Mygaffer

Don't remember the last time a game released bug free, it's not a "this company" thing, but just how things nowadays are in general. Bug free is a bit different from not releasing a game which will be unplayable for some players and knowing it. Good one them for taking my money and ruining 2 days at least. Ye and don't expect me 2 actually bother 2 argue with funboys. Also nice 2 know major bugs a now apparently normal. Awful Walking stereotype right here. I'm know this is a trying event in your life Dopsim, just ignore the funboys and keep posting, we understand how truly difficult this bug is making your life.

It's all different nowadays. Big mainstream outlets (IGN etc) can go do one. Magazines, nobody buys those. If you compare the big reviewers of today vs those of 20-30 years ago, reviews were a lot more honest back then. But there's a slew of other small independent YouTube channels and sites that you can chose from. I personally never look at reviews in mainstream media because it is absolutely a paid review and usually poorly written. It also depends how much I am into the genre and how complex the genre is. When ACG reviewed Project Cars 2, it was cringeworthy because he clearly isn't as involved with racing sims as I am. Also, if someone is a massive RPG buff and loves AD&D, a generic review won't do any good. I have a very small selection of reviewers on YouTube that I go to and they all do specific genres. I'll go to different reviewers for racing sims and I'll go to a completely different reviewer for shooters for example. Good thing is, there's a lot of choice. It's important to know which media outlets to completely ignore though. I hate this idea that all reviews are bought and paid for. Just read them and it's obvious this isn't the case. There are other issues I have with modern video games criticism but this idea that Obsidian/Versus Evil is paying anyone for reviews is laughable. The closest anyone comes to this is "hey, we'll give you an exclusive and an ad deal" and of course the pressure is on for the review to be good. And in fact some have come out and revealed publishers using that kind of exclusivity back in the days of gaming magazines to ensure minimum scores and even dictating what aspects of the game were to be covered or not. And don't forget Jeff Gerstmann, although I think that was an outlier. If I trust anyone the least it's probably YouTubers, as there is all kinds of money changing hands there directly for coverage and while in the US the FTC requires disclosure it's basically a blurb at the bottom of a description, and I know there are people out there not disclosing sponsored content. I really don't rely on reviews to choose which games to buy though. I look at the genre, the developer and maybe some video of it being played. Then if it looks like something I'd be really into I buy immediately, like Pillars 1, and if it's something I think I'd like I'll put it on my wish list and wait for a sale.

I'm not talking about balance tweks like Josh stated. "The change of the health system make healing spells way powerfull, I can't comprehend the reason to why they changed the decent health system of the first game." You should at least read the entirety of the FIRST comment on the thread before commenting anything. I'm saying that the main reason for this easy PotD is because of the new health system. It seems that the lazy here is you. I haven't played Deadfire yet but I have to say I really liked the health/endurance system from the first game. I was really sad to hear it was being done away with, I thought it did a lot of good things design wise.

Is the whole "economy of action" thing really that bad that spells like fireball take a really long time to cast? I'm assuming you've been playing the beta.

OK to know if this game is really going to be a step up from Pillars 1 I have to know this: Does the hair still disappear when characters put on hats? Because if so 0/10 completely unplayable!

It looks great so don't take this the wrong way but instead of writing steel in scare quotes just write what it's really made of, I'm guessing tin? Or is it chrome, as in "chromecase."

I was really sad that the uniforms got such a debuff. Why were they even given +20 to two defenses if they were going to be nerfed so hard? As some other have said I think +12 would have been a much better place for them to end up. I'm all for balance and not having "best, have to use them" items but even at +20 I wasn't using those uniforms by late game except for my rogue.

Let's be real, if they knew how to fix this it would already have been fixed, the Elryn's Jacket thing has been a known bug forever. Either they don't know how to fix it or else it would take a lot of work and they don't want to.

Except that's not really what happens in this game. You end up so overlevelled that nearly all fights become trivial aside from a few boss encounters. Surely you don't have to end up overleveled for the second half of the entire game, right? Also people seem to think there is only one kind of scaling, the Oblivion type of scaling where everything is always your level no matter what. In fact there are many ways to do scaling that still allows for a sense of progression while also providing more challenge. Like the hard difficulty, it does not change the level or stats of the monsters, it simply changes how many there are. You can also get scaling that keeps monsters and enemies within a certain level range. So depending on player level you might run into Xaurips which are level 1 all the way through level 5, but never higher than 5, or Elder Wolves that ranged in level from 8 to 14. That way you still get a challenge but you aren't running into level 20 rats. Besides that there are many other solutions for this and in fact I'm fairly certain some will be implemented in Deadfire because they've said that it will be much less linear with players able to do certain quests in different orders, which means at different levels, which means some sort of scaling will be going on for sure. It's interesting to see how many people didn't have a problem with feeling over-leveled or who actually like feeling over-leveled. For me even PotD and high level scaling leaves me unchallenged late into act 2/early in act 3, but I realize not everyone puts as much emphasis on the combat portion of the game as I do. In all thank you to those who made responses here.

I had forgot about this game until reading it on Tom Chick's best games of 2017 list and went to buy it on GOG.com but it isn't there. Did the game ever get released there? That's the only platform I'm really interested in buying from.

I, and I assume many others here in this forum, found themselves over leveled, by a large margin, by the end of Act II/beginning of Act III, especially depending on when you completed the White March content. I play on PotD, always choose the high level content scaling, but it's not enough. It is also is the one thing that makes me peter out on the game in the last act. Since the combat encounters are the meat and potatoes of the game for me when they no longer pose a challenge I simply don't find the game as engaging. That's not to say I don't enjoy the narrative, theming, dialogue, art, that stuff is also enjoyable for me, but it's kind of a 40/60 split favoring the combat and associated systems. I know there was some issue with incorrect XP levels for side quests in the first game, I believe that was discussed on one of the dev Twitch streams, so I'm sure they are cognizant of the need for better balance in Deadfire. I guess I'm just making this post to see what other backer's and Pillars fans thoughts are relative difficulty in the mid/late game of the first game and what they'd like to see in Deadfire.

Part of my agrees with this, part of me hates the tedious nature of selling six pages worth of weapons from my stash. I'd like to see not every enemy have gear they were using, as some gear would surely break in the battle anyway, and instead of have other types of loot, like currency, consumables, ingredients, etc.

Try running with a four man party, any composition. Helps restore balance without delaying your levels.

While it is definitely true that Path of the Damned is too easy it isn't really for the reasons people think, not even Mr. Boeroer (of course this is a part of the reason) During the early game PotD is somewhat challenging. For people who have a deep understanding of the game even still it isn't pushing them but you can't just faff about, you have to try. But then because the XP was never properly balanced you end up outleveling everything, leading to encounters turning into jokes where you steamroll everything. One thing I have tried that helps is rolling with a smaller party, like only four party members. It helps bring more balance. Try leaving out your most effective companions, try no priest. It forces you to adapt somewhat. They have said they will balance the XP much better in Deadfire to avoid this problem.

I'm going to recommend another JSawyer Obsidian game, Fallout New Vegas. Personally it is my favorite of the 3d Fallout games and still a very rewarding experience.

What I find crazy about this post is that Wizard is one of the most powerful classes. It just goes to show you how much learning curve is a part of this game. Which is a good thing, it really helps with that feeling of systems mastery. Wizards shouldn't be relying on their melee to deal the most damage, and if you want a melee wizard you should use spells that turn your wizard into a melee killing machine with crazy defenses that make him nigh invincible. The only downside to playing that way is you burn through your per rest spells really quickly. Of course you should never feel bad about resting, you can always go to an inn and there are a bunch of ways to get camping supplies and they are cheap. The idea of using the AI is so alien to me, since the combat is at least half of the reason I play.

Rogues are super powerful and deal tons of damage. Start on normal, you can change the difficulty at anytime, except for Path of the Damned which must be selected at the start. Just roll with the story companions for your first play through, they have their own personalities and goals in the area and add to the flavor the world as you explore. There are a lot of mechanics to learn so don't worry if you feel like you suck at first. There are lots of resources that will teach you online and a few hours in you'll start to grok all the basics, stuff like engagement, the four defenses, accuracy, and DR. Good luck, it's an amazing game, in my humble opinion of course, one of my favorites of all time.

Try going to Whitestone Hollow, for me that entire map is pink.

For my GOG copy after buying it, for $0, in the store I had to go to the game in Galaxy, click on DLC's to the right of "Play" and "more" and then check the "Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire Pack." Then he showed up. Kind of weird I had to manually check that box, but he didn't show up until I did that.

Ponamu Bird-Scorned has not appeared in my game, I have quite and restarted a few times since the update, I have rested in game, saved and loaded, etc., checked with the steward of Caed Nua, still nothing. I also now have graphical glitches I never had before 3.07. I hope we figure out what is going on with this. Out of curiosity, among those reading this comment did you enable telemetry or disable telemetry and why?

I am playing on 2012 Macbook Pro, Intel HD 4000 graphics, and after 3.07 I'm getting a lot of stuff like this: https://imgur.com/MnUJWHe Also, I have been all over Anslög's Compass and cannot find Ponamu Bird-Scorned. Thank you for your attention.

Is this known? https://imgur.com/a/8yVBc

I haven't written about it myself yet, I've been thinking about it off and on. After these encounters I decided to formulate my thoughts. Feel free to ignore it.

I was just playing some Pillars today, I rolled my first Rogue PC last week, and just went through the encounters with the wurms and Xuarips on -redacted-. I was playing with a full six character party, as I usually do, though I have done solo play and four man parties for fun. It was so satisfying to have all six members contributing and synergizing. Front line was Kana, he was positioned to both reach my back line with his Sure Handed Ila chant and the enemy with Come, Come Soft Winds of Death while also being positioned to blast the large group of enemies with his "at the sound of his voice the killers froze stiff" invocation. Pallegina, who has by far the highest defenses of the party already at level 6 was in the middle lead, and she came out of stealth first, essentially yelling at the enemy to target her. Eder was off to the other side, shooting with his pistol until the host of enemies were cut down some and he could wade in with his melee weapons and start knocking down the last enemies. Aloth was in the back and led off with Chill Fog, blinding and hurting the host as they tried to get at my party, making it much harder for them to hit us and much quicker to tear them down. His soul bound scepter also slowly carved them up with his blast talent and dangerous implement modal. My rogue is an interrupter with a bow and interfered with the Xaurip Champions that made it to my front line. He also dealt the odd blind or hobble effect where necessary. And finally Durance was there to condemn the enemy, weakening them, dazing them, providing healing to the party and taking opportune shots with his arquebus. On PotD we made short work of both large parties on the level many of you can probably guess. It felt very satisfying to have all party members working together like this, complimenting each other. It felt very tactical. In Deadfire we'll have one less component to play with in this tactical dance. Just the idea of it feels limiting. I don't know what design lesson they think they're learning here from Pillars 1 that made them make this change but I am highly skeptical. Maybe I should just be happy they didn't go down to four.

Any idea how those turned out, out of curiosity? Industry impact, etc.? I wonder if that affected this game when they went to find voice actors. They got some of what they wanted. They will get some extra fees based on recording sessions and some of the information they wanted about what any given job would entail. I'd call it a win for the voice actors and it doesn't look like anything too onerous for management. http://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-reaches-tentative-agreement-end-video-game-strike-0