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

[Haplo]

You mean before all enemies eliminated. Because I don't see any reason why my party should not rest in place which was purged from all enemies on all floors.

Urgency? Of course, that's sadly rarely an issue in crpgs.

 

[Haplo]

On another note, I am playing with a paladin and a fighter in the party, and the combat tactics amount to:
Paladin:
1. Pick who to mark as a marked enemy.
2. Spam flames of devotion on him until he dies.
2.1 If he is low on health before the last strike, hit him with a normal attack so as to not waste a flames of devotion use.
2.2 If you run out of Power Source Points (why did Josh bother to think up names for the source points for every class is beyond me), use Empower on yourself to replenish them.
3. Repeat for the next active enemy.

Fighter:
1. Use charge on the nearest enemy
2. Keep him pinned down until one of the damage dealers can get on the other side, providing Flanked affliction
3. If a group of enemy gangs up on you, use Clean Sweep
4. Use Mule Kick/Knockdown to prevent casting an ability, or just for the heck of it.

I am mindlessly spamming the same active abilities each and every fight. How is this tactical? I'd much rather have these two classes with no active abilities, or 2-3 uses per rest of any combination of those abilities. It's currently a mindless chore of clicking the same buttons over and over again.

Well, if there are 10 enemies on screen, you can hardly ability spam them all, can you? Not without serious aoe anyway.

Plus ability spam for many classes only becomes an issue at late levels, when the resources become more abundant and some classes get abilities to recover those resources. It's also quite unbalanced that some classes get cool full attacks for 1 resource (Rogue, Paladin, Ranger), while other only get more expensive ones (Barbarian, Fighter). Monk is pretty special as he has two resource pools and can spam some skills, while conserving others... at least before reaching higher levels.
Of course, Rogues and Paladins can start spamming almost from the get-go.

Empower is pretty evil, though. It really creates much more issues then it solves.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Well, if there are 10 enemies on screen, you can hardly ability spam them all, can you? Not without serious aoe anyway.

How does this pertain to the issue I'm discussing? In the very post you've quoted it says:

3. Repeat for the next active enemy.

Plus ability spam for many classes only becomes an issue at late levels, when the resources become more abundant and some classes get abilities to recover those resources. It's also quite unbalanced that some classes get cool full attacks for 1 resource (Rogue, Paladin, Ranger), while other only get more expensive ones (Barbarian, Fighter).

That's quite true. I already have an idea of how to solve the spam, but it will need some testing before I show it and discuss it, and for testing, I will need time which I'm currently lacking...

Empower is pretty evil, though. It really creates much more issues then it solves.

The only use I've ever made of Empower has been in longer combats where I just replenish my spam pool

 

[Payd Shell]

It was just harder because in the beginning your wizard could get 1-shot because he only had 1d4 hit points and 2 spells.

My main conclusion from playing through the IE games is that the major part of the excitement of combat is to cheer when your character scores a hit or is missed by an attack, and to gasp when he is hit or himself misses an attack.

Having a quick succession of such events play out between a big number of characters, 6 of which are "yours", is much more fun and exciting, and much more evocative of the emotional rollercoaster of watching fantasy/adventure combat, than the routine of "Pause... fidget through halo UI... select an ability... click on target... unpause..."

The former (IE-like) kind of combat gameplay is also much better suited to realtime with pause, than anything that a theorist can come up with by going down the road of "We'll give them these resources, and then these abilities which cost them points, and these lock-into-combat mechanics, and it will be much more tactical".

This is my explanation at least, about why the IE games can have such "fun" combat, without much complexity, or with fake complexity. The complexity is always real until you learn the rules of the game and always "fake" once you have learned them.

The constant need to pause combat in PoE/Deadfire is actually detrimental to that IE experience, the rollercoaster. It breaks the flow of emotion. It's like watching a horse race with pause, where we can stop time and analyse why Ocean Breeze is losing the lead.

If you want to read all of the above as "IE games were only fun because they were popamole" or "He finds the IE games fun because they were popamole", be my guest.

But think of this - in all these years, how many people have you seen who say "I liked Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but if only combat was more complex, and tactical, and if they had addressed that horrible rest mechanic abuse"? And then how many people have you seen who say "I tried playing those games for a bit, but I kept getting killed, they are too complex for me." What if PoE's biggest folly was that it didn't replicate the IE games' gameplay enough, and instead tried to be too "smart" for its own good, which under close inspection wasn't even that smart to begin with?

I think that mindset got popularized by MMORPGs where every class has roughly the same amount of buttons to press. Which makes sense in that context because you don't want that a player feels punished for picking a wrong class but doesn't make sense in a cRPG because you don't control a single character but are rather coordinating an entire party. Unless it's turn based, of course.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's not just amount of points but the nature of abilities. Every ability for fighters in Deadfire is better than regular attack due to in-built damage, pen or acc bonus. Even if you don't want to hobble the enemy you still use crippling strike because it has this bonus. Even if it only has accuracy bonus to not make you waste points you would still use it because you get primary attack with accuracy bonus, and accuracy is godly. Things like mobility abilities, invisibility and backstab work more or less tactically as you expect them to.

 

[Haplo]

Well, if there are 10 enemies on screen, you can hardly ability spam them all, can you? Not without serious aoe anyway.

How does this pertain to the issue I'm discussing? In the very post you've quoted it says:

3. Repeat for the next active enemy.

I mean that if there are numerous enemies and if they can't be brought down almost instantly, under resource limitations, decisions need to be made. Do I Mule Kick and Interrupt for 2 points right now or conserve those 2 points for extra 40 seconds of Disciplined Barrage, which might help more over the course of the fight? Clear Out is pretty awesome... but it is also not cheap and Fighter can't really afford to spam a lot.

 

[Haplo]

It's not just amount of points but the nature of abilities. Every ability for fighters in Deadfire is better than regular attack due to in-built damage, pen or acc bonus. Even if you don't want to hobble the enemy you still use crippling strike because it has this bonus. Even if it only has accuracy bonus to not make you waste points you would still use it because you get primary attack with accuracy bonus, and accuracy is godly. Things like mobility abilities, invisibility and backstab work more or less tactically as you expect them to.

Well Backstab after the nerf is... pretty weak, honestly. Considering you waste resources and action time stealthing, I would expect the payoff to be much more pronounced.

 

[The Avatar]

It's not just amount of points but the nature of abilities. Every ability for fighters in Deadfire is better than regular attack due to in-built damage, pen or acc bonus.

Of course they're better than a regular attack- they're supposed to be. If they didn't give bonuses, those abilities wouldn't be that great. I think the real issue is that abilities are too spammable(at mid to high level) and the status effects aren't good enough(low duration especially). They should have limited the abilities more and made them better, maybe by increasing duration. In IE games, you had spells last the entire combat.

 

[Shadenuat]

If they didn't give bonuses, those abilities wouldn't be that great.

That's exactly the key to why there are poorly designed. Because who the hell would expend power source to just put some crap like hobble on enemy?

Well Backstab after the nerf is... pretty weak, honestly. Considering you waste resources and action time stealthing, I would expect the payoff to be much more pronounced.

Well a) we're talking about system where some enemies have 700+ hp and b) I played assassin, and generally speaking using x2 other ability instead of smoke bomb + ability provided very similar effect.

You want assassin one-shot enemies or something?

That's not balanced friend.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's not just amount of points but the nature of abilities. Every ability for fighters in Deadfire is better than regular attack due to in-built damage, pen or acc bonus. Even if you don't want to hobble the enemy you still use crippling strike because it has this bonus. Even if it only has accuracy bonus to not make you waste points you would still use it because you get primary attack with accuracy bonus, and accuracy is godly. Things like mobility abilities, invisibility and backstab work more or less tactically as you expect them to.

Speaking of which, I like how Charge has no downside - it teleports you to the enemy and also stuns him.

 

[Shadenuat]

It also did ton of damage to everyone before nerf.

Personally I hate all the teleports for all the classes though. They make whole battlefield completely chaotic and retarded. Positioning ends up literally nonexistent in the end, as everyone has some sort of teleport + there are items that give teleports. Sorta like Divinity lol.

 

[Parabalus]

Personally I hate all the teleports for all the classes though. They make whole battlefield completely chaotic and retarded. Positioning ends up literally nonexistent in the end, as everyone has some sort of teleport + there are items that give teleports.

Wasn't it the same in IE games, where boots of speed + haste + improved haste made you basically blink?

 

[Lacrymas]

Haste and Boots of Speed were a mistake.

 

[Shadenuat]

Wasn't it the same in IE games, where boots of speed + haste + improved haste made you basically blink?

Do you post just to increase your parrots counter or smh?

Haste and Boots of Speed were a mistake.

Haste was more of the problem of AI and enemy compositions being bad at countering it. SCS use Slow spell a lot more frequently I believe.

 

[frajaq]

Haste and Boots of Speed were a mistake.

Haste made the BG games bearable

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Do you post just to increase your parrots counter or smh?

How dare you.

 

[Parabalus]

Wasn't it the same in IE games, where boots of speed + haste + improved haste made you basically blink?

Do you post just to increase your parrots counter or smh?

Haste and Boots of Speed were a mistake.

Haste was more of the problem of AI and enemy compositions being bad at countering it. SCS use Slow spell a lot more frequently I believe.

Nah, I just find the teleports in PoE kinda cooler than the warp 10 speed.

On a rogue, using Shadowing beyond to teleport behind someone is cooler than invising and moving really really fast behind them, and less annoying to click.

You can't really use Slow vs haste, since you can just move out of the area, with all or except just 1 party member.
I'm actually not sure if haste/slow can be target casted and if they stick (area moves with) to the target, a la the Dispel Magic orb.

The only one spamming slow are the golems, who else did you have in mind?

 

[Shadenuat]

On a rogue, using Shadowing beyond to teleport behind someone is cooler than invising and moving really really fast behind them, and less annoying to click.

 

[Haplo]

Well Backstab after the nerf is... pretty weak, honestly. Considering you waste resources and action time stealthing, I would expect the payoff to be much more pronounced.

Well a) we're talking about system where some enemies have 700+ hp and b) I played assassin, and generally speaking using x2 other ability instead of smoke bomb + ability provided very similar effect.

You want assassin one-shot enemies or something?

That's not balanced friend.

Well maybe my mistake is comparing with Streetfighter. While Heating Up a single Crippling Strike Full Attack was doing significantly more damage then a Primary Backstab. Much faster and cheaper too.

 

[santino27]

Yay community engagement?

 

[Lacrymas]

And the winner will be a sword or sabre. What's up with this modern democratic development.

 

[frajaq]

I vote for a Warhammer except its two-handed

 

[TT1]

Yay community engagement?

Well, this is interesting...

 

[fantadomat]

Can't wait to see the new sword in Deadfire. Hope they patch it fast and reduce all the traits/bonuses by half. We can't have fun game breaking weapons after all.

 

[entr0py]

I'm shocked noone mentioned that the Vaporous Grimoire became a true unique item (gold background), well done 'Dex item creators
On a sidenote that grimoire was hands down the best in the game cause it gives 50% more resources for casters, which is ridiculous, rest of the grimoires are all shit compared to that.

I have just recently finished the game with all quests done, clocking in at 144 hours. The setting was interesting, the factions were a good idea but haven't been implemented/explored correctly, would need a lot more interaction between them, would have been a lot of room for player C&C, huge missed opportunity.

Main story was okayish, i was interested in what Eothas wants to do and why, all the other gods being completely incompetent cucks made it an easy choice to get rid of them forever (Berath though looks bae)

Companions were shallow, noone even close to Durance/GM, its a shame.
I had to ditch Pallegina because she was such a fucking crybaby I couldn't stand it - shame again, she was pretty level-headed in first PoE.
My Tekehu was a druid/chanter multi - he couldnt even do one of the 2 things that make those classes really cool: summoning... Early game at least he was good for foe-only chill fog, later for just DoT heal
I really liked Maia's character, cool concept, fitting the setting as well, but couldn't use her much because i was siding with the VTC (she even left the party by endgame)
Aloth was mandatory as the only pure caster - he usually casted hex at the start of combat and was used more for cc than damage generally
Serafen - cool concept and character but as a non-native speaker of English (even though I speak English since I was 6 years old and I live in the US for 3 years now) I sometimes had a VERY hard time understanding what the heck he just said. Also ciphers are unfortunately shit this time around (when I started my first playthrough I was a cipher/devoted, had to ditch pretty quickly)
Xoti - I don't know why all the hate towards her, she is an interesting character, though her accent is a bit cringy I agree. She is portrayed as a young and somewhat immature girl (fanatic), so this obviously comes with some cringeworthy moments. Also she is the only true priest, so had to have her in the party - they give soooooo much buff its incredible
When I had to get rid of Pallegina to save myself from smashing my monitor I subbed in good old Eder as a fighter/rogue. Well, he wrecked shit like noone else in the party except of course my main character. I was a bit worried because that meant I don't have a dedicated tank on PotD, but it was easily manageable

My MC was helwalker monk/devoted, based on PoE 1 I chose stiletto as her devoted weapon.... lol, speaking of trap builds... So she used her fists throughout the whole game which was better than anything else anyway with like 18 penetration in every fight. She killed everything really quickly and efficiently, was a fucking terminator

The game could really use some high level content though, everything was piss-easy on PotD, which is a shame, otherwise I absolutely enjoyed the game, but this has reduced the fun-factor so much that I'm not motivated for a replay until they fix this shit. If they would have ditched the God-related part of the game and just focus more on factions and C&C this would play like a really amazing expansion for a great game (would feel like MotB/SoZ/NW). In its current form its a monument for missed opportunities.