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

[Lacrymas]

If they don't give Priests and Druids grimoire-like items and allow them to take more spells, then Wizard multiclasses will be slightly underpowered compared to them if they decide to not use a grimoire (unless it's a completely different slot like in 1). Druid and Priest multiclasses will have more spells, if you want to, than Wizard ones.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

If they don't give Priests and Druids grimoire-like items and allow them to take more spells, then Wizard multiclasses will be slightly underpowered compared to them if they decide to not use a grimoire (unless it's a completely different slot like in 1). Druid and Priest multiclasses will have more spells, if you want to, than Wizard ones.

Ya know, at this point it's guaranteed that whole lot of class combinations are gonna end up slightly underpowered. As long as they're at least somehow playable I don't see the big deal. That's the price you have to pay for multiclassing+subclasses.

That's why I strongly prefer Prestige classes because you can inject them at the point in the game where balance typically goes out of the window and have much more consistent experience.

 

[Prime Junta]

Prestige classes

Down, boy. Down!

 

[Lacrymas]

It's not some combinations, though, it's every combination with a Wizard in it, compared to those with a Priest or Druid in them. If you don't use a grimoire that is, but if you do you are foregoing some other item that Priests or Druids don't. So, yeah, in either case all combinations with a Wizard in them will be slightly underpowered. I think that's not an issue to be hand-waved. I wouldn't mind Wizards having more spells than Druids or Priests when using a grimoire, though, since Druids and Priests have other tricks up their sleeve and I think it's fair, Wizards should be the masters of spellcasting.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Prestige classes

Down, boy. Down!

You're bald, Bismarck.

 

[Drudkh]

Lol, no. That would be increasingly tedious and automatic micro-management rather than a tactical choice. I already had to cycle through 2 different sets of weapons on my Priest and 3 sets of guns on my Ranger. It wasn't that fun, let me tell you

Exactly. They decreased the number of party members to make "less micro", then this.... They're fucking insane.

I'm just glad they improved teh visuals, and hopefully they learned how to make a story feel complete after what they did with the last game. I'll just play the game on easy to skip the fake deep combat like i did with the first game.

 

[Prime Junta]

You're bald, Bismarck.

Not seeing a lot of hair on your cranium either, Calavera.

 

[Infinitron]

then this...

Then what? In practice 95% of the time you'll be switching between a high penetration and a low penetration weapon, just like you might have switched between a slow, high damage weapon and a fast, low damage weapon in the first game*. It'll only get more complex than that when there are enemies with peculiar resistances to your weapon's particular damage type, and even then you'll have other party members to pick up the slack. You wouldn't need to match a different weapon to each level of armor to maximize DPS, that's just overkill.

*My advice would be to make one of those weapons melee and the other one ranged, since switching between melee and ranged is also something you'll often want to do, and was also done in the Infinity Engine games.

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't think there's any point to playing PoE outside of the combat in PotD. The story is devastating (in a bad way) and the RP elements are basically non-existent. Playing on easy kind of misses the mark. Also, you quoted me out of context, I said I'd rather have cycling through weapons, but only if I get a bonus gameplay benefit from it (like extra DPS). It was a nice way to cycle through Spellstriking enchantments and spread afflictions with Powder Burns. What I wouldn't like is the game FORCING me to do it constantly due to the enemies being arbitrarily immune/take severely less damage to this or that weapon. Some of them are fine, like fire elementals being immune to fire or iron golems being immune to piercing damage, but if they set up armor to give immunities or take a lot less damage from certain weapons it's just going to be tedious and make specialization a lot less attractive.

 

[Lahey]

 

[Iznaliu]

but if they set up armor to give immunities or take a lot less damage from certain weapons it's just going to be tedious and make specialization a lot less attractive.

This gives me painful memories of D:OS2.

 

[Haplo]

but if they set up armor to give immunities or take a lot less damage from certain weapons it's just going to be tedious and make specialization a lot less attractive.

This gives me painful memories of D:OS2.

Have faith! Believe in Josh!

 

[AwesomeButton]

I am seriously counting on a few improvements in Deadfire:
- Slower combat, with less "mushiness", whatever this means. I understand it's about more visible results of buffs, equipment and stats.
- Fewer and more carefully crafted combat encounters - this has been promised in a couple of streams/updates.
- Improved writing, obviously. Since we learned from the interview with Fenstermaker that all the text in PoE was first version, with no editing, and obviously Deadfire will have at least one editing pass, the game dialogues will be worth reading.

EDIT: I almost forgot, while writing on the train: Bigger maps! PoE felt like a demo of an IE games clone. The small maps in the base game were a letdown.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'm not so sanguine about the writing. Obsidian has been bleeding writing talent quite a lot, and despite a few glimmers of promise I'm not confident their current team can rise above "reasonably competent pablum" even under the best of circumstances.

Always willing to be positively surprised of course.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Ah, I don't really care about the writing in terms of quality or originality. That's why I put it in third place. After all, we did play through the IE games. When did we get so pretentious about writing?

 

[Prime Junta]

When did we get so pretentious about writing?

Since we played Planescape: Torment?

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem isn't on our end, it's when video game writers decided they are authors that the problems started to pop up. Most of them don't understand drama, character development or narrative structure in a practical manner (if even theoretically), so the more complex things they started to write caused issues with those things, leading to incredibly forced and shallow attempts to be deep. There is nothing duller than bad "classical" writing.

 

[AwesomeButton]

When did we get so pretentious about writing?

Since we played Planescape: Torment?

Good one

 

[Sentinel]

For the per-encounter spell system to work each encounter has got to be designed with enough variety and difficulty so that it will strain the player's resources to force him to think strategically and use spells accordingly, otherwise it'll just be a spamfest no different from Tyranny. Given Obsidian's track record on combat, it will no doubt be a very fun shitstorm to witness.

 

[Iznaliu]

For the per-encounter spell system to work each encounter has got to be designed with enough variety and difficulty so that it will strain the player's resources to force him to think strategically and use spells accordingly, otherwise it'll just be a spamfest no different from Tyranny. Given Obsidian's track record on combat, it will no doubt be a very fun shitstorm to witness.

That depends on how powerful the Empower system is and how necessary it is to use empowers.

 

[Rahdulan]

I wonder if Obsidian approves.

https://penettyo.tumblr.com/

Spoiler

Once in a while Tumblr doesn't make my eyes melt.

 

[santino27]

I wonder if Obsidian approves.

https://penettyo.tumblr.com/

Spoiler

Once in a while Tumblr doesn't make my eyes melt.

They've approved of pretty much every piece of fan art tweeted at them, so I have to imagine they'd approve of these (very nice) designs too.

 

[Prime Junta]

They retweeted it. Counts as approval.

 

[Haplo]

Awesome! Love those.
However I'm a bit dissapointed with Magran.

 

[Sentinel]

I prefer the sketches made by Polina Hristova. Shame she only released two of them.