I completed the original release and haven’t touched it since. I’m not big on replaying games so I ask; is there enough new content with the expansions for a second full run? Did they ever make your mansion more interesting? Is loot still generic?
Yes, expansions add quite a lot of new content and they’re integrated into the main campaign so whole game feels much beefier as a result. I haven’t dabbled with the improved stronghold yet but that was one of the key features of the second part of the expansion so I assume it’s much better now. Most of the loot is still somewhat generic but soulbound weapons add some much needed spice. They’re a lot like some of the more unique items from the BG series.
Playing the opening with a cipher and a druid and I’m having a hard time picking which one I’m going to play this time. :)
Maybe this could help you decide? :) I don’t know if he has a druid video up yet but if it’s not it should be soon.
Damage dealing monk guide, perfect just what I needed to get started.
Thanks for the link.
I’m loving the berserker NPC, that jump skill is awesome for getting at enemy spellcasters lingering in the back of big fights.
Took me quite a while to get in to the white march stuff, turns out it’s gated behind a story beat I had been avoiding since I thought it was just level-gated. Got in to it at level 6 and I’m level 7 or 8 now. White march seems to be of the same quality as the best moments of PoE, so that’s pretty good for an expansion thus far. Only found the monk and the barbarian so far, was a little bit weird since I hadn’t tried either of those classes before but now I’m getting the hang of using them. Monks are absolutely insane, he can single handedly fire off more single target damage than the rest of my party combined when he’s loaded on wounds.
Overall enjoying playing PoE again. Not sure if I’ll be shangaied by the upcoming Tales of Maj’eyal expansion on Tuesday or not, and I absolutely will be carried off if I haven’t beaten the white march/PoE itself again by the time the big Battle Brothers update hits on the 29th, but I’m actually feeling a lot more positive toward PoE now than I did when I first played it.
WHITE MARCH II EXPANSION HELP REQUEST:
So i hit continue and it’s right before the final decision of White Marsh one in Breith Eaman. If I go ahead and click the soul thing-a-majig, I make a decision and it exits me out of the game. So, I’m trying to backtrack and get out of here, and for the life of me I can’t find the way. I go up a flight of stairs and there seems to be no exit out of here…
help? (this is not a fun way to start new content…)
Took my first crack at the Alpine dragon and got it to near death on my first try before the party wiped. Promptly left, leaving a warning sign behind that reads, “I’ll be back in a few more levels.”
What!? A new TOME expansion!
-Todd
Thanks! Wasn’t aware of this.
-Todd
Now that the last expansion is out I’m playing this again and man-- it is so much better with party AI! With micromanagement removed, the game is transformed. Before AI, I simply autoattacked everything to death on easy because I couldn’t be bothered to micromanage every fight against a couple black oozes. Now, I manage my main character and the others use all their flashy per-encounter abilities. It’s sweet.
I do miss IE mod, though. Looks like it’s not coming to PoE 3.0.
Party AI is great but it’s bugged for some classes. Hiravias for example doesn’t use his spirit shift at all. I don’t know how other companions fare, I’m kinda holding off on the game until it gets a 3.1 at least. Bug situation is terrible at the moment.
I didn’t run into any bugs that I noticed, save one brief graphical bug very early on (I think I even posted about it above) and a strange issue with the very last “choose your own adventure” that was easy to understand why it was happening (pro tip - if the game offers a choice using a party member you KNOW isn’t available, don’t pick said option).
My party AI was working well for me, and my druid would spirit-shift as advertised (I was using the script pre-set that spirtshifts when my druid was at a certain health level). Maybe the script preset you were using doesn’t allow for shape shifting? Some of them are pure spell casting.
I’m using the Spirit Shift preset (last one on the list I think). It is possible that this bug is unique to Hiravias and doesn’t affect PC druids though.
If you haven’t noticed any bugs so far then I suggest that you continue enjoying the game and don’t look at the official forums. I did and it completely sucked the wind out of my sails.
I’ve been to the forums, and I think it’s more likely that most of those are very specific issues that only affect a very small number of people. I wouldn’t say it’s a terrible situation just because the vocal minority is posting their bug issues (people with issues are the most common people to post as they try to get some help, after all). It’s not like any one users is getting ALL of those bugs, but rather one guy can’t loot so he reloads the game, or another guy can’t talk to a specific NPC but can loot just fine, etc. That stuff is kind of par for the course (unfortunately) with a large RPG made by a smaller team. I wouldn’t say that should take the wind our of your sails unless you are also experiencing those (or other) issues and even then, only if it’s frequent and something you can’t work around (like manually spirit shifting when you want to).
If your main bug is the AI script not spirit-shifting, then while I agree that would be super annoying, I’m not sure you should let that diminish your experience with the game as a whole. Or are you also getting nailed by a bunch of other bugs, too? I really had a very positive experience with it, with the exception of a few minor things (I did think of another odd graphical bug - soul bound weapons had some text run together when they first leveled-up; thankfully closing the item window and re-opening it fixed that each time).
It’s not just the spirit shift bug, there are items with special properties that don’t work properly, few broken quests, some broken abilities, etc. It adds up, just like it did in every major PoE patch that Obsidian has released so far. And those bugs are not unique to small percent of players, they affect everyone. Some bugs have been reported in the beta (dying monk missive for example) and the game launched with them anyway. The worst part is that a lot of the affected content is stuff that’s been in the game since release, it’s not like it was added recently. I know that a lot of these issues are probably because of Unity (Wasteland 2 DC anyone?) but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
Frankly, I wish that developers would stop using Unity, at least for mechanically more complex games. There’s nothing more frustrating to me when playing a game that prides itself on the mechanics than not being able to trust what I’m seeing and reading in the tooltips (and I’m not going to obsessively go over the combat log for every little detail, luckily other people are even more OCD than me and report these bugs). And at this point it’s pretty clear that the engine has to be a mess of spaghetti code if so many different studios are having such issues with it.
Huh, I completely forgot about party AI. I should maybe try that out. Not sure how much I’d want to rely on it since I end up juggling abilities and pausing constantly anyway (Zahua requiring the most babying so that he constantly fires his kick ability) but on some relatively fire and forget characters like Kana (Shoot gun, when you hit 4 chants summon some drakes or whatever) it’d be nice.
Speaking of Hiravias though, does anyone else get weirdness with him moving incredibly slowly or not moving at all while spiritshifted? Had never played with a druid before so I’m not sure that’s intentional, it just seems odd that his speed would completely bottom out when he became a cat. Mainly using him as a caster anyway, but when something slips through the front line I use him to protect Sagani and Kana. Other than that weirdness (Which may not even be a bug for all I know about druids) I haven’t noticed any bugs in 23 hours played so far in this playthrough.
Ended up making a run back to the base game to level up before continuing with white march. Those lizardmen are really nasty when they’re mobbed up, and checking the bestiary they were a good 4-5 levels higher than me as it is. Fortunately the couple of levels I got from doing some white march stuff was enough to make the bounties super easy. Knocked those out and the big fire drake all on one rest, which was ill advised since Hiravias was out of spells for the drake but worked out in the end.
Even though the white march has been some of the best of PoE, I do have to admit I’m not as wild about it being stuck in the middle and not particularly connected. Suffers from the same issue Tales of the Sword Coast has where it feels pretty obviously like a duct taped on expansion area. Still enjoying it, and admittedly PoE was a complete package without it, but the story reason for going there (Other than HEY THERE’S TREASURE) is super thin. PoE’s definitely feeling a lot better after both expansions and all the patching though. I might’ve shuffled it higher up my GotY list if I was basing it on its current state as opposed to playing it at release.
They’ve got a patch out now.