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cdd

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    [Request] Loyal companions

    in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire: Modding (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    In Deadfire some companions will leave the party at certain decision points in the game, most notably when choosing a faction. Is there any way to prevent this behavior with a mod? Meaning: no matter which decisions the player makes throughout the game, all companions will always stay with the party and never leave. 

    I checked the Nexus and skimmed through all 31 pages of this subforum, but didn't find a mod like this. Could this be achieved by changing or disabling certain (conversation-) triggers in the game scripting?

    Thanks!

    Why is everything in this game so bland?

    in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

    Twin Elms felt kind of rushed, and i got the impression Obsidian didn't really know what to do with the Glanfathan setting so they just slapped a bunch of extremely generic quests on it and called it a day. The initial interactions with the gods in Teir Evron was well done, though. While Act 3 falls a bit flat, Act 2 is amazing! I have always been a sucker for big citys serving as expansive quest hubs in crpgs and Defiance Bay delivers on so many levels.

     

    Overall i enjoyed the game a lot, it doesn't quite reach the genius of the very best IE titles (P:T, BG2), but it is the best crpg of the last decade or so and if Obsidian chooses to go with Kickstarter again for their next project, i will definitely become a backer.

    • Like 1

    Confused by damage. My hits generally 4-10, people report 40+

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    ok, i just did some math: with my current 21 might my exeptional enchanted Lead Spitter does 10-14 damage per projectile, so 12 average and has -7 DR baseline. noteworthy passive/modal (always on) modifiers that are soul whip (x1.2), biting whip (x1.2), <any> Lash (x1.25) and Penetrating Shot (-5 DR).

     

    This means that one (6 hit) Lead Spitter shot causes 6 projectiles a 12*1.2*1.2*1.25 = 21,6 which the game rounds up to 22 each --> 6*22 = 132 damage. Against a 15 DR target the damage would still be 132-6*(15-12) = 114. In these DR ranges no other gun can compete.

     

    So unless you are playing on potd difficulty where DRs are generally higher, i'd wager Lead Spitter (with Penetrating Shot!) will be the best weapon in 95% or more of all fights you come across

    Confused by damage. My hits generally 4-10, people report 40+

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    my level 10 cipher hits for about 120 per shot (6x20) with Lead Spitter (21 Might, Soul Whip, Biting Whip, Penetrating Shot) on targets with 12 DR or less (because of 12 DR reduce), assuming all 6 projectiles are hits with no misses, grazes or crits.

     

    Dulcanale and Pliambo per Casitàs also hit fairly hard, but Lead Spitter is through the roof as long as the target doesn't have super high DR.

    Best ranged weapon for PotD post 1.03?

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    Pliambo per Casitàs does 35-52 base damage, Hold-Wall does 29-42. On average that is 43 damage for the rifle, 36 for the arbaleste. So yeah, the rifle does 7 more damage per attack, but also has very slow attack speed instead of slow. Though I don't know what the exact difference between the two ist. Now the gun also has built-in DR bypassing of 6, but also -5 accuracy (which means less crits, less hits, less grazes, more misses). The impact of -5 accuracy on damage is rather hard to gauge, and the +6 flat damage isn't as much as one might think because the attack speed is so low.. what makes Hold Wall still good is the x1.2 attack speed. The rifle comes with +10 accuracy for an ally, which can be great if it works on another ranged DD, but which can also completely go to waste if noone else attacks the target or only your supporters/tanks.

     

    1. your math is wrong, the base damage difference is 8 not 7 (you rounded down for PpC and up for HW :p)

    2. ... that's only base damage, which will get heavily modified by Might and other modifiers like Soul Whip/Biting Whip (144%) and Sneak Attack, so the actual damage difference is much bigger than 8

    3. -6 DR is amazing and much better than 5 accuracy, obviously

    4. combat in this game favors slower, harder hitting weapons because of the flat DR effect; this is no exception

    5. PpC has additional beneficial effects like +10 acc for ally and -5 def, -5 fortitude, -5 reflex, -5 will

    6. firearms go through arcane veil, arbalest doesn't

     

    All of this assumes that Hold Wall has endgame enchants of course, in the vanilla state it cannot compete at all

    Best ranged weapon for PotD post 1.03?

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    Not sure if arbalestes are really only mediocre now. They still seem to be on par with pistols (slower rate of fire but higher damage, resulting in bigger burst damage while dealing the same DPS.. and burst is good to take out critical targets). Which arbaleste is better than Hold-Wall? Haven't found any that can keep up with the 1.2 speed mod, and I visited every area except the area with the vendor of the douche family of Defiance Bay (Dunamel or something like that..).

     

    Lead Splitter is a bunderbluss, right? So it's horrible imo. What it basically says is: Mod: The enemie's DR is multiplied by 6. Even if you take somethign like Penetrating Shot (which effect is also multiplied by 6), it's still horrible. Later on in the game, enemies have much more than just 12 DR, and every single point of DR above 12 is felt tenfold when using a blunderbluss. For the captain's weapon.. yeah, dunno. I guess it comes down to Prone vs. 5 more damage. Not more than that.

     

    But please correct me if I'm wrong :D (and tell me where to find an arbaleste that's better than Hold-Wall :o)

     

    Aedrin's Wrecker is better, don't know how to get it though, sorry. Also, Pliambo per Casitàs does way more than just 5 damage more than Hold Wall, plus it has 5 DR reduce :p It is way beyond Hold Wall in terms of raw damage potential.

    Lead Spitter with Penetrating Shot should be the highest average damage per shot up until ~15 DR targets, second and third will be Pliambo per Casitàs and Dulcanale (the latter obvously has higher potential crit damage because of the Destructive modifier)

    Best ranged weapon for PotD post 1.03?

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    As far as damage is concerned, the most lethal weapon should be the Dulcanale Pistol that you can buy in the savage town's shop in Hearthsong. It has the Rend mod (+3 DR) AND the Crit mod (+0.5 Crit multiplier), putting it ahead of the best arbaleste Hold-Wall (which only has 1.2 reload timer in terms of offensive mods). In terms of utility I would still go with Hold-Wall because prone is such a good status effect and if you stack crit chance (i.e. +accuracy talents, +accuracy items, wood elf passive, rogue talents) you can basically perma disable one target with your rogue alone as well as allowing said rogue to almost always have sneak attack or double sneak attack.

     

    So in practice, for raw damage: Dulcanale Pistol from the shop in Hearthsong, for damage + utility: Hold-Wall.

     

    In general it should still be: Arbaleste, Pistol/Arquebues, Bow, each approriately enchanted and with the right talents. Blunderbluss is complete garbage damage-wise because you need to punch through the target's damage reduction multiple times, making it horribly on everything but naked targets. Only real application is with some sort of wonky game mechanic like the cipher's focus generation which triggers off all of the individual bullets, or applying some other effect which treats every bullet as a seperate attack.

    Dulcanale is the best pistol in the game, but why would you compare it to an Arbaleste when Arbalestes are mediocre at best since the damage nerf? Also, Hold-Wall isn't even the best Arbaleste in the game...

     

    The real contenders for Dulcanale in terms of best ranged weapons are Pliambo per Casitàs and Lead Spitter. Which of these guns is best for you depends on your class, stats, talents etc. - but it will but one of those three. The most damage potential per shot is probably Lead Spitter with Penetrating Shot (-12DR per projectile...)

     

    Back to my former question: does anyone know whether Gunner and the Ila chant stack?

    WTF is wrong with Obsidian?

    in Obsidian General

    Posted

    Wait just a second there. Obsidian raised how much, 4 Million dollars? Up front? And had plenty of time to do it. And has some of the most brilliant minds in the industry like Tim Cain, Feargus Uruqheart, Chris Avellone?? Get real.

     

    4 Million isn't a whole lot in an industry where the budget of major titles is in the triple digit range of Millions

    • Like 1

    WTF is wrong with Obsidian?

    in Obsidian General

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    you say you're a developer yourself... then you should be able to appreciate the insane size and complexity of the state machine that makes up the foundation of a game like this. there are so many interdependencies between different events, dialogue choices and progression paths that the resulting game states are virtually impossible to comprehend in their entirety, let alone test reliably (both isolated and in correlation)

     

    P.S.: Obisdian also doesn't have the budget of big AAA publishers to put into extended QA measures, yet these big AAA titles are often very buggy as well at release. go figure

    • Like 3

    [balancing] Cipher/Chanter too strong?

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    can we please stop nerfing classes now? mind blades was the biggest offender in terms of cipher spells and that has been taken care of, the only thing that maybe makes cipher a little too strong right now is the draining whip -> blunderbuss synergy which generates a ****load of focus.

     

    i think in general the class balance is overall suprisingly good, especially considering that they created a new ruleset from scratch and several non-cookiecutter classes on top. every class can be very strong if min/maxed correctly, and that's how it should be.

     

    P.S.: i think the 1.03 balance changes were very well done and further improved the already quite good game balance considerably

    I feel bad for the non-steam people

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Giving up expeditious patching?  rofl...scuse me a second while I compose myself...

     

    *Seconds later*...

     

    we're not all obsessed about the latest patches you know?  Suppose you let windows update whenever it likes too huh?  I'll patch it when I choose to...in no rush, game works fine for me.  No immediate I need it now patch service from GoG really...well...quite frankly I couldn't care less.

     

    Now excuse me while I get my popcorn ready to laugh my ass off at the (probably coming soon), the patch broke my game threads ;)

     

    that's not a bad attitude, but what about the people that cannot continue their playthrough because of on of the gamebreaking prepatch bugs? (in my case: raedric's hold crash)

     

    i just don't get why the obsidian devs don't simply release a stand-alone installer for the update... i couldn't care less about the GoG QA, the Obsidian guys know their game and the engine much better anyway

    Patch 1.03 is Live on Steam

    in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News

    Posted · Edited by cdd

    @ the Obsidian devs: could you please provide a standalone build of the patch installer (or even just the naked binaries for manual install) for the GoG users?

     

    GoG will likely not act before tuesday next week (because of the holidays), and i suppose there are a lot of GoG customers who would very much like to make use of the holiday for playing your amazing game! i'm one of them, but i cannot continue playing until i get the patch (raedric's hold crash)

    • Like 3
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