Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Lacrymas · Mar 10, 2017

The only opposition I have towards mid-game DLC is a philosophical one, namely structural. They are almost always self-contained vacuum bubbles which have nothing to do with the main game and end up being limp vestigial growths in the big picture. It's not a deal breaker, but it's a compromise in the structural integrity of the whole. TWM is even worse in this regard, because it interrupts the flow of the supposedly urgent narrative. The quality of the narrative notwithstanding.

Jezal_k23 · Mar 10, 2017

Anyone else dig the commandos style stealth? Thought it was an interesting idea, since I always loved commandos.

Sentinel · Mar 10, 2017

Anyone have a quick rundown of the stealth system? Missed it.

Hellion · Mar 10, 2017

TheSentinel said:
Anyone have a quick rundown of the stealth system? Missed it.

If I recall correctly, when you enter stealth, NPCs and enemy patrols have cones of view like in the Commandos games or the recent Shadow Tactics, and being in their cones of view makes you easier to spot.

Plus you no longer have to be in Scouting mode in order to detect traps or secrets.

And you can also pickpocket enemies. Or reverse-pickpocket to plant explosives ("alchemical contraptions") on them.

Sentinel · Mar 10, 2017

`Hellion said:
TheSentinel said:

Anyone have a quick rundown of the stealth system? Missed it.

Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, when you enter stealth, NPCs and enemy patrols have cones of view like in the Commando games or the recent Shadow Tactics, and being in their cones of view makes you easier to spot.

Plus you no longer have to be in Scouting mode in order to detect traps or secrets.

And you can also pickpocket enemies. Or reverse-pickpocket to plant explosives ("alchemical contraptions") on them.

Sounds good. Maybe sneaking will actually be useful beyond scouting in fast mode this time.
Can we pick pocket merchants?

Jezal_k23 · Mar 10, 2017

Enemies also have a hearing radius. Sounds fucking good to me honestly if they implement this right.

vivec · Mar 10, 2017

Sorry for the late entry to the party. Does this game have the same mechanics as the first? I could not finish the first one.

Kem0sabe · Mar 10, 2017

The stealth system is indeed great news, but it's not enough to have the tools, you need for interesting and varied gameplay scenarios that allow those tools to shine.

I very much doubt that PoE 2 will be one of those games dependent on emergent gameplay, so it really needs to focus on designing the scenarios to allow multiple approaches.

Chris Avelltwo · Mar 10, 2017

TheSentinel said:
Can we pick pocket merchants?

That sounds fun, but what are the consequences of being caught? Sawyer said they're trying to avoid situations where NPCs suicide themselves against you in a fight they can't win, and on the other hand, having to fight every guard and/or citizen in a city just for stealing some minor thing would be excessive. So how do you balance it out?

I'd also like to see where stealing from someone could have unintended consequences down the road. Like, stealing food from a poor person might result in them being dead the next time you show up; or taking too many of a merchant's wares results in them having to close down their shop, etc. Maybe stealing svef could result in saving the life of an addict who would die otherwise?

Jezal_k23 · Mar 10, 2017

Don't know if this was mentioned, but another bit of news is that the world is not paused during conversations. If, however, there's a hostile nearby then the game will pause until dialogue ends.

2house2fly · Mar 10, 2017

ESh said:
Nope, it doesn't. It ruins the flow and pacing of the main quest, and the player is supposed to be in a hurry to find a cure to their impending insanity.

in act 2 it's "impending" on a scale of months to years and the main quest at that point consists of wandering the countryside looking for clues, so it's paced quite casually. By act 3 the main quest is more urgent but WM2 kicks off with a dream of monsters overrunning the world, which is urgent enough to supersede chasing Thaos.

IHaveHugeNick · Mar 10, 2017

Real stealth system? Guards with hearing radius? Sure starts to look like they've packing this game with way too many features for most of them to turn out any good.

I'd much rather have 2-3 new mechanics that are well-fleshed out, than bunch of half-assed shit added just to check some new boxes. I thought they learned their lesson with PoE1, but evidently not.

Quillon · Mar 10, 2017

taviow said:
Don't know if this was mentioned, but another bit of news is that the world is not paused during conversations. If, however, there's a hostile nearby then the game will pause until dialogue ends.

It was said that only the animations will play during convos like fire & rain etc, that was before, now they said NPCs will also move about.

santino27 · Mar 10, 2017

Not sure if anyone posted it here yet, but there's a transcript of the latest dev Q&A which is available on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/projectete.../pillars_of_eternity_ii_deadfire_qa_stream_5/

(At the bottom, follow the link to get to the rest of it which ended up being posted in the comments section).

FWIW, they did say that one of the issues with their revised stealth in WM was a lack of actual setpieces to make it potentially useful, and that this was something they were keeping in mind as they designed areas.

2house2fly · Mar 10, 2017

ESh said:
At the end of Act Two you've found out about a conspiring sect, witnessed their assassination of the City Leader, realized that they are the ones stealing souls from babies and now plan to do god knows what with them, on top of you growing gradually more insane until you stop them.

You have all the reason in the world to hunt down Thaos at this point, and literary no incentive to make an experidition to Stalwart.

Which shows how poorly implemented it is.

"We have to reach Mordor to destroy the One Ring."
"No time for that, there's an asteroid about to hit Middle-earth!"

So there's no incentive to do the DLC... but also the high stakes of the DLC overshadows the main quest?

Prime Junta · Mar 10, 2017

we're doomed

One-and-a-half-Ivan · Mar 10, 2017

Prime Junta said:
we're doomed

Maybe, just maybe, we'll see something akin to this instead.

Lacrymas · Mar 10, 2017

IHaveHugeNick said:
Real stealth system? Guards with hearing radius? Sure starts to look like they've packing this game with way too many features for most of them to turn out any good.

I'd much rather have 2-3 new mechanics that are well-fleshed out, than bunch of half-assed shit added just to check some new boxes. I thought they learned their lesson with PoE1, but evidently not.

Yeah, just like PoE1. it also feels like they are going for a different kind of RPG, where you can do a lot of different things and giving you a lot of roleplaying options. I can't for the life of me give you an example of such a thing, Elder Scrolls comes to mind, but only in the sense of the freedom it gives you to do different things (stealth, pickpocketing etc.). A more freeform structure maybe.

EDIT: Maybe Fallout.

One-and-a-half-Ivan · Mar 10, 2017

Lacrymas said:
IHaveHugeNick said:

Real stealth system? Guards with hearing radius? Sure starts to look like they've packing this game with way too many features for most of them to turn out any good.

I'd much rather have 2-3 new mechanics that are well-fleshed out, than bunch of half-assed shit added just to check some new boxes. I thought they learned their lesson with PoE1, but evidently not.

Click to expand...

Yeah, just like PoE1. it also feels like they are going for a different kind of RPG, where you can do a lot of different things and giving you a lot of roleplaying options. I can't for the life of me give you an example of such a thing, Elder Scrolls comes to mind, but only in the sense of the freedom it gives you to do different things (stealth, pickpocketing etc.). A more freeform structure maybe.

EDIT: Maybe Fallout.

And isn't that great?
If they succeed, of course. But we should keep in mind that Sawyer proved to be a great and very efficient project director. If he thinks they can manage that - I'd say get hyped.

Lacrymas · Mar 10, 2017

Yeah, it is great if they can pull it off. I hope that these "extra" features won't turn out half-assed.

Rostere · Mar 10, 2017

Come the fuck on. Don't tell me Commandos-style stealth did not strike you as a logical next step when you were playing the old IE games. I know I used to think of it back in the days.

Besides, it shouldn't be that hard to implement. The only question is if they will make enough maps where using the new stealth system will be useful and fun.