Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Delterius]

are priests still boring buffers in deadfire

i want to tell old me that they are not

 

[Iskramor]

Where to buy brutish blood its not in periki overlook?

 

[Ibn Sina]

The overabundance of named weapons killed this game progression. Seriously, you find named items in every second barrel to the degree that the exotic and rare starts to feel mundane and normal. There is no purpose of using normal weapons because your inventory wiill be clogged with named weapons that you will replace 15 mins later. And none of them stand out or are exciting unless you crunch numbers for specific builds. Oh that cutlass named Gwarpa Horb sword? +0.1 penetration but -0.1 speed! oh another cutlass named Lazor Gwaarp ? +0.1 speed but -0.1 penetration. It's all mundane, boring, like the rest of the game.

 

[Sannom]

The overabundance of named weapons killed this game progression. Seriously, you find named items in every second barrel to the degree that the exotic and rare starts to feel mundane and normal. There is no purpose of using normal weapons because your inventory wiill be clogged with named weapons that you will replace 15 mins later. And none of them stand out or are exciting unless you crunch numbers for specific builds. Oh that cutlass named Gwarpa Horb sword? +0.1 penetration but -0.1 speed! oh another cutlass named Lazor Gwaarp ? +0.1 speed but -0.1 penetration. It's all mundane, boring, like the rest of the game.

I disagree with that. I got my ass kicked repeatedly at the Gul endurance challenge in SSS so I decided to give my main melee guy the anti-vessel weapon and it make a big difference, groups that gave him a hard time melted away like it was nothing. Still had to use two resurrection scrolls and another of abjuration, but still, that weapon made a big difference.

 

[Grunker]

I suspect people who criticize this game’s itemization for lacking variety and impact don’t understand its systems at all. There’s a lot to criticize the game for but its wonderful itemization ain’t it. Except the scarcity of upgrade resources barring you from experimenting, that shit can go fuck itself

 

[Sannom]

The scarcity of upgrade resources also doesn't make sense considering that even with how flushed with cash you get, spending on upgrades can still ruin you.

They would need to completely separate upgrading resources from simple crafting resources though, because if the later is also unlimited, that could cause problems. Especially for fights against vessels at high level.

 

[aweigh]

So I finally decided to resume my original playthrough of Deadfire (ended up restarting it but I'm already back to where I was originally), and I got frustrated with the constant stutters you get when moving the camera around big areas (Neketaka, Deadlight, etc), googled for possible solutions and actually found one that is helping me out:

Run your Deadfire game in Vulkan using the DXVK wrapper. This lowers the CPU overhead and thus reduces camera-movement stuttering in big areas (presumably). I loaded my game and thoroughly tested Neketaka areas and Deadlight just to make sure it wasn't placebo and there is a definite and concrete improvement in the reduction of camera-movement stutters.

Usage/install: download the tar gz file and unzip the dll files inside the x64 sub-folder into your Deadfire folder, placing them in the same place where the game .exe is found, then simply launch the game. To confirm you're running in Vulkan use MSI Afterburner's RTSS and have it show that information.

DXVK: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/2149848024140726141/

Repository/direct download link: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

This isn't magic, some games work well with the wrapper and some don't, and you will get LESS overall GPU performance, but if everything goes smoothly (like it seems to be doing with Deadfire) the advantage is that you get less CPU overhead which potentially eliminates CPU-related stutters (i.e. the vast majority of them in most games, including Deadfire).

Game will still stutter, this won't fix that, but it seems to be helping a bit. I do not believe there is any way to run Deadfire (and to a lesser extent PoE1) without stutter when panning the camera around large maps. The games/engine are irrevocably fucked.

 

[coldcrow]

More effective is specialK. https://steamcommunity.com/app/560130/discussions/0/2572002906843374108/
As I understand the reason for the stutters is the horrible implementation of multithreading. Limit cores to 3 or so, and get a FPS increase of +30-80. It still has a stutter every 10-20 secs or so, but is way more responsive.
Use the newest specialK build, not the one linked there.

 

[aweigh]

More effective is specialK. https://steamcommunity.com/app/560130/discussions/0/2572002906843374108/
As I understand the reason for the stutters is the horrible implementation of multithreading. Limit cores to 3 or so, and get a FPS increase of +30-80. It still has a stutter every 10-20 secs or so, but is way more responsive.
Use the newest specialK build, not the one linked there.

I tried it out, didn't notice much help with the camera hitching when panning the camera around large NPC-dense/script-heavy areas. I'm on a 6-core i5 8400, and from what I understand 4-cores and 6-cores won't benefit much from K's thread spoofing tweak. I'm still running it regardless, no reason not to, and I did get some use out of it by using K's program to force real fullscreen (regular PoE games don't do real fullscreen, only borderless).

 

[gurugeorge]

More effective is specialK. https://steamcommunity.com/app/560130/discussions/0/2572002906843374108/
As I understand the reason for the stutters is the horrible implementation of multithreading. Limit cores to 3 or so, and get a FPS increase of +30-80. It still has a stutter every 10-20 secs or so, but is way more responsive.
Use the newest specialK build, not the one linked there.

Idly noticing both the recommendation for DXVK above and this, I tried both with the games I'm currently playing (both the Owlcat Pathfinder games). DVXK was a wash on WOTR (couldn't tell any difference really), and a downgrade for PF:K. And then I just tried the Special K one on PF:K, thinking it wouldn't make any difference (after all it's supposed to be for people with super-duper multicore systems, and I've only got an old shitty quad core thing). Lo and behold, it was smooth as butter, my system wasn't whining as it normally does with that game. Woohoo! I thought, we're in business!

And then it crashed on inventory

Bloody computers.

 

[Iskramor]

So I finally decided to resume my original playthrough of Deadfire (ended up restarting it but I'm already back to where I was originally), and I got frustrated with the constant stutters you get when moving the camera around big areas (Neketaka, Deadlight, etc), googled for possible solutions and actually found one that is helping me out:

Run your Deadfire game in Vulkan using the DXVK wrapper. This lowers the CPU overhead and thus reduces camera-movement stuttering in big areas (presumably). I loaded my game and thoroughly tested Neketaka areas and Deadlight just to make sure it wasn't placebo and there is a definite and concrete improvement in the reduction of camera-movement stutters.

Usage/install: download the tar gz file and unzip the dll files inside the x64 sub-folder into your Deadfire folder, placing them in the same place where the game .exe is found, then simply launch the game. To confirm you're running in Vulkan use MSI Afterburner's RTSS and have it show that information.

DXVK: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/2149848024140726141/

Repository/direct download link: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

This isn't magic, some games work well with the wrapper and some don't, and you will get LESS overall GPU performance, but if everything goes smoothly (like it seems to be doing with Deadfire) the advantage is that you get less CPU overhead which potentially eliminates CPU-related stutters (i.e. the vast majority of them in most games, including Deadfire).

Game will still stutter, this won't fix that, but it seems to be helping a bit. I do not believe there is any way to run Deadfire (and to a lesser extent PoE1) without stutter when panning the camera around large maps. The games/engine are irrevocably fucked.

Game is struttering because unity engine version deadfire shipped with have problem with cpu cores scheduling.To reduce strutters on windows you must have windows version 1903 or newer ENABLED page file and you must override games AA setting in yours GPU drivers.

 

[Nikanuur]

I wonder, if the Threadracer app could also help.

 

[cretin]

Ive picked up and dropped PoE 1 and 2 several times over the years.

I can't do POE1 - it's interminably boring. I can't even put my finger exactly on whats wrong, at first glance it has all components for a good RPG, and the patches and dlcs improved the systems considerably, but the setting and atmosphere that is attempting to be grim just feels like being at a funeral parlor.

POE2 on the other hand, did Sawyer get some dick pills or something? Spirited game. Amazing art, arguably the best looking RPG ever IMO. The setting is interesting but let down by Sawyers California shitlib sensibilities. I had dropped POE2 before because the systems were confusing to me and I didn't understand (nor even tried to understand) what the fuck was going on half the time. More recently I picked it up again and took a little time to get to know the systems first and I'm having a lot of fun character building.

 

[cretin]

One major - and I think undebatable - decline from the first game is the companions. They're all fucking shit in POE2. They're all either babbling morons, faggots or quip machines. That they turned Eder into a quipster and NO NOT THE HECKIN DOGGOS! guy is almost unforgivable. Serafen is okay except he reminds me of like an early reddit or facepunch fag who thinks adding a bunch of adjectives to "fuck" or "shit" is super cool. It seems like a crime that the only tolerable companion I can have is a bird nigger.

Durance was a bro and everyone loved him. Grieving mother was interesting. What the fuck is going on in this one? Track down eder's friend with benefits? Help aloth find a dildo that will fit his stretched out clown pocket? Xoti comes across as literally brain damaged.

 

[NJClaw]

Durance was a bro and everyone loved him. Grieving mother was interesting. What the fuck is going on in this one? Track down eder's friend with benefits? Help aloth find a dildo that will fit his stretched out clown pocket? Xoti comes across as literally brain damaged.

The absence of renowned rapist and misogynist Cristopher Avellone, that's what's going on.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Durance was a bro and everyone loved him. Grieving mother was interesting. What the fuck is going on in this one? Track down eder's friend with benefits? Help aloth find a dildo that will fit his stretched out clown pocket? Xoti comes across as literally brain damaged.

The absence of renowned rapist and misogynist Cristopher Avellone, that's what's going on.

Dude the guy's half Italian at least, you would probably face a lawsuit on that basis alone.

 

[Lacrymas]

Isn't he half-Sicilian and Sicilians hate being called Italians? ;d NJClaw

 

[NJClaw]

Isn't he half-Sicilian and Sicilians hate being called Italians? ;d NJClaw

The exact origin is irrelevant, everyone hates being called Italian.

 

[cretin]

There's kind of a brilliant subversion soyer did in having the Vailians be nigger-italians instead of the white Portuguese and Dutch empires they are obviously inspired by.

By having them be niggers, soyer allows himself to be able to create scenarios where the player can sympathize with the Vailians without being a Heckin Racist, which is verboten, and he also avoids a predictably trite treatment if he were to have them be white and unavoidably evil and repugnant. You might recoil at this suggestion at first, but just think about the situations in the game where you can go "yeah, wait a minute, these tribals are a bunch of savages and their culture is retarded and terrible, they WOULD be better off under the Vailians!". If the Vailians were depicted as white, and this situation was allowed to take place in the game, you can imagine the response. On second thought, articles like "Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a dogwhistle for colonialism" would've made Josh very based albeit at the cost of his career. Missed an opportunity there Sawyer!

 

[gurugeorge]

but just think about the situations in the game where you can go "yeah, wait a minute, these tribals are a bunch of savages and their culture is retarded and terrible, they WOULD be better off under the Vailians!". If the Vailians were depicted as white, and this situation was allowed to take place in the game, you can imagine the response.

Bingo.

 

[Quillon]

but sawya still expected the majority to pick huana over colonial factions

 

[Yosharian]

but sawya still expected the majority to pick huana over colonial factions

Do you have a timestamp for this? interested in hearing what he said but not too interested in listening to the whole talk

 

[Quillon]

but sawya still expected the majority to pick huana over colonial factions

Do you have a timestamp for this? interested in hearing what he said but not too interested in listening to the whole talk

twas 8 months ago I don't recall

 

[ERYFKRAD]

but sawya still expected the majority to pick huana over colonial factions

Do you have a timestamp for this? interested in hearing what he said but not too interested in listening to the whole talk

twas 8 months ago I don't recall

Boy that's a huge ass timestamp

 

[Yosharian]

but sawya still expected the majority to pick huana over colonial factions

Do you have a timestamp for this? interested in hearing what he said but not too interested in listening to the whole talk

Haplo timestamp for the discussion 17:00 roughly

Sawyer does indeed express surprise that so many players chose to 'civilise' the Huana.

To be fair to him it seems that he is mostly concerned over the moral justifications that people express for their choice of faction, rather than their actual choice

Still, he does come across as rather politically naive