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

[Lacrymas]

What was the console command to force PotD

EDIT: It's iroll20s, then difficulty 3.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Seriously though. Massive nerf that touches almost every item and class and goes as far as halving a lot of the effects, combined with game-wide buff to monster armor and penetration, and shit is still too easy? You done fucked up, Obsidian.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

What was the console command to force PotD?

difficulty 0-4. One of those.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

In Might & Magic, level 100+ is high. The max level is around 250. Gear isn't very important, skills and levels rule all.

In D&D (and derivatives), level 20 is high. The max level is somewhere between 12 and 25. Gear and spells rule all.

Gear and spells.

 

[Lacrymas]

Why does Hylea look like a transvestite, lol.

 

[Quillon]

Whoever drew some of the gods, prolly effected by bog witches in da witcha. Ondra must have killed Abydon cos he'd prolly ran away as soon as he laid eyes on her.

 

[FreeKaner]

Fuck me, no wonder it's so easy, I'm on Veteran.............

It's the Drake and panthers that's hard. Although yes optimisation does a lot, especially if you don't have xoti who is a bit of a baggage early on completely opposite of priest in PoE1.

 

[Lacrymas]

Just got my ass handed to me several times in a xaurip cave. Going to come back to it at a higher level. PotD really is something else, but mainly due to higher armor and defenses, my Paladin isn't as sturdy anymore as well.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The hardest fight before I abandoned the playthrough wasn't even drake at the ruins, it was the Gorecci street with scavengers. It's a neatly set up encounter on PotD. 3 ranged guys on a platform that cannot be easily accessed because of the water and like 4 melee dudes in front.

Drake and panthers are not that much of a problem because stairs form a natural choke point.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Why does Hylea look like a transvestite, lol.

 

[Abu Antar]

I beat the game 30 minutes ago. 57 hours. Quick 2.30am thoughts.

There's bad mixed with good. Multi classing, different ways to solve quests, good early game fights, like the ones in the old city (if you don't enter overpowered), a few good optional fights, factions are handled better than Tyranny. Presentation is very good. Graphically, it's an improvement over the first game. Better unique items than the first game, and while they may have been nerfed, their upgrades were interesting. I had so much money by the end, that I decided to actually use the money on upgrading everyone's gear to the max. The concept of the story was decent, but it needed to be more fleshed out. I liked some of the exploration, and there were some decent dungeons. My last note: Neketaka was much better than Defiance Bay.

The companions weren't good. They more often than not felt awkward. Game becomes easier and easier as you gain levels and progress through the story. There aren't enough main story quests. The concept of the story doesn't get fleshed out enough. Remove half the bounties and focus on a few more quests instead. While Neketaka was great, and there were some cool dungeons, there were too many small "dungeons" you explored. Bounty maps were reused, and they were like one screen big. Ship combat wasn't my thing. Bought the Junk and all the best upgrades as soon as I could. 1-1-1-1-1-3 every ship fight. There were no unique ships left after I was done with them. The ship as your ship was also underwhelming.

Spoiler

I didn't side with any faction and just sailed in alone. No one's taking advantage of me, dammit. I like that this was actually commented on by one of the gods.

Overall, I think that I enjoyed this more than the first game, despite the flaws being obvious. I had fun most of my time playing it, but I do have to say that at about 50 hours, I was ready for the game to end. I do feel that it gets a bit worse as it gets closer to the end. The first game had the same issue for me.
I can't wait to see how the game plays after all the DLC is out and all balancing is done. Hopefully, we get some better companions, too.

 

[aweigh]

Lacrymas

You can continue to use an alphanumeric value after Difficulty all the way up to 10 (according to someone on the Obs forums); according to that chap at value 10 he wrote that all enemies were invincible.

You can also simply type Difficulty PathOfTheDamned, or any of the other difficulty setting names.

If you want to turn on or off Level Scaling, or change it from upwards to downwards or vice-versa, download the Unity Console mod from the Nexus, and use its custom console (it opens a seperate window from the game which acts as a "super console" which allows custom commands)-- use it to do these things.

I recommend downloading it anyways because it allows:

- Completely and totally respeccing main character and any companions all the way from level 1, or into any other classes that you want.

- Easily use its GUI to redistribute Attribute Points for story companions, so you can enjoy their banter and shit without having to use them with their default spread.

And a bunch of other shit, but I mainly just use it to customize my companions.

There's also a good difficulty mod called Deadly Deadfire which increases the level range which Scaling utilizes in an upwards convention, and optional files for increasing enemy Health and reducing Quest/Combat XP.

EDIT: There's a good one for Wizards which spawns Grimoires in some stores which carry the spells from each set of Spell Schools that become disabled when you choose a sub-class, allowing your Wizard to use those disabled spells if they equip the specific Grimoire.

(The general consensus being that losing access to two entire schools is a bad trade for the benefits that current Wiz subs give)

 

[AwesomeButton]

I am certainly betraying my bias towards 20th century music. Keep in mind that "classical" musics are meant to be listened to, so they won't be background-y enough for a video game.

These were very good. I always find it funny when I happen to hear something that clearly sounds like an inspiration for some John Williams theme.

I was thinking about bits from the famous "Russian Sailors' Dance", but that was probably too obvious. Some music from 19th century ballet may also be suitable. I'm mainly after themes and, I think, ballet has self-sufficient themes more often and of better length than concerts? I don't know, this may be a completely ignorant opinion.

 

[Lacrymas]

It is well known that John Williams pilfers from Stravinsky, Mahler, Holst and a host of other composers. If you are looking for melodic themes, those are everywhere pre-20th century, it doesn't matter whether it's a concerto, ballet, symphonic poem, sonata or whatever else. The musical convention at that time dictated such things. You can find some in 20th century works, of course, in Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Stravinsky, even Richard Strass and Bartok, but melodies are generally abandoned in more serious 20th century works.

 

[prodigydancer]

Would be better to talk about how it actually plays in the game than how it looks like in the patch notes.

In 1.1, when you press a button, something meh happens.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It is well known that John Williams pilfers from Stravinsky, Mahler, Holst and a host of other composers. If you are looking for melodic themes, those are everywhere pre-20th century, it doesn't matter whether it's a concerto, ballet, symphonic poem, sonata or whatever else. The musical convention at that time dictated such things. You can find some in 20th century works, of course, in Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Stravinsky, even Richard Strass and Bartok, but melodies are generally abandoned in more serious 20th century works.

I'll definitely benefit from a course in history of classical music. I know there is so much good stuff there, but I don't know how to look for it. Some time ago I had started reading through Wikipedia's articles on Renaissance and early Baroque and was planning to go through all the periods up to the 20th century, but this got pushed back by other momentary interests. I still did get some general knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish Renaissance music, as well as learned of Henry Purcell and listened to his more "easy listening" famous works.

 

[Lacrymas]

The big events in the history of (Western) music are very easy to summarize. Pre-Renaissance is single-voice melodies of various complexity, both secular and religious; Renaissance is modal polyphony, all the voices move in a linear, melodic fashion and no mind is given to the function of triad-based chords; Baroque is still polyphony, but the equal temperament and the prevalent use of chords as structural element give rise to functional thinking (the most important chords being the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant); Classical era mostly abandons polyphony for a vertical sequence of functional chords and the melody "on top"; Romanticism starts incorporating rarely used chords as a baseline due to the extension of the possibilities of the orchestra, polyphony starts being in vertical "chunks" rather than single-voice melodies, the relationship between tonalities also extend beyond the tonic - dominant as a baseline; And in the 20th century crazy shit starts happening every 10-15 years and it has to be summarized on its own.

If you want to go more in-depth, there are a loooot of wordy and big books written on the topic. Like every art form, it is shaped by the environment, politics, personal life, philosophy and whatever else that fits the then-contemporary zeitgeist. I'd focus more on those things than the nitty-gritty analysis of sheet music as a casual listener. Understanding the times and how they relate to music is the best way to have a more thorough understanding of what you are consuming and potentially increasing your pleasure from it.

 

[Tigranes]

Would be better to talk about how it actually plays in the game than how it looks like in the patch notes.

It plays fine. A few particular builds or abilities get noticeably weaker, such as Brilliant Invocation, but monks and rogues still hit hard and fast, fighters and paladins can still be built to shield everyone like a rock, and there remains plenty of ways to make your dudes superpowerful.

Given that 1.00 was too easy for everybody, a broad across-the-board trim actually helps cut down players' inflated statistics; it was far too easy to stack deflection or attack speed or whatever into the stratosphere. What's the point of buffing 5 accuracy on the enemy, for instance, if you leave alone broken shit that gives palyers 40 deflection?

The issue isn't the 'nerfs', it's the fact that they need to still do more across the board - targeting specifically broken things like +5 deflection per Intimidate or whatever, the XP handouts, the fact that 2-handers need to be more powerful and dual-wield weaker, etc.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

It is well known that John Williams pilfers from Stravinsky, Mahler, Holst and a host of other composers. If you are looking for melodic themes, those are everywhere pre-20th century, it doesn't matter whether it's a concerto, ballet, symphonic poem, sonata or whatever else. The musical convention at that time dictated such things. You can find some in 20th century works, of course, in Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Stravinsky, even Richard Strass and Bartok, but melodies are generally abandoned in more serious 20th century works.

I'll definitely benefit from a course in history of classical music. I know there is so much good stuff there, but I don't know how to look for it. Some time ago I had started reading through Wikipedia's articles on Renaissance and early Baroque and was planning to go through all the periods up to the 20th century, but this got pushed back by other momentary interests. I still did get some general knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish Renaissance music, as well as learned of Henry Purcell and listened to his more "easy listening" famous works.

This is what books on tape are for.

I think POE and Deadfire should be scored to Brahms because, like these games, he’s the lesser spiritual successor to a greater franchise/composer (Beethoven). Likewise, I’d subtitute, say, Schnittke for Shostakovich for the same reason. Under no circumstances should you listen to the genuine article while playing this game—only top tier but highly derivative stuff will do.

 

[Shadenuat]

Seriously though. Massive nerf that touches almost every item and class and goes as far as halving a lot of the effects, combined with game-wide buff to monster armor and penetration, and shit is still too easy? You done fucked up, Obsidian.

The issue isn't the 'nerfs', it's the fact that they need to still do more across the board - targeting specifically broken things like +5 deflection per Intimidate or whatever, the XP handouts, the fact that 2-handers need to be more powerful and dual-wield weaker, etc.

Me, I believe that it just shows that PoE system is such that no matter how much you nerf kewl items and abilities (which also become weaker for enemies and so enemies may end up easier to defeat and less deadly) you won't actually ever address "real" difficulty, AI, magic play (the lack of high tier inspirations and their use by party and enemies is so surprising; the single 3d level spell can shut down all enemy buffs, arcane or not, with a single cast for whole encounter, etc.) and pacing problems; + the awesome button is still awesome.

You may close some holes players drilled with their autism and character building & power gaming, but the ship will continue to leak forever.

It plays fine.

Can't completely agree with this, I think many abilities feel lacklustre, i.e. paladin flames of devotion, priest summoned weapons, etc.
They even nerfed backstab lol.

Really, end game should probably at least partially require powerful items, if it never was balanced around them, then you can't have powerful items, eh?

 

[Lacrymas]

Eh, scoring whatever contemporary thing with grandpa music is not the most relevant decision in a lot of cases. I don't advocate exhuming "classical" composers for use in films/video games/whatever, just look at what mess can happen in Stanley Kubrick's films, he only uses "classical" music to give off an illusion of intellectualism and sophistication. Ligeti was strongly opposed to Kubrick using his music and for good reason. Penderecki didn't want to score movies in general, but I think he gave the OK to Kubrick to use Cosmogonia, Polymorphia and the Awakening of Jacob. Either way, it's better to compose new music and leave the fossils to the concert halls.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Me, I believe that it just shows that PoE system is such that no matter how much you nerf kewl items and abilities (which also become weaker for enemies and so enemies may end up easier to defeat and less deadly) you won't actually ever adress "real" difficulty, AI, magic play (the lack of high tier inspirations and their use by party and enemies is so surprising; the single 3d level spell can shut down all enemy buffs, arcane or not, with a single cast for whole encounter, etc.) and pacing problems; + the awesome button is still awesome.

You may pluck some holes players drilled with their autism and character building & power gaming, but the ship will continue to leak forever.

I'm not sure if it's some deep issue sitting at the core of the system.

The difficulty was so absurdly easy that none of us had to even bother trying. Early game wasn't horrible, but after level 10 it was just open up with all your big damage spells, then just select all and focus fire on whatever was left standing.

The buffs increased the difficulty massively, but we just adjusted by trying to play at least somewhat optimally and it became easy again.

 

[Tigranes]

Shadenuat I agree, the real overhaul has to be done elsewhere (as I've been saying, I believe the true unpatchable mistake was to leave in level-based acc/def gain). I just think, given what we have, the patch's difficulty changes are positive & make an appreciable difference, while the nerfs are correct & make a smaller difference.

I'm having fun with powergaming it w/ houserules, though. I look forward to fiddling with the difficulty mod; while not fixing fundamental problems, just things like no empower & flat XP gain cut, and handling quests in a way where you're not maximising rewards, gives you a good enough testing ground for various builds and strategies.

I've been trying to maximise flames of devotion / fire damage with Pallegina, and just about to get Sacred Immolation. There are so many fire-stacking equipment that it still seems possible, but ironically the fucking rogue is still killing everything 10x speed as he has always done, so it's hard to say. I feel like rogues remain far better than monks/barbs, but then I always seem to get the most out of rogues on POE1/2.

 

[Lacrymas]

The new difficulty comes from being harder to land your spells due to high base defenses on mobs and your limited spell selection at start. On below PotD, Tanglefoot + Sunbeam combo neutralizes scores of mobs easily and is basically an I Win button, on PotD you can't land Tanglefoot, let alone Sunbeam and the others, so you rely on Nature's Mark instead, which is weaker. Sometimes you are having trouble with killing even 1 mob due to missing constantly.

 

[Shadenuat]

Rogues are head and shoulders above other classes, yes. I mean, +pen and damage and effect 1 point 1st level ability. Then 2 point blind. And they don't need any combos to work - they apply status effects themselves and kill things themselves. And the more overleveled rogue becomes, the more obvious the disparity shows. My rogue/ranger is outpacing barb/monk hard ("33% of base weapon damage aoe" yeeeeah much damage against 700 hp monsters lol, crowd control much)

It is no wonder that even underleveled rogues or rogue multiclasses are the only mook type that can reliably kill your characters before you react (which is why you should never wear anything with poor pierce armor, and slashing too if you can).

n PotD you can't land Tanglefoot

You can, you just need some help from team and items. For example there is druid staff +3 all plant & beast power levels.

You should balance your casters around targeting all 3 types of defences anyway.

Casters are a bit of a troubled classes atm though. Pure druid (no kit) is probably the most well rounded of them all. Wizard is mostly about just few broken spells/Evoker, Priests are somewhere in the dust, Cipher is about basically 1 thing (dominate), and Chanters are godly.