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

[Blaine]

*strolls into Deadfire thread*

Oh nifty, an argument about the relative efficacy of magical fireballs as naval ordnance. How fascinating.

*strolls out of Deadfire thread for another six months*

 

[Brancaleone]

Ok, but who would win between a PoE dragon and a F-18 Hornet?

 

[Prime Junta]

That is only for the dungeon combat scenarios (or Balance(tm). I see no reason for them to have such a limit if we are talking about that world and how magic can be applied there.
In D&D Fireballs have 100+ m range but in games they are also about 20m or less (about edge of visible screen for the caster)

In Pillars, a high-level mage can cast four fireballs per encounter. Don't you think that would limit their tactical utility in naval combat, even if they had 30 times as much range as presented in the game?

Pillars also features counter-magic. If you posit a 300-metre range fireball -- and I don't recall any mention of kith magic that operates at that kind of range, with the sole exception of the Engwithan machines which operate on souls, not base matter -- then shouldn't you also posit a ship-wide anti-fireball shield spell?

Once your naval artillery mages had shot their wads, then what? Call it a draw and sail home?

 

[Prime Junta]

Play Elex! It actually is great!

What... already?

I was figuring on giving it a year or three for the community patches to roll in. Did that with Gothic 3 and it turned out ... if not great, at least pretty good.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Play Elex! It actually is great!

What... already?

I was figuring on giving it a year or three for the community patches to roll in. Did that with Gothic 3 and it turned out ... if not great, at least pretty good.

Elex isn't nearly as bugged as Gothic 3 was at the beginning.
It has some problems here and there, but it's nothing to be too concerned about.

 

[Quillon]

MCA chimes in on FB!

Damn. Is he finally over with the hateful-ex phase?

What does he mean by recruits in relation to stronghold?

 

[Prime Junta]

What does he mean by recruits in relation to stronghold?

I'd imagine he's referring to story characters that you could recruit to work at the stronghold. That ogre from the cave in Dyrford for example.

 

[Iznaliu]

None of those are actual #deadfire blog post titles, but... sounds like we might have incoming soon?

It seems like it might be something to do with Berath's Blessing.

 

[ArchAngel]

That is only for the dungeon combat scenarios (or Balance(tm). I see no reason for them to have such a limit if we are talking about that world and how magic can be applied there.
In D&D Fireballs have 100+ m range but in games they are also about 20m or less (about edge of visible screen for the caster)

In Pillars, a high-level mage can cast four fireballs per encounter. Don't you think that would limit their tactical utility in naval combat, even if they had 30 times as much range as presented in the game?

Pillars also features counter-magic. If you posit a 300-metre range fireball -- and I don't recall any mention of kith magic that operates at that kind of range, with the sole exception of the Engwithan machines which operate on souls, not base matter -- then shouldn't you also posit a ship-wide anti-fireball shield spell?

Once your naval artillery mages had shot their wads, then what? Call it a draw and sail home?

Fireball is not the only spell in their arsenal. Also they don't need many spells to take down enemy ships. They can also freeze, shock and the rest. Lightning damage also lights wood on fire.
Only situations where you will lose to cannons is if enemy outnumbers you greatly but in that case you needed more ships in the first place.

 

[Quillon]

What does he mean by recruits in relation to stronghold?

I'd imagine he's referring to story characters that you could recruit to work at the stronghold. That ogre from the cave in Dyrford for example.

There were that ogre and? Some prisoners...

 

[Prime Junta]

Fireball is not the only spell in their arsenal.

Doesn't matter. They're still limited to the same number of slots per level.

Also they don't need many spells to take down enemy ships.

Only if there are no counters to those spells. And since there are counters to spells in regular combat, why would there not be counters to spells in naval combat?

They can also freeze, shock and the rest. Lightning damage also lights wood on fire.

Magic could also shield against such attacks, put out fires, and so on and so forth.

Only situations where you will lose to cannons is if enemy outnumbers you greatly but in that case you needed more ships in the first place.

You can put a lot of cannons on one ship. You could put a lot of mages too, but are mages that common?

Basically, your argument boils down to, "If magic can do the same thing as artillery but more easily and more effectively, then artillery doesn't make sense in a setting." Which is quite true, but in the case of Pillars, your premise doesn't hold: we have no evidence of magic that operates over the kind of range you'd need in naval engagements, the number of casts is severely limited, and a fireball is nowhere near as powerful as a broadside. It's about as effective as a small-arms volley from six combatants.

i.e. your hate-boner is blocking your view again

 

[jungl]

These games were never about realism. I never understood either how 90 pound creature with a 10 pound axe can knockout a 10 thousand pound creature.

 

[ArchAngel]

Fireball is not the only spell in their arsenal.

Doesn't matter. They're still limited to the same number of slots per level.

Also they don't need many spells to take down enemy ships.

Only if there are no counters to those spells. And since there are counters to spells in regular combat, why would there not be counters to spells in naval combat?

They can also freeze, shock and the rest. Lightning damage also lights wood on fire.

Magic could also shield against such attacks, put out fires, and so on and so forth.

Only situations where you will lose to cannons is if enemy outnumbers you greatly but in that case you needed more ships in the first place.

You can put a lot of cannons on one ship. You could put a lot of mages too, but are mages that common?

Basically, your argument boils down to, "If magic can do the same thing as artillery but more easily and more effectively, then artillery doesn't make sense in a setting." Which is quite true, but in the case of Pillars, your premise doesn't hold: we have no evidence of magic that operates over the kind of range you'd need in naval engagements, the number of casts is severely limited, and a fireball is nowhere near as powerful as a broadside. It's about as effective as a small-arms volley from six combatants.

i.e. your hate-boner is blocking your view again

So now you have admitted you do need a mage to protect vs another mage. That having cannons alone will not help. Tnx for proving my case.

 

[Quillon]

So now you have admitted you do need a mage to protect vs another mage. That having cannons alone will not help. Tnx for proving my case.

Having cannons should be the same with having guns in that case, bypassing arcane veil etc. So your mage would not necessarily be a big help against cannons.

 

[Neanderthal]

Ultima did cannons well, good cheat tools.

 

[Prime Junta]

So now you have admitted you do need a mage to protect vs another mage. That having cannons alone will not help. Tnx for proving my case.

Um, your case was, “cannons in a game with magic LOL” but whatevz.

 

[FreeKaner]

There were that ogre and? Some prisoners...

The fampyr, I'll miss her if she never comes back.

 

[Ramnozack]

Why r u fags arguing about the efficacy of cannons if magic existed in real life.

 

[Prime Junta]

Why r u fags arguing about the efficacy of cannons if magic existed in real life.

Nothing else to talk about until the beta, I guess.

 

[Cross]

More charitable than I expected

He describes Deadfire's premise as 'disjointed', says he's disappointed about the stronghold being destroyed, criticizes the choice to reset the player to level 1 and implies Obsidian has a responsibility to their fans to ensure the stronghold-related choices they made in the first game have discrete consequences in Deadfire (like having the recruitable stronghold NPC's show up in Deadfire).

You have a strange definition of the term 'charitable'.

 

[FreeKaner]

By MCA standards it's very charitable.

 

[Raghar]

So was this released, or something? I didn't read 400 page thread, so I wonder if PoE II is less shit than PoE.

 

[Prime Junta]

:engaging autism:

:clonk:

:autism engaged:

Got to thinking what naval combat would be like in a world that worked like Pillars. I'm assuming that mages aren't a dime a dozen -- you might have one per ship, tops, with perhaps two or three on a flagship, whereas cannons are about as common as they were in the 16th to 17th centuries in our history. I'm assuming that archmages would have created a different set of spells specifically for naval combat. And I'm assuming that these spells would be at a roughly similar "power level" as the stuff we see in the game: something that's 10 times longer range will have much less destructive power, for example. All the magic we ever see is short-range stuff, and the destructive power per cast -- especially for stuff like fireballs and lightning bolts -- is roughly on par with a small-arms volley from a party of six. I.e., powerful, but not off-the-scale devastating.

With these kinds of constraints, I wouldn't waste my precious spells on fireballs or lightning bolts. In fact, I wouldn't even want a wizard on board. I'd want a druid. Imagine if it were possible to summon a wind that let me fire a broadside, then dance out of enemy artillery range to reload, then dance back in. Or summon up a violent storm that shredded the enemy's sails. Or an obscuring fog that let me close in for boarding unseen. I'd also want long-range enchantments: the battle would be over before it started if I was able to charm the enemy helmsman, and a longboat approaching with a boarding party would be neutralised at a stroke with a Confusion spell that got their oars tangled.

And of course I would want magical capability to counter these attacks.

Fireballs and lightning bolts? Pah. Why waste precious magic on them, when I have artillery? Crowd control always wins, and at sea it wins even harder.

:disengaging autism:

:autism disengaged:

 

[Sizzle]

I wanted to write a post about how a druid would almost certainly be a better fit for this situation than a mage, but I figured it was too nerdy even for the Codex :D

Congratz on proving me oh so wrong, Prime Junta :D

 

[Alienman]

I would just enchant a cannon.