For those who've beat it, what are your thoughts?

[house2fly]

You're chasing Eothas because the gods want you to, and you don't want a god mad at you. Also your soul is fractured, and if you go too far away from the chunk Eothas has you'll die.

 

At the very least, the Wheel breaking means the reincarnation process won't work the same as it has for several thousand years. Worst case scenario, there IS no natural reincarnation process any more because the mechanics of it were so thoroughly co-opted by the Engwithans. In that case, people die and just end up in the grey mass of the In-Between and stay there forever. Whole world of Hollowborn.

[Tarlonniel]

Also your soul is fractured, and if you go too far away from the chunk Eothas has you'll die.

 

Would you, though? Does anyone mention this theory besides the Steward at the beginning of the game? Does it ever matter how far you are from Eothas?

[house2fly]

It doesn't matter in terms of gameplay, no. But that's why they have the Steward say it, to establish a personal reason for you to chase Eothas

[Tarlonniel]

Right, but it seems to be more of a guess on the Steward's part than anything, based on the more-or-less coincidental fact that Berath sent you back into your body at the same time the ship got (sort of) close to Eothas. Berath doesn't mention it. It never comes up again. And you already have to chase Eothas or Berath will... uh... kill you, I guess.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Tarlonniel

[the streaker]

You're chasing Eothas because the gods want you to, and you don't want a god mad at you. Also your soul is fractured, and if you go too far away from the chunk Eothas has you'll die.

 

At the very least, the Wheel breaking means the reincarnation process won't work the same as it has for several thousand years. Worst case scenario, there IS no natural reincarnation process any more because the mechanics of it were so thoroughly co-opted by the Engwithans. In that case, people die and just end up in the grey mass of the In-Between and stay there forever. Whole world of Hollowborn.

 

This soul fractured death is the first I hear of it, it definitely should have been played up a lot more if it's my main motivation of sticking around.

 

Regarding the wheel thing, I get that, but then Eothas appears to be doing it for a benevolent reason, whereas the gods are freaking out because they'll be exposed and potentially die. The game presents the destruction of the wheel as a noble gesture by Eothas, but does not clearly explain why. How will it make mankind "stronger" if a few scientists or wizards in a lab discover a way of rebuilding the wheel? It appears to be a meaningless gesture, outside of some way-out-there theories that are not supported in-game. How is Eothas going to "expose" the gods if his actions only destroyed the wheel and his physical manifestation at the same time?

 

The only thing I buy into is that Berath told me to do it, and if I refuse, I die right at the start of the game and get reborn as a rat...

Edited June 21, 2018 by the streaker

[Tick]

It definitely should have been explained more in depth or had a quest or a side branch of dialogue that explained it. Hopefully that'll be fixed in future.

 

The way I took it, breaking the wheel sort of frees kith from the gods' control of their souls /reincarnation? And also maybe reveals how the whole process was done through a machine, not the gods. It definitely shows that the gods aren't as omnipotent or in control as you'd think.

[Gregorovitch]

It's not a bad game but nothing like as good as PoE1, DOS2 etc.

 

Problem is what's good about it is very good, but what's bad is very bad,

 

Good:

Nekatetaka City and the Faction quest lines are excellent (except for point below)

Art work, environments etc are excellent

Multi-classing system is great.

 

Bad:

The narrative falls apart becasue none of the faction leaders engage in the problem of what to do about Eothas, what the consequences of destroying the wheel might be. They just carry one fighting each other and being greedy as normal which is not only totally rediculous but it also creates a complete disconnect between Neketaka/factions and the Eothas story line. As a result the end game falls flat on it's backside.

 

The combat is far too easy and the world doesn't feel dangerous at all. This becasue of combination of open world design coupled with switch to per-encounter spell/ability use. This works in games like DOS and XCOM because in those games average damage per hit is about twice average HP pools, so deadly deadly. The PoE system is not like that, it's a long term statistical war of attrition, so outside one or two notable boss encounters the combat is stupidly easy since you can unload your entire arsenal every fight with no downside.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Gregorovitch

[Zelse]

Finished twice on POTD.

 

My favorite addition is full voiceovers.

Gameplay is improved with the new multiclass system aside from some gripes with balance and the awful armor system (armor system was terrible in 1 as well tho so thats nothing new).

 

The game unfortunately suffers from open worlditis in all its forms. Shallow main quest. Lots of busy work sidequests rather than a few meaningful ones. Companion sidequests are hit or miss, some fall flat really hard. Lots of areas to explore with nothing meaningful to find. It does have a few shining ones though like all the possibilities to deal with benweth or crookspur. This is where the game really picks up the slack and flexes hard on the genre competition.

 

Overall its a good game. But its nowhere near greats like Original sin 2, DAO or BG2. I do like it better than PoE1 though.

 

Edit bonus: The hand drawn images when you meet the gods are outstanding. These things really stood out to me and they were gorgeous.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Zelse

[the streaker]

Finished twice on POTD.

 

My favorite addition is full voiceovers.

Gameplay is improved with the new multiclass system aside from some gripes with balance and the awful armor system (armor system was terrible in 1 as well tho so thats nothing new).

 

The game unfortunately suffers from open worlditis in all its forms. Shallow main quest. Lots of busy work sidequests rather than a few meaningful ones. Companion sidequests are hit or miss, some fall flat really hard. Lots of areas to explore with nothing meaningful to find. It does have a few shining ones though like all the possibilities to deal with benweth or crookspur. This is where the game really picks up the slack and flexes hard on the genre competition.

 

Overall its a good game. But its nowhere near greats like Original sin 2, DAO or BG2. I do like it better than PoE1 though.

 

Edit bonus: The hand drawn images when you meet the gods are outstanding. These things really stood out to me and they were gorgeous.

 

Should give credit where it is due, though. A lot of things PoE2 did that BG2 comes nowhere near. The intertwined quests between the 4 factions, the locations and the views, the sailing and huge game world, the multiclasses and subclasses, plus the things you mentioned. I would say the BG2 quests were, for the most part, more isolated and derivative than PoE2's. PoE 2 goes quite a good job at the wheeling and dealing between the competing factions.

[Sabri]

Finished the game last night, been gathering my thoughts:

 

Story: I liked the main story, though, as others have said, it felt a bit brief. I feel like the ideal 'pacing' involves leaving Ashen Maw until you've done all the other available quests, and then having a very short Act 3, as it seems odd to explore the islands once you know Eothas plans to break the wheel. It feels odd that Ukaizo wasn't drawn out a bit longer with more combat, and the lack of combat made it feel surprisingly abrupt compared to Sun In Shadow from the first game. I was slightly disappointed at how brief the final chat with Eothas was. I was expecting something comparable to the final chat from The White March with the Eyeless, and a bit more back and forth about the wheel even if ultimately it was impossible to convince Eothas. Overall, though, feels like a cool set up for a third game, though one that could've done with a bit more padding, which is an unusual criticism to be making! Feels like it suffers from 'second-game-in-a-planned-trilogy-itis' a bit.

 

Setting: Loved the Deadfire, and the factions. I was initially (during the funding campaign) quite put off by the whole 'pirates' theme they were marketing, but the game turned out more broadly about colonialism, the age of sail and island exploration, with *some* pirates, and I wound up really liking it. Felt like a breath of fresh air, and drew me in a lot more than Pillars of Eternity 1 (though I do feel that game has a stronger main plot). The faction questlines were cool, and a lot of the side characters interesting and sympathetic enough to make the world feel engaging. Though I think it would be nice if there were 'break points' for factions earlier, so its not possible to work with all 4 up to right before the endgame.

 

​Companions: I found the companions surprisingly engaging, though I see reaction to them has been quite mixed. I feel that there was a huge amount of work put into having them react to quests, and to each-other, which was fantastic and made them feel alive, but was maybe less effort/reward efficient for the devs than having them chat with the player a lot. Though there were a number of conversations between the player and them, due to the open world nature of the game, these often all happened in a lump and made feeling like the player naturally got to know them harder. Maybe a bit more gating/artificial pacing would help? And, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'd love to see non-voice acted 'picture-book-cutscene' style interactions added for companions and sidekicks to chat with the player on the ship, allowing them to react to DLC events and develop a bit more, and generally feel like they were spending time travelling with the player.

 

Gameplay: Showing my biases, placing this one last! I enjoyed Deadfires gameplay, progression, and gearing quite a bit. I found Pillars 1 could be a slog, but a fair bit of that was enemy density and the lack of programmable party AI (I think? I played it right after it came out). I did feel Deadfire was overall too easy though, even for a relatively poor CRPG player like myself, which took some of the edge off of exploration as I wasn't particularly worried about what I might run into or my supplies (something the first game did better). Gameplay is fundamentally fun though, and hopefully the balancing patches continue to tune this up! 

 

Overall, I feel Deadfire has its flaws and its bugs, but its probably the RPG that's drawn me in the most in the past few years, quite unexpectedly! Really looking forward to the DLC, and (fingers crossed) potential third game.

 

EDIT: Oh! And forgot to mention that I really enjoyed both the soundtrack and the sea shanties!

Edited June 25, 2018 by Sabri

[Tick]

Finished the game last night, been gathering my thoughts:

 

... (Truncating for short post response)

You really summed that up well! I think that's a spot on review, and that's mostly how I feel about the game too.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Tick

[VonBlade]

I'll be brief because I can't imagine I'm saying anything new. Completed full WM2 POE1 and now POE2 about 5 times.

 

POE2 has a lot of QOL improvements, and the sea faring is fun. Unfortunately everything you discover is paper thin. Most of the "crag/cave/temple" stuff you find adds up to less than the Endless Paths alone.

 

Companion quests are absolutely rubbish compared to POE1. So thin. Go here. Talk to this person. Maybe go here too. End questline. Aloth sniffs at everything, Pallegina acts like I plucked her feathers personally, Eder mopes about. Xoti fell in love with me but still wont stop talking about Eder (but otherwise well written). Serafen is so offensive to the rest of my party that my choice is to have a party of just him, or leave him on the boat. Tekehu isn't much better. Maia is well written but seems to slaughter people no matter what I do. Ugh.

 

Side quests are loads of fun, even if they aren't always obvious that you've made a step forwards. This isn't helped by...

 

Only one main place in the whole game. In POE1 the first city felt as vibrant as most of Neketaka, whilst there were other places too. POE2 Has Neketaka, Maje (one screen, two buildings), Dunnage (four places, three of which contain a single building), Hasongo (two tiny buildings) and a couple of villages. SO lacking in "stuff".

 

The main quest. Oooh boy. Let me see if I have it right. I go to a place, listen to him talk and can't influence him at all, then go to another place and repeat that, then go to another place and repeat that, and then the game ends. It's basically go to four places and click through dozens of meaningless text boxes with zero influence or choice except one, right at the end, which only affects a tiny thing.

 

The bounties are fun, but beyond playing as a Goldpact Paladin, no role play use at all. I can slaughter every RDC ship on the map, but the RDC still love me. For RDC also read Principi, VTC or Huana.

 

Very very little matters. The big "whoa this is a choice after which you can't go back" faction quest lines appear so early on that I didn't believe they were points of no return. Two or three quests, boom, pledged for life and half your party goes off in a hump. Assuming they haven't already left because I have a party of five with massive conflicts (Xoti and Pallegina, Pallegina and Maia, Everyone and Serafen, most people and Tekehu). Sure I could cripple myself by only taking two with me, but that's ridiculous.

 

Tl;dr : Overall It feels like a fantastic idea (sea-faring and exploration) let down by puddle-deep plotting, too brief companion quests, a main quest that is utterly inconsequential unless it exists to point out how meaningless our existence is in the face of Gods, and .. well that's about it. I do enjoy sailing about though and don't feel that my Obsidian Edition pre-order was wasted. Just it's not a patch on POE1 in any way. It reminds me of Elite (a game I've put 1500+ hours into) in that it's an amazing framework upon which hangs nothing.

[Verde]

I'm still enjoying the game, esp all the class and party combinations, but I don't think I've played an RPG that is this fun but fails this miserably with continuity lol.

 

For example, any out of order questing done with the Huana Ukaizo map quest or Arkemyr quest in relation to finding out Ukaizo is past Ondra's Mortar will make you scream at the dialogue not updating. Oh well I'll chalk it up to their first psuedo open world try.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Verde