Sedrefilos

I have experienced the same thing with long breaks between sessions and little time to play. Unfortunately, games like this are better played continuously. Like this is a period of your life that you have, say, at least 3 or 4 hour per day or per other day and you've said to youself "this is a good time to play Pillars". I've quit games beacause of little free time; I loose the connection with them if I stay away for too long. Or restart them at some other more comvinient time. Other than that, I don't believe the game is that difficult and not that complicated either if you have exerience in similar games, though every non-action rpg gets a bit getting used to it at start. If you have very long time since you last played a game like Pillars, you'll need to spend more time with it (happened to me when I played King's Bounty: The Legend for the first time or even Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time. Was wandering around doing random stuff but after a few sessions I got serious; having sufficient free time helped in that). My advice is, if you don't have enough free time, better leave it for some other time and start over. You'll have no problem in getting into it if mechanics is mostly your problem (games's made in a way that all builds are viable for every class).

I too feel the urge to jump in a pit after reading the op Anyway, thank the devs for the console.

So here's a new background (including dialogue options!) istead of new class: Revolutionary! More interesting, more unique and adds to the roleplay (in which the game needs more work instead of combat)!.

Classless is a very good option when the game is focused on one main player character imo. Like it is you alone or maybe one companion at the time. And it is 1st or 3rd person 3D etc. When the game is party based, class-based is a better way to go. Tbh I believe that the game has already enough classes, though new and more are always welcome. Then again I usually never replay rpgs and maybe that's why I say it has enough. 'Cause I played them once. And didn't mix and match many combinations. So what do I know. Anyway I'm off the thread; I just wanted to comment about classless sequel that's all

Twin Elms was good imo. Much better than DB. It also helped that the companions, for some reason, started to talk way more in part 3, when in part 2 were mostly silent unless you were resolving their personal quest. This also prooves Obs didn't gave that much effort in DB. Maybe they designed it first and they were "ok, we have to put some factions... there, the detectives we talk about... hmmm must have something cool for the main story... leave it aside for the moment" then. Not much of an inspiration. Then, several months later, while they were finishing DB all the great ideas started to pop out! "Man, I have an idea about the mad lord and his super complex fort-dungeon and the Twin Elms can have this and this and that, and them Hiravias can say this about that and Sagani the other nad the intro should have all those dialogue options and the dungeon has all those interesting paths and outcomes and oh! oh! for the main story I have this idea of Heritage Hill let's just squeeze it in DB somewhere..." etc etc and they are in an inspiration streak and then they realize the release day approaches and have no time to redo DB so the game comes out and... well... what to do? Next time

The selling point of Pillars for me was the "best parts of Icewind Dales, Torment and Bladur's Gates". Good dungeoneering of IWD, good dialogue and roleplay of Torment and good setting, characters, companions and main plot of BGs. To me, Pillars delivered their promise at most part. The genral "feel" or IE games was there too and all the annoying things like boring classes, poor pnp implemented mechanics, no real real-time combat etc were out. The new stuff they tried are new level crpg imo (mostly how roleplay is expressed through stats, skills and rep); they just didn't use them to full potential. We can hope to see this coming true in the sequel, I hope.

PoE becomes its own thing like Baldur's Gates became Dragon Age then people start to complain thet they don't do the games like they did back in the two thousand teens. Then some people in 2030 make a kistarter and make a game that is inspired by Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Divinity Original Sin, Shadowrun Returns and Legend of Grimrock. They get a huge ammount of money, everyone is celebrating and the circle repeats itself. lol

The more I think about it, the more it irritates me! If they had not much time or resources to make Defiance Bay huge and meaningful they should just focus on e few core things. What we know of the city? It's full of refugees, there is a cemetery district that is off-limits because undead are roaming, there are 3 major factions that are concerned about the situation and somehow we have to figure out what is going on with Thaos and the animancers. Ok great. It sounds very interesting by itself. What they could do is have a district dedicated to refugees alone, have us meet with Dunyrd Row and and a major detective and through them investigate what is going on and come to a conclusion. There is no need to choose between any of the factions. They are so quarter-assed that you don't get to bond with them anyway. Instead we could just interract with them in various ways and use them in order to walk through the investigation. Then tie it all up with the animancers, make us have some serious choices on how we push the investigation and what we decide to do after we solve it (use reputation/stats/skill based dialogues and scripted interactions to full potencial) and there you go. No need for an empty-ish market district with those unrelated quests, no need for choosing sides with those quarter-assed factions and most importantly no need to have that intervention in the meeting with the duc and the factions and the nonsensical riot event. Less random stuff, more story-based experience if you got no time for both is my suggestion to the devs. Also sprach Sedrefilos Now it's time to move on. Enough rant about Defiance Bay

Happened to me too first time. If I remeber well (haven't played since April), If you go the other way (not where the dragon is) you can fight a couple of (tough, to be honest!) Xaurip encounters and find the staircase leading upstairs. Not sure though if the satircase there is a "major" one (that'll lead you to any level) or a normal one (leading you one level up). I believe is the major; you can give it a try That is if you don't want to cheat and if you have some resting supplies with you too *edit couple of times*

It is good to add new classes but it will be better if they connect to the lore. If there is an interesting way to connect runes with souls and magic, why not? +1 for animancers btw

A long, well-written, non-linear, main story-integrated Dunryd Row questline with Sherlock Orlan as supervising npc would have been enough for me.

When you criticize a game, you criticize it for what it is. If it is a part of a series, you compare it to the rest of the games in that particular series. You don't compare it with something else. DnD is DnD and is made as their designer wanted. When I play a DnD game I dont usually say "why can't I use a 2-handed sword as a mage?". I take the rules as they are and accept I just can't use a 2-handed sword as a mage. Because of that, as a mage (or wizard most accurately) I have other things I can do. Does the fact that I cannot use a 2-handed sword as a wizard in DnD break the game? Nope. Same goes for Pillars. You accept the rules and say you can use a 2-handed sword as a wizard. Does it break the game? Nope. The game is designed that way that you can be effective in an extent. You can discuss further if there is apoint in doing so but the discussion should take place in the PoE context. You can't talk about Pillars and bring DnD in the conversation. It makes no sense. If in PoE 2 there is a restriction in gear, then we can talk how it works, if it had to be done that way and how it plays compares to PoE 1 etc. The OP reminded me all those threads during beta about how PoE isn't an exact IE game

There is no actual discussion. Is a whine why Pillars isn't a copy of DnD regarding gear and classes by the OP and then most people saying that the current free gear system is good.

Man, talking about missed opportunities in Pillars makes want to play even more the sequel Damn, I so wish they'd made an expansion that continues the story rather than an unrelated side one...

Ah... the lost possibilities of Defiance Bay... so many cool ideas, so poorly done... such a pitty I really, really, really hope they make it up for Defiance Bay in the sequel. Massive understatement. Dunryd Row was a huge missed opportunity in the game and should have been involved in the actual plot, not been a sidebar foot note of "Oh yeah there's Dunryd Row and someone in there want's to talk to you." Nothing about it was used in the story and I sure as heck would have been happier with a Dunryd Cipher companion than "I have no personality.... THE BELLS AND BABIES" character we ended up with. Yeah, especially when it was talked so much during the kicksatrter and the development process (one of the first character portraits was that orlan cipher detective if I remeber correctly). I thought it was something new for the genre and seemed very interesting. In fact, I was given the idea that a major and central questline in DB will be resolving around the detective house and it was pumping up my expectation to reach the city when I was playing. Imagine my disapointment when I satrted exploring DB with all its short, shallow and uninteresting quests and factions... at most parts. There were good thing also, mainly the Heritage Hill area but anyway, the bitterness of that missed opportunity still lingers in my (mental) mouth. I'm about to start another playthrough when the 2nd part of the expansion is out and the idea that I'll have to go through Defiance Bay again puts me a bit off

Some people just cannot unglue DnD from their minds I suppose.

And having all "classes" using the same gear & weapons is totally roleplaying no matter their background, suuuure "Giving a stronger identity to classes is so un-rpg..." Obsidian forums, 2015. At least this way you can roleplay however you want. You can say "my wizard cannot use 2-handed sword" and just never equip one to him/her. Same for any character. There you have it, problem solved for you.

Having class-locked gear is the second less role play-y thing in an rpg. The first is dropping to j"r"pg levels

Ah... the lost possibilities of Defiance Bay... so many cool ideas, so poorly done... such a pitty I really, really, really hope they make it up for Defiance Bay in the sequel.

And not only that. The whole adventure can have a more renaissance feel, travel to different cities instead of villages (or parts of cities), you know, be more urban, have a side naval adventure and maybe return for a wile to the Dyrwood or Eir Glanfath (like for a smal/medium quest chain) 'cause I don't feel I got enough of them in PoE Anyway, Republics first, rest of the world afterwards And instead of stronghold PC gets own ship (also use it for fast travel) . And can sail with goods. ) Aw right!!! Ship instead of stronghold! Super neat idea! +500 for that!

And not only that. The whole adventure can have a more renaissance feel, travel to different cities instead of villages (or parts of cities), you know, be more urban, have a side naval adventure and maybe return for a wile to the Dyrwood or Eir Glanfath (like for a smal/medium quest chain) 'cause I don't feel I got enough of them in PoE Anyway, Republics first, rest of the world afterwards

Tbh, I'd love if the sequel takes part in the Valian Republics. We played the Dyrwood and Eir Glanfath, the mountainpart region is in the expansion so I'd love to see the Republics so to close with the Eastern Reach and then travel to another location (you know, PoE 3. They'll make it, right?)

Classes not retsricted to specific weapons/armour is one of the best things in Pillars. About time to make away with this nonsensical old-school trope. After all, many games have done it too.

Sawyer said in a recent interview that if they're going for a sequel (hinting that they're going for a sequel ) it'll be in a very different place, they way Amn was different that the Sword Coast, yet near it. We'll have to see.

No more expansion I guess, but we're gonna hear probably about PoE 2 sometime after the 2nd part of the expansion in out.