Daggerknight

The only suggestions I could offer would have to do with the things I either didn't like, or thought were falling short of what POE 1 did. So... all of it just personal feelings, with some musings that maybe others felt the same upon hearing of such things. - As some suggested, the pirate theme may have been seen as an odd next step after the last game. The plot itself just felt pointless by the end of it too, which is something others had talked about. Maybe that was deliberate, but such a move is basically too artsy for its own good if it was. - Performance issues cropped up that remained unresolved for a while. - Smaller party size certainly stumped me at first. I went ahead and bought the game anyhow, because I love Obsidian, but that was not a favorable thing on the bullet point list for me prior to release. - Besides the plot, overall Deadfire came across as more of a mechanical evolution than a logical next step in scale or adventure. To cite the evolution of Icewind Dale to Icewind 2; you went from squad encounters to all out warfare. The encounters were bigger in the sequel, the scale of the journey covered more ground, the specific things you were expected to do were larger... the same can be said for BG 1 to 2. With POE 2, the evolution of scale sort of felt like it went sideways rather than up. We covered more geography, but the scale overall didn't feel much bigger than POE 1. Again, for me this didn't matter anyhow, because when I hear "Obsidian" and "fantasy RPG", I'm in... but most aren't like that I reckon. I still hope that we'll see a POE 3 someday, because at the end of the day, I enjoyed it. It was just in a bit of a strange place over all.

Already tried that. It didn't work.

Still waiting on a fix too. I remain confused as to why performance just nose dived after the last patch, and why there isn't so much as a "yes, we're patching it soon". As it stands, the game is completely unplayable on what should be a pretty capable rig (one that's running stuff like DOOM just fine). Can we please get some kind of update on what's going on?

Thanks for the tips! Will check these out later today. GOG does have a launcher, but it's almost never been a problem, certainly it's lighter than Steam anyhow...

Anyone? Please?

I apologize if this has been posted. I've not found any discussion here, and I also apologize for this not being in the Tech support section, which clearly labels itself as being for the Beta's and Steam.... Anyhow, as stated, I'm on the GOG version of the game, with all expansions. I took a long break after Seeker, Slayer, Survivor (or however it's called), and only just got back to POE with a new character. My previous runs on the game were buttery smooth (running on a GTX 1080 here), no issues at all, not even a single crash. Yet now, when I run the game, every few seconds there's a pause and dip in FPS, even in the first few zones of the game where not a lot is happening. I've trapped capping the FPS, tried lowering the AA, nothing helps. Anyone experiencing the same problem? If so... what's the solution?

While I agree that POE's story got a bit muddy and fizzled out by the end (main plot, not the sub plots, which were well written) ... I have to say, I take major issue to describing Diablo 3's story as "gripping", especially compared to POE 2. The writing (dialogue and narration) in D3 is infinitely worse than POE 2. It runs the range of B-fantasy movie grade to plain dreadful. The only time it really worked was during the cinematic, which Blizzard has always excelled at. (Just thinking the overarching story in D3 is bringing to mind the painful interactions between Leah and Decard. While the apocalypse is literally going off around them, dear Leah still insists on chastising her uncle for all his out-there stories.... yup, that makes sense.). The voice acting was also nothing to write home about. Everyone was either extremely generic sounding, or just passable enough that it didn't get in the way. Honestly, between it and the atrocious dialogue, I seriously couldn't care less about any one of the characters. This is despite the attempt to make me do so by having party banter early on. Compared to D3, POE 3 has a less focused main plot perhaps (in that the main plot goes nowhere in particular), but the side stories are FAR more in-depth, the dialogue is much better fleshed out, and while the voice acting isn't the best in the business, it does enough to give the inhabitants some kind of character.

I didn't mind the writing over all, but there were definately parts of it that came across as less than stellar. I really, really did not like Pallegina in this adventure. I'd go into specifics, but it might be too close to spoilers for this thread. I liked Aloth though. The main campaign? Yeah, it really didn't have any weight to it, which is odd considering it centered around a rampaging colossal god statue. I almost feel like the game would have been better served just focusing on the political stuff. I think that POE is getting a bit more and more ham-fisted when it comes to tackling the question about gods and how good or bad they are. That, and the complete lack of any agency or importance on the players participation in the main quest at all sort of killed it for me. Beast of Winter was a lot more engaging. Might be because it went back to the Icewind Dale style of things, but I felt like I always had some actual choice in how things would go, and the [spoilerS REDACTED!] parts were really awesome. ...by contrast, I'm sort of barely trudging through Seeker, Slayer, Survivor. POE 2 overall (so far) is a weird beast that way. It has some really awesome story moments in general (and the depiction of caste issues is spot on), but then it also has some really, really, really dull and boring parts too. Not in the way that POE 1 was a slow burn, there's just stuff here that's flat-out uninteresting. Also; I'm starting to feel like most of the voice acting is actively hurting the game. I thought everyone sounding really 'American' in Dyrwood was a nice, charming characterization of people in the region, but in POE 2, every islander and every imperial sounds just like everyone back in Defiance Bay. It's even worse because the Valian's have their own thing going, so the Huana, Rauitians and everyone in between sounding the way they do jumps out even more.

I don't quite agree with the OP about the overall quality of the writing, awkward and rushed romances aside. I rather did enjoy the individual stories (main plot was forgettable), and some of the interesting situations. With that said; Icewind Dale 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, and honestly are the ones that got me into RPG's in the first place. I always liked them more than Baldurs Gate. I liked how direct they were; there was a dark lord rising, or a doomish legion doing its thing, and your squad of heroes was there to face the threat. I remember coming up with all kinds of stories and imagening the dynamics between my squad, my creation, and sometimes, a well timed voice over from the unit prompts just made the whole thing work so splendidly. I remember a brilliant moment in Dorns Deep; the fire giants are routing, blocking each others exit from the bridge while the dwarven warrior is smashing away, yelling "I'll wash me beard in yer blood!". Or the time when, in Kresselacs tomb, everyone came under a sleep spell except for the cleric, who simply intoned " ...well, looks like I'm gonna have to go on a killing spree...", before taking his hammer to town on every undead bugger in sight. (Spoiler; he saved the day!). Which is all to say; I don't quite agree with those who posted saying that the Icewind parties had 0 personality. The point was for you to fill in the gaps yourself, and for me, it made me connect with my whole party all the more. I enjoyed POE 1 and 2 through and through, I've finished the first one at least three times now, and the second is going to have a third run for sure. Likewise, Tyranny was great. With all of that said, I would definitely welcome a new Icewind Dale style game too!

I am probably in the minority here, but I have to say, if there's one part about companions that Pillars of Eternity 1 did better than 2, it was the lack of romances. A thing I always liked about Obsidian titles (not counting NWN 2 and I guess Alpha Protocol, which has a suitable context at least) was how they did not go the Bioware route of making every companion shaggable. I liked how in POE 1, everyone honestly had more important things to do (and some even had family's of their own), and were more interested in the mission. In POE 2, Xoti is constantly looking for someone to bang (seriously, she rebounds off of Eder to you, then to Mia), Fish boy is constantly coming on to anything with a physical body, Mia tries to make a move almost as soon as she joins (though maybe with her its being a poor spy)... honestly, what happened to the whole "political powder keg and raging giant god" matter? Can no one keep their pants on till the big giant problem is sorted? It's not that I have a problem with romances per say, just that it's one of the things I felt like separated Obsidian narratives from the pack; a feeling of a more plausible set of relationships that didn't just immediately fall back to "we're here to bang". To be clear, I love the companions and writing in general, but honestly, I for one kind of hope this doesn't become a focal point going forward. What's the general thought on that? (And again, before anyone jumps on me, no this is not about censorship, prudishness, aversion to sexual content in games in general, etc etc. Just a comment on narrative).

I miss it too, but I don't see how it could happen. When people discussed modding this, somebody said that it would be really difficult because there are many things (including how dialogue options work) that were done for four companions and you can't simply add another one. Yeah, I figured that would be a problem. Still, a man can dream!

I miss having a squad of six. It probably wont happen, but I am holding out some hope that we'll get a sixth slot in an expansion, or at least in the inevitable third title.

And posted! Thanks in advance to you guys taking in these requests.

Penalty or not, the combo itself fits the character concept. Besides, this is just his primary set, one with which he seems to be laying the hurt on just fine so far, so the question between the two sabers still stands.