Occursus

I heard in France you try to avoid the english language as much as possible. I wonder how you did it in the Pirates of the Carribean movies. In Germany most of the terms (Like "Black Pearl" for example) were kept in english language, with a few exceptions. How's it in France? Disclaimer : I am not from France, but from Canada, Québec, a French speaking province. But as a rule of thumb, here, though I believe it is similar in France where they are somewhat more liberal on the question, titles from books and movies are translated, but trademarks and such are not. So, for instance, Pirates of the Caribbean, as a movie, is translated « Pirates des Caraïbes » everywhere. But everything inside the book or movie will be translated unless specified otherwise that it was meant to be in a foreign language or something. So, « Black Pearl » becomes « La Perle Noire », but every Spanish vessels in some of the movies are not translated ; the same for every bit of dialogues in spanish. But, in the case of Wallmart ; it is a trademark and such is not translated anywhere it is used. I am curious by what it would be translated though, because it is quite generic when taken literally. I guess one might want to translate it by « Le centre commercial Mur à Mur » or « Mur à Mur » for short, but that is just me Fun fact : Videogames are not restricted by law in Québec to have their names translated. I guess it is because of the fact it is considered a trademark, here, but do not just take my word for it, I have not done any Law School. So, Pillars of Eternity stays Pillars of Eternity and is not translated into « Les Piliers de l’Éternité », which sound quite nice actually. Oh ! By the way, for the original poster thinking about the poetic ring to some of the names, I thought about it : The Leaden Key could be translated in French by « La Clef Saturné », which would be exactly Leaden Key but with the added bonus to refer to the old discipline of alchemy during the Middle Ages, higher mysteries and secrets, etc. It would go quite nicely with the organization based around old secrets and will not sound as flat or weird as « La Clef en Plomb » or « La Clef de Plomb ». Though, perhaps something referring to Saturn, an actual planet from our own solar system, might not be the best, depending on what you are aiming for with your translation ^^"

I won’t start translating all the game, but just for the term Deadfire Archipelago, already I feel like there has been a lost opportunity to translate it in French as « l’Archipel des Feux Endormis », or in English it would quite literally means Sleeping Fires. If I recall correctly, Josh Sawyer even stated somewhere that it was the meaning they were going for with Deadfire, because of the volcanic activities of the region. Seriously, I feel like they were handed the project and they did not ask any question or anything to Obsidian to try and specify the meaning behind specific terms, reading all of you about it. If anything, if I was Obsidian, I would ask some of my money back, because the work done seems to be very poorly done, not even close to be professional in nature :S

It is actually quite historically accurate.

Hold TAB

Well, at least insofar as I am concerned, Aldris Blade of Captain Crow is the one weapon so far that I despise. The way it looks is just too over-the-top to my liking, which is a shame because of the effects of the blade. The clipping sure does not help neither. When it comes to armors, though, I feel like they could have done a lot better in terms of variety. A lot of the armors are not that different from their counterparts of higher quality. It is particularly true for robes and such. By the way, this game lacks an enchanted version of a captain’s cap like they added in the first game

Awesome !

The suckling power of Eothas is only getting stronger as time goes by. By the time the Watcher is waking up in the cabin, he was able to suckle the power of his long lost, strong souled, friends, Edér, Pallegina and Aloth ? Truth be told, there is no lore explanation to it. Even in game, it is not exactly stated as such. You just barely escaped death, lose a portion of your soul, but it is not like it should affect your level overall. It affects the power of the souls you accumulated, that is for sure, especially since you… but for the rest ? It is, it seems, only mechanical in purpose.

Actually, it works perfectly well. In fact, insofar as PoE I is concerned, the game is finally acknowledging and reacting to your actions in some capacity when it comes to your companions, in Deadfire. None in PoE I could leave you if you did not expressly ask for it yourself. So, it is logical for Edér to react, because according to his personality and your description of the event, the one at the beginning of the game, you go out of your way to steal from a group of people, worshipers of Eothas to make matters worse. It sure will not fly by him in that case. If anything, I think they are way too kind and lenient when it comes to Edér ; besides Eothasians and perhaps a few other instances I did not yet encounter, Edér sure lets fly by a lot of horrible decisions you can make, that affect the life of ordinary folks for no good reasons. In PoE I, you could basically be a genocidal maniac and still be friend with him… I am just saying

Hi, so I tried my hand at modifying some images to have some watercolor variants. Here are some of them, just in case some of you might be interested. I will most likely try to help out a bit, in the near future, too

Following the same idea, I could also say that six characters suck, because it is not seven. Indeed, I could start using the seventh character right away, no problem ! But wait, what about eight or nine characters in my party, would not that be great, too ? Joke aside, they decided to go with this number because of the amount of micro needed to use with every characters. Later in development, when they implemented successfully the AI Behavior system and thus alleviated the problem considerably, it was already too late to start changing things up. I remember watching a stream about it, from Obsidian. I think it was on Twitch, if you want to look it up. Among the most recent ones.

I see, do you think Serafen can do good damage? because some people say he has a bad status for a cipher. Of course, he can. Sure, he is not maxed out in Might, but that does not matter, now does it ? Some of the spells the Cipher has access to inflict Raw damage anyway, bypassing DR and thus without anything to mitigate damage in the first place. On top of that, with something like 14 in Might, he is not lacking by much, if you truly wanted to max out an orlan in Might. I guess a lot of people like to mini-max the hell out of the game ; in that regard, they might even say if you do not drop Constitution, you are doing it wrong, because your Cipher should not be in harm’s way in the first place, etc. But since Pillars is designed in such a way that the only difference between any attribute score is only akin to a few percent, the power output is not affected by much. Thus, the companions, rather than being theory crafted beyond reason, to only fulfill one role and that is it, they can do a few things quite well. The stats are truly more representative of the characters themselves in that regard. For instance, Serafen can also turn your foes against themselves or debilitate large group of enemies like Aloth quite reliably. He has good enough stats for all those things. His is versatile ; he is not a one-trick pony. His stats are not too bad either if you want to go Witch (Barbarian+Cipher) or just outright Barbarian. So, truly, go with the character you have the most fun with, character wise. They all will get the job done, even on the highest difficulty setting. Especially right now until they spice it a bit !

My guess would be to go either Maia or Serafen. My thought is that Maia is pretty good at killing and interrupting casters and far away enemies all the while Aloth excels at debilitating closer enemies but less so the further those are. Thus Maia fills in a nice gap in the formation in that regard. Serafen, being a Cipher, is pretty useful overall to control the battlefield. He has also some truly awe-inspiring single-target damage potential, if needs be. Paladins are nice and all, but I do not necessarily like as much as I did in the first game the unique variant of Pallegina. In fact, the Kindway Farer seems much more interesting because of the healing potential, to help alleviate some of the burden of Xoti. So, well, depending on your playstyle, if you have the Kindway Farer subclass for Pallegina and if you have some difficulty with the game so far, I think Pallegina could be a great help to your formation, then. But if not, I advocate to go with the two above.

Hi, I would like to have those images into watercolor variants, if it is possible. I big thanks in advance !

As I was looking into character creation the other day, I was wondering just how awesome it would be if we could get more cosmetic options, like portraits and character models, especially faces, but perhaps also hair styles, beards, etc. As of right now, it is quite limited in scope. It is especially striking now that we see much more closer to the models. I understand it costs money to produce, so I am just curious to know if I would be alone to be interested in them producing some high quality materials for us to toy with in the future under the form of a small DLC or something. Hopefully, at a fair price, of course. It would perhaps finally incentivize them to create those portraits the community has been clamoring for, like for the specific races of Eora, which are very lacking as of right now, especially orlans. But the character models could also use some love. I really like the game and I intend to play multiple times through it, testing builds, etc., but having so few options just feel sad. Anyway, I am just curious to know the opinion of the community.

In Pillars of Eternity I, fellow companions you did not bring along with you saw their growth halted altogether – unless you sent them on adventures, that is. In the same spirit, in the Deadfire, how one goes about keeping all companions more or less on the same footing without painstakingly switch them in and out of your group all the time ? I might not have gotten far enough yet, so sorry if such is the case. But in the off chance I did not notice something, I am eager to have some answers on that. Thanks in advance, everyone !

It is most likely the case that a bug is the cause, here. I selected that I re-forged the Blade of the Endless Paths, but I only got the Whispers of Yenwood. Perhaps other choices in the manual selection of events conflict with the flag for the Blade to appear at its place in the cabin ? What you did with the Master Below, perhaps ? I selected that I killed him and learned Scale-Breaker. Hope anyway it will be resolve in some future update, hopefully retroactively so I do not have to start anew, again, since I have way too much of a compulsion to restart all the same time already haha

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you cannot possibly know that for starters. Indeed, you only saw what everyone here saw, the beta included. It is only normal for the full game to have all the bugs the game has rather than only a few samples that the beta had in it, by virtue of being smaller in scope and most likely more stable overall.

I am from Québec, in Canada. It is 13:25 as of right now and waiting for the game to finish uploading and get itself ready to launch. Happily, I had it preload already, so it should not be to long !

My first character will most likely be the last one I played in Pillars of Eternity. Her name is Minerva Caesia ; she is a meadow folk, a battlemage and comes from Old Vailia. Her ancestors moved in the region back in the day, when the Grand Empire of Vailia was still a thing. Before the events of the first game, she was a mixture of explorer/mercenary with a band of friends from her hometown. Younger, they will always be out there together. A band of merry friends, playing pranks and what have you on each other’s and even the townsfolks. They were well liked nonetheless for they were always eager to help out. As they were growing up and still coveting adventures of all sorts, they decided they wanted to get out there, like the famous Pargrunen dwarfs of Old Vailia. Though not rich enough to fund an entire expedition on their own, they ended up joining many as body guards of sort. For a few years, it worked pretty well and gave many occasions for the band to learn about past civilizations and old magic from many corners of the world. Things will get soar over as the last expedition they tagged along with ended up awakening something deep in the jungle, that will prove to be too much to handle for the band and the guys they were supposed to protect. Though most of them will get away, more than few died in the process. At the beginning of Pillars of Eternity I, she is trying to move on and forget about what happen, still riddled with guilt. Hence, for most of the events of the first game, she is doing her best to get over it and come to terms with what happen. Let’s say the events of the first game did not make it easy on her at times. But when she journeyed north at the call of Stalwart and heard about the Durgan’s Battery, something started to rekindle in her, slowly but steadily. By the time Deadfire begins, she is back to her old self, though albeit with some more maturity : altruistic, eager to help and learn, ready to embark on any new adventure just for the gist of it, the archipelagos seem to be an ideal location. Though she will probably be sad because of what will happen at the beginning of the game, especially because I always believe to be in-character for her to invite some of her friends and family back to Caed Nua, to live with her, well… She is not as fragile anymore, for having been through it once already, and because she has a great reason to push on even harder. Indeed, Eothas might have captured your soul, but he also captured the souls of the many people inhabiting Caed Nua that fateful day and she will most definitely want to get them back and release them from captivity. That is more or less what I have for now !

If Baldur’s Gate 2 is anything to go by, we might well become something akin to a god at some point or at the very least have the option to ascend. On a funnier note, if I do not have the option to self-destruct Berath by telling her she cannot be the incarnation of Life and Death if she is only immortal, I’ll be somewhat disappointed

Nah, the main problem is the health system, he is just spamming heal spells. The last fight I saw: he was almost dying, then he proceeded to use consecrated grounds, holy radiance and restore minor endurance, his entire party was full health again, just after that he used his build to melt the enemy. After the combat he didn't need to rest and his tank was ok. If it was PoE 1 he would have to at least watch out for his health, which can't receive heals over and over again. Soooo… Essentially the problem, if I understand correctly, is that he does not need to rest between each or most fights, is that it ? Because at the end of the day, that the spells and abilities heal Health or Endurance, in Pillars or Deadfire, it changes nothing unless the fight really drags out or you keep pushing for one more encounter before you rest. For instance, I do not believe, even for once, in all my games in Path, that Edér was harmed so badly that I had to rest for him. I would always end up resting for other party members, and not even because of health but because I ran out of some necessary spells against some creatures, like those afflicting the party with Charmed, Dominated, Paralysis, Petrified, etc. Many of those issues just make Pillars I sometimes an exercise in frustration because the game was always slowed down unnecessarily for no good reason. If each encounter is some kind of challenge of its own, it would be much better at the end of the day, I’d wager. It is a video game after all. It is not tabletop. Some mechanics have to adapt to the medium at some point. No the main problem is that we don't have Health to worry about anymore, we don't need to use buffs to diminish damage received, we don't need to watch out for debuffs, we can just heal, because we only have endurance now. It has nothing to do with Health. Nothing. At all. You still need to mitigate damage, because if you do not care about that you are going to get stump pretty bad because you will not be able to heal as fast as you are taking damage. Especially true for those really squishy characters that might be tagging along with you, to the remote corners of Eora. If you do not die inside the fight, it does not matter, ultimately. Because you will end up resting after anyway. Which is pointless if you have to do it for no other reasons than attrition. If you tell me that it is more realistic like that than I would also point out it would be more realistic if every time you get seriously cut by a sword, you were confined to bed for many weeks, most likely. After all, it would be more difficult ! You will have to still pay your crew and feed them while still in bed… Time to become an Eora’s merchant ! By the way, in all seriousness, you did not address any of the points I made in the post you quoted. For someone complaining about not being read appropriately earlier, you should really try to get the points I try to make and other people for that matter. No, you have a bunch of healling spells, if you want, you can watch cohhcarnage he is just spamming heals. You can use consecrated grounds 3 times in just one fight. I have already watched it. Not all of it. But enough of it to get the gist of it. In all seriousness, he could play better, but he is trying to be entertaining and most likely trying to keep up with the chat at the same time as he is playing. So, I do understand. Sure, he does spam healing spells, but it is clearly not the best strategy. He does not even utilize crowd control, really, which is supposed to be why you tag along Aloth. The best way to play these games is to mitigate damage, not healing it. He often gets away with it because, if you watch it carefully, his main character, though badly build, is still pretty powerful. Particularly if you consider the fact he has access to no less than something akin to five Second Wind with his animal forms. It is also pretty interesting to notice that he is almost consistently on the brink of death. With no resources left to heal back up.

By the way, I believe there is one more thing that is quite interesting with the setup we do have right now : it would be much easier for them to adjust - aka increase or decrease if necessary - the difficulty for each difficulty setting since they can now know for a fact what you are going to have available to you in each and every encounter. At least most likely. Especially so if you choose to activate level scaling, since the encounter will be basically at the ideal level for your party. Each time. You should also consider that you have, in fact, less spells and other abilities to heal you in Deadfire than you did in Pillars I, for any crucial encounter since those have a lower amount. Instead of casting five to six spells of level one, you might only be able to cast three, perhaps four ? And spells tend to have a longer casting time, and have longer recovery, too... I mean, I hardly see the problem the more I think about it ^^"

Nah, the main problem is the health system, he is just spamming heal spells. The last fight I saw: he was almost dying, then he proceeded to use consecrated grounds, holy radiance and restore minor endurance, his entire party was full health again, just after that he used his build to melt the enemy. After the combat he didn't need to rest and his tank was ok. If it was PoE 1 he would have to at least watch out for his health, which can't receive heals over and over again. Soooo… Essentially the problem, if I understand correctly, is that he does not need to rest between each or most fights, is that it ? Because at the end of the day, that the spells and abilities heal Health or Endurance, in Pillars or Deadfire, it changes nothing unless the fight really drags out or you keep pushing for one more encounter before you rest. For instance, I do not believe, even for once, in all my games in Path, that Edér was harmed so badly that I had to rest for him. I would always end up resting for other party members, and not even because of health but because I ran out of some necessary spells against some creatures, like those afflicting the party with Charmed, Dominated, Paralysis, Petrified, etc. Many of those issues just make Pillars I sometimes an exercise in frustration because the game was always slowed down unnecessarily for no good reason. If each encounter is some kind of challenge of its own, it would be much better at the end of the day, I’d wager. It is a video game after all. It is not tabletop. Some mechanics have to adapt to the medium at some point.

Thank you ! They are great, and I appreciate very much the hard work Thanks again ! If by any means, you or anyone were still feeling up to the task, I just found a really cool piece. Indeed, it is akin to Guts, from Berserk, but with an art style pretty close to what you might find in the game, I believe. Anyway, I will still post it here, just in case someone might get interested in it, perhaps even for Pillars I. Cheers everyone. Less than a day before launch !

I am actually pretty sure you’re going to be able to preload. In fact, I am pretty sure it is scheduled to be available today on Steam. Well, that is what I remember from reading a tweet not too long ago ? I hope I am not mistaken :S Take it with a grain of salt until I can find it again.