Sedrefilos

Used to be until the game was released Anyway, back to helping the OPer, this might have spoilers though. Try to scout ahead a bit and lure lone guards to single fight them before they join a larger group. That worked well with me. On the second floor, you can scout pretty much the entire map by wearing the priests' robes. Also, maybe you need to level up a bit and then try the hold.

I consider myself casual player yet I want the game to be challenging and I want to look at as much stuff as I can. I see it differently: There are people who play a game the way they like as they figure it out through playing, and people who believe the games should be made and played the way they think they should. All design descision that they don't like have to be "forced" to the devs by the console conspiracy to make us all dumb.

The most annoying thing for me is not how I collect taxes but how and why I do it. I reside in a ruined castle and somehow for some unknown reason some people of the countryside acknowledge me as their lord and start paying me taxes I didn't even ask in the 1st place. And what do I do with them? I go and buy gear for my adventure. How stupid is this whole idea?

Why 4 VS 6 and not 5 VS 6 or 3 VS 6 or 2 VS 6 or 1 VS 6? Well the game is designed for a 6-members party, so I play with six. Also I get to have more companions with me sharing their stories and I can see more classes in action.

There's already a DnD game coming to pcs https://swordcoast.com/

Well then maybe they should only make expansions that stack up dungeons to the original game and never move to the sequel

Quest items are automatically placed into stash and cannot be moved. If you have the item inyour stash, it is automatically used in the quest. Maybe the key you have is not for the door you're trying to open.

I'd rather they skip the expansion and move to a sequel. I don't see the point of making an expansion that just adds more dungeons and items to the game without continueing the story. If the team has some great ideas for the expansion, they can just keep them and add them to the sequel. We're losing time here! Let's see Pillars 2 already!

So, after two years following the development and participating in the forums while waiting for the game's release, I finally played it and finished it yesterday, April 16 at 23:50 This is my personal opinion ,of course, and, since I don't believe it's gonna matter much to players, is mostly directed to the developers as a feedack of the game (provided they care to read this ). Let's say, for starters, that I loved the game in general and had a great time playing it. Also, I've finished it on normal. Also, there may be spoilers to the parts I elaborate more. So, let's start from the things I liked completely: - Setting, lore. The world is great. Familiar to fantasy lovers yet new in it's own way. History, cultures, races everything is well worked and believable. - Graphics and sound. Both excellent. Character models are better that I'd wish for and the backgrounds just gorgeous. I loved all the combat music tracks and some of the more calm tracks (especially combined with wilds at night) where just magical. - Aesthetics. Another high point of the game. The architecture of settlements, wilds and dungeons is just fantastic. The design of clothing and gear also. Not rel-life boring nor over-the-top cartoonish. - Character creation. Well, this is, imo, the best character creation process I've ever experienced in a crpg. So many interesting and meaningful stuff. I just couldn't decide what character I should make. And given I knew the classes, races etc way before I played the game. it says much. I never have a problem creating a character. In most games the choice is almost instant. But not here - Adventuring and dugeoneering. I liked the way the game implemented exploration with different exit paths from each area and the the use of tools in scripted interactions. The dungeons also were all great. I can't remeber a dungeon I dind't like. Their design, their thematics, their aesthetics, everything was greatly done. - Ruleset. I liked the way the devs approached this. With every stat matter to each class. The classes also were very different from each other; each with something unique to add to the experience. - Rest system. Resting was one thing I hated in IE games. With spells spent after use and spellcasting classes being useless without them, spam-resting after each and every combat was a no-brainer for me, which made the whole mechanic just pointless. Just go with mana and be done already! But here, we have a much more effective resting system. Abilities have per-encounter or per-rest usages and along with the health/endurance system and the limited camping supplies make resting much more meaningfull and, most importantly, more immersive. - Combat. Yes, I liked combat a lot. It was fast (didn't find it as much fast as meny people from the beta were saying) and fun. Whith many abilities so different from one another, many weapons and encounters more interesting and challenging (not all the time, to be honest) than I'd though, I had a blast fighting my party through enemies. And thank for engagement system! No more running around like fools chasing one another! - Main story. Although it takes a bit long to unfold, it surely turns out to be better than you believe it's gonna be when you're in mid-game. A very pleasant surprise! - Dialogues and options. With stats, skills, reputation, background, culture, class, race options to pop-up in dialogues, this just makes it the best dialogue system in crpgs thus far. - Disposition system. Best reputation system ever. - Crafting. Simple and to-the-point. I felt more as an adventurer with this crafting system. Crafting mostly adventuring stuff such as scrolls, food and potions and just improving upon existed items and not be the expert blacksmith, armorsmith, leatherworker, alchemist and whatever, I felt much more immersed in my role as an adventurer. - Stronghold. A fun and useful feature. Somewere to spend my treasure and a place to rest and resupply. It also had - The Endless Paths. The mega-dungeon I loved so much. I was so thrilled when I finally reached the 14th and 15th levels and I missed it when I finished it. - Roleplay. Everything mattered here: class, background, reputation... great work. I also loved that I could even choose my past actions in my previous life instead of just given to me fixed! - The gear. Loved the magical items in both stats and looks. Very adventury. - Scripted iteractions. A clever and immersive way to add action and adventure in an isometric game. - Night time. The moonligh especially in the wilds and in Twin Elms was just magical - Game options. Great variety. Best of all the font size slider! :D I needed that thing. I always had such a hard time with IE and Neverwinter Nights games with their super tiny fonts that I used to skip text just for that! Now, some things that although I liked, I didn't see them in full potential: - Scripted interactions. The game needen like +200% more I believe. - Companions. Although I liked them as characters, some had more stuff than others. Durance and Grieving mother (Avellone's characters; coincidence? Who knows )were the most interesting and mysterious ones. Aloth was next but you got over with his quest quite soon. Hiravias and Sagani both had interesting stories but nothing very "deep" and Eder, Pallegina and Kana were just "go to point x, have a dialogue and that's it". Also, and this was very important to me. Most of the time, more specifically, before Twin Elms, you just forget you have companions with you. Very rarely do they talk, interject, interact etc. I was dissapointed with that and when I reached Twin Elms and saw them just becoming "alive" I thought "why the hell were they not doing this the rest of the time?!". After a certain point they start talking alot, interject in dialogues, asking your opponion etc. You feel the companions more as companions in the last 1/3 or 2/5 of the game. - Stats, skills, reputation options in dialogues. We need more of those. They were many at the beggining ut then not so often. Not as often as I expected at least. Also, resolve and perception were more used than other stats. I'd like to see much more stats, skills, class, reputation, background, culture options in dialogue in the fututre. - Stronghold. I'd like to see it having more impact in the world. Only once or twice did I had to mention it in dialogues that mattered (one was with Korgrak - I took him as a hireling, and another I mentioned to someone I was lord of Caed Nua or something). Also, I resided in a ruined keep and somehow everybody acknowledged me as their ruler and start paying me taxes? What the hell, and who were those people? That made no sense and it was a bit annoying. To the things I didn't like: - Some writing and stories/themes in mid-game were not as good as in general for some reason. We had some super generic stuff going on, some nonsensical options, some stereotype talk that I felt they were out of place and ruined a bit my experince at that time. Most of them were in Defiance Bay which was, after all... - ... my biggest dissapointment in the game! Yes, Defiance Bay was the thing I liked least in Pillars of Eternity and let me explain why. First of all, I believe it needed at least +50% more content. It is supposed to be the big city of the game, the capital of Dyrwood, a city bustling with people and refugees. Well, were were they?! Compared to Twin Elms, a, supposedly, much smaller city, it looked empty! Twin Elms was great regarding that. People everywere, with their animals, talking, walking, teaching each other stuff, people from Dyrwood and Vailian Republics too doing their stuff... It felt full of people. Defiance Bay on the other hand had some guards here and there, some merchants here and there, very few people standing and talking... Were were the refugees? There should have been one district somwere inside or outtside the city dedicated to these people. With npcs in there, quests, storylines and all. To know them, to see what's going on, what's happening. The main city factions were also dissapointing. You don't get to know them much. You pretty much make one or two quests for each and that's it! Compare it to New Vegas (another Obsidian game) were you get to know and bond (or not) with each and every faction in the land (and it has many!). I picked the knights of Crucible but I couldn't care much about them or any other of the main factions. The animancers and all that. Just not enough stuff to dig deep into. You go to the academy, you make a quest and it's over... no different quests from different people to see what animancy really is from all sides. The detective house of Lady Webb (can't remember the name now). One simplistic mystery to solve and we're done. Couldn't care much about them either. First Fires is a district with only three buildings, which you'll visit zero to three times each and that's it. Especially the Vailian embassy which has nothing special to do there. The most interesting part of the Bay is the dungeon-district Heritage Hill. Then Defiance Bay... not good. Needed more work, much more content. And finally, some things that I believe Obsidian needs to take a different approach: - Text and dialogue portraits. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem reading stuff. But the description texts were very long at times and it just took me out out of the game sometimes. Same thing with dialogues with non-companion npcs. Let me explain what I mean. You are experiencing the game world through the visuals, the graphics. You get to see the characters there in the environment and all. At some point, things happen and are presented to you through text. You take your focus off the game world and put it in reading the text. This, me at least, puts me out of place. I'm losing focus and immersion. Instead of just text, there should have been some visuals too. Changing o rpartially moving pictures, so, while reading the text, I'm still in the game. Same thing with dialogues. You talk to different npcs and you don't see who they are. You look at a small character from afar, but not their faces. Sometimes, some npc will come talk to you and you won't remeber who they were because of their strange name. I may forget their names but I won't forget their faces. That's why I believe each and every single npc that can initiate dialogue with you, should have their own portrait to look at when you're talking to them. And your portrait too when you're about to select an answer. - Voice-over. I believe a full voice-over should be attempted next time. Or no voice over at all. The partial one is a bit annoying. I liked what Larian did with their voice over in Divinity: Original Sin. They had no voiced dialogues at all but everything in the environment was voiced. People talking around you were voiced and enemies taunting you and saying there stuff was also voiced and it worked well with me. The partial voice with no voice of the random npcs around me didn't work for me. - Stat checks in dialogues. Of course the idea is fantastic and when I heared Saywer in presentations saying that, because you have the right ammount of a stat to unlock a dialogue option, that doesen't mean this is the correct option always, made me very happy, I didn't see that happening much in the game. Most of the times when I was picking the stat or skill option it was a win negotiation. Just a suggestion here; if it is not to be used that way, then maybe a percentile success would be better. Like you have 10 intellect, this dialogue option needs 19 intellect to convince the npc (hidden from the player), so you see an indicator beside it -like "hardly" or whatever- and you have a chance, depending how low your stat is and how high it needs to be, to succeed in persuading the npc. In conclusion, I see this game as the beggining of a series or the establishment of a setting. Let the sequel be what Baldur's Gate 2 was for Baldur's Gate 1 and the third game be the best rpg ever. Or just skip the second phase and make the sequel the best rpg ever I hope the developers read this and see it as useful feedback. See you next game!

There's no comparison between them. Two completely differnt things. I enjoyed both equally for what they are, although, in general, I prefere full-scale rpgs such as Pillars.

Defiance Bay was a big let down to me I believe it needed at least +50% more content. It looks emprty. You're supposed to see the capital full of people and refugees crowding its streets etc. Also you don't get to get involved into the major factions enough. Just one quest and you're ok. Same with the animancers and the detective house. Also, one district is only 3 buildings, one which is the Vailian embassy with almost nothing to do there. Another district (Heritage hill) is just an open dungeon. You go there once, you finish it and that's it. I loved Twin elms on the other hand. It is much more densely populated. People everywere, with their beasts, talking, training each other, walking. The factions are more worked and the quests are more interesting. It's smaller (is it?) but more focused. Yes it's a madhouse, but a well worked one

Apples and oranges

I know people who liked DA2 more than Origins and DA:I more than the two first. You'll have to see for yourself. I loved Origins, found 2 to be of potential and it might have been a great game given 1 more year in development; being mediocre as it released and couldn't play DA:I yet because I need to upgrade my machine

How was poe on Casual/Normal? Very fun to play and challenging at times (haven't finished it yet though).

You like the looks of it.

I'll voice over the entire game for you. I'll start right now. Just so you know, my voice and accent suck (ok my accent is decent but my voice sucks!)

The expansion should come soon, like in this year -at least the 1st part- since it'll only have extra thingies and won;t continue the story. Hopefully they'll make e sequel which I'd like to see in 2017 but they may have to decide about the engine and other technical stuff based on the money they made with this one, so it might take more. Like a year more.

Also these new isometric games are much cheaper to develop now, so companies can use nostalgia to lure grognards

The full 3D worlds was the new big thing back then and it seemed reasonable to transfer the player inside the adventure and the world instead of watching from afar. More immersive and the rest. And it made sense. Now, this has become the norm for the last 15 years and it's nothing special about it in 2015. All games are 1sr or 3rd person full 3D, action oriented etc, there's nothing special about that anymore. But isometric gameplay is something new for a non-strategy game in 2015. Tactical combat and all that. There are many younger people that experience this style for the first time and it's someting new to them. Imho, XCOM: Enemy Unknown brought this to the mainstream.

I recently read an intervew Feargus gave, saying about the expansion delivered in two parts and a card tabletop game. Somewere else said something like "you can guess were we're thinking to go after the expansion" or something like that, which seemed to me like he's implying Pillars 2. I really hope they're doing it outside kickstarter, by themselves.

walking is useless in all games. Walking should be only in real life for relaxing stralls

Naaah...

Resting in IE games was the worst mechanic I've ever encountered in a video game. But the way it is implemented in Pillars (with per-rest and per-encounter abilities and limited supplies), I like it a lot. It's much much much more immersive and strategic.

Do not click on yellow name npcs unless you are in a mood to read stuff that have nothing to do with the story whatsoever. They're npcs made by golden backers.

Yes it's hard and annoying. Maybe there shouldn't be descriptions in the voiced parts. The voice tone covers it anyway.