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Rheios

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Everything posted by Rheios

  1. One way might be if they tied it into recovery time on swapped weapons, or allowed faster quick-slot item usage or something. Something that doesn't impact everything but does create a benefit to juggling things out of your belt or using multiple items at once. Or heck, allow using pickpocket unstealthed on a foe in combat to flat disarm them.
  2. I wish there was a clever dialogue option involving Concelhaut when talking with the circle of archmagi. Something like: "btw guys, look who wants to say hello, my pet Concy!" Perhaps in the dlc... Man trotting him around like a show dog to display your superiority is going to make him comically livid. Even more than normal.
  3. Off topic, but why Rauatai for a priest of Berath? The Huana seem far more respectful and dedicated to her eel incarnation, their bounty guy even gives you the bounties in her name. Huana culture needs some changes but that's what Berath's all about and you can be the impetus of better change withing their own society without the almost Galawain-style of strong supplementing the weaker. Still, it probably wouldn't matter in the end to a Berathian anyway. The wheel turns regardless.
  4. While I'm not actually a fan of the idea of actually meeting Nega-Eothas as Gaun, I think there could be something to a death cult, or strange occurrence setting up a growing concern *and* connection to the Deadfire. More and more Deadfire souls cropping up in the Dyrwood as some strange soul-current is interrupting the regular flow into Hel. A sudden surge of slightly dreams among Eothasians calling them to the Dawnstars (Eder complains of them to you via letter - and mentions a voice in them being his old flame's calling his name), and Dawn and Dusk seemingly coming sooner in the last week. Mention of an interaction with a mob of strange individuals wearing masks calling you out to the center of your keep. And then Eothas awakens cutscene. -- Everyone will probably want to just stop there. I'm about to start rambling of some tweaks I think could help things. I didn't intend that at onset but I kindof got lost in rambling. -- The game continues on. But when you interact with Aloth later you discover his coming to the area because of some strange unfounded faction of the Leaden Key. You think maybe its the weird hooded figures that called you out to witness Eothas awakening. When you talk to Xoti though, she thinks they might be a group of militant Gaunites and asked to join out of curiosity and to follow you on your mission. As you reach Tikawara you have your big display and discover, as you pick up companions, that they all have some task relating to this organization interrupting their actions in the area - attacking those trying to mine for Luminous Adra or sinking ships searching for lore on Ukaizo. All the factions are pointing fingers at eachother for being the masked individuals and so each companion has a quest that ties to this secret cult. Xoti ends up being right after a fashion - they're the Eothasian equivalent of the Leaden Key, The Mirrored Curve or something, and have been actively protecting Ukaizo and the Luminous Adra pillars as holy locations in preparation for Eothas ever since St. Waidwyn's death at Halgot. These cultists all get their dreams through Eothas, as opposed to having one unified leader, are appalled at Xoti's visions and hate her for her 'darkness', and actively seek to add as many of their own souls to Eothas as they can as you meet them, and that's what you catch them having done at Hasango. A few of them additionally remain former god-likes (all the remaining godlikes of Eothas), surviving with soul-split like you, and are hold up in the lighthouse trying to fight their way out from the Naga in the area so that they can follow Eothas. You see the end of them, whether by your hand or them sailing off suicide (queue Eder's "nephew" plot -maybe he's even an Eothas-touched turned normal human that you can save, the only one). That gives all the factions a tie in to the main quest for the early game - they can't claim the region until they get rid of this organization. Then you witness the organization being done away with, but the full destruction of the god is presented even more strongly (and the 'strong souls' fueling Eothas are spread beyond your own), inform the factions. They proceed to bicker about it and continue to get nothing done and when left adrift *then* you have your first god meeting, beyond Berath's initial 'find out what he wants' mission, where they discuss what Eotha's plans could be, that it was dangerous of him absorbing all his Godtouched like that - leave the why vague - and Magran reveals the presence of her fort and her plan to blow up Eothas again. The other gods send you there to talk to Eothas - THIS is where they suggest you talk him down - first with Magran's option a last resort because of the damage it might do to the important adra veins in the region. Let you have a full, non-rushed discussion with Eothas and only when he definitely shoots you down and says 'you cannot convince me this is the wrong path' then have Magran pull the trigger. Eothas still saves you - tosses you and your ship away, but he appears to be contained. EDIT: Moved this part out of A and expanded on my thoughts of what its doing. The other gods have a meeting and tell you to go to Ukaizo because the explosion may have damaged the mechanism there even without Eothas's help because souls aren't travelling through Magran's volcano area anymore. This gives a bit of down time to prepare yourself for the big fight being against Ukaizo's guardian, which you are warned of. You wake up in the courtroom talking about Ukaizo and the possible destruction of the wheel there. The factions force you to make a decision of who you will bring with you to help investigate the wheel. This covers all three's motivations for wanting to come with you - Rauitai wants the storms to be stopped, Huana wants Ukaizo's legacy, Valians want the chance to investigate the wheel and its animancy promise, and the Pirates can just want to pirate or found their new kingdom at Ukaizo. A> Regardless the events happen and you go to Ukaizo, turn of rain, fight your fights. And then you get to the machine to find it intact but, instead of a giant bashing on it, there's a man of pure energy standing on the top of the nearby adra spike. You speak with him. Eothas reveals that the volcano actually fused him to the main Adra vein instead of destroying him and he got to come here in a proto-divine manifestation form. He talks about the strangeness of Ukaizo from what he remembers and thanks you for listening to him and coming to speak with him back at Magran's volcano. He stands firm that you can't change his mind, but will concede your conversation (regardless if you argued with him entirely or just talked about it and eve supported him) made him think about his views a bit more and so he'll offer you a boon of a sort, the ability to allow a kith to change some parts of the plan he may have overlooked. You tell him, he thanks you, queue him blowing up the Wheel mechanisms from *inside* as opposed to just hitting the thing. B> Alternatively, after you agree to aid a faction, or agree with none and start heading for Ukaizo yourself (once its selected for sea travel maybe), then another god scene happens where they reveal Eothas broke out of the shell the Volcano had put on him, he wasn't destroyed, and is heading for Ukaizo ahead of you. Then pretty much the above happens, with a tad bit more urgency, you have a similar conversation, and Eothas bashes **** in. For some reason I prefer the less physical approach to the wheel's destruction, but that's me maybe. All that said, I probably wrote that ****tily, and its *way* easier to critique than it is to produce - even on a DM scale I find myself and party occasionally rehashing my own plots like this as failures/having weaknesses - but there's some elements of motivation, side-plot/factional relevance, clarity of purpose and more explicit explanation of character capability that I feel like this at least touches up the roots of. It'll never happen, and probably wouldn't be worth it if it did.
  5. I tend to do them but so far there's been good reason, usually. For the first character I had, a Priest of Berath, the Huana guy sending me 'prayer bounties' and the natural inclination to move things toward their next stages, meant that my character saw the opportunity to take a bounty in similar way as the Huana individual. An offered bounty was a quiet call to send them through their next doorway. My next character will be working for Rauatai but left there for the Dyrwood after his artisan master refused him, so there's not a lot of loyalty there beyond a general agreeableness toward being aggressive. However his stronger general mercenary nature, means he's not above taking some money for some heads. I might stop at certain bounties, and its a bit of a bummer you can't get the full list and then pick and choose but have to go tier by tier, but its not like they're necessary. The next character will probably be way more restricted on them so I'm not super looking forward to hitting him, and the final character may just end up wiping the Deadfire of all life for the ****s and giggles because its less likely the Gods will off their yes-man. But he's a psychotic ****, so getting paid to do it is just gravy.
  6. Ugh, another cloak. Mystic background relation could at least be interesting, although I already played my mystic and was hoping my hunter could get a cool cloak. Eh, no bit deal.
  7. In POE 1 I tended to at least find a few places to use them - a bridge here that I knew I could kite a group through, the stairs of a lord I knew I was about to tick off, before a huge dungeon end boss I knew was coming and was going to try and kite him (ended up ending up getting used on his adds but it helped). Minor places but kindof nice when they were hit right (although so vastly limited in number that high level the number of useful traps was small). In Deadfire most of the fights don't tend to be helped as much at prep-time comparatively and the places I'd really like to use them - ship to ship combat as a nasty 'on-boarding suprise' - aren't an option. Actually the fact that you always end the fight on the top deck, and never go below to sometimes find captives or fight the captain or what not, or get pushed back during a raid to a well trapped corridor or something, is a little disappointing. But they might improve that still.
  8. So you're saying the story is basically following around Trump, but rather killing yourself. I can dig that. Not quite. Eothas isn't caught in nearly as many blatant lies. He's just blind to his own hypocrisy and, for some reason, you can't really point it out to him yourself and Eder gets blown off when he tries. I can kindof see the parallels with that sentence though. Less politically, and more seriously, Eothas's actions legitimately make me question his status as a positive deity compared to even Woedica. *WOEDICA*. Eothas in Deadfire was someone I liked at least on the same level, if not less, than my former most voted 'hypocritical bs deity'. And that's for me, not for my character which I describe below. I can kindof respect Woedica just doing her job as leadership, justice, and vengeance and all that - were it not for her actions not being good leadership, just, or reasonable vengeance of any kind - but Eothas from the moment I heard of him was just chaining together sins against his station, portfolio, and presentation from the onset and when you finally might get a chance for deeper insight why its because of poorly supported guilt over hiding a truth and in complete dismissal of the thousands and perhaps billions his actions will be killing all so he can sleep a bit better at night. (If he sleeps) If he was presented as a heroic but misguided/deceived figure (maybe from another god doing their job at being less savory), maybe, but here he just seems like a really apologetic alcoholic who keeps killing your pets with his car. And primarily only the offing himself on that character. I have other characters working through the game, who will be more flexible, who might have to bend to Eothas's power, and still want to keep doing as they do. That character, with his devotion to Berath and what he saw as his duty, means he was pretty stoic and rational but ultimately rather inflexible in his stubbornness. As I said before, he was a bad character for that interaction. Eothas was either going to have to *genuinely* convince him that it was better for Berath, kith, and the wheel, and not just with lip service but with genuine explanations of improvements vs costs and his full reasoning, listen to him say his full piece and pull back slightly (or hold off) on breaking the wheel until that discussion could happen, or kill him. Ankou was just not going to bend a knee on that issue. Hell if Eothas had asked him to go get each faction's opinion and been pleasant and willing to debate then he probably would have done it - (seriously, would have totally taken the bait, had it been a manipulation) being at least respectful to the gods usually, if only subservient to Berath - but just flat out destroying the wheel and deciding everything without feedback, input, or respect for the kith he was ostensibly "saving" OR those kiths' souls - blatantly offloading their responsibility on people like Xoti (seriously Eothas, Xoti?) - was outside anything he considered respectful, rational, wise, sane, redemptive, or remotely survivable.
  9. I can see the lack of excitement some, but I just think that means they needed to vary the lashes up on unique items a bit more. If you can only add a few elemental lashes, but certain uniques have stronger lashes of a specific element, or more varied lashes that you can't add (A sun-blade style weapon that has a half-fire lash and a half-raw lash or can inflict a burn wound on a crit, or maybe just a club with a weird slashing lash). Alternatively make them take some rarer items so you have to consider it more. I only ever felt the POE1's uniques weren't unique though when they didn't have a backstory on them. That's probably my favorite part about uniques, knowing that they had a place in the world.
  10. Reading the thread and thinking about it, before you go to meet Eothas its definitely made clear you can't beat him (although due to most convention, I can see how people could have taken that as a narrative falsity). Hell the other Gods don't think they can take him even if they absorb all the Godtouched souls and dogpile him. I have no idea *why* that's the case, as he's one god with a bunch of souls he's burning through the power of to even get to Ukaizo by that point and can't be on the top of his game. But sure, we'll accept they're as helpless as they think they are. But the whole time you *do* keep getting told that Eothas may listen to you, nay - probably will listen to *only you* as a fully knowledgeable representative of the kith, about his actions with the wheel. Even going so far as to give you the option to tell Berath, when asked how you want things to change or move forward, that you want things to just stay as they are. Sure she says to consider it more, that the choice may be up to you and that you should think about how to improve things, but that's vague enough to mislead from "no, you'll really be helpless in the greater scheme of things - you can't maintain the wheel or even improve it". All those final conversations made it obvious to me that I couldn't fight Eothas, and that if I disagreed (maybe that wasn't the "mission" but by that point the mission of discovery and soul-recovery is over and you're still hanging around, ostensibly to grant your opinion to Eothas) and wanted him to not damage the wheel that I'd need to convince him or be convinced by him enough to agree and then grant an opinion how he might help the future of things. Of course neither happened on that character. Eothas is as convincing as when a superior at work used tells you that you "wouldn't understand" (try ball-parking how this works, with some work shown for me, you colossal green ****), and you can't try and further argue with him. Heck you never *really* get to argue with him. You can lodge your complaint at Magran's volcano but the giant explosion cuts much more conversation short and you never get a chance to pick back up with him. Overall I'd say Anti-god Eder has more argument dialogue with Eothas than you really do, or at least more pointedly shoots out his hypocrisy, and then Eothas just blows him off, so you'd probably not be much more different. Its just a bit of a trip-up since everyone seems to talk like you should have more impact for some unknown reason. If anything I've grown pretty happy with the suicide option as I've thought more about it. Living in Eothas' world seems too willing to entertain the fancies of that egotistical man-child - although its a little like cutting of your nose to spite your own face, maybe. Still, that character genuinely didn't think kith were as advanced as Eothas seemed to believe, and having an eternal dreamy afterlife was probably better for him than the slow entropy that would doom the rest. The dreaming waking and sleeping loop's at least a cycle for him, as a priest of Berath.
  11. It could be you have to convince the Wahaki to leave peacefully too, as well. The Wahaki are kindof hard up for some 'murder their way out' good times. Hell one of them tries to snap your neck/attack you just for talking to them initially, so to say they're tense is an understatement. Getting them to leave peacefully might allow you to convince him that letting the slaves and the Wahaki go, and sticking to the legal slaving, or something, is more beneficial. I'm not sure myself, I killed him so hard he exploded.
  12. I got the Wael-face, 'Wael?' question and then blacked out and woke up fine.(more than fine, we had the 'good food, good friends/company' buff) If anything Wael seemed amused at the whole thing, even though just earlier he was annoyed that I'd seemed to have lost my sense of wonder compared to when I buried the scroll in POE1. But then again that character was a Priest of Berath, he tended to respect the God's authority in small favors, but only Berath for big stuff so he'd actually always been pretty cordial to the gods by then. (Later he screamed at them, literally the first of only 2 passionate responses he gave all game, to shut up.)
  13. You've been tricked. Easily over 90% of unique weapons had something you COULDN'T enchant yourself. And the biggest loss of the ability to self enchant basic items was that now, without as much of the unique variation (there's almost 2 of every one, depending, but certain characters may just not make the right decisions/find them), you're often stuck with a basic lash-less/target-less weapon if you try and dual wield say - battleaxes. (Whether for rp or jut cosmetic appearance of some weapons). I mean, that's a contrived example for a me, but the point remains that in the old system if one of the particular uniques/soulbounds didn't work for you, you could just make your own. You'd miss out on some cool unqiue stuff, so you almost never wanted to - until you *did* and then in Deadfire its sorely missed. But maybe that's just me.
  14. Reading over the races again they, on the whole, seem very insular, xenophobic even among small differences in culture, and seem to fall solidly into the Pillars trend of culture weighing into them more than race (although for some the culture is entirely their own whereas others involve other, likely more bombastic, races influencing them). So my guess is that they lack the worldliness to become truly wise or experienced on the whole, likely tend to be very conservative and unwilling to accept theories or beliefs not included in their predominant culture or worldview, and just on the whole act like older people from a young age. So far as great knowledge of history - it depends on if they're interested. I image some are, but my guess is that they're more interested in self-reflection and where they fit into the world at that point. Not to mention that they're long lived, its a lot of history, and there's no evidence their physical memories are significantly abnormal for a human, save maybe a slight improvement. So many may actually find themselves *forgetting* most of their lives as they age, or at least having their brains filter more and more "unimportant" information out. Humans start experiencing a perceptional shift for time, unless we really stop and think about it, pretty early on. I know I find myself experiencing time differently at 30 . Elves may last a bit longer, but there's not guarantees of that. Which may be why they are so insular or traditional - less likely to forget something if it stays the same.
  15. Yeah, I never expected to fight Eothas on my first run. Well, until every other decision was just lying over and asking him to be nice in one of a few ways (i.e - the Fight and instantly die option was what I selected). My character *wanted* the wheel and the existing system. The wheel is Berath, or she is representative of its cycles, and as a cleric, a death godlike, and a herald of Berath he was more miffed, probably even than Berath, about Eothas's reasoning and attack on his deity. (And in fact I considered going a different way in the conversation until he does the whole 'I absolve you of your duty'. I know he meant the killswitch but my character didn't think he had the right to be the one to remove what his deity had put in him). It was a bad first character but that I actually lacked the option to straight up reiterate to Eothas I thought he was *still* a dumbass, and for him to blow me off again, at least was a bit frustrating. And so I went with what was effectively duty-driven suicide. I knew I was going to be howling at the night, for all intents and purposes, but I was hoping I could either convince him or have even clearer options to choose the howl.
  16. I couldn't disagree more. Most of the issue can be solved by either adding a breath-holding/night before the battle period, or staggering some gates on areas as other people said. You need to justify them, but honestly? I'll suspend my disbelief to support that narrative if a decent explanation is attempted. I think it'd be fair to critique a bad one, but I'd hope people would appreciate an attempt more than just waving a hand over it as if that discards it. (Fallout 1 also removed the timer in the first patch because it was controversial even internally, and Skyrim fails to give you a moment where you know Alduin can't be pinned down. Meanwhile Fallout 4 burns you through the main personal quest and *does* give you the quiet time at least, albeit with no real payoff and a general malaise as a result since they stop all tension unless you're really into that faction fight. At least the final tension of confront Thaos with everything kept the flame alive even with Pillars slowed down a bit.) BG I you don't just decide to investigate anomalous metallurgy for ****s and giggles, both 2 shady ass companions you meet who are also outwardly friendly to you *and* the caretakers your foster father sent you to find in the exact case something happened to him are going down there. You can ignore them both but then every sixth fight your damn sword is breaking and Imoen's probably turned to stone if you wander afield. There's no reason not to seek safety (particularly after the attack and father dying) in numbers and if everyone's just heading south then you do too. Either the shear frustration of your weapons breaking all the time until you find some magical ones, or the literal lifelines / potion gifting allies you meet first thing, heading to Nashkel is more than enough reason to at least *go* with them and there's danger crawling up your ass every which way that you head down there. Forlorn wandering / becoming a farmer and turning off the game options aside, its a pretty strong motivation to stick with the people introduced almost like a beloved aunt and uncle, or at least the first helpful and dangerous allies you meet, imo. Its the 20,000g and the fact that you *know* you're going into a dangerous as hell Wizard's stronghold. Half the questing, to me, was preparation for either buying off wizards, or a fight against a literal wizard army that I just saw contain Irenicus, a dude who captured me single-highhandedly, apparently. Additionally your table may have just been the wrong one for it, just like I don't think *everyone* would like BGII if they played it. That's RPGs after all, but I think it'd work well on me if the motivation was well given. Granted you're right, the sidequests aren't directly part of main story save in that they become part of it, if you do them to meet the justifications presented - albeit loosely. Plus there's not a lot of urgency to get to Imoen, as far as you know she's in limited danger, you just want her free of the wizards too and maybe to stab Irenicus in his face if the wizard's are amicable to the concept. Or maybe even if they aren't. Also, pretty sure you're wrong about the Elder brain, you've met her by the time you're in the Underdark. You're just missing a piece of your soul at that point, iirc. Honestly, the same reason Imoen and the raising money via quests thing works in BGII until you get your soul stolen (and then the quests are mostly about getting the frig out of the underdark a.s.a.p and there's just a few options to do that) could have worked for POE2, if they just explained that Eothas was actively being slowed by the souls he'd absorbed fighting him and/or effective godly interventions and he was stuck/buried in an unknown place that the gods didn't want him to stay (maybe by a heart of adra where he continued to interrupt the flow of souls and maybe continued to absorb them slowly making him a ticking time bomb with an unknown fuse length save that it was long) and you needed to find the now darkening luminous adra to pinpoint him, and have acquired the resources to fight him. Then you could have gotten there, *that* could have prompted a fight with some of the more militant Gaunites who had found him through dreams, and their deaths and faiths coupled to burn his fuse and he continued his quest. You'd have to provide more a reason to go to Magran's place afterward maybe (unless they made Magran's explosion be what seals him, but also drops him next to where they don't want him which causes other timing issues) but pretty much anything actually pinning Eothas down for a bit and giving you a 'bulk up now that you have some realistic time, you might be fighting a god' would be welcome.
  17. You can balance the same way for Vancian too. Leave it up to the player to figure out the solution with the resources they maintained up to that point - whatever they are. Some fights will feel super hard because of that decision - others super easy - but that's on the management of resources and the player's ability to utilize them. And so far as 'you can blow everything on every fight and just rest', we've been through that. You absolutely *can* but that's not a condemnation of a the system so much as A) a choice you're making while playing and B) completely unrealistic and an incredibly gamey solution for an rpg. If you do it and hate the easiness - that's a choice you made and you're entirely in control of your buy in and the fun you're having as a result and can just as simply stop doing it and press ahead. There's no limit on the save unless you're playing Trial by Iron. In which case resting all the time as a source of protection may be a feature more than a problem, but once again that's personal in scope and you get to control it. What makes the old system worse though is that late-game you're likely to just coast through every fight with normal attacks, because why spend spells on an encounter you can easily win without them? Those encounters were just a total waste of time. There was nothing engaging about them, you weren't being challenged to think much at all. With the new system, every fight is it's own tactical puzzle. Every fight actually necessitates some thinking on your part. Does it? Because I found plenty of the late game fights still pretty much followed the idea of 'slam some debuffs' and then hack them down. The martial characters just got something of a benefit in now having more special abilities to hack them down with, as opposed to just auto attack but it doesn't really change the approach. Having all your resources all the time does not make things more tactical. It doesn't always make it less, but it certainly doesn't force many more additional opportunity cost decisions. At least not more than there already were which added up to 'is it better to cast/activate this spell or ability now? Or will there be a more opportune time approaching?'. All that happened is the timeframe for 'next opportune moment' shorted to include only this fight. Another thing making all of the abilities per encounter does is free up the companion AI system. Could you imagine how infuriating setting up smart AI for your companions would be with per rest spells? The companion AI can't understand nuance, they'll just spam your spells regardless of whether or not you actually need them to win the fight. That means you could rely less on companion AI to avoid the pause and play micromanagement that Pillars of Eternity 2 has so successfully relieved from the genre without infringing on the depth of the systems, a much more intelligent approach than what other modern RPGs have done to get away from it. It probably got missed but I did bring this ups as a point of difference in preference in this thread, I believe, but I think this is sortof a huge point and might inspire a lot of the differences of opinion. I, personally, *never* use the ai. I don't care how smart it gets, setting the ai to act a certain way is either going to make things even more boring or be incapable of handling things if tactical precision is required, so going per encounter is no great boon from anyone who has my outlook. So, I guess all I can say is what you saw as a painful cancer on the genre I saw as something that granted me a wide amount of control, with great tactical payoff, that more comparably emulated RPG's origins in wargaming vs just telling the game how to play itself. That you can turn it off *is* nice in that we can both be happy with it but I can say I disagree that the cost inherent in making the scripting easier for people wanting to script was necessarily worth it. I imagine those people may have enjoyed a greater amount of nuance be provided for their scripting but I assume too much there. All of this is not to say I'm entirely satisfied with Pillars of Eternity II's resting system (it's honestly kind of pointless), but the overall experience is still a vast upgrade from POE1 in most respects. All my bitching aside I can respect the overall opinion, even if I disagree with it. (EDIT: I came back to clarify I actually really like Deadfire and plan on replaying it several more times. I think it has far more to offer than say, Fallout 4, but on the point of the combat mechanics - even though I enjoy the multiclass versatility - I do miss the old on rest stuff as a point of personal preference. The new method isn't *bad* its just not as enjoyable as the old one was, so most of my arguing in this thread is just cuz) I think if they didn't want rest to be as aimless (beyond a debuff remover/food buff container) they should have at least brought back some element of fatigue. Maybe just from your crew at sea even, and then give inn stay options for the entire crew so that you lavishing them might provide benefits to moral and such. Not sure, but there's things they may yet do. DLC and all. PS: Something important to realize is that Obsidian hasn't removed resource management from the game, they've just moved it from a macro level to a micro level. Spamming all of your spells right at the beginning of the fight isn't a good idea. You need to save them for the most opportune moment so that the effects can make the most impact. If you do throw them out early in the fight, then you won't have them at a later point when they would be most useful. This is especially true as it pertains to spell ranks. Because sure, you could use all your rank 2 priest spells on buffs or damage, but you're going to be regretting it if you don't have suppress affliction up afterwards. To be honest, this is the reason I dislike empowers, because it lets you play around such mistakes. If anything eliminates resource management from Pillars 2, it's the last vestiges of the per rest mechanics. I think you're a bit too forgiving and unfair here. In the first case it was almost never better to spam everything in a fight at the beginning in POE1 unless you slept between every fight, which as I said above is a failure on the player's part, not a system allowing you to control your progress. If you kept pressing ahead it usually lead to watching your lead fighter character's health plummet while your casters were helpless to help mitigate beyond trying to target their ranged damage to splash/strike enemies more helpfully in the hopes of killing the foe before dying. Which usually got you through the fight, tbf, but it made it last a while and get really dicey. As to Deadfire - Buffing's almost never opportune, atm, because of how long it takes and how little there is need to mitigate long term damage beyond not dropping. (Something like an affliction happens more rarely - I should never say never - if you pump damage in the right place first) In that sort of system you run into the 5e D&D issue where healing is really only useful if you absolutely need to keep someone up (admittedly in 5e its pick someone up instead) and until then you should just slam debuffs on foes and then keep them going while spiking all your damage as quickly as possible. Preferably on enemy healers first but otherwise just damage all up front and constant. Because killing someone so that you don't drop and take a wound is all that really matters, there's no need to worry about anything else. I learned that on my first priest character when I realized dropping Fire rains or summoning Berath did far more too shorten fights than just focusing on buffing/curing my group. Particularly late game (early game healing at the right time does matter a lot more but that diverges quickly). The only time that I can remember that wasn't the case was with mecha-ghidorah because of the length of that fight. So I ended up getting through that just with scrolls, healing potion, and auto attack against ghidorah proper and spiked down his allies which were actually far more annoying, really. I just let big man chase after potioned-up Aloth (poor Aloth)
  18. NWN1 is probably my most hated game because they *entirely* ignored the ECL and CR systems for the 3.0 game they were building off of. It was horrendous. 4+ CR1/3-1/2 enemies fighting one level 1 character unless you hired the random rogue guy. I hear NWN2 is better though, I didn't give it the fair shake I should have. Was CR actually useful in 3rd? I have DM'd a bit in 5E and it is pretty much useless. CR1s can be death machines, even if the party is out of that tier, while many CR3s can get killed easily by lower tiers players. NWN2 is very good, with the expansion, MOTB, being one of the best written RPGs ever, and the only good epic level campaign I have played. Its still useful in 5e but requires even more eyeballing because they made things so swinging to allow quick adaption to groups, plus they do it in some conjunction with the old 'worth Z XP' style thing of 2e, which can be used to estimate too. The CR also tends to assume something like an even or beneficial playing field for the monster - so a weak melee combatant may be a high CR but it may be assumed they're a high CR because they involve additional creatures who somehow empower or guard that one, making it more fitting of its CR without the additional difficulty. Sortof silly since they don't tend to give those tips to new players but creatures like a a Rakshasa, regardless of their CR, shouldn't be played out of 'crafty bastard' focus without some improvement/trade off. Because they fold pretty quick against good brawlers with even one magic sword. In 3.5, while still swingey because they assumed things like wealth by level and certain magic items and bonuses by a certain level, it was at least useful for ball parking. And CR's were built around a party of 4 and they were having you play a solo character. *single CR1/4ths* should have been a normal encounter in that equation - give or take a little strength in weapon or unique character, and then building up to groups of mooks. Just starting you out made leveling a slog. Then they also nerfed mage armor so it was like +1 point of AC but across many different kinds of bonus, instead of all counting as an Armor bonus. Something frustrating because it got mostly overwritten early on by an amulet or a Monk/Sorc's natural deflection. So they couldn't even get low level spells right.
  19. NWN1 is probably my most hated game because they *entirely* ignored the ECL and CR systems for the 3.0 game they were building off of. It was horrendous. 4+ CR1/3-1/2 enemies fighting one level 1 character unless you hired the random rogue guy. I hear NWN2 is better though, I didn't give it the fair shake I should have.
  20. That hurt me in my soul. I'm glad you played the way you wanted and still got to enjoy things but oh god....that's like when my friend used to skip every Morrowind dialogue when I was watching him play. He missed so much context.
  21. The truth may lie somewhere in between. Woedica definitely seems the kind to just elect herself as 'Queen of the Gods' and start throwing about orders. And the other gods might actually have sortof just slyly ignored the commands, or maybe even played along for a while, until she pissed them off and Magran smacked her down. It could have even been that Woedica *was* a Queen chosen by the Engwithans but, just like a mortal queen, had no special powers beyond the mandate of authority against other Gods. The whole 'everybody bleeds' idea where being a queen won't prevent someone from beheading you in a revolt. And the revolution that defeated her may have made her weaker and broken the crown - the symbol of her mandate from the Engwithans. Thaos may have been seeking to restore her damaged features, and the crown, using those souls. Which may not have given her any additional power *over* the gods but may have reestablished her divine mandate symbolism and given her some ephemeral bargaining power back that she though she lost. I imagine even all the Hollowborn souls wouldn't necessarily be enough to give a massive boost to the Gods by now.
  22. But how are you supposed to know what the 'right' amount of rest is? This is part of the problem with this kind of system, going into a dungeon (or whatever) you have no idea how deep it goes and how much resistance there is. Hence, it is very easy on the one hand to find yourself expending per rest resources too quickly (and having fights that are therefore easier than they were supposed to be), and having to run back to an inn for supplies and rest (though often not even that, since as you say there were a fair amount of camping supplies around to be found; so even without going back it would be relatively easy to overrest). Or on the other hand (and this is what I tended to do), you under-rest. Hoard per rest resources too much, relying on per encounter instead, but then having to rest to regain health instead (which if course would also happen more quickly than if you did hit the sweet spot and used somewhat more per rest resources). In which case some of the fights would have been more difficult than intended, some would be much easier than intended (because as you start running out of health and have a whole bunch of spells left, you might as well have a big blow-out on the next mob before you rest), and you generally don't really get to play with all your cool spells and items. Moreover, outside of longer dungeons there'd be little incentive to conserve per rest resources, since there is probably an inn around the corner anyway. Similarly, in a dungeon often it'll be pretty obvious when you've arrived at the end-of-dungeon boss (or rather, are about to), and you don't need to conserve anything anymore either. In which case you're also face with the dilemma of resting right before or not. You'll likely have the supplies for it, and there is no immediate incentive not to use them since it's end of dungeon, and next stop will be back to town. And there is no way of knowing what the boss fight was actually balanced for. I'd say trial and error to some extent. I tend to push really far too, but try to use at least 2/day ability per combat at least, and tend to find my stuff running out almost at the same rate as my fighters. Then I can juggle things around a little and put the chanter/ranger up front and the fighter+paladin ranging in the back for another fight with low health, blow my resources, and then rest. Although I tend to make things a bit harder because I'm just as bad as a bunch of people in this thread with hoarding. Its why I probably won't use the new statuettes in Deadfire since the nerf. But finding those sweet spot's your talking about is enjoyable for me. I get that it isn't for other people though, I'm just contrarily not a huge fan of the 'always have your abilities' Deadfire thing because without those, fatigue, and health I just don't see the point of even having a rest mechanic since is apparently happening in the background anyway. Honestly why even have wounds at that point? Since its just as easy to rest up with some hard tack still. I still press on and don't rest like I should, but now I don't feel like there's ever a pull to rest as a result. Some people may love it, and I don't *hate* it. I just don't find it as fun or verisimilitudic(?). Which is why now I periodically uselessly rest while travelling, but avoid it in dungeons. I just kindof had to teach myself to invert my expectations from the last game, but switching between them is weird sometimes now.
  23. 1) I think I see where you're coming from a bit better here. And we all have hot button issues for ourselves. Getting me talking about Simulation vs Abstraction in games and system changes is to get me ranting, which is why I avoided it after a while. I'm interested to see how Kingmaker goes too, although I'm pretty skeptical. Honestly about most games anymore. Some of the views on the combat, I tend to wonder if the time of playing them will effect things. I still like 2e but I'd bet introducing new people to it would mean it hasn't aged as well as my understanding of it or 3.X would mark. Not that its bad, even now, so much as that tastes do change and you may be right about the popularity - which is why Deadfire could be the way it is now. Trends blow the way of the greater populace, regardless of how I see them. I could be more niche than I think I am for video games. I kindof cover the lack of impact to force resting thing (beyond fatigue which was removed beyond encounters/wounds) below, but so far as save-scumming for optimum results or players electing to rest after every combat, I honestly wouldn't even create the game around those expectations. I might throw up a warning on the game itself denoting that fact - I'm not one for misleading consumers. Reason being I don't see it as a problem, its pretty obvious the game doesn't expect you to just keep resting, just because a mechanic exists doesn't mean a voluntary abuse of it means they should fix the game to work around the player. The player needs to have a certain amount of buy in to the character and the world, same as at any table. Its not as enforceable, obviously, but I think we're all able enough to make our own choices about how to play the game. I rest more in Deadfire now that I understand it better, even in spite of it not helping me really, because not resting explicitly bugs me. (Actually kindof wish they had a better system for a crew off-day or party, which would be low priority, just so I didn't have to juggle supplies to give them all a day of fancy meals after killing those 4 crews of giant or whatever. Granted that's so low priority as to be laughable even if I was in charge). I don't like the new system as much but I don't hate it, I just find that not having to plan out for my resources on a per day basis a bit boring comparatively. I didn't rest until my resources were spent or somebody was about to die, and even then tended to juggle party organization around so that the low health person was protected and fighting at range while the others were in greater danger. Although I think I like food on rest as a concept more than eating it before battle? I'm torn because I do sortof miss the old survival rest bonus concept a bit too but I'm digressing. 2) Mostly just greater forced tactical decision because of planning for future encounters. Admittedly if you didn't do that in POE 1, unless they really shored up the amount of resting (you can only benefit once until wounded or fatigued or something) then you could still abuse the old resting mechanics and maybe not worry about it. But I never saw that indicative of a failure of the system itself so much as a choice by the player to expend their own time and resources to enforce their own encounters that way - against possibly even the type of character they're playing. It admittedly is a problem that exists in 3.5 and Pathfinder too and its why 5e D&D explicitly made the 'no multiple rests' thing a rule, but even there its a choice by the DM and the table to do. Its just that in a single player game you're all the players and even the parts of the DM that the settings and your own choices control.
  24. I kindof do miss the craft system - adding fire lash onto my pistols and such - primarily because Deadfire has a shortage of certain weapon types that once could be covered by customizing your own weapons. The cool thing about the uniques was always when they had bonus upgrades or abilities you couldn't replicate yourself, which I thought was decently often in POE1. In Deadfire, once the current window is updated, if they continue with the 'only specific items can be updated' thing, I'd like to see a slightly less focused spread than currently exists. They're already working on it - that hunting bow concept is cool (except for possibly the lolrandom) and I'm looking forward to seeing them do that for a lot more. Ideally every item would have at least 2 uniques and maybe a soulbound. Granted that's a fair shake of work and we still have two expansions so I'm reaching a bit.
  25. I mean, you inflicted that on yourself. Stuff like that was supposed to be the reason you didn't over-rest in POE (not that you didn't find supplies way too often imo), and if it didn't dissuade you than the opportunity cost wasn't as onerous as you were making it sound. Half the fun of that system though *is* mitigating risk/reward, and driving forward into the unknown and gauge how much farther you can go. But some people *hate* that micromanagement aspect too and its fair if you do. I'm just sorry it was such a slog for you. As someone who enjoyed it though I found the uninterrupted exploring in Deadfire, while not *boring* per-say a little bit weird. Like I kept expecting fatigue but when I was half done with Nekataka before my first nap I realized I was probably approaching things from the wrong expectation. That being said I'm torn on the 'harder' thing, if only that more enemies/higher hp+more damaging enemies would make things harder but not necessarily more fun tactically to me? There's probably a lot of 'more versatile opponents' type approaches they could take as they better tune the game - since they can do what a 5 minute workday DM does and just assume perfect conditions before every fight - but as someone who remembers an Elder Evil atop a craggy mountain surrounded by strong winds and cliffs of such a DM being just a meaty time killer I can say its easy to get wrong too.
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