Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[MajorMace]

You're in what we, here, call the deadfire midgame fallaciously satisfying experience.
It all crumbles down in the latter third of the game. And unlike the first one, we fall from p.high here, so it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

 

[FreeKaner]

Man I am loving the vibes of the gullet, especially the undercity and the narrows. It feels like SR:HK but in a very different and more compelling aesthetic, especially how the pirates are nestled here.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Man I am loving the vibes of the gullet, especially the undercity and the narrows. It feels like SR:HK but in a very different and more compelling aesthetic, especially how the pirates are nestled here.

gonna kill all those roparu next time I get there

 

[2house2fly]

Not just that, but them being so completely ineffectual and passive also renders the entire "philosophical conflict" as to whether or not they're needed absolutely moot.

There is no philosophical conflict, they're not needed

 

[Lacrymas]

In the context of PoE's world and what was shown to us, not only are they not needed, they are also the reason for literally every major conflict, either directly or somehow related to them. Even Eothas, the supposed god of light and redemption, has only caused misery and death. Their involvement in PoE2's story also cements the idea they are useless and only peacock around.

 

[2house2fly]

I'm annoyed that they retconned Eothas's invasion of the Dyrwood to be his first attempt to pull down the gods. I liked it a lot more when it was a doomed attempt to stop the Hollowborn

 

[Lacrymas]

Pretty terrible use of the IP tbh, in both games.

 

[Sizzle]

Not just that, but them being so completely ineffectual and passive also renders the entire "philosophical conflict" as to whether or not they're needed absolutely moot.

There is no philosophical conflict, they're not needed

Exactly. But the way it was presented in both games, their existence and role are touted as some grand moral dilemma, when all they are is a bunch of useless, petulant gits that make the Greek pantheon come off as mature in comparison.

 

[frajaq]

Why was a god like Rymrgand even created

 

[Lacrymas]

Eh, he's the only possible release from the cycle, I'd say he's the only one making living in PoE's world not an existential torture that lasts forever.

 

[Parabalus]

Not just that, but them being so completely ineffectual and passive also renders the entire "philosophical conflict" as to whether or not they're needed absolutely moot.

There is no philosophical conflict, they're not needed

Exactly. But the way it was presented in both games, their existence and role are touted as some grand moral dilemma, when all they are is a bunch of useless, petulant gits that make the Greek pantheon come off as mature in comparison.

I thought they were petulant gits by design since they're just a bunch of Engwithans - that part made sense to me, them being bitchy and incompetent.

 

[2house2fly]

Not just that, but them being so completely ineffectual and passive also renders the entire "philosophical conflict" as to whether or not they're needed absolutely moot.

There is no philosophical conflict, they're not needed

Exactly. But the way it was presented in both games, their existence and role are touted as some grand moral dilemma, when all they are is a bunch of useless, petulant gits that make the Greek pantheon come off as mature in comparison.

They're not touted as a dilemma at all

 

[Lacrymas]

I thought they were petulant gits by design since they're just a bunch of Engwithans - that part made sense to me, them being bitchy and incompetent.

It's not clear what exactly they are. Sure, they are amalgamations of souls, but that doesn't tell us anything of their psychology. Why is Ondra an angler fish with 2 sets of tits? Shouldn't Hylea have a bunch of tits? How can they inherit the individual and collective flaws of an entire civilization? There are a bunch of questions that will probably never be answered, but their depiction and role in the narrative is weak and impotent, and that's way more important than them.

 

[frajaq]

I thought that was just a flexibility of their godly nature by how they're perceived by different cultures and nations of the world, if she's seen as that weird angler fish fertility idol thing in the Deadfire Archipelago that's just how she's gonna appear I guess

 

[AwesomeButton]

Sawyer in charge of balancing, two weapons just attack too fast for no reason at all. There is absolutely no reason why they should attack twice as fast as one weapon, that's just silly.

Dual-wielding is gay anime shit that shouldn't even exist.

I guess it would make sense as a very high level ability that removes a big penalty which you had up to that moment. Kind of like they did it in the good old bad AD&D, forgive the blasphemy.

Yeah, and one sold in its first month about 1/5th of what the other one did.

Obsidian are starting to redeem themselves in my eyes a little bit. The game is decidedly not terrible and gets many things right. My biggest gripe up to now is the writing, but that can be ignored. I thought the limited spell selection would make for very repetitive tactics, but that's surprisingly not the case , it actually forces me to choose the most appropriate spells for a given encounter and the various defenses. The problem here is the amount of spells that are actually useful in general, but that was a problem in 1 as well. PEN is still bad and pointless design. Empower only really gives you the opportunity to defeat encounters many levels above you. If they continue tweaking the combat and encounters, adding more of them with the DLCs and stuff it might prove to be a game worth replaying. I guess it's too bad we probably won't see another isometric game from them.

You're in what we, here, call the deadfire midgame fallaciously satisfying experience.
It all crumbles down in the latter third of the game.

Like I said before, which caused fantadomat more frothing at the mouth, it's a pretty good game, which can become a classic with a good amount of patches and DLCs. And some community fixes of stupidity like the writing and VO.

 

[2house2fly]

I'm pretty disappointed in the gods in general. The visual design looks really cool, but they don't do anything but bicker and occasionally pay some lip service to whether you helped them in a quest. I'd like even an option to say "you're not real you're a bunch of tin cans!" and they respond "yes but we have all the power so do as we say". The first game actually had some good scenes with the gods- I especially liked Pallegina arguing with Hylea and the irony of the god of secrets manifesting to you directly to tell you to hide his sacred text. There's nothing really like that here

 

[FreeKaner]

I wish there was music like this in Deadfire:



So many musical opportunities but we are just stuck with Justin Dumbbell.

 

[Sizzle]

I thought they were petulant gits by design since they're just a bunch of Engwithans - that part made sense to me, them being bitchy and incompetent.

It's not clear what exactly they are. Sure, they are amalgamations of souls, but that doesn't tell us anything of their psychology. Why is Ondra an angler fish with 2 sets of tits? Shouldn't Hylea have a bunch of tits? How can they inherit the individual and collective flaws of an entire civilization? There are a bunch of questions that will probably never be answered, but their depiction and role in the narrative is weak and impotent, and that's way more important than them.

There was obviously some sort of discrepancy between what was originally planned and what ended up in the final version of the script. Let's take Woedica. A very cool concept for a god (Ziets rocks), but one that simply doesn't make a lick of sense because the gods know they are manufactured and that her being their former ruler that was cast down is untrue (Eothas acknowledges it at one point).

 

[Lacrymas]

So many musical opportunities but we are just stuck with Justin Dumbbell.

These are very modern appropriations of folklore, at the time PoE's world is supposed to take place in, such things don't exist. Obs might've taken literal folklore songs and rewritten them like they did with the shanties, but that's kinda cheap. Otherwise, yeah, that's obviously better than what the end result turned out to be.

 

[FreeKaner]

These are very modern appropriations of folklore, at the time PoE's world is supposed to take place in, such things don't exist. They might've taken literal folklore songs and rewritten them like they did with the shanties, but that's kinda cheap. Otherwise, yeah, that's obviously better than what the end result turned out to be.

I am aware this is a modern take on the folk songs of then, they exist here too. However so are a lot of sea shanties as well and not just in Deadfire, all sorts of vocal only music gets re-purposed and appropriated. These sort of lamentations can be appropriated to fit modern audience and setting.

So much of what's in fantasy and how they work is really taken in modern lenses anyhow, because it's really hard for people who are not used to anything but modern world to imagine pre-industrialisation world without extensive research. Average writer doesn't have any sort of idea how things worked back then beyond just "guilds", so you see modern state and city concepts just being directly translated into it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Has anyone noticed the abnormal tendency that many, nearly every, figure of power is a woman in Deadfire? Starting with the digsite expedition leader, going through the Aumaua village leader that's near Port Maje, the Aelys, the boss of the RDC in Neketaka...

It's actually pretty amusing because there is nothing in the writing that would give out that they are women, if we didn't learn it from the VO and from the pronouns used in the descriptive text. Even the watercolor portraits are not very helpful.

Such an effort of puffing and pushing, to fill the quota you know, to have more womyn represented, and the end result is merely a fart.

Speaking of the watercolor portraits, most of them are so basic, unmemorable, or simply lacking detail, that they are completley forgettable. They might as well not have made them at all. Do you remember a single character's watercolor portrait? I remember only one - the bartender of the Port Maje tavern, and that's it.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

2house2fly I am not certain but I think he helps in the late game CYOA with the sea monster.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Has anyone noticed the abnormal tendency that many, nearly every, figure of power is a woman in Deadfire? Starting with the digsite expedition leader

Who responds to the male mayor of Port Maje.

the Aelys

2nd in command behind Furrante.

the boss of the RDC in Neketaka...

Who seems like a figurehead while the man in the basement actually runs things.

That's 3 of 4 examples that are wrong. And then Vallians are run by a man, Crockspur is run by a man, the Gullet is run by a man, do I go on?


You're seeing things that aren't there.

 

[Parabalus]

Has anyone noticed the abnormal tendency that many, nearly every, figure of power is a woman in Deadfire? Starting with the digsite expedition leader, going through the Aumaua village leader that's near Port Maje, the Aelys, the boss of the RDC in Neketaka...

I'd say the portrayals do no favour to women though, every woman leader is revealed to be a figurehead (if not outright incompetent) and propped up by a male.

 

[FreeKaner]

The only legitimate competent woman in position of power are the queen and that Vailian head of the family in the feud.