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

[AwesomeButton]

That portrait is triggering my PTSD. I don't know if I'll be able to handle all the FreeLC.

Lol, just what I was thinking about with the girl metaphor

I don't know about PTSD, I would worry about STD.

 

[Frusciante]

- killed yoer brother
- you repeat
- he bled on the altar as I was sucking my +stat bonus from him bitch
- I KILL YOU... later... because you can't lose a companion over saying something wrong

Lol that's pretty stupid

 

[2house2fly]

Steamspy doesn't work anymore after the Steam privacy change.

That its now said 50k - 200k should just make that even more glaringly obvious. Battletech also just dropped like 40%.

Just check his twitter he talks about how off the algorithms now are and how hes working on it.

Yep, no real news here.

The fluctuation actually gives us better accuracy because we know it's just about 100k

How much would the need to break even? Maybe around 400k?

If they spent double the kickstarter budget that'd be $4.4mil to break even. That's 88k copies, but of course there's other factors like steam's cut and their deal with the publisher. 200k copies would be plenty to break even I'd think

 

[Shadenuat]

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't played yet, but how many minor settlements with a good amount of side content is it really reasonable to expect?

It's same with settlements as with dungeons. One big one. Rest are very small, have 1-2 quests, or filler like bounties.

I guess we can try and combine them all into groups based on their quest chains. For example, Deadlight+Pirate island+Slaver's. When I heard I am sailing to "slaver's city", I was friggin hooked. And then it... turned out to be 2 level dungeon(

 

[MajorMace]

Regardless of ressources spent, deadfire does feel unfinished towards the end.
Port Maje, Tikawara and Sayuka (or smthg) have a main/side quest and a handful of little things. The native tribe has absolutely nothing and the side quest there was bugged for me.

It's a pretty big deal. If the latter third of the game feels unfinished, the whole game does. And the observation that content is lacking quickly turns into "the game lacks content".

Do you get my views on the game now?

I do buddy.
I disagree on the lack of content, but I think they spread it so thin that I understand what you meant yeah.
Also, I suspect that going from 3 hubs to only 1 in deadfire plays its full part in this perceived lack of content.

 

[Riddler]

Steamspy doesn't work anymore after the Steam privacy change.

That its now said 50k - 200k should just make that even more glaringly obvious. Battletech also just dropped like 40%.

Just check his twitter he talks about how off the algorithms now are and how hes working on it.

Yep, no real news here.

The fluctuation actually gives us better accuracy because we know it's just about 100k

How much would the need to break even? Maybe around 400k?

Steam takes 30% so X=budget/(50*0.7).

For a budget of 7 million that would be 200 000 copies at full price.

 

[FreeKaner]

In an archipelago only one hub is perfectly fine. Plus it's easy for them to add content to rest of the game including DLCs.

I think when they add the DLCs with in-depth locations, dungeons, encounters and more to explore this will feel like a complete game.

 

[2house2fly]

Of course we only have steam numbers(to the extent we even have them). I'm pretty sure Witcher 3 drove more attention GOG's way, so more people might have GOG copies now than did in 2015. Also Torment's console sales were negligible, PoE's likely were too, but I still wouldn't rule out a chunk of sales coming from that area

 

[fantadomat]

Regardless of ressources spent, deadfire does feel unfinished towards the end.
Port Maje, Tikawara and Sayuka (or smthg) have a main/side quest and a handful of little things. The native tribe has absolutely nothing and the side quest there was bugged for me.

It's a pretty big deal. If the latter third of the game feels unfinished, the whole game does. And the observation that content is lacking quickly turns into "the game lacks content".

Do you get my views on the game now?

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't played yet, but how many minor settlements with a good amount of side content is it really reasonable to expect? Let's compare to Underrail, AoD, Fallout (for a game with free roaming of the world), Arcanum? Three small settlements plus one that's significantly bigger than either Core City or Tarant sounds good enough to me, if coupled with the random island dungeons you can find through free exploration only and with the bounties. I don't know, haven't played yet.

More than one. Deadfire have only one settlement with a side quest. All the rest are connected to their faction. Only Sayuki or whatever its name was,have a side quest that is not connected to a faction,it is go and kill a bunch of cool druids in a swamp map. Ok i stand corrected the undead island is a side content and a settlement. Oh fuck i forgot the pirate bounties on the pirate island.

 

[Riddler]

Of course we only have steam numbers(to the extent we even have them). I'm pretty sure Witcher 3 drove more attention GOG's way, so more people might have GOG copies now than did in 2015. Also Torment's console sales were negligible, PoE's likely were too, but I still wouldn't rule out a chunk of sales coming from that area

I believe they stated that PoE did surprisingly well on consoles, whatever that amounts to.

 

[FreeKaner]

GOTY 2019 when all the tuning patches, DLCs and freeLCs are added. By then it might even break 200k sales.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/8jpwee/deadfire_qa_w_josh_sawyer_51518_summary/

Deadfire - Q&A w/ Josh Sawyer 5/15/18 Summary

I took some brief notes while watching today's Q&A stream with Josh Sawyer on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/obsidian). This isn't everything discussed, but should be most things pertinent to bugs/balance fixes.

If there's anything you feel I missed, please add it below. If you feel I misconstrued anything, please let me know and I will correct. I typed these pretty quick, so please forgive any bad grammar/spelling.

- Official Patch not out today. Major bug was found that pushed the patch back until later this week. Beta Branch of the patch has been updated today

- Major bug is related to Disposition, which affects a number of relationship scripts. i.e., becoming flagged as 'cruel' after a single dialog option.

- Shout out to the user who made a mod regarding disposition gain. Note that using the mod in it's current state will also slow down the rate of reputation gained with factions. Official fix coming with the patch later this week (tomorrow?), as well as cleaning up the disposition options (making sure there is always a neutral option)

- Vela is meant to have companion banter (no standalone dialog). Vela not appearing on the ship will be fixed on this patch.

- Level scaling not applying correctly is being fixed (this fix is live in the beta branch).

- Mac black screen fix is coming (may be live on beta fix?). Issue with shaders & the testing graphics cards.

- Quest difficulty indicators (when upscaling) not showing - confirmed bug, may not be fixed this week.

- Quest/creature skull indicator planned to be replaced with showing the actual level.

- POTD/Veteran difficulty is known to be too easy. Increasing the difficulty is a priority but will take some time. No easy fix, Josh is working with the designers to rebalance all encounters. Will not be in this week's patch, but is being actively worked on.

- Fix for companion relationships (how they feel about each other, how they react to dialog) is going to be addressed as well. Related to, but not part of the disposition fix coming this week.

- Any plan to share AI scripts (import/export)? Not at this time, but possible future feature improvement.

- Ship encounters are hand built, not procedurally generated. Balance being looked at for the future.

- Viewing class skill trees (outside of leveling) is coming, but not this week.

- Beta Branch should not break save games HOWEVER, it probably will not retroactively apply changes for past decisions

- Behind the Scenes Documentary? Commentary? Cool things to do, but team is focused on bug fixing at the moment.

- Will level cap be increased in the expansions? Josh confirmed he is not the game director for the expansions. Cannot speak to this.

- FREE DLC NEXT WEEK - "Rum Runners" - New side kick; new player pose, 'Drunk'; 6 new alcohols for resting/bonuses

- Ability Rebalancing? In progress. Not in this week's patch. Buffs/nerfs as needed.

- Duplication Bug - fix is in place (beta branch?).

- Chanter balance? Yes, balancing is in progress. Chanter multiclass is extremely powerful. Looking at Beckoner as well as individual Chanter abilities.

- Could Sidekicks become full companions? Josh can't speak to the DLC, but they are aware it is very desired by the players

- Why do some items show 0% chance to apply effects? Bug. Case by case fix. It is a display bug, it should be applying correctly regardless.

- Too many Swords/Sabres? Aware there are too many. Will push for DLC to focus on other weapon types.

- Ship Upgrades too expensive? Gold sinks are a good thing. There were too little in the first game

- Tooltips clean up are in progress.

- Infinite money bug (through the fish vendor) fix is in.

- Moon Godlike passives are weaker than POE1? Yes, that is intentional. Not underpowered, just not as good as it was in the first game.

- P&P Starter Guide - Updates are coming, but focus is on game bug fixes right now. Maybe an update towards the end of May?

- Reworking Navel Combat - can be better, are looking at improving down the road

- View on Mods? They're great! Very pro-Mod. Keep making more.

- Two-weapon balance (weak compared to dual wielding) - Looking into it. Want a place for all weapon types. Weapon values should be simple to mod, if the community wants to try different values.

- Enemy Ship equipment/aggression being looked into. Changes in the future (not this week's patch).

 

[frajaq]

I'm really confused why they even made sidekicks in the first place, all they do is blue-ball you into thinking "damn I wish some of these were full companions instead"

 

[fantadomat]

Regardless of ressources spent, deadfire does feel unfinished towards the end.
Port Maje, Tikawara and Sayuka (or smthg) have a main/side quest and a handful of little things. The native tribe has absolutely nothing and the side quest there was bugged for me.

It's a pretty big deal. If the latter third of the game feels unfinished, the whole game does. And the observation that content is lacking quickly turns into "the game lacks content".

Do you get my views on the game now?

I do buddy.
I disagree on the lack of content, but I think they spread it so thin that I understand what you meant yeah.
Also, I suspect that going from 3 hubs to only 1 in deadfire plays its full part in this perceived lack of content.

I believe that people perceive that the game have a lot content because of it spreading. Lets talk about what the game have.

Spoiler

It have two pirate islands with one bounty quest and two quests that you have to get to the other district and talk with somebody to finish the quest...this is hardly a content.
We have the valian trading tribal island where you go on your way to one of their quests,it have one quest to go and kill the fishmonster queen on the island.
We have sakuyaki island,there you have a quest to kill the druids.
We have hasango,no quests there its a part of the main story.
We have the primitive island with no side content.
We have the slaver's island with no side content.
We have lets say 15 ship battles.
We have 10-15 mini dungeons scattered on the islands.
We have 15ish battles again scattered on the islands.
We have the undead island,really nice content.
We have the beginning island,almost no side content,you had a two quests,one to talk with one of the locals,the other to talk with a looter and maybe kill him.
We have the imp island,there you have two level dungeon with a boss room.
Finally we have the capital with a lot of fun things in it,but most quests are go and talk to somebody.

If you combine it all,it doesn't feel like much of content.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm really confused why they even made sidekicks in the first place, all they do is blue-ball you into thinking "damn I wish some of these were full companions instead"

Because sane people should have old school party members as opposed to bisexual romance pushers.

I do buddy.
I disagree on the lack of content, but I think they spread it so thin that I understand what you meant yeah.
Also, I suspect that going from 3 hubs to only 1 in deadfire plays its full part in this perceived lack of content.

In an archipelago only one hub is perfectly fine. Plus it's easy for them to add content to rest of the game including DLCs.

I think when they add the DLCs with in-depth locations, dungeons, encounters and more to explore this will feel like a complete game.

What FreeKaner says - the Deadfire is a frontier, it's normal that the population is sparse in the majority of the region and grouped in a few hubs. IWD/IWDII didn't suffer from that, but yes, those were games with a different structure

Kudos to Josh if he really balanced the economy, and kudos for at least trying. This has to be one of the few RPGs where you're not swimming in money. Maybe Underrail fixed this too?

 

[Trashos]

Isn't this game supposed to keep Obsidian afloat until the Cainarsky game? Why are we talking about breaking even?

Anyway, back to the topic of "active abilities for all!!". The problem is that these are party-games, and are focused (or, rather, should be focused) on requiring team tactics. When all your 5 party members have active abilities, the optimal strategy will often (even always) involve everyone firing active abilities all the time. I do not believe that such a method has any hope of being more satisfying, clean, and elegant than IE games. It is like eating tons of cake, you are eventually going to feel disgusted.

 

[fantadomat]

Hey guys,it just came to me. Do you think that the game combat is so easy because the game is made for consoles? Honest question here guys,just curious about your opinion. It will be coming on PS,xbone and switch during Christmas.

 

[MajorMace]

fantadomat
Yeah but how god how do you come to the conclusion that poe1 had more to offer ?
Also you enumerate locations like it means smthg, it's weird. Lost city, sepulchers, arkemyr's manor already represent more side content that the whole act 2 of poe had dude. Which to use your method could be summed up as such :
There's a whole district of defiance bay, it's main quest stuff, there's a side quest but it's about going in the mausoleum next door it's hardly a content. The lighthouse is the only dungeon in the city, the rest is quests about talking to somebody etc etc.

 

[Trashos]

Hey guys,it just came to me. Do you think that the game combat is so easy because the game is made for consoles? Honest question here guys,just curious about your opinion. It will be coming on PS,xbone and switch during Christmas.

No, the game is easy because they felt they had to compensate for the complexity of the systems. It is almost obvious.

 

[FreeKaner]

Fantadomat is just enamoured with the game and he is very disappoint that there isn't more.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Josh will fix it.

 

[TT1]

I was looking at my Fighting Fantasy books, and, boy, I miss them so much, the lore is so good. This is the shit I need in PoE3, a fuckaton dungeon like Deathtrap Dungeon, huge, deadly, and with almost resources or rest. A place like City of Thieves or Cidatel of Chaos. Fuck. I miss it so much.

And, oh, a Tarrasque could be good too.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

This has to be one of the few RPGs where you're not swimming in money.

I thought so too, until I left Nekataka and started sailing around. After boarding the first two enemy ships, I've ended up with 18k from sold loot, and that's with sharing the cash with my crew.

I'm not complaining, ship stuff looks expensive.

 

[Prime Junta]

Hey guys,it just came to me. Do you think that the game combat is so easy because the game is made for consoles? Honest question here guys,just curious about your opinion. It will be coming on PS,xbone and switch during Christmas.

No, the game is easy because they felt they had to compensate for the complexity of the systems. It is almost obvious.

Josh said Classic is about where he wants it to be but Veteran and PotD are much easier than he'd like, and the reason for that is that they didn't have time to focus on balancing them what with trying to get the game out in a halfway playable state. And that once the worst bugs are patched, he intends to go over it and make them a lot harder.

I see no reason not to take him at his word. So why the need for all these theories?

(Or, if you prefer, the edgy version of Occam's razor: never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.)

 

[Shadenuat]

Other thing making game easier is how crazy some abilities are (like chanter or monk or evoker wizord with items stacked for +damage and stuff), yet I don't remember enemies going as crazy on me (which was the core principle of IE games - symmetry). I don't remember loads of enemy chanters overwhelming me with dozens ogres and dragons. Or whole monastery of monks kicking the shit out of me while being immune to physical damage. Remember bunch of cyphers I think, but not one who would mix his abilities with thieving, teleport behind me go nothin personnel kid slay mage for massive damage and then cast some broken charm spell (that's how I played Ydwin with her 100+ dmg estoc hits and idiotic amount of auto-applying afflictions like auto-flank, auto-daze, etc.).

For example, what class are ogres? Just ogres? Why not give some ogre a barbarian class and allow him to jump on your party in a slow mo fashion annihilating everything and knocking your neat positioning to shit. How about nagas? Do fire nagas have paladins? Nagas are usually fighters/rangers and 1 wizord maybe, why not make a naga paladin boss with absurd fire attacks and armor, dualled into fighter for an ability to cleave through your whole party? I was almost waiting creatures to use class based AND dual class abilities in all the most hilarious ways. But many (if not all) monsters just felt vanilla.