have half of that.

But I was like, ah whatever. I can still just play through the game as a paladin, recruiting only mercenaries, and - and then it hit me, again. The game doesn't even have paladins. It doesn't even have ♥♥♥♥ing gods, we learn at the end of the first one. It just has ♥♥♥♥♥♥, dispassionate warrior-philosophers (*named* paladins so they can say they have them even though any moron recognizes that these aren't paladins at all) who feel so shoehorned in I'm confident saying that they are only there in order to tick the box of "classes nerds expect to be able to play as because they're in every other game".

Then I remembered no vancian casting and other stupid decisions they've proudly made in order to turn the game more into an MMO (why?) and make all the magic (the part that should feel most exciting and powerful) feel like boring, underpowered crap.

"Why am I playing this game", I asked myself, when 15 minutes in I was already sick of it?

And I realized I already didn't want to anymore.

I'm also wondering what mental deficiency makes someone who hated everything about a first game, and then everything they heard about the second game, play the second game. You'd think this disability would be so debilitating they would not even be able to communicate in a cognizable language, let alone type out their twisted thoughts to convey them to other sentients, but apparently not.


The same mental deficiency you need to state that PoE2's casting system is anywhere near being MMO-like it seems.
 

Sinatar

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
569
Okay, fuck this narrator. I can't handle every bit of descriptive prose being read out to me so painfully slowly. Anyone figured out a way to disable it yet?

Play the game for more then 2 minutes and she goes away on her own.
 

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,984
So far the game seems very easy. Like way too easy.

While I've found it overall fairly easy compared to 3.0 PotD White March, I 1. have party wiped a couple times in the first real dungeon. 2. realize this is the opening stage of the game, and therefore probably easing the player into the systems. And 3. have been intentionally not power gaming.

With these things in mind, I found that a few encounters that would have probably been slapped together in PoE, were actually pretty cleverly constructed in this in terms of enemy placement/patrols/varied abilities.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
I thought you'd have an option to skip the intro. But after I got that "reborn as a cat" ending I started it again and... No visible way to get to the chair.

It's not long but it's very irritating. At least in something like Skyrim you can relax and just sit there or in Fallout 3 you have some real choices to make in the intro. Obsidian had traditionally found a way to throw you right into the game like with PoE1 start or FNV. Here they made it so that you can't affect anything but you have to click move button several times and later if you try to skip dialogue again and again you can probably accidentally click joke ending option.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
6,021
Got a few hours play in and got off the starter island (then immediately crashed).

A nice upgrade over the original - loading times, graphics etc are all very good. It took me a bit to work out NPCs work on schedules which means you have to fiddle-fart around with a wait toggle on occasion. Character options are now very close to overwhelming given multiclass are now thrown into the mix. Nice to see there are class options in dialogs for multiclass characters. In some ways I wish they wouldn't make you pick NPC party members classes as it's difficult to know what's a good choice without knowing who else you might meet. Main storyline doesn't seem too interesting at the moment and they're fond of moments of verbose exposition, but so far I'm liking it.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
While I've found it overall fairly easy compared to 3.0 PotD White March, I 1. have party wiped a couple times in the first real dungeon. 2. realize this is the opening stage of the game, and therefore probably easing the player into the systems. And 3. have been intentionally not power gaming.

With these things in mind, I found that a few encounters that would have probspro been slapped together in PoE, were actually pretty cleverly constructed in this in terms of enemy placement/patrols/varied abilities.

I hope for a better difficulty curve. Just as it happens with most non-linear RPGs PoE2 had it inverted: Act 1 is hard on PotD but after that only some key battles are hard. I'm OK if this game starts easy on PotD but later forces me to optimize.
 

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,445
The game seems to sell like crap, on 4-5th place, was even on 6 at one moment, guess going over-budget with the second-handed voice acting wasnt the brightest idea, eh Josh?:lol:
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,894
Took an hour to install the GOG version on an SSD. An hour!

After fucking around in the intro, all I've got to say of this laughable narrator is - is she someone's girlfriend? It's mind-bogglingly awful. The fact that there isn't an option to turn it off is incredible.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Took an hour to install the GOG version on an SSD. An hour!

After fucking around in the intro, all I've got to say of this laughable narrator is - is she someone's girlfriend? It's mind-bogglingly awful. The fact that there isn't an option to turn it off is incredible.
Read this thread FFS, the narration in only in the intro area.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The game seems to sell like crap, on 4-5th place, was even on 6 at one moment, guess going over-budget with the second-handed voice acting wasnt the brightest idea, eh Josh?:lol:
Yeah, being 4th after heavy sellers like GTA5 or PUBG sure is a flop. I guess you are one of those retards who will tell a games financial success from it's position in the Steam top sellers list 10 HOURS AFTER RELEASE. Some people really take this edgy Codex mentality too far. Look, you don't have to act edgy all the time, nobody will take away your Codex cred.
 

Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,572
Location
Denmark
About 4-5 hours in - here's some ultra early mini impressions:

  • Combat is much improved, and it's actually fun. There's still alot going on, but it's not a complete clusterfuck that was poe1. The combat speed is fine imo on normal, but there is also slow mode for ultra tacticul and cautious. Skills and abilities seems fun to play around with and look good in combat. The AI also seems to function reasonable well.
  • Playing on POTD, upscale critical path. The game seems fine, abit easy, but still, I had a few fights that were hard already on the starter island, so far, so good.
  • Graphics are good, but they aren't THAT good. If you zoom in, the textures really become pixalteted, abit disappointing, zooming out everything looks good, but u lose alot of the detail by doing so, so it's a trade-off I guess.
  • Companions so far seems fine, aloth, xoti and eder are all reasonable, and I like the voices and dialogue
  • Optimization seems good, loading is fast and fps is high, but that might change since im only on starter island
  • I like the story, it's more light-hearted than poe1, which is a nice break. It does continue the story and explore it more in depth, and that's cool. Not entirely sold on the God Statue yet tho, we'll see.
  • There are many skill-checks in game alrdy on the starter island, scripted events that feature skill-checks are cool and fun, and dialogue skill-checks are also varied, even if they dont do much different outcomes than normal. So far it reminds me alot about White March, which is great.

BUGS! I've had 1 CTD alrdy, which was annoying. There are minor bugs here and there, so I guess therse a quick patch coming soon. They are annoying, but was to be expected I guess.
 
Last edited:

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,295
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The game seems to sell like crap, on 4-5th place, was even on 6 at one moment, guess going over-budget with the second-handed voice acting wasnt the brightest idea, eh Josh?:lol:
Yeah, being 4th after heavy sellers like GTA5 or PUBG sure is a flop. I guess you are one of those retards who will tell a games financial success from it's position in the Steam top sellers list 10 HOURS AFTER RELEASE. Some people really take this edgy Codex mentality too far. Look, you don't have to act edgy all the time, nobody will take away your Codex cred.
It wasn't Josh's idea at all. What a retard this guy is.
 

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,445
The game seems to sell like crap, on 4-5th place, was even on 6 at one moment, guess going over-budget with the second-handed voice acting wasnt the brightest idea, eh Josh?:lol:
Yeah, being 4th after heavy sellers like GTA5 or PUBG sure is a flop. I guess you are one of those retards who will tell a games financial success from it's position in the Steam top sellers list 10 HOURS AFTER RELEASE. Some people really take this edgy Codex mentality too far. Look, you don't have to act edgy all the time, nobody will take away your Codex cred.

Dude, at one point in the night it was outsold by Stardew Valley, fucking Stardew Valley and it barely went over 20k online, at this moment D:OS 2 was like 70-80k, so yes it's going pretty fucking slow for a sequel of this ''magnitude''. It's like people werent really impressed by the first game at all and bailed on this one.
 

Cyberarmy

Love fool
Patron
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
8,473
Location
Smyrna - Scalanouva
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I caved in bought this thinking it'll be an epic scaled adventure like BG2.
Instead I started on an island without any equipment and level 1...
Thanks I guess ?
 

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