Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Created a holy slayer and spent quite a few Berath Blessing points on him and I think combining the double starting skill bonuses and the stat bonuses doubled the latter. He started with a 22 STR after I pushed it to 20 (he’s aumanua), and same for the other stats, all +2.

Isn’t +2 doubling the default +1 though? That sounds right to me?

I thought the stat bonus was +1 for those and the doubling of starter skills for stuff like mechanics, religion, etc.

My holy slayer laid hands on the Whispers of the Endless Paths, arguably the best great sword in the game, and is probably doing more damage than my Votary. I think I’m close to 50 hours with the game now.

I ditched Whispers of the Endless Paths as there’s just not enough penetration for the late game. Though maybe I should try upgrading it to Legendary. Not a fan of how they nerf the damage on cleave weapons, because then I need to pay attention and switch to a different weapon for single target and vice-versa.

I missed this - but yeah, at level 19 on Normal everything will be easy. I think the toughest fampyr lair I tackled I was level 13 or so, and it was pretty freaking brutal. There were like 3 different lairs though, so not sure which one you had been referring to. All of them were rough though. Lots of reloads and approaching with different strategies to complete, it was pretty fun.

and finished…

Steam says 78 hours, but there were many times I had it idling for hours - my guess is that it was closer to 50.

I only made it to level 15 playing on veteran difficulty. Other than the starting missions I pretty much just stuck to the Huana. For the most part most battles were pretty easy. Since I didn’t level as much as i could have, there were times the missions were 3 skulls. Sometimes they did have a difficult battle. The final one was a doozy that I lost the first time and when I fought it the second time I was very aggressive and won.

My party was Eder, Xoti, Tekehu, and Aloth. I thought they were all well done and enjoyed the conversations along the way.

In my final conversation at the end

I asked Eothas to consider taking pity on the souls stuck in the holding area, and he created a haven for them.

The biggest weakest of the game for me was the inconsistent challenge level. It really made it so I didn’t need to consider my actions in battle for much of the game. Also, I’d prefer a turn based system like in Divinity Original Sin - but I think the rest of PoE 2 is better. If I were to play again I wonder if I’d prefer just playing with 2 characters but multiclassing them.

The art was great in the game and I enjoyed going to new areas. I also love the conversation options based on skills and the personalty of my character.

I didn’t like the ship combat at all and avoid it where I could. I paid as little attention as I could to my ship and crew.

I hope I get to meet up with my party again in the DLC that will follow.

Not just the combat but everything about the ship as a replacement for your keep from the first game feels tacked on and underbaked as hell. I vastly prefer the first game’s setting, and exploring its wilderness zones felt a lot more like the BG games than the sequel.

Well I can’t help but firmly disagree. I’ve been playing Deadfire a ton lately. Ship combat seems like a good system in - game. The keep in Pillars? That was weak and annoying. I was constantly annoyed by that keep. And I just did a pillars playthrough.

Deadfire seems like almost a BG2 second hand. The best part of it is trying out new specs. Try a gunner, or a crusader.

Maybe we are all getting a bit cynical. But This game? I have to admit is pretty freakin great.

I enjoyed exploring the keep in PoE1, but the defending it was pretty lame. I ignored that aspect of it just like I ignored the ship.

I liked PoE1 a lot, and I preferred the single land mass for exploration purposes - but I did think PoE 2 had better party conversations, the art was great, and some usability improvements in combat. I’m happy I could essentially ignore the ship stuff, but maybe that was partially because I didn’t sail around much other than the places necessary to complete the Huana and main missions.

Finished at ~65 hours. I did everything. It was much better than PoE1. However… I can’t help but be reminded, once again, how despite their efforts no one ever comes close to Baldur’s Gate 2. My romance with Maia was a joke. It never went anywhere or did anything and in the end if you don’t side with the RDC she leaves you. (Xoti was not an option because of her annoying voice work, but I see there’s already a mod on the Nexus to silence her and the annoying Narrator. Here’s hope for the second play-through.) I still have never seen an RPG the comes close to the depth of the BG2 romances. Maybe I did something wrong, but it really seems like it was bugged or they shouldn’t even have bothered.

Remember BG2 had unique Class Fortress. Sure, some were better than others, but every class had one (PoE1 offered only one, for every class, and it was ultimately a boring disappointment). The ship in PoE2 was not a Class Fortress.

The gear was boring, likely owing to the game’s mechanics. There’s so much loot in BG2 that can get you really excited (Holy Avenger, Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, etc.), but I never found that with anything in PoE2. 15% of hits converted to crits. Ok, whatever.

I really enjoyed the Pirate stuff in PoE2, including capturing the Undead Flagship. But it was a bit of a let-down at the end as the Undead Flagship was crap in battle. The shanties were great, but that’s probably because there were only like three.

The ship combat was pretty bad, and I just mashed the “1” key to close to boarding range as a fast possible – I often took no damage with the Dyrwood ship, whereas you always do if you tell the computer to do it for you. I see there’s also a mod on Nexus to skip the ship combat and go right to boarding. Gee.

Combat mechanics were pretty complex. For example, I couldn’t understand what the numbers above enemies head’s meant. I remember Scott explained it one of his videos, but despite that, I still couldn’t figure it out. So I googled it, and found the same question on Reddit. But if you read the top-most response, you’ll see that he also got it partially wrong! You have read the next guy’s response to him to figure out. That’s insane.

I had to respec my Paladin because I took the “self immolation” ability and she kept killing herself. So dumb. There’s also a mod on Nexus to fix this…

I played without scaling and I enjoyed it that way, because I like feeling powerful and just destroying my enemies.

It’s an excellent game but that just seems to make its faults that more bothersome.

I disagree that it’s “much better” than the original. Its character build and UI are better, combat mechanics are better, as are its graphics, but other than that I think basically every other aspect is inferior to the first game.

Which doesn’t make it a bad game, not at all. I’ve got close to 50 hours in with it so far, and created my 4th build yesterday morning, a Crusader (Unbroken + Goldpact). Dude tanks like a beast while the rest of the party cleans up.

I’m ‘only’ 20 hours in but I am finding myself enjoying POE2 a lot more than the first one. I think there’s something about the level of polish (and better level scaling) that makes me feel that the game is moving along at a much more reasonable pace than the first one (even if it is mostly side quests)

Got my Crusader to 14th level and decided to create a 5th toon, an Evoker. His magic missiles are lethal, because I bought the magic gloves from the bonus merchant at Port Maje and he’s a nature godlike, so that’s 5-6 PLs above his current level when he throws evocation spells around.

I finished it, and then started another play through. The 2nd play-through is mostly to see what real differences an evil path takes. So far, It still seems the same. I do not think the choices I make really matter at all, but Ill see for sure when I get to the end game summary.

I must say the game isn’t a good game, but it isn’t a bad game.

Combat is boring. I have been doing the same thing since the early levels, the exact same tactics. The magic squad basically CCs everyone, and the warriors just murder all the confused, terrified, blinded, weakened, enemies. Combat is also super-easy, even though I do have full level-scaling turned on, and only to scale upwards.

Ship combat sucks. Sometimes I bored, sometimes, i gun enemies down. It just depends on my mood.

The real issue is that it is just a marginal game in many respects. I didn’t like the keep upgrading in the last game, it was just a money pit with no real benefit. The ship is pretty much the same thing, only you have to use it to travel around.

The final plot has a huge gaping hole, perhaps someone can explain:

Plot Hole

Ok, we learn that ancient kith built this great machine, the wheel, which pumps souls to the in-between and some of these ancients became gods. Eothas is going to break the wheel in an attempt to free the mortals of the god. Everyone, including Eothas says that when the in-between runs out of souls, life will end because any new kith will no longer have souls. The kith will have to rebuild the machine on their own terms before this happens.

Ok, now the problem:
How did anyone get born to begin with, before the wheel was ever invented? How did kith civilization even form, let alone advance far enough before the in-between ran out of souls? In other words, the entire premise of what will happen if the kith do not build a new machine, is total bullshit.

I finished this one last night. In summary I loved it… my favorite isometric RPG since Baldur’s Gate 2. I never finished the first Pillars of Eternity but always went back to it over the years and made the most progress right before part 2 came out.

I very much enjoyed the world building. I was able to grok the four distinct factions and their motivations, and I thought the way NPCs were tied to each faction was well done. I am now encouraged to roll up new characters to align to each faction and play through the game based on those allegiances. I enjoyed the main story and thought it took a novel approach to the dynamic between deities and their followers.

The character design and story were wonderful. I wish some of the character quests were a bit longer, but it was nice catching up with old friends and making new ones. Maia came on a bit strong at the start, but I thought her story was interesting even though I wasn’t able to play it out all the way since I was eager to get to the end of my first playthrough. I also thought the voices were great in this setting…Spanish/Italian, African, Polynesian, with a smattering of American southern were all welcome changes to the typical English accents I’m used to in this genre. I also liked the narrator, though I think that puts me in the minority opinion.

The art was wonderful. The new character art and animation is the best there is in the genre, and the same goes to the background art. The background animations combined with the new lighting system makes this a beautiful world to go adventuring. Combat felt especially gritty and kinetic thanks, in large part, to the art and animation.

The real champion, for me, was the soundtrack. Oh my goodness, what a rich and varied set of tunes I was treated to. Every bit of music was perfect for the setting, from crawling around ancient and mysterious tunes to wandering around an endless capital city. The sea tunes were also really great and I found myself singing them while doing chores around the house. The music in combat was great and helped draw me in… the beating drums combined with the animation made me really want to get into lots of fights. My favorite music, however, was the tavern pieces. I loved how they you could hear them muffled on the second floor of the tavern, and how they came u[p during ship combat. I can’t get over how much I loved this music, well done Justin Bell.

I think a significant part in the enjoyment of the game is how much I’m willing to put into it. For example, I finished my first run-through without doing much with my ship, but the game gives me the option to go whole hog and kit out my vessel to my heart’s content. It’s there if I want it, but I can ignore it if I choose to do so. I can certainly understand that people may be put off by this, but I find that this suits my taste in how I play these kinds of games. This also applies to character leveling; I can click though willy-nilly in choosing talents and come out of it okay, but I can also take the time to learn the combat system and the attribute/skills system, and then play at a higher difficulty level with this knowledge. If I want to get the most enjoyment or sense of accomplishment out of the game, I’m going to have to learn the systems and lock everything together.

I have a bunch of ideas for my next run but will probably wait for the June patch before diving back in. Well done Obsidian!

Nope, can’t explain it, it’s dumb.

It’s similar to what bugged me about the PoE1 plot - there are no gods, except there totally are. A terrible plot point that’s reinforced in the opening seconds of PoE2, where your thousand-year-old girlfriend says, again, there are no gods, and then literally two seconds later you’re talking to one. WTF?

I think the idea of this line is, “What makes a god really a god?”

Are gods real if we created them? Or is being a super-powerful, near omniscient being sufficient to be considered a ‘god’?

This, based purely on the first game, anyway. Given many of us grew up with Faerun gods, the vast majority of which were indeed mortals raised to godhood, the philosophical implications are perhaps less apparent (or not even troubling). For anyone with more of an Abrahamic/monotheistc/deist picture of ‘god’, there’s more of a concern here. But that split is also detailed in the game - different characters have dissimilar reactions to this ‘revelation’.

I started on veteran then restarted on POTD and think I’m almost done with my 1st complete playthrough, level 17 and going around exploring the map before heading to the endgame. I like the art and setting, and I like the new implementation of RTwP. Of course most of the fights are currently too easy, but I’m currently having a lot of trouble with the fampyrs on the NE of the map, does anyone have suggestions for that?

There is at least one food you can make that provides an INT resistance, but I can’t remember what food it is. I think it’s fairly high end, but you could shop around for the required ingredients and make some of that.