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

[dragonul09]

Why the hell did they made the mages such pussies? They ridiculously incresead their cast times, they shortened the duration times for cc spells, they made it harder to learn spells by not allowing me to learn from looted grimoires or edit them, what the hell is the point of these changes? I go take a shit and my mage still didn't finish casting his spell, what's the point of playing them, beside causing me more grief than actual necessity?

 

[Lacrymas]

BTW is it just me, or is the Swashbuckler just plain ... good? Those fighter and rogue abilities synergise so well I can't think why I'd want to play a single-class either.

All multi-classes that compensate each other's weaknesses, or turn their weaknesses into strengths, are good.

 

[Parabalus]

Romance eligibility "spoilers":

Before release, people were talking about how hopefully, Deadfire would be to PoE 1 what Baldur's Gate 2 was to Baldur's Gate 1.

Well, if nothing else, they seem to have succeeded in following in Bioware's footsteps in the romance department at least. So much so that they seem to have jumped ahead all the way to Dragon Age 2.

If it makes sense anywhere it's in a setting where there are a bunch of genderless Godlike running around. All 5 of them is a funny though.

 

[aweigh]

BTW is it just me, or is the Swashbuckler just plain ... good? Those fighter and rogue abilities synergise so well I can't think why I'd want to play a single-class either.

Fighter + Rogue was the very first class combo openly discussed, and it's one of the most popular ones for players (if not the most popular one, though it's hard to gauge these things). I suspect it was a key building block for the multi-class system balancing.

EDIT: Also, no wonder they gave it to Eder as it's braindead simple and synergies so well it should've been it's own class. My MC is Rogue (Assassin) + Fighter (Devoted/Sabre), which I suspect is probably the most common martial / martial combo as it's just so obvious. So much so, in fact, that Backstab was nerfed significantly on each iteration of the Beta.

 

[aweigh]

FWIW, according to the stuff I'm reading on the OBS forums it seems like the most OP Rogue-variant is built around Greatswords due to Backstabbing not working with dual-wielding (only applies Backstab-multiplier to the 1st hit, or 1st bullet/magic-projectile).

 

[MajorMace]

I remember another funny instance of loot placement. In the slums district of Neketaka you find a beggar that says "please help me, I haven't eaten for days" etc etc, RIGHT NEXT TO HIM is a lootable barrel full of vegetables and rice.

I guess loot is randomized.
There was no food next to him in my game.
However there was a stone worth 150 coppers, which would have had him fed for months

 

[aweigh]

MajorMace

Loot was "randomized" in PoE 1 as well: most 'treasure chests''s contents belonged to a specific item table listing that spawned a different item depending on the day of the week.

Yes, that is why PoE 1 told you the in-game day of the week.

 

[Sentinel]

The game seems to not gather any attention at all, even after 2 days it barely scraped 18k players online and compared with D:OS 2 at the same time, which had almost 90k, this one is a complete fucking disaster.

Let's look at some other releases from the past couple of weeks.

Battletech- 35k players online day one, released on fucking Monday
Frostpunk-28k day one, monday release as well

Don't come at me with the ''wait for the weekend'' bullshit, as a promising sequel, this game is a fucking failure of epic proportions and let's remember that they even went over the budget with VO, I don't even want to think what PowerTrip Feargus is going to do about this, but it ain't gonna be pretty seeing that fat little freak abusing his employers.

PoE1 also had 41k peak players.
The talent exodus from Obsidian manifested in PoE1 & manifests itself in PoE2's writing, and Obsidian will now start suffering the consequences.

 

[MajorMace]

I just realised that the starving hobo belongs to a caste of peasants who share their wealth.
Well done Sawyer, well done
You can even tell the fucker to seek work. Never has communism been so ruthlessy destroyed.

aweigh Good to know. They have extended on this in this game, it appears. The day-night cycle is actually put to use.

 

[2house2fly]

Romance eligibility "spoilers":

Before release, people were talking about how hopefully, Deadfire would be to PoE 1 what Baldur's Gate 2 was to Baldur's Gate 1.

Well, if nothing else, they seem to have succeeded in following in Bioware's footsteps in the romance department at least. So much so that they seem to have jumped ahead all the way to Dragon Age 2.

If it makes sense anywhere it's in a setting where there are a bunch of genderless Godlike running around. All 5 of them is a funny though.

I'd imagine a setting where there are multiple species cohabiting would end up having different standards for attraction. If you can be attracted to an 8-foot tall fish man, male or female doesn't seem like as much of a deal-breaker

 

[Sentinel]

What's wrong with it?

feels clunky, esp with the multiple right-click item inspection window pop-ups and with swapping stuff in and out of inventory slots

also ability effect descriptions aren't very legible, you gotta open like 39476 tooltips to find out wtf something with a stupid name does

i'm also not very sure what most of the numbers mean when i highlight an enemy so i just select all left click and get things done that way

That last point is definitely a problem. They introduce a new tutorial system and then don't write any tutorials for the combat UI...
Intelligent developers.

 

[Parabalus]

There is a 'Bug' with weapons that hit in an AoE, in that they double hit the main target. Likely unintended since it makes them extremely more potent, it's on the Yenwood+Paths blade you can reforge immediately when you get to Neketaka.

Also Assassinate applies to AoE spells if cast from invis. Shadowing Beyond appears to be bugged and not granting the Invis properly, Smoke bomb works.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The talent exodus from Obsidian manifested in PoE1 & manifests itself in PoE2's writing, and Obsidian will now start suffering the consequences.

This is like saying the talent is leaving Evil Angel and now most fappers will stop watching their movies. The average cRPG player interested in IE game is a crude individual, dumb as doorknob. As long as you provide them with companions to fuck and bunch of quests with stuff to kill, they are happy.

 

[2house2fly]

For the same reason, I think more of the alien romances in Mass Effect should have been available to both men and women. Turians are velociraptors with silicon exoskeletons, how does attraction to a female human make any more sense to one of those things than attraction to a male?

 

[Kaldurenik]

So just a friendly advise for people doing bounties that take you within cities, Dont use the weapons / enchants that cause aoe damage

The first one you do with the ogre is "fine" because the npc's will take cover and stop moving around on the map, but the others... The npc's move around and ignore the combat going on around them and will there for walk into AOE and other abilities causing the entire town to attack you.

 

[Doma]

 

[Pizzashoes]

So the Pillars of Eternity the title Pillars of Eternity refer to are the adra pillars scattered around the world. I guess they're called eternal because they conduct souls.

 

[SophosTheWise]

I started on my old rig new game... Old one(rig) is broken so here comes nothing....

• Dont atempt to play this on ancient old and outdated rigs it will make your life living hell game now is both GPU AND CPU INTENSIVE

Really? Man I've bought a relatively cheap laptop for uni two years ago and according to Can I Run It? I can run PoE2 just barely. But I can still play without major problems. My main gaming rig is now almost ancient - 6 years old - but I can play PoE2 without any slowdowns on highest settings

____


By the way, as cool as Serafen is, he kinda looks like the Grinch.

 

[Sentinel]

The talent exodus from Obsidian manifested in PoE1 & manifests itself in PoE2's writing, and Obsidian will now start suffering the consequences.

a) This is like saying the talent is leaving Evil Angel and now most fappers will stop watching their movies. The average cRPG player interested in IE game is a crude individual, dumb as doorknob. b) As long as you provide them with companions to fuck and bunch of quests with stuff to kill, they are happy.

a) if a game comes out and the people that play it don't talk about it or recommend it to others because they didn't enjoy it, it's natural that the interest in the sequel dies down
b) not true - see PoE2.

 

[Lacrymas]

For the same reason, I think more of the alien romances in Mass Effect should have been available to both men and women. Turians are velociraptors with silicon exoskeletons, how does attraction to a female human make any more sense to one of those things than attraction to a male?

It's because attraction isn't just skin deep. People are attracted to femininity, masculinity, form, context and prior experiences. Things that also have societal pressures exerted on them, in a morally neutral way. Along with the bodies of whatever gender/s they are attracted to. This is why bizarre fetishes like furries exist and why a lot of people (bisexuals especially) find their attractions fluctuating and not set in stone forever. While others do find them set in stone and can't fathom to be attracted to the gender they generally aren't.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I am pretty ignorant with respect to music and composition. Furthermore, I have not even really notice PoE2's music thus far, which may be a bad thing.

Do you find it forgettable or sloppy (or both)?

That's a complicated question. It's obviously technically sub-par when even non-musicians can hear that that's not how an orchestra is supposed to sound. Technical aspects can easily be fixed with a few lessons with a good teacher, the problem is whether Justin can actually write music that has its own internal logic, dramaticism, theatricality, intention and whatever other aspects you prescribe to art. You can be illiterate and not know how to use the instruments you are writing for, just like a composition by a student we recently had to play, but can still create something that is striking in some way, just like that composition by that student. The composition was so sloppily written, impossible to play and his instructions were so laughable in that context that it transcended its technical aspects to create something that I will remember for the rest of my life. Which brings me to Justin - I don't see the spark of creativity in him, I think it's a combination of his obvious lack of experience with a wide range of music/art, his lack of education in this sphere, his lack of aesthetic goals and lack of direction. He is struggling with coming up with music and using the orchestra because he lacks these things and doesn't know what he wants to achieve. I don't think a lack of creativity is a damning sentence for life, nobody is born with the ability to create good things (or anything at all), that is cultivated and learned, filtered through yourself as a person outside of your chosen artistic discipline.

Basically, to use more vague terms, there is no art in his music, only simple note constructions, and it isn't aesthetically pleasing, even in such tortured "genres" as film/video game music.

What do you think of Cuphead's soundtrack?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The game seems to not gather any attention at all, even after 2 days it barely scraped 18k players online.

I think it is because the novelty effect wore of. Uncle Vince got it right.

As you probably noticed a number of indie and not so indie sequels have done very poorly lately, selling anywhere from 10 to 30% of the original title - XCOM2, Banner's Saga 2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Blackguards 2, etc. My explanation of this phenomenon is that unless you have a AAA blockbuster with massive appeal, you don't go for a sequel because it would never sell as much as the original because the public perspective would be "it's more of the same".

Now, let's be optimistic and assume that the breakdown goes something like that (based on the reviews and impressions):

- core supporters - 25% - love it, want more
- core haters - 10% - fucking hate it, will never buy another ITS game again
- kinda liked it - 50% - liked it but ... This "but" ranges from minor to major issues
- meh - 15% - played for a couple of hours and moved on, no strong emotions, no urge to play more

So if we make AoD 2, we get the core supporters and some % of the kinda liked it camp. We'll also get some new players, probably no more than 20%. So our best case scenario is selling 3/4 of what AoD sold, worst case - less than half. Thus moving to a brand new setting with different systems but the same core design is the safest bet even though it looks like the riskiest.
...
Back in June:

Original vs sequel:

Legend of Grimrock: 936,949 vs 246,684
Blackguards: 471,616 vs 178,528
XCOM: 3,304,215 vs 823,999
Shadowrun: 723,457 vs 613,408 vs 188,034 (arguably Hong Kong was the best iteration but few people cared at this point)
The Banner Saga: 592,139 vs 43,826

Success of the first game often fools developers into thinking that they can do even better or at least as good with a second 'bigger and better' game, but it's rarely the case. The only exceptions to the rule are games that offer building, sandbox, and well-executed killing loop activities that people never seem to be tired of. Darkest Dungeon is a fucking monster but I bet if they go for a sequel it will sell less than a third of the original.

What is hilarious is that Vault Dweller invited Feargus I-like-to-Mismanage-my-Own-Company Urquhart to give advice in the same update and he said exactly the opposite!

I’m a big believer in sequels, but I’m both a maker and player of RPGs. I think RPGs are great to sequelize due to their focus on story, characters, and growth. When I finish a RPG, I usually want to play with that character again, or play in that world again. Now, not everyone is like me, but I think there are quite a few of us. For all games, but particularly, for RPGs, we create these complex engines and design methods, and we can give players an even grander experience when we can use as much of that as possible from game to game. Of course, we can’t just make the same game again, and sequels need to be more than a big expansion pack. But, so much of our time goes into what players play (quests, areas, companions, dialogs), and when we create all of those again for a sequel with a different, or continuing, story - that’s a new game.

The challenge sequels are fighting with non-sequels is for attention. It is easier to get someone’s attention with things that feel new, so a sequel does need something new and interesting. This could be a big feature like the world map and ship combat in Pillars 2, but it could also be an incredible story; the core of which grabs your attention, and anyone else’s when they hear about it. I don’t know where the line is, but I think we all get a feeling for it. One of the things we did on Icewind Dale 2 at Black Isle Studios was to re-do the HUD. It looks and feels entirely different than all the other Infinity Engine games, and allowed us to also add in some tweaks, but it was not an entire re-write. One could argue that what we did was “skin” the UI, which isn’t really a benefit to players. I think it gave the game a fresh look, gave players more of the world to see, and created an easier way to interact with the characters and game controls at the same time. Either way IWD2 felt new and different because of it.

That's great business advice Mr. Urquhart. You really know what you are talking about, don't you?

 

[Sentinel]

sample

 

[SophosTheWise]

Another random comment: I love the lighting system and they way the game handles torches.

 

[Sentinel]

The game seems to not gather any attention at all, even after 2 days it barely scraped 18k players online.

I think it is because the novelty effect wore of. Uncle Vince got it right.

As you probably noticed a number of indie and not so indie sequels have done very poorly lately, selling anywhere from 10 to 30% of the original title - XCOM2, Banner's Saga 2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Blackguards 2, etc. My explanation of this phenomenon is that unless you have a AAA blockbuster with massive appeal, you don't go for a sequel because it would never sell as much as the original because the public perspective would be "it's more of the same".

Now, let's be optimistic and assume that the breakdown goes something like that (based on the reviews and impressions):

- core supporters - 25% - love it, want more
- core haters - 10% - fucking hate it, will never buy another ITS game again
- kinda liked it - 50% - liked it but ... This "but" ranges from minor to major issues
- meh - 15% - played for a couple of hours and moved on, no strong emotions, no urge to play more

So if we make AoD 2, we get the core supporters and some % of the kinda liked it camp. We'll also get some new players, probably no more than 20%. So our best case scenario is selling 3/4 of what AoD sold, worst case - less than half. Thus moving to a brand new setting with different systems but the same core design is the safest bet even though it looks like the riskiest.
...
Back in June:

Original vs sequel:

Legend of Grimrock: 936,949 vs 246,684
Blackguards: 471,616 vs 178,528
XCOM: 3,304,215 vs 823,999
Shadowrun: 723,457 vs 613,408 vs 188,034 (arguably Hong Kong was the best iteration but few people cared at this point)
The Banner Saga: 592,139 vs 43,826

Success of the first game often fools developers into thinking that they can do even better or at least as good with a second 'bigger and better' game, but it's rarely the case. The only exceptions to the rule are games that offer building, sandbox, and well-executed killing loop activities that people never seem to be tired of. Darkest Dungeon is a fucking monster but I bet if they go for a sequel it will sell less than a third of the original.

What is hilarious is that Vault Dweller invited Feargus I-like-to-Mismanage-my-Own-Company Urquhart to give advice in the same update and he said the opposite!

I’m a big believer in sequels, but I’m both a maker and player of RPGs. I think RPGs are great to sequelize due to their focus on story, characters, and growth. When I finish a RPG, I usually want to play with that character again, or play in that world again. Now, not everyone is like me, but I think there are quite a few of us. For all games, but particularly, for RPGs, we create these complex engines and design methods, and we can give players an even grander experience when we can use as much of that as possible from game to game. Of course, we can’t just make the same game again, and sequels need to be more than a big expansion pack. But, so much of our time goes into what players play (quests, areas, companions, dialogs), and when we create all of those again for a sequel with a different, or continuing, story - that’s a new game.

The challenge sequels are fighting with non-sequels is for attention. It is easier to get someone’s attention with things that feel new, so a sequel does need something new and interesting. This could be a big feature like the world map and ship combat in Pillars 2, but it could also be an incredible story; the core of which grabs your attention, and anyone else’s when they hear about it. I don’t know where the line is, but I think we all get a feeling for it. One of the things we did on Icewind Dale 2 at Black Isle Studios was to re-do the HUD. It looks and feels entirely different than all the other Infinity Engine games, and allowed us to also add in some tweaks, but it was not an entire re-write. One could argue that what we did was “skin” the UI, which isn’t really a benefit to players. I think it gave the game a fresh look, gave players more of the world to see, and created an easier way to interact with the characters and game controls at the same time. Either way IWD2 felt new and different because of it.

That's great business advice Mr. Urquhart. You really know what you are talking about, don't you?

Those numbers aren't comparing the same time periods (and price) though.