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

[AN4RCHID]

Also no one cared about Pallegina or Aloth as they were two of the trash (well 2nd tier at best) companions in PoE1. Still have no idea why they brought them back.

Best guess is that they wanted to retain some bland companions since all of the new ones are actually colorful and interesting for a change. Probably didn't want to overdo it in the other direction and have every companion be a wisecracking weirdo.

They wanted to bring back 3 party members and decided on these ones because Eder has an interest in Eothas, Aloth has an interest in stuff to do with the gods and the Leaden Key, and Pallegina has an interest in the Vailian Republics. They have stronger ties to the plot of this one than any of the others (possible exception of Durance who would be into getting revenge on a god but would really require Avellone back, and Kana who is Rauataian but really not a loyalist, and Sagani who lives in the archipelago somewhere but would probably prefer to hunt moose with her tribe than stick her nose in a big faction conflict) and they wanted to stick to 3 returning party members to avoid overshadowing the new ones

To use the BG1 -> BG2 analogy the problem is that Aloth is no Edwin and Pallegina is no Jaheria. If you are going to bring over NPC's from one game to another they should be memorable and useful.

I would have liked them to bring back Kana. He would have fit in just fine with the tone of Deadfire. Aloth and Pallegina though, I imagine they just kept them because they're Carrie and Josh's babies.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I will not respond to everything, but there are some things that seriously jumped out at me that need responding.

Finished it. 31 hours. Lvl 19. On Normal with main quest scaling. Never used or crafted a potion, never changed or upgraded the original boat.

I think this one is self explanatory. You played on NORMAL? Then you frame the never upgrading anything, or using any items as a negative? Play on POTD before making this criticism, then it might be accepted.

Not to mention the naval fights which took forever and are as much fun as watching paint dry. Yeah, waste 30 seconds to chip away 8 dmg from a ship with 120 hp. Awful.

Here you complain about your ship's low damage but also boasted that you didn't upgrade your ship. That's outright hilarious.

The things which enraged me the most were the combat system and the skill trees. Each fight devolved in some chaotic mess. Several times I killed my own party members because there were like 5 selection circles everywhere on the battle field.

You uhhh killed your own party members because the fights were too chaotic... on NORMAL? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Imagine if there were 6 party members, then it would be truly overwhelming.

Then the skill trees are unfocused and bloated with useless spells so much that in the case of Xoti I never used her main spells (!?).

This is a weird one too, because her spells are useful. So uh, you didn't use this, for example?

Also for some reason the AI was able to cast spells faster than me therefore by the end of the game I was simply watching without any kind of input from myself how my party was massacring whatever group of mobs they encountered. The game played itself :/

The game played itself. ON NORMAL. Reeeeeeeally? What a SURPRISE. I truly cannot believe this happened to you. Also, you can turn off party AI if it's a bother.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm kind of wondering if the simplest solution to combat wouldn't be a non-priest party. Because I'm guessing we all have one, yeah?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Who are the pirates?

AwesomeButton and Jenkem are the bigger ones.

I am a pirate with morals - only pirate shit AAA games to have laughs with in case I have time, which I usually don't, so I don't end up playing them. I planned to pirate AssCreed Origins and Far Cry 5 but when they got cracked I ended up not playing either. I did pirate GTA5 and Witcher 3, but I ended up buying both when I saw I've played each over 60 hrs.

Unfortunately, I can't do a sales-per-review conversion between Steam and GOG because I can't figure out to see foreign language reviews in GOG.

Going strictly off English reviews, GOG has about 200 and Steam has over 800. So it should be 25%.

However, GOG is strongly in a medium-strong markets like Poland (according to web traffic tracking sites), so I would imagine it would be closer to 33%.

About 10,000 Fig backers should have activated their copy on GOG and about 20,000-30,000 people should have bought in on GOG globally.

I bought it on GoG.

FreeKaner

You can find the Health value for all enemies in the Characters.gamebundle file inside the GameData folder:

All that's needed to increase enemy health is to go one by one, by hand, and manually change each enemy's Health numbers.

It's as easy as pie, but extremely tedious and time-consuming, and I'm not doing it.

Re editing - something beautiful is coming. Something that will save us all.

 

[toro]

I will not respond to everything, but there are some things that seriously jumped out at me that need responding.

Finished it. 31 hours. Lvl 19. On Normal with main quest scaling. Never used or crafted a potion, never changed or upgraded the original boat.

I think this one is self explanatory. You played on NORMAL? Then you frame the never upgrading anything, or using any items as a negative? Play on POTD before making this criticism, then it might be accepted.

I was not bragging about playing on Normal, I was just giving info about my play-through.

Honestly, I play on whatever difficulty level I want to play. Usually Normal difficulty should give me an idea about how good the combat mechanics are.

Why should I play on POTD when I don't even like RTWP? And who the fuck are you to judge if my criticism is accepted or not? Just fuck off.

Not to mention the naval fights which took forever and are as much fun as watching paint dry. Yeah, waste 30 seconds to chip away 8 dmg from a ship with 120 hp. Awful.

Here you complain about your ship's low damage but also boasted that you didn't upgrade your ship. That's outright hilarious.

I did not upgrade the ship because I knew sooner or later I will acquire one because of plot reasons. Is just some shit that usually happens in games ... and I was right.

Please notice that I did not complain about naval fights as being difficult. They are not. My point was that there is no reason for someone to invest in the ships upgrades. Unless you are into Larping.

The things which enraged me the most were the combat system and the skill trees. Each fight devolved in some chaotic mess. Several times I killed my own party members because there were like 5 selection circles everywhere on the battle field.

You uhhh killed your own party members because the fights were too chaotic... on NORMAL? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Imagine if there were 6 party members, then it would be truly overwhelming.

I assume you are just playing dumb because the complain is valid. 5 characters + 2 pets + 1 summon against 8+ enemies usually devolved in a cluster of circles and engagement arrows.

At some point I was sick of zooming and pressing TAB to select the right enemy cause sometimes you cannot see shit anyway and then it's easy to select a member of your party by mistake.

Then the skill trees are unfocused and bloated with useless spells so much that in the case of Xoti I never used her main spells (!?).

This is a weird one too, because her spells are useful. So uh, you didn't use this, for example?

Nope. Depends on how you use the character, in my case she was the main healer.

Also for some reason the AI was able to cast spells faster than me therefore by the end of the game I was simply watching without any kind of input from myself how my party was massacring whatever group of mobs they encountered. The game played itself :/

The game played itself. ON NORMAL. Reeeeeeeally? What a SURPRISE. I truly cannot believe this happened to you. Also, you can turn off party AI if it's a bother.

And why stop the AI when it was doing the same shit as me only faster?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Itemization is good

wat

DOS2 has level-scaled/locked loot which totally ruins itemisation. Your kewl unique item stays relevant for like 10 minutes. It’s a soul-crushing grind.

Don't know what that means. If you get a purple item in the middle of Act 1 it is going to be a good choice well into Act 2.

Also not convinced that a Diablo-style loot scale = bad itemization. It's just instead of specific items you are looking for specific kinds of items (purples).

why do always you have to be so wrong on everything

i dont think its a coincidence that your avatar is so similar to wrong_carlo

 

[Jezal_k23]

...

Play however you like. I just have a hard time taking criticism from someone who played on normal seriously.

Normal is auto attack to win - that's what you signed up for. I'm sure it's horribly boring, but it's there for the people who fail to understand even the game's most basic mechanics.

I think the game played through on normal is so far removed from what it actually is on at least veteran that I can't take any of it into account in a serious manner. But that's just me. Do what you want. You can try out story mode next time, see if that's any better. Just a suggestion.

 

[dragonul09]

The summoning in this game is hilariously strong, found 3 items with summoning abilities, one of them gives you 3 shades and they wreak havoc in almost every fight, even if I go in underleveled I barely use any abilities, just summon the shades, imps, tentacles and one empowered from my wizard and all is done. Potd is really a cake walk and it seems that even the more casual players are complaining about it, which is sad because I already spoiled the whole game, now I have to wait 1 year to properly play the game with the expansions. I guess playing games on release date is not worth it anymore, what a buzzkill.

 

[Mazisky]

I'm pretty close to the end. The game is good (but need some fixes), the only thing i didn't like is the swich to the tropical setting, it's a personal taste but i prefere a classic fantasy environment like Poe1\Diablo\standard D&D-

In your opinion how is Divinity 2 compared to this? i never played it and wanna try after finishing this.

Can someone make a fair comparison?

 

[Grunker]

I'm pretty close to the end. The game is good (but need some fixes), the only thing i didn't like is the swich to the tropical setting, it's a personal taste but i prefere a classic fantasy environment like Poe1\Diablo\standard D&D-

In your opinion how is Divinity 2 compared to this? i never played it and wanna try after finishing this.

Can someone make a fair comparison?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10848

 

[Jezal_k23]

In your opinion how is Divinity 2 compared to this? i never played it and wanna try after finishing this.

Can someone make a fair comparison?

Completely different. Not really comparable. Divinity 2 isn't even isometric.

Spoiler

 

[Jezal_k23]

I'm pretty close to the end. The game is good (but need some fixes), the only thing i didn't like is the swich to the tropical setting, it's a personal taste but i prefere a classic fantasy environment like Poe1\Diablo\standard D&D-

In your opinion how is Divinity 2 compared to this? i never played it and wanna try after finishing this.

Can someone make a fair comparison?

DOS 2, on the other hand, is a solid game with plenty of content built on top of shoddy and horribly thought out systems.

 

[Riddler]

So I finished the game and have some thoughts..

Overall the game is a massive improvement over PoE1. It is absolutely gorgeous, a lot more companion interactions, much better quest design, great itemisation, really nice exploration etc.

As for the negatives:

• The main plot is nonsensical.
  Spoiler

  One thing among many is that it is revealed is that the gods apparently were created to help stave off entropy by sheparding Kith towards improving their souls... Only the engwithans apparently saw fit to create gods with very opposing views in light of this existential threat and one who actually is the embodiment of entropy and seeks the complete entropy of the universe. WHAT?!
• The writing of player responses is truly abyssmal.
• The different factions have little involvement/interest in the main plot, dispite it's obvious importance and urgency.
• Companions are serviceable even though their player-sexual nature is a bit cringe inducing. None of them are really good however, which is a pretty big dissapointment in an obsidian game.
• Strange universal value system (*hint* it is young adult californian) regarding gender and sexuality in all cultures regardless of what might make sense in the context of the setting. It jars with an otherwise fairly well realised setting.
• Balance is shit
• Some performance issues, even on top of the line hardware, which is mind boggling.

Verdict: The best RPG in years and almost certainly of this year (unless DE releases this year and blows everyone's pants off). Frustrating in the sense that the game is so good in so many areas but falters in what should have been obsidians home court (narrative and writing). I just imagine what could have been if Avellone or Ziets had been in charge of the narrative here and weep; this could have been a true classic but alas.

This is still very much worth a buy for almost any RPG fan but one might do well to wait for a bit until the bugs and balancing are sorted out, possibly even until the GOTY edition releases.

 

[Prime Junta]

That’s a lot like my opinion and I’m barely off the starter island

Not sure about the faction involvement criticism. It makes sense to me that they’d shrug and focus on their own shit, that’s what people do when confronted with problems too big to deal with.

 

[Prime Junta]

I guess playing games on release date is not worth it anymore, what a buzzkill.

Shocking, I know.

 

[GerryAdams]

Is it worth playing PoE1 before playing this? Honestly I got a decent bit through the first but I found it pretty boring and dropped it. How deeply connected is the story to the first?

 

[Prime Junta]

That’s a lot like my opinion and I’m barely off the starter island

Withhold your opinions until you've actually played the game past the first ten hours

No. But I reserve the right to change them.

 

[Daedalos]

Holy shit I just met

Spoiler

CONCELHAUT the LICH.. lol I got my ass kicked. And I am even overleveled.. cant imagine this guy with equal level on POTD.. ouch. I just cannot hit him or damage him

 

[Fedora Master]

"It gets good 10 hours in" is a fucking awful excuse.

 

[Grimnir]

I should have waited a few months before playing it, because PotD is way too easy. My 1st death was 12 hours in. 30 hours later and I only have to rest if I stumble into traps otherwise I auto attack everything to death.

 

[Morkar Left]

Regarding world setting; is there a WORLD map where I can see where the Deadfire archipelago is located?
I just can't make up my mind about the PoE world. Why is Deadfire a tropical setting? It's located south of the Eastern Reach (temperate similar to central Europe) which should mean it's getting colder, not warmer regarding the Eora planet. Farther North of the Eastern Reach is the warmer weather (Ixamitl Plains and the Rauatai Gulf north of it with tropical climate).
There seems to be no real consistency about the world.

 

[Iskramor]

Argh, I made the mistake of engaging in a convo in Obs forums:

aweigh said:

LARPing ins't role-playing. Role-playing occurs when the attributes and skills of a character allow the player to make different decisions regarding strategy or tactics or game state.

You can choose to intentionally gimp your character because you're "role-playing" as a cripple, but it doesn't mean you're role-playing, it means you're LARPing.

Otherwise every game would be an RPG.

Obs forumite replied:

You're actually wrong here. Roleplaying a gimp is a thing... in pen/paper and video games. You can make any game a roleplaying game.... Heck those sports management games are roleplaying games... playing spiderman on the PS4 could be considered roleplaying if you wanted to.

So yeah you're fundamentally wrong and need to go back to gaming school.

I forgot how painful it is posting in other places.

I just been there people are making mental gymnactics that should not be possible to justify bugs. What the actual fuckin fuck????????

 

[Darth Roxor]

Hmmm

I'm 10.7 hours in

 

[Infinitron]

Regarding world setting; is there a WORLD map where I can see where the Deadfire archipelago is located?
I just can't make up my mind about the PoE world. Why is Deadfire a tropical setting? It's located south of the Eastern Reach (temperate similar to central Europe) which should mean it's getting colder, not warmer regarding the Eora planet. Farther North of the Eastern Reach is the warmer weather (Ixamitl Plains and the Rauatai Gulf north of it with tropical climate).
There seems to be no real consistency about the world.

Fan extrapolation:

 

[AwesomeButton]

Is it worth playing PoE1 before playing this? Honestly I got a decent bit through the first but I found it pretty boring and dropped it. How deeply connected is the story to the first?

I'd say start with Deadfire, it's the better RPG. You can always play PoE as a "prequel" later.