lpro

I loved playing as a Battlemage for the reasons you explain: I was able to put almost all skill points into the Fighter and just carry Llengrath's Grimoire. Wizard MC is very enjoyable...I can't imagine any use for Priest MC. I complained about Grimoires having no equivalent for casting classes except Wizard, and I asked for Priest-only trinkets, early after the launch. It is outrageous because the absurdly overpowered Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry has no equivalent for any other class. Trinkets were a great way to make melee classes more viable relative to casters, but definitely Priests and other casters deserve special trinkets ASAP.

It did become harder from what I can tell. I played BoW at level 20 PotD (level scaling upwards) and sort of winged it but the boss fights were more difficult and I had to use most of my abilities. Adding significantly to the AR of the bosses makes a big difference in how quickly they go down although yeah it makes high pen weapons far more viable than low pen ones. Also, even in BoW PotD, neither of the bosses hit hard enough either via melee or via spells and that should probably be remedied. Overall, I would say that the bosses now feel like they can take hits and soak up damage but their own damage output is still too low on PotD. Second, I would love to see some more disables and mega-nukes from the bosses; both of those are what made POE1 so difficult. (I don't care as much as the original author about ordinary trash mob fights since honestly I mostly just want them to be over and done as quickly as possible).

I had real concerns about quality after Obsidian revealed that they weren't going to put out full-blown expansion packs despite Backer community polling, but I enjoyed BoW and at this point I'm confident that between the three DLC I'll feel like my $20 season pass was worth it. That said, I would not part w/ the standard retail price of $10/DLC. Some thoughts: -Thank the gods for dismissal! Some other folks mentioned this too but the trash mobs are fairly tedious throughout the expansion. -I enjoyed all three boss fights. After coasting through the game on PotD before the patch I feel like the difficulty is a lot more acceptable at this point, but it is still not quite hard enough, IMO -- "acceptable" difficulty in my purely subjective view would be like, me not being able to winging it through boss fights unprepared and having to reload once or twice. I liked that about the original POE. (I played on PotD with level-scaling). -I like most of the items but imo there are a few //too// many ice-themed ones. I understand that the theme is Rymrgand, I do, but would have appreciated items weighted a bit more towards say, the Blazing Bridge and the rest. The Soulbounds weren't generally as cool as in the White March... -The lore reveals were a good touch and I appreciated that the story tied back into the series.

I won’t be playing again until all the DLC is out but I am stoked to hear about Mega-Bosses and am so pleased that Obsidian is continuing to improve POE2. It was a good game at release and I’m hopeful that it will be a terrific one by December.

I anticipate another playthrough at +1 year once all the DLC is out. A wiser player w/ less surplus time would probably have known to buy it one year out -- I did that for POE1 and it was a blast. no way am I going to play it all through again just for the minor DLC in August --I wanted full, real expansions like virtually everybody polled early in the process. There's nothing surprising about BG2 sales since it has regularly retailed for $5 on Gog and Steam. Even POE1 got new legs thanks to sales and hype from game one, and it was still selling for $30. I //am// surprised that NWN:EE has sold well since it was always a trash single player experience without full party control.

I missed a lot of the soulbound weapons and armor from WM1 and 2. Would love to see a mod or DLC that brought some of those back in.

I played BG2:EE recently for the first time after spending around 120 hours on POE2. It was excellent but there were some features so bad--like the downright terrible inventory system--that it's hard for me to imagine that they were ever considered acceptable. I see some folks here trivializing improvements to those systems as 'quality of life' issues. Get real: when it ends up taking up hours of game time to just shuffle through inventory and put gear on deceased/ressed characters, that is a blight on the overall game. Beamdog should have been shunned, loudly, for not bringing the interface into the modern era in the "enhanced edition." What was terrific about BG2 was the difficulty -- for a time. This had reverberating effects as it meant that stuff like items, potions, armor actually was significant and it overall enhanced the pleasure and purpose of looking for good items and designing your builds in a way that POE 2 (and POE1) don't so much. But we forget that BG2 is balanced only until epic levels. at that point, hello planetars. both the original and ToB become totally easy on all but the highest difficulties and excepting maybe the last combat of ToB just because of the multiple waves because you have instakill spells and amazing summons. I respect the per/rest system because it introduced some tension and mid-term strategizing with imperfect information into the game, though. The mediocre: BG2 party members were extremely forgettable --Kel-who? In all serious, aside from a few characters whose repulsive lameness/genericness have somehow seared themselves into my mind, I have actually already forgotten the names of most the companions in my party in less than a month. cue ad hominem attack: if you're nostalgic for BG2 party members it's because you have no style and need to leave the house more, look at more art and for god's sake read some literature. "well written"? hardly. BUT since I am conducting work abroad and bored and I have played BG2:EE, part of IWD:EE, most of IWD2 and then neverwinter nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer in quick succession, let me just say: storytelling in MotB hands-down slaughters all Infinity Engine storytelling as well as both Pillars games. The same is true of party member design and companion quests, which are both more serious and mature in their implications and more compelling in general than either classic or neo-classic rpgs. particularly Gann and Kaelyn are compelling and fun, but even Okku and Safiya just have more to depth to them than anybody in the classic games or the POE games. the real golden age of CRPG storytelling was not the nineties, it was the 2000s, excepting the vapid cliché that was Neverwinter Nights 2 vanilla, and even that had /some/ highlights (Sand). Also, I wanted to say that having played through BG2 and a few other IE games, all of them had broken difficulty at higher/epic levels and exploits of the type "this dragon kept downing my whole party immediately because AC is a badly-designed system and etc. but on try three I landed disintegrate and killed it in 2 seconds." Although later D&D games had slightly fewer exploits, the difficulty of Neverwinter Nights 2 was trivial and mask of the betrayer was always easy past the earliest fights. This has led me to reappraise the POE2 = too easy complaints on release. sure, I agree that it was/is too easy but it seems like a reversion to the post-IE normal rather than a sudden and inexplicable failing on the part of Obsidian **this** time around. as I say this I just finished MotB's final boss fight and if anything it was even easier than Ukaizo, so... 7/16 thought -- I do agree that BG2 benefitted from loads of atmosphere because of the strengths of the original IP. that said the only real memorable area for me was the Underdark --even though it went on for too long.

bleakwalker/rogue worked fine for me prior to 1.1 and neither class seems to have been axed that badly in the patch -- rogues even benefited from reduced guile cost to sap. i would want to check whether flames of devotion is still a full attack but in my recollection it applied a constitution affliction that then proc'd the rogue sneak attack passive. don't know for RP or tactical reasons what any other rogue/paladin combo would look like. but it's not the most versatile build since w/ paladin you virtually use nothing but FoD for the accuracy and maybe sworn rival and beacon. as aeon said though, you benefit from improved defenses and virtuous triumph allows you to replenish zeal for even more FoD spams.

I agree w/ much has been said and happy to see some of my earlier suggestions in the summary. The main problem is that priest is //boring//. I had an idea that couldn't be that hard to implement since it is partially used for wizard and would add class distinction while not being op // could substitute for passive abilities allowing more spells per encounter. It builds off the idea that there aren't enough priest specific items too (in contrast to wizard grimoire!): -- implement class-specific relics in the grimoire slot that are switcheable via quick slot and give access to + spell-casts per PL, but NOT more spell choices --like the passive effect of grimoire of vaporous wizardry but less OP and without the extra spells to choose from. Relics could also upgrade certain spells from the lower tiers since many of the inspirations are terrible at higher level.

Yep, arguing that the BG games were easy compared to PoE is just factually incorrect. PoE and Deadfire have no instant death spells, things like imprison and all the various things that could force you to immediately reload. Not to mention it was much easier to end up at -10 HP than it was to lose all your health in PoE or wound-death in Deadfire. I won't even talk about Deadfire, since we know that's easy. But in the original, even on PotD, you could basically charge into every fight and expect to win so long as you had the right level and didn't make immensely dumb decisions. Aside from maybe immunity to paralysis and charm spells, there were no key spells or key abilities you had to for sure equip in order to take on certain fights. Contrast that with dealing with beholder rays, lich spells, high damage dragon breaths, and the difference is immense. Don't get me wrong, I think the original PoE results in an overall more fun, if easier, combat experience. But you cannot argue that the BG games were in any way easier. I never argued that BG games were easier. But like Shadenuat said, it's also a very tech-y sort of game in a way where you die to instakill spells or monster abilities until you learn the correct buffs to spend minutes applying first (there's something nobody misses) and then you waltz through every encounter of that type by solely having the correct spells memorized. And that is how it goes: once you know how to handle Illithids, every single encounter w/ Illithids is easy and plays out the same. You might die to Demogorgon and have to reload -- sure, I did--but once you know how to kill him, you know how and virtually nothing can go wrong if you pre-buff correctly and have your mages have the right spells in spell trigger. You might be so mad because Kangaxx uses imprison on your entire party but then you remember you have a few freedom scrolls and again a bunch of situational buffs...It is more lethal and you spend dumb amounts of time reloading when you don't know the fights, but yeah once you know the solutions they never seem to fail. I say this as I'm sort of just rolling through BG2 and ToB on ordinary difficulty. It was hard at first; even on normal difficulty I died alot in the first half of my first playthrough. I'll acknowledge that it is harder than POE2 on PotD, which means that even POE's normal difficulty ought to be a lot tougher, forget about path of the damned, which needs to be loads harder, since I assume a lot of the hardcore folks are coming out of the BG series. But I wouldn't want a Pillars hard mode to follow that same model, either -- enemies that instakill you under certain conditions but also have very specific vulnerabilities and countermeasures that prove extremely trivial once you know what to do. Once I went to the second and third Illithid dungeon (in SoA and Tob) I was bored of Illithids; same goes for Beholders, and yeah, so far, dragons. I would probably just want to see PoE2 be generally harder although I don't have any solutions to offer except that on my first totally blind run I thought the dragons needed to hit like, 4x harder and force some desperate heals and wouldn't it be great if there were more fights like the Adra Dragon --although on POE1 that was another boss that resulted in plenty of reloads but that it turned out you could completely annihilate using a few scrolls.

i agree it should be more difficult and said so during beta 1.1. i also agree w/ earlier posts on here that one big problem seems to be that there is a tipping point mid-game after which everything is trivial. but from what i've seen, 1.1 //is// a major step forward. that said, many posters are talking like BGI or BGII were so hard before modders got to them or something and i don't know about that. i have been playing BG2: EE and i'm not a hardcore player but i found that it hasn't been that tough after a certain number of hours and amount of experience. some fights like demogorgon seemed impossible but once you knew why you were dying it became laughably easy to game the encounter using some one-off spell...i mean, this was also a game that gave you friggin planetars....

Taking a break from Pillars II for awhile --probably until all the DLC is out in December--but I welcome this patch. Some balance comments on classes I actually play and items: Fighter Glad to see some truly OP abilities go. Rogue Basically unaltered. Rogues still need a skill at PL 8 or so to gain class resource on kill (for single class only). Priest A step, but only a step, in the proper direction. Priest got the balance axe less than other classes and sounds like devs heard some complaints and agreed to make single-target inspirations cast faster. This move was only fair and fully in-line w/ existing single-target inspirations for other classes. But the cumulative effect after weakening Devotions will probably be that nobody plays priest except for flavor. Although Dire Blessing and Devotions still stack apparently (haven't tested). It now also seems like Litany for the Body and Litany for the Spirit would be potentially useful spells. That said, the priest now has some serious redundancies. Why take Blessing, Prayer for the Body, or Prayer for the spirit at all -- they each are replaced by a better version like two PL later? Above all Priest needs more +1 spell/encounter trinkets or even higher-level passives that allow them to cast more lower level spells. Priest currently has no identifiable class feature that distinguishes him or her from the generic caster type. Ciphers have focus on hit, wizards have grimoires offering unlimited spell access, druids have shapeshifting, and priests have...radiance that sort of (barely) responds to disposition... If priest is theoretically healing and support, enable the class to actually do that by granting more spells / level, at least for levels 1-4. The class needs a boost. Paladin Is still good. Was happy to see that the balance axe did not come down too hard. But the Shieldbearer of St. Elega special still appears too strong? Wizard Is still stupidly strong; a hold-over from POE1 and BG. Items My number one gripe w/ items is that the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry also avoided the rebalance axe, which is a facepalm since it is one of the strongest items in the game. Make different Grimoires provide a few extra spells per/encounter at different PLs-- this would add another tactical layer and difficulty. +1 to all spells/ power level / encounter is absurdly OP; the evidence is that it would be considered a no-brainer passive ability to take if offered at //any// power level. But no you still receive it for less than 10k gold and can easily steal it. Please rebalance the item; there is currently no other item that is as broken. I was also sort of sorry to see a lot of the items have their proc chance weakened so much. Some were definitely broken but now it seems like some are just like, generic superbs with flavor text now. Sad. Penetration and armor mechanics: My impression during the original and beta 1.1 was that some weapon types are obviously bad, while others have modals that are entirely unnecessary or redundant or just bad. I like the notion of having to swap weapons but think the whole system needs scaling and tuning. I would suggest revisiting that balance so that low pen weapons are the obvious choice against low armor enemies while high pen weapons or modals are a necessary evil against high armor enemies, particularly on PotD, but offer merely respectable damage otherwise. This is intuitive and means there are actual tradeoffs while the current system appears to be that high pen weapons are always the obvious choice.

I welcome the patch, but I would still strongly suggest that the devs take what is currently named PotD in the Beta patch and just make that into the new Veteran difficulty, then design an even harder PotD. A non-hardcore player like me should be having real trouble killing the bosses on PotD. The Good: I only briefly booted to fight the last major fight of the game but I found it to be a welcome step up and so so much more enjoyable than in vanilla. The boss seemed savvier and less easy to isolate neutralize, using breath spells on the whole party even when tanked. It used breath attacks to hit multiple characters. It attacked faster, and used special abilities much more often. These were very welcome improvements. The mid-combat adds were more substantial as well. Still... using a full party (Éder, Xoti, Aloth, Pallegina, my Battlemage), I killed the last boss in one try without losing or rezzing anyone. I am not a hardcore, but merely competent, player. Not all my equipment was legendary or superb. To be fair, however, I used most abilities on my chars and was auto-attacking at the end. I also used the sacrificial dagger Marux Amanth at the end, although it was probably not strictly necessary! Regarding pen and armor in 1.1 and PotD: I'll be honest that I don't quite understand the mechanics of pen scaling as is so perhaps all this is ill-informed. But I would give major, armored PotD bosses even higher pen so that they overpen all but superb/legendary plate, and/or paladins using legendary/superb scale and their special abilities. I would also revisit higher armor so that all but superb/legendary estocs, arbalests, and arquebuses, and legendary one-handed weapons using pen modals, have low pen. This might call for redesigning modals so that legendary 1h swords / warhammers using modals still allow pen against the major, armored enemies. But continuing to revisit penetration balance in general would make two-handers more central to the game. As it now stands, the last boss on PotD beta 1.1 had armor of 13 so out of all legendary 1h weapons, only sabre using modal had pen. But that felt sort of uncalled for; ideally legendary sword/warhammer would also have pen using the modals. After all, what is the point of their modals if you still always have low pen? Let me know if I'm wrong about the stats or my conjectures. In general, the Estoc and War Bow modals should not offer pen. The modal is redundant as superb/legendary War Bows/Estocs already (correctly) have pen against all major bosses on PotD, but full penetration is almost always impossible except against enemies in robes...Let the modals offer accuracy or damage or something. But grant Great Swords a penetration modal or something -- it seems very dumb that legendary sanguine blade cannot get pen against PotD last boss but a sabre can? I would say in general that weapons should be (re)balanced to be either low pen but apply significant debuffs on modals or special modals to self (i.e., deflection), medium pen, allow to move to highest pen bracket but require big recovery time and/or loss to deflection; or afford high pen but allow a damage and or accuracy buff. What makes no sense at all is high penetration weapons that have a pen modal! -- this basically just makes them worse as full penetration is very unlikely except against weak adds.

Deadfire is bigger than vanilla POE minus the WM expansions in general but there are dimensions that seem inexplicably smaller. Dungeons: I agree w/ complaints that there are no big dungeons. Extending the undercity further down a few levels would be welcome. Ukaizo should have had a big, challenging dungeon; endgame feels rushed without it. I assume one of the paid DLC is going to be a big dungeon but a big dungeon should have been included in the base game. Items: Deadfire has seemingly few items although most seem actually viable and interesting and I appreciate that uniques are truly unique. --In vanilla POE there were vendors for each faction; in Deadfire, the Valians have no vendor at all unless i have massively overlooked sth. Fewer items -> less replay value. --as everyone has noticed, there are tons of sabres/swords and few other uniques, although guns finally got much-needed love. --there is a noticeable lack of soulbound items in Deadfire even if Modwyr and the Sacrificial dagger are great. There are currently basically as many soulbound items in the Deadfire DLC for POE1 (Club of the Mataru/Captain's Hat/Molina's Spikefinger/Belt of the RDC) as there are in all of vanilla Deadfire... I know more soulbounds and items are forthcoming but the devs should add in free-DLC sidequest involving a crate shipment of "discovered" items from Caed Nua in Act 3/4-- basically hit unique and/or soulbound items from WM 1 and 2 and vanilla or even the deadfire DLC. Build in sideplot involving the interception of the crate shipment and the scattering of the weapons around Deadfire, because why not? you already designed some terrific soulbounds in the original and there is no need to extensively consider enchants, even if some of the soulbounds would need a minor rebalance as attributes buff differently. --there seem to be less variety in boots/rings/cloaks/ and gauntlets than in vanilla POE. that is dumb because presumably these could have been ported over. I look forward to devs and or modders remedying at least the item issue.

Good post! Some thoughts on rogues and priests. Rogue: Agreed pretty much entirely. A high PL ability that gives back Guile on kills is a fantastic idea! Right now there is very little incentive to be a pure Rogue IMO, and getting Guile from killing enemies sounds great both mechanically and thematically. As much as I like my multiclass rogues right now, I think it should be a PL8 or 9 ability though, not 7. Something only a single-class rogue can take (they're likely the only ones who would take enough active abilities to make good use of it anyway). Priest: Agreed. Especially about PL3 having too many useful spells while other tiers have too few. Also a Resolve (fear) immunity around PL3 (although it would add to the problem of too many good PL3 spells) seems like a good idea, Chanter has the heal beams that give Resolve immunity at PL3 as well (I think), so it seems like a reasonable place for it. @Answermancer So, I looked it up, and Paladin has the option of taking virtuous triumph (zeal on kill) at PL6, so it definitely available to multiclasses. I hedged on when Rogue should have a guile on kill passive because I could see the appeal of making it for single class only. PL 8 or 9 seems though like it might come just too late in the game. I could see an argument for PL 6 even because multiclass wouldn't receive the ability to take that passive until fairly late in level progression anyway whereas single-class rogue would have the ability for some time. Similarly, there are very few great rogue skills at PL 6. So I would adopt that on the basis that the benefits to having the ability for some time as a single-class rogue outweigh the benefits of denying it to a multiclass.