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

[FreeKaner]

I think you're kinda missing the point.

There's an axe against plants that got -70% damage against plants, and there's chanter with infinite summons against whom enemy doesn't have anything like death spell, dispell and is not smart to use interrupt while chanter does his 6+ seconds cast (because Chanter is not lowest HP member is group) that is still ok.

You are implying I have claimed something I have not. Especially in context of what I wrote, do you think I prefer that broken and easy to come "I win"-buttons like chanter's single cast ogres to stay in the game?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Gonna start a new run in the evening.

Current plan:

Hunter MC
Swashbuckler Eder
custom Herald
single class custom Beguiler Cipher
single class custom Ewoker Mage

 

[Shadenuat]

You are implying I have claimed something I have not. Especially in context of what I wrote, do you think I prefer that broken and easy to come "I win"-buttons like chanter's single cast ogres to stay in the game?

You can take away power by simply changing numbers until what players do in combat is irrelevant, or you can do it in a more elegant, symmetrical way - like when enemy mages in BG just cast death spell on your summons. Enemies can answer power with power. That's the basics of tactics. But developers just cut some numbers instead. I mean, ogres are in the game. It means they're balanced, by people who played the game and tested it.

Here's another example: Unbending. It was quite op, for everyone. Enemy fighters were numerous and without things to dispel effects could wipe your party. There was a PoTD fight near shrine on slaver's island that had I believe 2-3 fighter archers that would just cast Unbending Trunk and destroy you. It was a difficult ambush and going around them was difficult. Now, not nearly as difficult. A Fighter pressing oh-shit button is not that big deal anymore. Why not just cut on time of the ability, really? It would make fighting these dudes more tactical. But instead, this ability is just not big of a deal anymore, and thus enemy fighters are not that of a problem anymore.

Literally the only class enemies have that is always a problem are rogues because they're so overpowered and can usually 1 on 1 any other class (except maybe monk).

Side note: I never seen enemies summon ogres against me. And never fought a chanter high level enough to summon dragon. Never even seen that summon since I never played single class chanter myself that far into the game.

Also, only prologue is that hard. You don't need optimized or even full party for new PoTD. I basically play dumb larp characters and do fine.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There is a moral here: All things die eventually, no matter how much you balance. Hence, why play, or live, on any difficulty but Story Time?

 

[FreeKaner]

You can take away power by simply changing numbers until what players do in combat is irrelevant, or you can do it in a more elegant, symmetrical way - like when enemy mages in BG just cast death spell on your summons. Enemies can answer power with power. That's the basics of tactics. But developers just cut some numbers instead. I mean, ogres are in the game. It means they're balanced, by people who played the game and tested it.

Side not: I never seen enemies summon ogres against me.

Yeah like BG was balanced and symmetric, don't do nostalgia.

You can both tune down ridiculous numbers which when stacked due the abudance of options, items and passives leads you to oneshot dragons and at the same time improve the encounters by making them more varied and giving the AI tools to deal with the player. I am sorry, but when you can alpha-strike a dragon and oneshot it, the numbers need to be tuned down. There is no need to make this an ideological debate, everything was overtuned by Sawyer and he is retracing a mistake.

 

[Shadenuat]

I never 1-shotted any dragons. 1-shotting dragons happened because dragons were incredibly underleveled and simply weak, and because of some super op abilities. Also due to disparity in your party level and dragon level. It did not happen because of a hatchet that does extra damage to plants, it happened because of things like Empower button and doublecast, or some bugged out Monk abilities, etc.

And yes you could 1-shot dragons in BG. So could they 1 shot your whole party.

So what about it? Should you never 1-shot anything even if you're fully prepared, mastered the system and executed tactics flawlessly? Should everything be a half an hour long grind through hp and defences with your 256 +0.03% damage abilities like it is now on PoTD so often?

What is difficulty should be about?
a) a correct use of abilities or
b) you win after you use all your abilities
?

Because current PoTD is more about the latter.

 

[BING XI LAO]

what is dota?

https://youtu.be/_HG8vVw6Zts
It's Valve's mass social experiment/ research into autism psychology planning for the NWO 2070 paradigm where everyone will be hooked on anime VR child porn

 

[2house2fly]

Were there any consequences in Deadfire related to Thaos' fate? I destroyed his soul, so I'm assuming I missed whatever was related to him.

Apparently it was the "benevolent" choice, we gave him peace by utterly destroying his soul.

You can either benevolently destroy it saying "this will give you peace" or cruelly destroy it saying "you do not deserve to live"

 

[2house2fly]

Deadfire is better than any of your mind-farts ever been and now suck it salty.

Deadfire is good but there's no need to resort to lies

 

[FreeKaner]

I never 1-shotted any dragons. 1-shotting dragons happened because dragons were incredibly underleveled and simply weak, and because of some super op abilities. Also due to disparity in your party level and dragon level. It did not happen because of a hatchet that does extra damage to plants, it happened because of things like Empower button and doublecast, or some bugged out Monk abilities, etc.

And yes you could 1-shot dragons in BG. So could they 1 shot your whole party.

So what about it? Should you never 1-shot anything even if you're fully prepared, mastered the system and executed tactics flawlessly? Should everything be a half an hour long grind through hp and defences like it is not on PoTD so often?

No, you should be able to be strong if you have planned and tactically executed a strategy. You shouldn't be strong just because Sawyer went overboard and written 120 instead of 70 in a skill's integer value.

When you are so strong so easily, with no effort and at the press of couple buttons the game does not feel satisfying. It's like playing with cheats, should I be invulnerable because I knew console commands? Is that fun?

You think you are making a case for fun and enjoyment, you are not. You are making a case of Sawyer's infallibility, as if the numbers he decided at 1.0 are the ultimate truth and by adjusting it he is desecrating the perfection he came up with. He overtuned the game and fucked up, POTD was a cake walk and builds were walking over the content. The game needed number balance because it was not fun to fucking select a skill at level up and oneshot whole encounters with it, or abuse two skill combination that infinite-looped and oneshot dragons.

He might have fucked up again, and could have went overboard with item nerfs, but if that's the case he'll try to correct it.

PoE 3.0 was better than PoE 1.0, fact.

 

[Lacrymas]

This is the party I came up with -

MC Skaen/Devoted
Custom Paladin/Barbarian tank
Custom Druid (Lifegiver)
The other 2 spots will go to Pallegina, Serafen or Ydwin, not sure which 2 I'm going to take yet. Probably Serafen and Ydwin to not double on Paladins.

 

[Orma]

I started a new game and made an all ranger party in Kraken's eye last night,

Melee-tank Paladin-Stalker

Monk-Ranger MC

Chanter-Sharpshooter

Paladin-Sharpshooter

Not sure if I want to make a Druid-ranger for the remaining slot or keep Eder until I get Maia.

 

[Haplo]

It reads like a dota update.

careful

someone's gonna come here and say that's good

Hopefully the DLCs will reintroduce some cool items on par with Abydon's Hammer. So far PoE2 seems lacking in cool items. Off the top of my head I can only recall frostseeker, the +3 CON belts, the Reforge the Flesh belt, Eder's armour, Xoti' lantern with the aura, and not much else.

What about the lightning Voulge, the aoe greatsword & pollaxe, 0 Recovery saber and numerous others? There's no shortage of crazy poweful gear in PoE2.... Granted some has just been nerfed.

 

[Haplo]

Holy fuck I just got absolutely destroyed in the ruins. POTD looks like it's mandatory optimised custom party.

Eh it's doable with MC, Eder and Xoti... but very tough. Had to reload a few times. Definately have to funnel enemies into a bottleneck so they can't swarm you.
Probably consumables are required. I spent most of the healing potions I usually hoard. Traps and bombs are another option.

 

[Maculo]

I started a new game and made an all ranger party in Kraken's eye last night,

Melee-tank Paladin-Stalker

Monk-Ranger MC

Chanter-Sharpshooter

Paladin-Sharpshooter

Not sure if I want to make a Druid-ranger for the remaining slot or keep Eder until I get Maia.

I would stick with Eder until you get Maia. Maia's Scout Subclass is amazing and I did not see any nerfs to her in the 1.1 notes.

Holy fuck I just got absolutely destroyed in the ruins. POTD looks like it's mandatory optimised custom party.

Great to hear. Once I finish my Total Warhammer campaign, I will load this back up.

 

[Darth Roxor]

you know, 'zomg i just got destroyed on starter island' doesn't indicate much when the game would only get piss easy 10 levels later in the previous version

 

[Shadenuat]

I hit level 12 and feels like difficulty began to fall down. On average it's more difficult than before but mobs don't seem to be able to keep up.

Now level 13.

I think I am actually leveling up faster than before patch. It may be because there are more monsters and more types of monsters around, so that bestiary gets me through levels faster.

I killed engwithan titan, some low level bounties, maybe 2-3 mini dungeons, robbed Arkemyr's mansion, killed the pirate dude, but I am just going to kill Scrublord so I've yet to even finish Neketaka main dungeon actually.

 

[Lacrymas]

Should I get the slower leveling mod?

 

[Shadenuat]

Yeah for new PoTD it might be actually good idea. To cut level gain by 20-30%.

 

[Tigranes]

Should I get the slower leveling mod?

Yes. Actually, I tend to cut XP, especially on subsequent playthroughs, for most RPGs I play these days.

1, nonlinearity means that POE2 XP gain is balanced for people who don't visit every island and do almost every quest, so at some point, you end up being level 15 doing shit meant for level 12s (just like in, say, Witcher 3 or DOS2). And as we know, POE game system's key weakness is how level-driven it is, so you don't want to be overlevelled for shit.

2, we know 99% of CRPGs are piss easy once you learn the systems.

3, just like POE1, Deadfire is still a bit too generous with XP, and just like POE1, your character builds tend to be pretty set after level ~12, at which point you are usually going to have the important skills and gear and feats that define your key strategies.

Replaying BG2 or IWD these days, I tend to cut XP by 25% as a rule, and I think POE1/2 you definitely should.

 

[FreeKaner]

Anti-balancing people:

 

[frajaq]

glad they patched the game and made people cry with the nerfs

only gonna play again when the first DLC comes out tho

 

[AwesomeButton]

I hit level 12 and feels like difficulty began to fall down. On average it's more difficult than before but mobs don't seem to be able to keep up.

Now level 13.

I think I am actually leveling up faster than before patch. It may be because there are more monsters and more types of monsters around, so that bestiary gets me through levels faster.

I killed engwithan titan, some low level bounties, maybe 2-3 mini dungeons, robbed Arkemyr's mansion, killed the pirate dude, but I am just going to kill Scrublord so I've yet to even finish Neketaka main dungeon actually.

What scaling options are you using?

 

[Shadenuat]

Killed Scrublord in 20 secs oops. He's level 12, should have been harder me thinks but no.

What scaling options are you using?

Scale everything always up, naturally.

I also made the supah sword from 2 broken swords from 1st game. Of course Josh had to make it's basic damage of a dagger because it hits in small AoE. Could have been an awesome weapon...

 

[AwesomeButton]

Does anyone know if Power Source points are a restriction only for the player or for the AI as well? I believe it was for the player only, but I'm not sure.