Yosharian

I'd rather go into the game files and modify them directly. Apparently, that isn't working correctly at the moment.

Thanks guys, this is a real help

> However I do remember hearing a lot about how the story for POE was slow, boring , "dry" etc especially at the start. I've looked at a few reviews for this game and I am noticing that although it is reviewing very well some of the critics are saying the story is bad, they couldn't get into it and it's slow at the start. Well, as someone who doesn't think highly of Pillars 1's story, I can attempt to explain why I dislike it personally. But before I begin, let me just preface my comments by saying that my dislike of the story has nothing to do with me disliking literature in general, or not liking dark stories, or anything like that. So if you're going to respond to my comment by painting me as an illiterate, or as having poor/unrefined tastes, you can **** right off. You're free to disagree with anything I write of course, these are just my personal feelings on the story. SPOILERS FOR PILLARS OF ETERNITY 1 AND BALDUR'S GATE 2 BELOW Anyway, here goes: Thaos seems ill-defined to me as a character and a villain. He's just this cardboard cut-out that I'm following around because the plot demands it, rather than me actually being interested in him. He starts off as this mysterious character who has something to do with my awakening, but I don't know for sure, and we spend the first half of the game chasing breadcrumbs that he's dropped; then we come face-to-face briefly but all he really does is talk in riddles, and I'm left thinking: well I guess I'll run after him, but I'm not all that bothered really. If I compare him to someone like Jon Irenicus: that ****er stole my soul. And he was a right pretentious git about it too. I wanted that guy dead from the very first minute I saw him, and it only grew throughout the game as he messed with me again and again and again. I'm not saying that all plots have to revolve around a particular type of character, but Thaos, to me, does make for a spectacularly boring villain. He lacks the charisma of other memorable villains. I have played through most of Pillars at least 2-3 times now, 4 if I count my aborted first playthrough, and I have never gotten interested in Thaos. The one time I managed to complete the game (despite being utterly uninterested in the plot), I really didn't care what happened to Thaos. He was just a meaningless end-game boss to be defeated in order to access the ending slides. The writing style is generally overwritten.I suggest that before you read the following paragraphs, you read through this: http://literarylab.blogspot.jp/2009/08/overwritten-prose.html After reading that, you should understand that what I'm about to say doesn't come from a dislike of elaborate or beautiful prose. For example, one of my favourite books is One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, an extract of which you can read here: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/marquez-prose.html Pillars 1's writing is full of unnecessary complication, of the type discussed in the first link from Literarylab. It's a chore to read through endless reams of overwrought description and awkward similes. Much of it is contained within companion dialogue, which is surprising considering that the dialogue in the game is written by a variety of different authors, many of them established experts in their field, such as Chris Avellone. I suppose this point is redundant without examples, so I'll try to provide some, but it's not as if I wrote down the worst examples I saw while playing through the game or anything like that. Example: Durance dialogue/description 'Dies' into a smile? This is just an awkward verb to use here. This is from the moment where you meet Durance by the statue of Magran. 'It shimmers in your eyes' is a really confusing phrase. 'In' my eyes? How can something shimmer in my eyes? That doesn't make any sense. 'Like water catching the light weaving across the statue.' So this is an attempt at a simile. The staff is shimmering, and the effect makes the staff... no wait, not the staff, it makes it seem like there's water there... floating in mid-air? Between you and the staff? Ok, I guess... so it's as if there is water, and it's catching the the light weaving across the statue that's nearby... god, this is a confusing sentence. It's very pretty but it's quite difficult to dismantle the meaning. 'Whatever power was bled from the staff, it doesn't make it - or the wielder - any less dangerous.' Ok so this sentence is trying to create the image that, despite the power that's gone from the staff, it's still dangerous, and so is Durance. But why? This old man dressed in rags doesn't seem dangerous to me. He's more like a runty hermit with a boss eye than a deadly enemy. How would I even know how dangerous he is? How would I know what power was bled from the staff? (this is early on, before you know anything about the Godhammer and Durance's role in it) How would I know that despite the power being bled, he's still dangerous? Nothing about this exchange makes me think that this guy is dangerous. Example: general description from prologue So this is another painful pair of paragraphs, this time from the start of the game. 'dark figures' It's not that dark in this scene. The enemies here could be described in detail and it would give much better understanding to the player. 'as if from half-split logs' This is another awkward simile. Half-split logs... so we're comparing these dead bodies to.. logs? Why? Other than similar shapes, why would you make this comparison? Does it make these enemies appear fearsome, to compare them to woodcutters? 'as they prepare to add you to the sprawling pile beneath them.' I'm already reeling from the confusing attempt at a simile with half-split logs, and now I have to dismantle this... add me to the sprawling pile beneath them..? The bodies can't be a pile. Unless they brought all the bodies together to put them into a pile. The bodies would be quite spread out. So not a pile. And sprawling? Remember, the definition of pile is a heap of things laid or lying one on top of another. So, a sprawling pile? This is just a really awkward description. It's quite difficult to think of a pile of things as being sprawling. 'at the neck of the man you recognise as Heodan' Another awkward set of phrases. At-the-neck-of-the-man-you-recognise-as-Heodan. Why not use 'at Heodan's neck'? Is it really so important to add this layer of detail, and in this sentence? 'The man you recognise as Heodan' just makes this entire sentence cumbersome. Anyway, I could go on, but again these are by no means the worst examples. They are, however, representative of writing that is generally ponderous and difficult to understand. Game writing, and really, good writing in general, doesn't have to be flowery and intricately detailed in order to do its job. One choice word, description, simile, etc is worth ten flat ones. There are a few other points I could make, perhaps about some of the supporting cast, but I already wrote a lot, and Thaos and the general quality of the writing are the two main problems I have with the story, so I guess this is ok.

You're a monster.

Vaporlocked? Whut

In a YouTube comment on a Deadfire video someone wrote that they were disappointed that Eder was returning in Deadfire. So I don't visit YouTube anymore

Editing starting attributes is fairly trivial. From the Deadfire install dir, open the following file in your most capable text editor:/exported/design/gamedata/bb_characters.gamedatabundle and search for "Companion_". After they're in the party, well, that's a different story... Anyway, yeah. It would be tremendously cool to have something streamline editing and tie together the interrelated .gamedatabundle files. Even if you aren't using it to mod, having a tool to browse all the available game objects and GUIDs would be helpful when you're playing around with the in-game console and want to juice your party with a healthy dose of Vitamin Cheat. So, i have tried this to change companion attributes annnd got my installation file corrupted... Reinstalling from scratch atm Edit: probably it was because i edited the file with open office idk. Anyway i reinstalled and tried again to change attributes, but when i got xoti she had her standard attributes Paging Ethics Gradient...

Yeah I think for most interactions it has to be the MC, but for those scripted interactions you can use anyone.

Hmm, I suppose it depends on what skills the companions start with points invested in. I do know that party contribution to skills functions like this: Total party points/contribution to skill check person 1/1 2/2 4/3 7/4 So for example if you have two NPCs that each have one point in Alchemy, that's a total of 2 points, and you get an additional 2 points to your skill check. You start to lose efficiency at 3 points and beyond. God, that's such a weird bloody system. So the best way is to have 2s on everyone and everything? No it's total. You want your whole party total to have 7 to get the +4 bonus. I don't get it. Ok example: MC has 6 points in Persuade. Teammate 1 has 2 points in Persuade, Teammate 2 has 2 points in Persuade, others have no points. Total teammate contribution is 4 points. Put that through the thing I wrote above, that translates to a bonus of 3 towards the MC's roll. So the MC gets 6 + 3 = 9. Now imagine if everyone on your team (besides the MC, who has 6) has 2 points in Persuade. That's 2 points per person, multiplied by 4 (4 supporting allies) that's 8. However, 8 points is only worth a contribution of 4, because as the contributing points rise, the actual contribution falls dramatically. So 6 + 4 = 10. Here, a developer posted this: (Total Companion Skill, Assist Bonus) 1, 1 2, 2 4, 3 7, 4 11, 5 16, 6 22, 7 29, 8 And I extrapolated this: 1, 1 100% 2, 2 100% 4, 3 75% 7, 4 57% 11, 5 46% 16, 6 38% 22, 7 32% 29, 8 28% efficiency in terms of points invested vs skill boost result So the most efficient method is to have a maximum of 2 points from any supporting companions, in any combination (so one supporter with 2, or two supporters each with 1), and it goes down dramatically from there.

Hmm, I suppose it depends on what skills the companions start with points invested in. I do know that party contribution to skills functions like this: Total party points/contribution to skill check person 1/1 2/2 4/3 7/4 So for example if you have two NPCs that each have one point in Alchemy, that's a total of 2 points, and you get an additional 2 points to your skill check. You start to lose efficiency at 3 points and beyond. God, that's such a weird bloody system. So the best way is to have 2s on everyone and everything? No, not exactly

Hmm, I suppose it depends on what skills the companions start with points invested in. I do know that party contribution to skills functions like this: Total party points/contribution to skill check person 1/1 2/2 4/3 7/4 So for example if you have two NPCs that each have one point in Alchemy, that's a total of 2 points, and you get an additional 2 points to your skill check. You start to lose efficiency at 3 points and beyond.

Interesting. I had another question: if you have a racial passive resistance to, say, Dexterity afflictions, and then you pick the passive skill tree ability that gives you Dexterity affliction resistance, do they stack to give you 2 'ranks' of resistance?

Have a look at the companions and see which you ones you like. Then build a character that fits around them. It's the first thing I did.

Hotfix could be out next Tuesday if i am not mistaken. Great, thanks

Yeah man... massive improvement

If I'm, for example, a Goldpact Knight, does Sworn Enemy count as my taken ability?

Yeah but he grouped Insight with Perception, that's what confused me

You should, but be aware that Pillars 1 is an very long game with all the DLCs. There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing Deadfire without having played Pillars 1. But, if you own Pillars 1, you should probably play it first. Going back to Pillars 1 after playing Deadfire will be frustrating, I suspect, because of the improved gameplay.

If we didn't purchase the DLC originally when we backed Deadfire, can we now purchase it via the Backer Portal's 'Add-Ons' thingy? Or is too late? It says 20 dollars as an add-on.

Any ETA on the first patch?

This is... I don't even know what to say. I thought they were trying to make Resolve more useful. Well, I might well be changing character's attribute distribution.. AGAIN Good thing I haven't started yet > Insight You mean Intellect?

I think you're overvaluing CON. You can lower it and not have any problems, I suspect. Good to know! CON was the one thing I was unsure about (hence why I refrained from mentioning it in stat explanations). I suspected it wouldn't hurt too much to lower it, but feels weird to go low CON on a tank to me. That said, if I can get it down using console commands or an IE mod equivalent I'd be happy to spread those points a bit POE1 had respec so I'm pretty sure you can just grab a respec at any time from an Inn, and redistribute your points there. I mean, unless they changed it... The bright side is you can respec at almost any merchant now, not just inns. Unfortunately you can only respec levels 2+ (so you can't redistribute anything that you selected on creation). This applies to both the Watcher and, much to my chagrin, the companions (my Eder is a Swashbuckler DPS but is stuck with Shield Spec and Knockdown which he automatically learns at level 1). Well then. That's stupid as *****. Guess I'll be going into the data files to change lots of things.

Cheers What do you get at creation, exactly?

> With Resolve removed from dialogues wait what

Beckoner is totally boring, yo. Troubadour 4 lyfe