Ninjamestari

Obsidian has apparently driven away their most talented writers, so it is unlikely that this situation will improve in their future games. Their reputation as a company in the minds of game writers has taken big blows as a result, which means it will be more difficult for them to find talented people in the future. After hearing how they treated Chris Avellone, I sure as hell wouldn't want to work for them in any way shape or form. If they're not careful, this might end up in a death spiral that might spell the end of the company. I hope they can fix things, I'd like to see more of Pillars of Eternity, the setting is interesting enough that it deserves better games to represent it, but I'm not holding my breath.

The same thing could be pretty much said about Priests. Spellcasting in general is one of the worst blunders of this game.

There's nothing wrong with Multiclassing, you'll just have to know what the hell you are doing. The problem the OP is having is not the result of bad balancing, it is the result of a badly thought out build.

I've found that single classes overall are much less powerful than their multiclass variants. Sure you get one or two flashy moves more as a pure class, but you get the abilities of a whole another class by multiclassing. For example, that cipher's +30% damage to basic attacks is just nuts for ANY martial class, not to mention all the extra **** you can do with the focus you gain. There isn't a single class that doesn't benefit a ton from having those extra defensive stuff from a paladin, or having access to healing spells from druids and priests, or those deflection buffs from a wizard, etcetera. Every single character you get is more powerful as a multiclass variant.

Just because you like your choice and want it to be good, doesn't mean that the choice is good. They're not deconsidering your options, you made your choices and now you'll have to live with the consequences. No one is forcing you to make any specific choice, and if you made a bad choice like you obviously did, then that's your own goddamn fault. The world doesn't operate on the basis of what you want to happen, why should this game?

The answer in 2018 is unequivocally "no". Most games with a good developer will get some amount of post-launch patches or content, so the day one review will inevitably be outdated. However, that's just not how it works in reality. Reviewers need to get their reviews out as soon as the embargo is lifted because that's how they get views. I wish I could find some kind of aggregated data of game review clicks on launch week vs the rest of their lifetime. I would bet that reviews get more clicks within 7 days of release (and embargo if they are different days) than every day from then on put together. That's why reviewers always try to get that day 1 review out ASAP. And also why most of them don't ever bother updating their reviews. There are so many games, movies, TV shows, news, etc. coming out all the time that people don't have the mind-space to follow up on a game that's supposed to be fixed later. I did find some interesting data, though not the exact type I was looking for. This is from "Predicting Video Game Sales in the European Market" by Walter Steven Beaujon from Vrije University in Amsterdam: "The data shows that most titles will launch to a high first week and start to decline every week from that point on. On average games that see decline will decrease with 36% from week 1 to week 2, and then with 33% from 2 to 3." That's why reviewers only care about the day 1 review. That's when the consumers are paying attention to the game. And then, right away, it's on to the next one. I do think it's irresponsible not to update the reviews, but I can't say I blame them considering how many games are constantly coming out and how little interest a follow-up review will hold. It's a tough market, and what Obsidian does is not easy. But I can't imagine that delaying the game for another month would have hurt as much as releasing with so many bugs. I think you're downplaying the responsibility of the gaming company to not ship unfinished games. It's their choice, if they release a game in a sorry state, it's going to reflect in the reviews and in many cases you won't get a second chance. It's better to ship the game late than to ship the game as a buggy mess. It's not the responsibility of the reviewer to shield the game from the bad decisions of the producers and developers. If I review a game, I won't downplay the bugs, I'm going to tell exactly what I think about them and treat the game as it is, not what it could be. I'll update that review if things change and I feel like it, but the responsibility of a good launch is not on those who make the review, it's 100% on the company that makes the game.

Bull****, Durance killed Eothas, Eothas is the focal point of the whole damn game. There's plenty to do for Durance in the game, very intimately tied to the main plot no less.

There's nothing wrong with passion, but there's plenty wrong with passion-induced-blindness. Passion always has to be tempered with honesty and reason. Also, fanbois aren't about passion, they are about a desperate need to belong to a group. You know, kinda like the Star Wars people who still want to pretend the new films are good because their whole identity is built upon that premise. Having passion is something I respect (hell, I get to trouble all the time because I can be a little bit too passionate about the things I speak about), being a fanboi (in the manner I described) on the other hand is something I loathe. EDIT: passion also has to be coupled with the strength to handle both it and the opposing reaction it generates. There is no passion without occasional ****storms.

Careful, careful, careful! You're close to stepping into fanboying territory here! You say the game feels so damn good despite all the bugs! That's what a fanboy would do. Nope, a fanboi would deny the existence of the bugs or try to downplay their significance, insisting that there's nothing wrong with the game and that all criticism against it is unfair.

Hmm, perhaps have the Watcher die, and become an awakened soul that replaces the original mind in the new body. The game would begin as you wake up in a strange body, in a strange bed surrounded by strange people who are referring to you with a strange name. You would occasionally recover bits and pieces of the memories of the person your consciousness replaced, which could drive the story forward at certain points. You'll be then able to resolve the plot with the combination of your Watcher's memories and the memories of the person you've taken over. Let the old crew be either dead and buried or old and feeble so that you might get some dialogue out of them but no longer travel with them. Also, let something go HORRIBLY wrong, in an apocalyptic sense, in the time gap between the games, so that you can have a clean start, perhaps without firearms this time, and let the player explore the ancient ruins of the Vailian Republics to rediscover knowledge of their experiments with Luminous Adra etcetera. EDIT: actually, you could have all your original party members dead, so you could then visit their graves, learn of their fates etcetera. Perhaps you could even find a couple of their souls already inhabiting new bodies, living new lives. There's just so much stuff you could do with that setting, where you are essentially an ancient being with memories from the time that is a mystery to all others.

I think some people have said that Edér's history scripts are bugged somehow, so there just might be a locust in the wiring of the game causing your PoE1 choices to be ignored.

An Ocean Folk Vailian Artist Darcozzi Paladin/Soulblade. I would've liked to be a Scholar, and I contemplated going Aristocrat, but in the end I caved for the +Mechanics, +History and +Insight of the Artist, which are the skills I wanted to max out anyway. Fortunately the Artist background fits with the Darcozzi Paladin ethos quite nicely, so I don't feel too bad about making that pick for purely mechanical reasons. I think I was a Vailian Drifter Cipher in PoE1. I never liked the Godlike, although thanks to Pallegina I've warmed up to them a little. The main problem is still there, which is that they're way too weird-looking, and I really think they should've toned down those Godlike features a little bit. If I ever made a Godlike, it would be Death, as there is both finality and brutal honesty to both Death and Berath. If I made a Priest, it would definitely be a Priest of Berath. Or probably a Templar, I really like Paladins.

Easiest question I've ever had to answer. I love Paladins and Ciphers, and I love Paladin/Ciphers even more. I've always liked the idea behind Paladins, that uncompromising dedication towards ones ideals that gives one Strength beyond simple physical prowess, coupled with the nobility and bravery of being a warrior. Now that I don't even have to restrict those ideals to those of a nanny, I like the class even more. Ciphers reflect similar mental prowess but in a completely different way, having a unique way to garner insight and to get to the truth, and all in all everything a Cipher is feels like the missing half of being a Paladin. A Cipher Paladin has both sides of the coin, a Paladin's dedication towards one's path and the Ciphers ability to navigate that path. I'd really love to see more (and more fleshed out) Paladin orders in the game, I'd like to see an order dedicated to Truth so fiercely that they actively seek out and torture and kill liars and charlatans (favors honesty and cruelty), an order utterly dedicated to prowess in combat (favors aggression and passion), and an order dedicated to secrecy and protecting either the Gods and their Priests and Temples or perhaps Engwithan Ruins, in which case the order could be an off-shoot of the leaden key or something (favors stoicism and shadiness), just to voice a few ideas. I just wish the game didn't piss on my hopes for getting special dialogue options due to being a Darcozzi Paladin. Hell, even when facing a certain Darcozzi Paladin Deathguard the game makes zero nods towards the fact that I, in fact, am a freaking Darcozzi Paladin! I hope this is just one of those bugs that plague just about everything in the game and that this travesty of justice gets rectified posthaste.

but male voice are so..been there , done that a thousand time over... Of course it has been done a thousand times over; male voice simply sounds better as a narrator. Only an idiot wants to be original for the sake of being original. An idiot, or worse, a freaking hipster.

I don't know about most powerful, but Paladin + Cipher is definitely the most Awesome. Also, Soul Whip mixes incredibly well with melee characters, pick that soulblade whatever as your subclass and the Cipher part of you will take care of doing damage. You can then focus your ability picks on defensive passives and heals, becoming a pretty straightforward powerhouse that still has plenty of support/control utility. Hell, in the end I like anything that has Paladin in it though :/

It's a shame looking at the state of these forums, because reading the stuff the fanbois here post really makes me *want* to hate the game AND the company. I like the game so far, but the bug-ridden state of this release is utterly inexcusable and most of the criticism towards it is absolutely justified. If the game didn't feel so damn good, I probably would hate it, but as it is I can't. All I can do is be disappointed and hope they'll make up for this by patching things up as soon as possible.

Worst narrator ever. They should've stuck to a male voice instead of a female voice desperately trying to sound like a male voice.

I would definitely wait for a few months worth of updates. I myself would really like to know how much of the game's issues in terms of scripting are simply bad writing and how much of it is caused by bugs to be fixed.

Damn this game is an entangled mess of bugs. I really don't think releasing a game in this state is acceptable by any measure, and I cannot honestly recommend the game to anyone without even knowing how much of this game is bad writing/scripting and how much of it is simply bugged dialogue/flags.

So what does that mean for the score of Pillars 1? There aren't negative scores. Should there be an exception for Pillars 1? From all the games, ever made and criticized on Metacritic, Pillars 1 should be the one where a negative score should be allowed? Or how would you like to express the "huge improvement" of Deadfire over Pillars 1? The improvement is so huge, that a score of 0 is warranted for both games? No, that does not explain it. You said "might". So your sentence can be interpreted that way that you think it's rather unlikely that the guy actually went out of proportions with his criticism. No, what it means is that you're quoting my words out of context and misinterpreting them on purpose. In other words, you are being incredibly dishonest and overall despicable. Now I understand that you as a fanboi might be butthurt when someone doesn't like your game, but that doesn't give you the right to start twisting my words in order to paint me as your opposition just for stating the fact that there is an element of truth to the criticism.

Well this one might be due to drugs, who knows: But it's from Metacritic, not from Steam. The guy you quoted might have gone out of proportions with his criticism, but there is an element of truth to it. Writing in this game seems to be incredibly intellectually lazy, the dialogue picks you have during moral dilemmas are often just inane, and plenty of quests that obviously should have multiple branching choices boil down to a binary choice instead. It's ironic, that as they've so vastly improved the traditionally weak aspects of obsidian games, gameplay and overall world structure, they have also taken multiple steps back in the flesh and blood writing. Still, I really like the game, despite its flaws, and if (when) the bugs get fixed, I might just give this one a favorable review. Overall this game is still a huge improvement over Pillars 1.

Pretty much everyone speaks English, the original language, so I overall would advice against playing any game in any other language than english.

I really don't understand why the hell you can't have the character creation BEFORE the "in-between" sequence with Berath. Just go immediately to character creation as you click "New Game" like any normal, self respecting RPG does.

I would also like to note that the class descriptors for paladins and priests do not state their disposition preferences, leaving the player having to try and interpret them from the general description.

Yeah, Neketaka is definitely poorly designed as far as pacing goes. They should've restricted your movement into several smaller chunks, making sure the player has to go explore the archipelago and maybe sink a few pirate ships and rob a few merchants between the districts. The game has a ton of flaws but I find it to be vastly superior to the first one, and I'm actually enjoying my ride so far. Here's hoping they'll fix the damn bugs that are everywhere and readjust PotD soon, so that I can make my second playthrough into a more serious and thought out one.