Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

I don�t understand how any one can play a 40 hour story driven game and base their whole opinion of it on whether or not you have to slog through an additional boss fight. And instead of killing a god who you actually know is not a god, you determine the nature of the afterlife in the game universe and people are like � I didn�t make enough of a difference!�

People who play video games can really be babies some times.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2018 00:29

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:53

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

For the vault I sided with the bardattos but then I pulled my party away and let the Valeras kill them all, then finished off the last Valera and robbed the vault while I was down there. You can still defuse the beef after that.

Pretty sure I got lucky with the Valeras winning the vault fight though because it was pretty close.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2018 20:14

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

I would think ciphers are the closest thing. Their main ability is �soul whip�. Make them a Vailian scholar with max metaphysics and you�re set!

Starks fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Oct 4, 2018

# ¿ Oct 4, 2018 01:26

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Magran4life. What�s not to like about her? She just wants humans to do poo poo for themselves.

I do look forward to a Wael dlc but I hope they keep him mysterious. One thing I didn�t like about Beast of Winter was giving Rymrgand so many speaking lines kinda took the edge off his mystique.

While we�re talking about Gods, I like how Skaen is written. The god of slaves and rebellions but he somehow always ends up siding with his oppressor

# ¿ Oct 4, 2018 02:08

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

What's the best source for class builds ?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2018 01:25

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

On the subject of additional content, I'm surprised they didn't have some kind of custom campaign or mission editor like DOS2. Even if you could just take existing maps and add enemies and potentially even dialogue and quests, I think you could have some awesome user-created content. The companion attribute system in particular seems like it was made for custom companions, but apparently it's very difficult to do right now.

Edit: Surprised is probably the wrong word - when they were talking about how advanced the modding tools would be, I guess I had something like that in my head, and it seems like a missed opportunity considering how important the community was for a game like fallout NV.

Starks fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 9, 2018

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 01:47

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Taear posted:

So Kotaku - who I can't link to because I can't load their site at work - are reporting that Microsoft is 90% of the way to buying Obsidian.

I dunno how to feel about that other than "Wait, what the gently caress?"

Wasnt that one of the reasons Avellone left? Because he said they wanted to be bought by someone?

Article here: https://kotaku.com/sources-microsoft-is-close-to-buying-obsidian-1829614135

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 18:44

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Please still make a Pillars 3

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 18:45

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

My bazzo to bill gates

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 19:22

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Prism posted:

In non-Microsoft questions:

I decided to give this another shot after starting it too soon after PoE1 and hitting Pillars Overload. Is multiclassing chanter (skald)/barbarian an OK idea or should I stick with just one or the other? I know Skalds got tweaked but I'm not sure how.

Mostly I want to hit people with a big weapon while doing cool magic tricks.

chanter+barbarian/paladin/fighter all work really well imo. Most builds have troubadour though so you can spit out invocations quickly.

In general rogue and chanter seem to be very easy to multiclass.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 19:47

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Inverness posted:

Well, Microsoft isn't as bad as EA.

That's not saying much though.

I hope Obsidian at least worked out an agreement to let them work on PoE3. I really like the setting and now I'm worried that Microsoft will close down Obsidian, keep the IP, and bury it.

Same. I would think its a no brainer POE3 gets made but I also remember obsidian saying something about licensing it out and letting other studios do stuff with the IP. I imagine that is likely to get affected by this deal which would be too bad cuz its one of the best original video game worlds imo.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 03:20

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

DoctorTristan posted:

Microsoft is not interested in making sequels to a game that sold <1MM copies.

When published by an indie company with a barely existent marketing campaign. It still had great reviews and had a lot of people who were willing to pay for it before it before it entered development.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 11:46

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

How are u posted:

Why anybody would do that instead of board the ship and slaughter the dudes in engaging combat is beyond me. I've literally never bothered playing the mini game in like 200 hours of pillars.

I feel bad brutally killing a bunch of sailors like that. On the open seas it�s fair game though, they can run away if they want.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 20:36

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

The amount of character model reusing in Witcher 3 totally took me out of the game for some reason. I still don�t get why they did it to that extent, even with the main quest missions and some named characters. Seems totally nuts to me. It was more egregious than fallout NV, and way more noticeable since the rest of the game looked so good.

Starks fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Oct 12, 2018

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 16:46

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Gorelab posted:

Yeah, RPGs don't have to have crunchy battle systems and character building.

So they just need dialogue options?

Without that, I don�t see the difference between Spider-Man and the Witcher 3.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 16:55

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Tenacious J posted:

Can I play this or POE1 as a solo character or a pair at most? Googling this question leads me to a lot of �yes, but wouldn�t recommend�. The thing is, I don�t really care about character story or dialogue as much as I care about gameplay, and controlling a party of 3+ characters is stressful and unsatisfying to me for some stupid reason. I�ve tried to get over this for years but can�t. Even with AI controlling them my broken brain dislikes the suboptimal play and it�s still too much to track.

If I try solo or duo should I use mods or cheats or something?

Also, would duo be significantly �better� than solo?

People do it as a challenge. It's definitely possible though, and if you're worried about difficulty you could try going down a level or two.

Duo would be much easier than solo. The strength of enemies do not change depending on your party make up. It's also easier to solo in PoE 2 than 1 since enemy groups are smaller in 2.

You'd be missing out on a lot of side content though.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2018 17:52

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

AngryBooch posted:

Stick to the quests imo. That said, the game is very good at wrapping up quests that you've already resolved through random exploration or OCD completionism without having to revisit the location. There are a few that you'll have to go back to I think, but the game is better when you're given context to visit the locations or explore in the first place.

I think there's only two locations that don't really have a quest leading to them, they have some lore books about them but nothing in the quest log.

The only one I can think of is the vampire island. What's the other one?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2018 20:11

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

RDC and Vailians are imperial scum and the whole �but caste system!� Is a classic colonialist justification for taking poo poo that�s not yours. The majority of Huana outside of the gullet seem perfectly happy with their lifestyle and it�s not for your dyrwoodian bitch rear end to tell them how to structure their society, especially given the widely acknowledged existence of reincarnation, ekera?

# ¿ Oct 16, 2018 16:12

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

jokes posted:

For the Roparu, starving to death but having your Huana overlords be fabulously wealthy because of your labor is not the preferred outcome to having food and having your RDC/VTC overlords be fabulously wealthy because of your labor. The Dyrwoodan isn't advocating a revolution, they're advocating not valuing hosed up tradition over feeding the people.

You can actually do a quest that helps them get food from the crown. You can�t do a quest that prevents the RDC or VTC from being colonialist assholes unless you wipe them out.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2018 17:51

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Grimoire posted:

The anti gotcha being that shipmate skill level does nothing outside of a couple CYOA sequences which rarely matter and ship battles - and fighting ship to ship is sub optimal to boarding.

edit: uh, offer void during storms, unless you've got That Voulge. There is an auto gameover path there iirc

I think having high level deckhands also makes your ship go faster.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2018 23:58

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Are moon godlikes supposed to be related to Wael or Eothas? I used to think it was Ondra because of her moon obsession but now we know she has fish children.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2018 01:41

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Freaking Crumbum posted:

if you don't get the voulge is there any benefit / reward to sailing through storms? there's never been a situation in the game where a storm was in my path and i HAD to go through it with no other option to go around, so i've literally never sailed into one, but from what i've read they're basically just CYOA things where the best outcome is that nobody dies and you don't lose too many resources.

can you actually gain anything from the random storms or are they just minor inconveniences you have to dodge occasionally?

You definitely need to do it to get the voulge, and they tend to linger outside of ashen maw and poko kahara so if you don�t feel like waiting you might have to run into them.

Ginette Reno posted:

I think still Ondra. Ondra also has aspects associated with the moon.

I guess gods can have more than one then, there�s still hope for ice godlikes or a different Galawain aspect.

Wonder what a Woedica godlike would look like

Starks fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Oct 17, 2018

# ¿ Oct 17, 2018 02:06

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

wiegieman posted:

The rich. Like, the platonic ideal of arrogant rich people.

I like that idea. Golden disfigured dudes with different asymmetric crowns attached

# ¿ Oct 17, 2018 03:03

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Spell shaping sounds like a game changer, depending on the difference in strength between max and min aoe

Starks fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Oct 18, 2018

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 03:39

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

ilitarist posted:

You have your crew still alive and you report the murder to some people shouting about it on the streets, the game doesn't indicate at all that it's a secret you're doing those things. It's not the case of FNV or other games like that where you are condemned for killing someone alone with no witnesses.

When you do it for Rauitai they specifically mention its privateering because RDC don�t want to be associated. As far as my crew, loose lips sink dhows and running your mouth is a good way to get keelhauled

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 11:33

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Velius posted:

I�m finding the combat in this brutally hard early on. I�m at level 5 on POTD, and I have no chance in Neketaka trying to fight the Sealed Fate or other early quest encounters. It just seems like enemy defenses are dramatically higher than my accuracy for everyone, while they have no issue criting me. Ostensibly the quest levels are �easy� difficulty too, which adds insult to injury. I beat Pillars 1 on POTD, I�m playing a monk/rogue, but it doesn�t matter when I�ve got basic gear and no ability to control encounters since everything in Deadfire seems to be open. I already had to bail on the dig site skeleton area because I couldn�t hurt them at all.

Am I just supposed to do some ship combat to get better gear and abilities, and skip any actual combat when trying to play on POTD?

You should probably try some of the ship and Abocco bounties or non combat quests until you get more gear and levels (even with scaling so you can advance your build). The problem may also be your builds, so respecs or even custom characters may help. Then there�s potions, party comp, summons, and scrolls. If you haven�t, make sure you advance the main story to where you have to leave Nekataka. As for the sealed fate quest: IIRC its possible to solve without combat which you may want to consider just to get past it, even if it�s not the desired outcome.

For what it�s worth, I find POTD in deadfire way easier than the original, which I never beat on POTD, so if you can do it in POE I think you can definitely do it in deadfire.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 03:35

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Berath�s Blessings also make a big difference. My first POTD play through was with full Berath�s Blessings (before SSS) and I found levels 1-10 easier than Veteran without.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 03:55

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

PoTD was far from a slog for me and is probably the right level of challenge if you have level scaling on. Without it you easily outlevel a lot of content and most of the game ends up being pretty easy.

SSS on the other hand is more of an extra challenge for those who didn�t have enough of it. Kind of like alpine dragon, radiant spore or llengrath in that respect, imo. Or the bear cave.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2018 18:45

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Agent355 posted:

You're not wrong but also that doesn't really help at all. I know not everybody is going to share my opinion and I don't think it massively influences the quality of the game either way. I'm just shouting into the void as you do.

In future playthroughs I'd definitely just ignore whatever quests that didn't fit my character concept but thats alot harder to do on your first playthrough, not just because you don't always know what quests lead to what, but because you feel like you're denying yourself content since the chance of me actually doing multiple playthroughs is pretty small.

I think they should have way more and they should�ve made it easier to make custom bounties.

If you�re playing on potd and want to have upgraded equipment for all your guys the money from bounties is a godsend.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2018 01:37

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

TEENAGE WITCH posted:

lmao

Durance irl

Starks fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Nov 1, 2018

# ¿ Nov 1, 2018 22:34

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Guy who was calling people NPCs defends white supremacy forums 🤔

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 14:45

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

I think a big part of the weak sales was also a) the smaller publisher and b) funding with fig over Kickstarter.

I mean I�m exactly the target demographic, bought the first one, and I didn�t know anything about deadfire until after it came out. That�s obviously anecdotal but I think the marketing was pretty weak, and that�s probably something that would change under microsoft.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2018 23:25

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Lt. Danger posted:

The implicit narrative of PoE's Kickstarter campaign was an appeal to grognardism, the idea that games used to be made like this [good] and now they're made like that [bad] and the OG Black Isle crew are gonna make RPGs great again. That includes PC master race/casual console scum etc. tropes. It's like Max von Sydow saying "this will begin to make things right" early on in Star Wars 7 - dogwhistles for nerds.

Bethesda bought an IP for a couple of turn-based tactical combat games and made an FPS for essentially the opposite reason: we used to make games like that, but we make them like this now 'cause that's what sells. Repudiation's probably a bit strong but it's a fundamental difference in basic product approach.

rip 2house2fly

If only Obsidian took a page out of Bethesda�s book and made a fallout style game. Bethesda, the anti-nerd company famous for cool FPS console shooters that are NOT for stinky grogs

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 03:09

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Amethyst posted:

It's a gigantic audience. RPGs are massive. The Witcher, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and Divinity Original Sin are blockbusters.

People bought and played Pillars of Eternity 1 in huge numbers. They didn't buy the sequel. This isn't because of market limitations, it's because POE1 pushed people away with bad tech and questionable design.

This is silly. The first game has great user reviews on both metacritic and steam and was by all measures very well received. Like I mentioned before I think the second game�s marketing is the culprit.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 05:54

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Amethyst posted:

The game has a high metacritic score, therefore it's good and people like it. Good. Thanks. This is a sensible metric for measuring how much people like the game. The sequel's popularity, however, is a bad and silly metric.

Haha easy there tiger. I said user reviews. The silly part was you trying to say that people that bought the first game didn�t like it.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 06:04

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Amethyst posted:

It isn't that simple.

Putting them in the late game is a design choice that has consequences. A player may have chosen a different companion if the choice were given earlier. Dumping Aloth from the party 25 hours into the game, after memorising his spell list and figuring out how to keep him alive in battle, is simply not something most people would do, even if they are interested in another character. In practical terms, this limits the game for the majority of players.

Please never make a game

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 00:45

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Amethyst posted:

Great talk, glad we had it.

Name some rpgs that don�t pace out party members to at least the midgame and just dump them all on you at once instead.

Also pallegina is not in the late game in PoE 1. Maybe you just need to...get good?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 00:54