Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[aweigh]

ppl don't forget about the fact that outside of quest-givers or shop-keepers there are no NPCs in the game that can be talked to; every single other NPC either has no dialog or attacks you with fan-fiction.

that was for me one of the biggest disappointments with the game, and a big part of the reason I only played it 12 times instead of 20.

 

[Haplo]

the unnecessary proliferation of classes, and so on.

Say whaaat?

 

[Prime Junta]

Say whaaat?

They turned out OK, but eleven classes straight out of the gate is a lot. Designing, implementing, and balancing all of their abilities must have been one hell of a job. That effort would have been better spent elsewhere, e.g. designing and tuning encounters and making more interesting loot (the latter was addressed adequately in patches though). I'm quite sure Pillars would have been a better game overall with, say, only six classes or so -- the rest could have been added later, for example with the White March expansion.

 

[Haplo]

Pardon, but I strongly disagree. Varied and interesting classes are one of the main perks of the game.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Pardon, but I strongly disagree. Varied and interesting classes are one of the main perks of the game.

That's not what he says though. The classes are fine now, after 2 years of patching and refining. On launch there was definitely too much of them.

 

[Grunker]

Say whaaat?

They turned out OK, but eleven classes straight out of the gate is a lot. Designing, implementing, and balancing all of their abilities must have been one hell of a job. That effort would have been better spent elsewhere, e.g. designing and tuning encounters and making more interesting loot (the latter was addressed adequately in patches though). I'm quite sure Pillars would have been a better game overall with, say, only six classes or so -- the rest could have been added later, for example with the White March expansion.

MEGAFIST

 

[J_C]

Say whaaat?

They turned out OK, but eleven classes straight out of the gate is a lot. Designing, implementing, and balancing all of their abilities must have been one hell of a job. That effort would have been better spent elsewhere, e.g. designing and tuning encounters and making more interesting loot (the latter was addressed adequately in patches though). I'm quite sure Pillars would have been a better game overall with, say, only six classes or so -- the rest could have been added later, for example with the White March expansion.

And this is why I'm hoping PoE2 will be amazing. They can spend their time on story, quests and CnC instead of designing all those classes.

 

[Prime Junta]

instead of designing all those classes

Well, they did redesign all of them. And change the core mechanics. And add multiclassing. And subclasses.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

instead of designing all those classes

Well, they did redesign all of them. And change the core mechanics. And add multiclassing. And subclasses.

And I'm not worried about any of it. If there's one thing you can rely on, it's Sawyer's autism and willigness to tinker and polish the systems most developers would abandon after couple of bug fixing patches. It's the story, the level design and reactivity where they need to up their game badly.

 

[Infinitron]

More important is that PoE2 has additional system designers to help Josh out plus a dedicated lead designer for the rest of the game.

 

[Lacrymas]

More important is that PoE2 has additional system designers to help Josh out plus a dedicated lead designer for the rest of the game.

Is this going to turn into a "too many cooks spoil the broth" deal?

 

[Infinitron]

More important is that PoE2 has additional system designers to help Josh out plus a dedicated lead designer for the rest of the game.

Is this going to turn into a "too many cooks spoil the broth" deal?

Doubt it, I think you can oversee all system design as a lead more effectively than with narrative for instance. Plus the White March expansions already had an additional system designer helping Josh out and nothing bad happened.

 

[J_C]

instead of designing all those classes

Well, they did redesign all of them. And change the core mechanics. And add multiclassing. And subclasses.

Still, at least they have a foundation to build upon. Making all these classes from scratch must have been a hell of a task.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Well I decided to go with ranged Fighter, ranged Paladin, ranged Cypher in the backline - I don't think you can top this setup for passive party. Frontline is Fighter and another Pala, with reach weapon Rogue in the middle. A bit more risky lineup overall, since I replaced midline Barb with squishier midline Rogue, and frontline Chanter with frontline Pala, so no off-tanking with summons.

But I gain significantly more CC from Rogue criting with Tall Grass Pike, and frontline Pala can heal frontline guys while backline Pala can heal the backline guys. Main problem I had with the previous playthrough is that Lay on Hands has short range so Pala had to often run to the frontline to heal, and I had to micro him. This way I should hopefully be able to just let everyone be controlled by AI.

 

[Lacrymas]

Killed Llengrath, 2-shot her, the first time the dragons got lucky. I don't think there's a point to killing her, though, even from a lore perspective. You can strike a deal with her (which I couldn't for some reason, or I didn't explore every option) and you get all the items you can get AND passive attribute bonuses (we'll see if I miss something by doing this in PoE2 or I hope there are some cool consequences for keeping the skull). I found it strange that she's so intent on killing you, without trying to diplomatically get the skull from you and you have to throw that possibility in there. Why does she have a cult which attacks people on sight? Her knowledge is also lost if you kill her. Both archmages come off as fools rather than ultra powerful and long-lived beings and I found them wasted characters.

 

[Sannom]

Technically Llengrath isn't long-lived, only the knowledge and strength of all the Llengraths were passed down to her, not all of their life memories. As for negociations, that's only possible if you have a high enough Resolve, as in pretty much every check of this kind in this game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Eh, same thing, the important part is that the knowledge is passed down, but I guess I can see the possibility that she's too sure of herself and doesn't actually have the experience of such a long-lived individual, i.e. she only has the knowledge of the spells, not life experience in general.

 

[Sizzle]

You can strike a deal with her (which I couldn't for some reason, or I didn't explore every option)

You need either high INT, or knowledge of Engwithian (meaning - you need to have finished the Undying Heritage quest) in order to have that option.

and you get all the items you can get AND passive attribute bonuses (we'll see if I miss something by doing this in PoE2 or I hope there are some cool consequences for keeping the skull).

I really hope we'll get to keep that talent. It would be a nice incentive to import your character(s) into PoE2, instead of just making a new one and picking out what your choices were in PoE1.

Both archmages come off as fools rather than ultra powerful and long-lived beings and I found them wasted characters.

Going by the personalities of these two, as well as what they said about Arkemyr in the Neketaka city preview (and the brief glimpse we got of Ninagauth TWM), it seems like they're going for the "insane and/or petty powerful wizard" angle with the Archmagi.

 

[Parabalus]

Well I decided to go with ranged Fighter, ranged Paladin, ranged Cypher in the backline - I don't think you can top this setup for passive party. Frontline is Fighter and another Pala, with reach weapon Rogue in the middle. A bit more risky lineup overall, since I replaced midline Barb with squishier midline Rogue, and frontline Chanter with frontline Pala, so no off-tanking with summons.

But I gain significantly more CC from Rogue criting with Tall Grass Pike, and frontline Pala can heal frontline guys while backline Pala can heal the backline guys. Main problem I had with the previous playthrough is that Lay on Hands has short range so Pala had to often run to the frontline to heal, and I had to micro him. This way I should hopefully be able to just let everyone be controlled by AI.

Consider putting the chanter into the backline, arrow chant is godlike, makes it incredibly easy to hit 0 recovery. Fire weapon chant is also great, especially with a Cipher. Ranged Pala can also abuse coordinating weapon/talent, with cipher Bond power you can get +50 ACC which stacks with standard buffs.

Killed Llengrath, 2-shot her, the first time the dragons got lucky. I don't think there's a point to killing her, though, even from a lore perspective. You can strike a deal with her (which I couldn't for some reason, or I didn't explore every option) and you get all the items you can get AND passive attribute bonuses (we'll see if I miss something by doing this in PoE2 or I hope there are some cool consequences for keeping the skull). I found it strange that she's so intent on killing you, without trying to diplomatically get the skull from you and you have to throw that possibility in there. Why does she have a cult which attacks people on sight? Her knowledge is also lost if you kill her. Both archmages come off as fools rather than ultra powerful and long-lived beings and I found them wasted characters.

Psure you get one scale less than by killing them both. Talking her out of it is much more rewarding though, and cooler to boot.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Consider putting the chanter into the backline, arrow chant is godlike, makes it incredibly easy to hit 0 recovery. Fire weapon chant is also great, especially with a Cipher. Ranged Pala can also abuse coordinating weapon/talent, with cipher Bond power you can get +50 ACC which stacks with standard buffs.

Yeah, that's exactly what I like about ranged Pala, between coordination talent and zealous charge you can buff accuracy through the tits. Makes whole lot of a difference on PoTD where everything has stupidly buffed defenses.

 

[Prime Junta]

St Garam's Spark is great for a ranged pala. It's Marking.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

St Garam's Spark is great for a ranged pala. It's Marking.

I've used Pliambo per Casitas on my previous run. It's marking too plus it additonally debuffs defenses.

 

[Lacrymas]

Is there someone who isn't a retard in this game? Ondra's whole shtick is absolutely bonkers, what is this broad going on about? She's worse than Hylea (~~BIRDIES AND SOONNGSS YAAAY~~), "durrr, make them forget because feelings, hurrr and if they don't want to forget (or I can't force it) GENOCIDE THEM, hurr durr, but NO! I'll tell you how to stop the Eyeless anyway, hurrr. I LURVE ABY~~". What the fuck. The whole conversation with her was cringe. The most substantial thing that came out of that convo was the fact that the gods have power over Eora, but it's always catastrophic if used directly.

 

[Roguey]

They're AI, they're meant to be stupid.

 

[Lacrymas]

Finished it. It was pretty good, much, much better than base game and WM1. The writing was weird, though, the worst aspect of the expansion by far, but I didn't want to strangle myself because everything else is so much better. The final conversation with the Eyeless changed genres on me, it became surrealism all of a sudden and it was strange, much more aggressive than any of the visions before this. I'm not entirely sure it was a vision. They kept the mysteriousness of the Eyeless till the end, which was good, they didn't overuse them and they felt like a real threat. I also like their model, but I'm not entirely sure it fits the aesthetic of everything else, they look like they came out of a cyberpunk-y/dystopian setting. Anyway, good job, Obsidian, I think you can make PoE2 into something good, don't fuck it up.