AncientToaster

I quit playing in Act 3. The combat was getting tiring, the story wasn't captivating me anymore, and I just lost the desire to finish entirely. I just disliked way more things about this game than I actually liked. Personally, this game is one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory.

3/5 Combat makes me never want to play it again though

I've gone back and read some of this review again and despite my initial reaction that it was just a huge rant, there are quite a few things I agree with. His problems with engagement and the combat system itself are spot on for me. I also agree with him that in the 50+ hours I've played, I have not really encountered any unique, interesting combat situations that really stand out. This game truly does throw mobs of "trash" enemies at you for dozens of hours and you repeat the same basic tactics over and over again.

Gotta agree with Matt516 here, this review just seems like a rant and a troll. I'm been vocal about my dislikes with this game, but it's not nearly Obsidian's worst of all time. Did this guy play Dungeon Siege 3 at all?

Well, you could make your own customized party through the adventurers in taverns. That aside, people are dramatizing the consequences of having your backline characters attacked. I had a wizard for main char, never used more than light armor ("Rundels Finery") and had almost no defensive spells (he had some stuff like confusion, blinding and such, though) and while he was attacked several times and got knocked out a few, he could certainly survive multiple hits - I never had chars go down in one hit (with the exception of some nasty traps and a certain fight on the lowest level of the Pat

Because it's a new world, new serries, new engine. No Forgotten Realms, no D&D to draw upon. Baldur's Gate 2 didn't just magically spawn out of thin air. It was based on the foundation that was BG1. It even contained some of the characters. And the budget is closer to BG1 than BG2. Also, Pillars of Eternity contains much wilderness travel, which is common in BG1 but not BG2. ---------------- I like Pillars of Eternity very much. It has some downsides, like story being told in a somewhat confusing way, but there is much to love. Combat is actually fun compared to BG1. Priest is not

Maybe It's just me, but all this talk of making the enemies break engagement and go for squishies just creates a chaotic battlefield where all you're doing is trying to break engagement and run away. "So build your Mages tankier" No...that's why he's a Mage and not a Fighter. "You have plenty of ways to break engagement" Yes, initially I do, but you're forgetting something. There are a lot of battles in this game in some areas, and early on your Wizard only has so many spells to cast before rest. If I'm suddenly forced to play "break engagement" for half the fight with Slicken and Dazzling lig

I don't agree. If you had said "anything below 80 Deflection is crap for tanking," then I'd agree. But the difference between 20 and 50 can be huge when it comes to turning crits into hits and hits into grazes. A little defense is the difference between a disengagement attack knocking your squishy out cold, or having them stay conscious with low health after disengaging. This is why a weapon switch to hatchet and large shield is so important, giving +21 to +33 to Deflection against disengagement before attempting it. I'm not a big fan of outfitting my entire crew with Hatchets and Shield

At first I wasn't sure what your point was then I dawned on me...yes I could see that becoming the next whine on the forums if this change was made. Suddenly people's Meat shields are pointless and chasing enemies around like dogs chasing cats.

You can certainly build Mages not quite a squishy but then that brings up another problem. Damage reduction only does so much for a character with low Endurance, and you can't stack deflection to absurd levels on all 6 characters, there just isn't really enough gear to make that viable. Currently, anything below 80 deflection is "low" and doesn't really do a lot of good, it's also the same for the rest of the defenses. You need to stack them to absurdly high levels for them to really make a difference.

If your mage or other squishy is in danger of getting engaged, wouldn't you then actively move him away, or lay down slicken, or some hold spell then? Or you might just give him better armor, or have another character guard him? There's probably some nuance I'm not getting, but I don't quite see why this means that the system is fundamentally broken. You can but you know as well as I do that your character gets vacuumed into enemies quickly, and enemies move very fast in this game. But it would only be worse without engagement. Without engagement, a proper AI would hunt do

I think a Fighter would work. Not all tribesman are Barbarian's. I think if you made sure they were all wearing Hide Armor that would work out. Fighter - Club or Axe w/ Shield Barbarian - Two Hander like a Pike or something Barbarian - Dual wield axes or Clubs Ranger - Bear Druid - Bear Form Druid - Stag

That actually sounds pretty cool to be honest.

They did stealth add some AI to this 1.04 patch, for better or worse. It still doesn't really fix the main problem: Enagement. If you're not a tank, Engagement is like basically death. Now that the enemies don't huddle around Eder anymore, it's just more of a pause fest so I can get my Cipher or Mage out of trouble. The system to me is just not intuitive.

There is a problem with your idea: Engagement itself. Once any enemy gets a mage or squishy character into Engagement they are basically screwed. A mage eating disengagement is usually death or close to it, which results in chaotic battles which results in lots of resting to be done, and we only have 4 camping supplies per area (2 on hard?) The whole system would need to change if the enemy AI actually used real tactics and attacked our back row. It would be utter chaos. The entire problem with this battle system is engagement, it's a hot debate right now. Personally I dislike it great

Arguments could be made for 3.5 and Temple of elemental evil. DnD 5th Edition seems pretty good from my limited tabletop experience with it. It's pretty well received among the Tabletop faithful anyway, I had a great time on the starter campaign.

That would be fine, at least not make it work, but just to a lesser extent. Seems that Dominate attacks are so prevalent in Act 3 so far it's maddening (no pun intended)

Well I guess my party is going to have a rough go in late game if Domination attacks are the norm, because Durance has the second highest with 74. Is it true that Graze's still Confuse/Dominate/Charm but for lesser duration? That is still flat out stupid if so.

How did you get 89 base will?

As it is now, I think defenses are pretty much meaningless. I know for a fact that deflection really did Eder no good until I got it past 80. It seems like everything needs to be very high for it to make any bit of difference, and that just isn't feasible for a build unless you want to take trash talents like Fortitude +10?

So just like Deflection I have to stack my defense to 90+ for them to make a difference?

Here's a screen of Eder's defenses and bonuses. 67 isn't super high and I don't even think that takes Mental Fortress into account, but it would be 77 against those attacks. Is that still too low? I'm guessing that you need 90+ for it to make a difference, kind of like deflection. If so I know that talent is pretty much garbage then.

Act 2 is a cakewalk but Act 3 brings the sauce. Prepare to battle your own teammates with new and improved Dominated party members!

Oh wait, no I'm not. I still get charmed/dominated every time without fail. Is it me or does this game become annoying with the spell casters in Act 3? Almost all fights now with an enemy spell caster turn into AoE = Your whole party is dominated, proceed to panic and quick load. To rectify this, I gave Eder Mental Fortress which supposedly gives him some sort of extra defense against this attack, but it hasn't helped once. The fact that I cannot pre-buff in battle makes me pretty frustrated, more often than not the enemy is gonna lay down it's confusion spell or something before I ca

Was there another way to do this quest without slaughtering every Pale elf in the entire temple? I persuaded the main wizard to let the Orlan go, but I didn't see much reason in leaving them be since I had to kill just about everything to get to this wizard, and he seemed to be up to no good. So I did just that, killed him and his friends, now the Altar, you can interact with it but what can you do? It says there's a hole in it, in another room I found a unique Quarterstaff so I thought maybe that went there, but nope... So is that the quest, you free the Orlan, and either let he Pa