The Problem With Turn-Based: Not in POE

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Both PoE games have a lot of trash fights (especially the first game, with tons of unnecessary fights on the way to Caed Nua)

Hmm. I completely agree on PoE, the amount of trash fights is the worst problem in the game, but I don't think there are that many in Deadfire.

[thelee]

20 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Hmm. I completely agree on PoE, the amount of trash fights is the worst problem in the game, but I don't think there are that many in Deadfire.

for tb-mode it seems to me that less that there's a problem with trash fights, but that there are still lots more fights than a pure tb game might have (i feel like a tb game would make more effort for there to be alternate outcomes instead of a lot of unavoidable ambushes following dialogue) *and* it's a lot more bullet spongey. in rtwp a decent amount of tankiness can be ok to make sure you keep your offenses up, but in tb-mode if the fight is already inevitably won at a certain point it's just a tedious waste of time.

[xzar_monty]

Could well be. I find TB so uninteresting that I haven't even tried it, but I can see what you're getting at.

[kanisatha]

On 10/19/2021 at 3:34 PM, xzar_monty said:

Hmm. I completely agree on PoE, the amount of trash fights is the worst problem in the game, but I don't think there are that many in Deadfire.

This is how I saw it too. Furthermore, I would say that trash mobs being in a game is its own separate and independent issue, and not directly linked to whether the game is RTwP or TB. Don't know about D:OS2 as D:OS1 so strongly turned me off that franchise. But D:OS1 had plenty of trash mob encounters, and I do see at least a few such encounters in BG3 including especially the goblin camp fight which I see as very much a trash mob encounter (again, I'm not playing it yet myself, but I watch a lot of BG3 streams). BT4 also was entirely about trash mobs.

[Telas]

I actually miss trash fights in Deadfire. 70% of the content and the best gear in this game is behind a one room dungeon with one encounter... That's it. I mean, i love Deadfire but damn, from 200 rooms/fights per dungeon down to one is kind of harsh. You travel with your ship, you find a scary looking place, you go in, you kill the dude and... back on your ship while holding the new Superb Hammer of Awesomeness. I was expecting Poko Kohara, Motare o Kōzi or at least Cignath Mór tier of dungeon crawling. One big level, 3-5 encounters and a climax fight for the reward and the quest progression. 

As for the turn based mode in Pillars. Half of my playtime is in TB mode so i love it. Main problem comes when you fight encounters that you outlevel and you know that nothing can go wrong so you only have to auto click the whole fight. Click to attack, click to end turn(X35). Other than that the system is very well made and ties nicely with the whole cRPG concept. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Telas

[Obsidianware]

3 hours ago, Telas said:

As for the turn based mode in Pillars. Half of my playtime is in TB mode so i love it. Main problem comes when you fight encounters that you outlevel and you know that nothing can go wrong so you only have to auto click the whole fight. 

Doesn't level scaling upwards fix that though? I always have it on in games. 

[Telas]

3 hours ago, Obsidianware said:

Doesn't level scaling upwards fix that though? I always have it on in games. 

I never did a full run with scaling on but from a small test with it, i don't believe it works as intended. I would expect to see a level 12 area scaled upwards to my level 16 party but instead of that, the game was trying to up-scale even the equal level areas. Example: Level 12 party in a level 12 area, full of mobs made for a level 16 party. 3 skulls and red skulls everywhere. 

I like level scaled content in RPG's when done right but it seems that Pillars is applying the rule even when you don't really need it.

To answer the question. I'm not sure if that option can make a long, easy and boring battle more exciting while in Turn Based Mode.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Telas

[xzar_monty]

6 hours ago, Telas said:

You travel with your ship, you find a scary looking place, you go in, you kill the dude and... back on your ship while holding the new Superb Hammer of Awesomeness.

I wonder what you might be referring to, even in the abstract. I mean, I don't think any of the dungeons yield any especially potent items. There just aren't any in the game.

[Telas]

22 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I wonder what you might be referring to, even in the abstract. I mean, I don't think any of the dungeons yield any especially potent items. There just aren't any in the game.

Just a made up example to make it more dramatic, but Subterranean temple with Magistrate's Cudgel is pretty close to a one room dungeon delving. 1,5 rooms, one encounter(a small party), one attribute check and back on your ship with loot and a tier 3 soulbound.  I can give you 30 more

[Helz]

8 hours ago, Telas said:

I actually miss trash fights in Deadfire. 70% of the content and the best gear in this game is behind a one room dungeon with one encounter... That's it. I mean, i love Deadfire but damn, from 200 rooms/fights per dungeon down to one is kind of harsh. You travel with your ship, you find a scary looking place, you go in, you kill the dude and... back on your ship while holding the new Superb Hammer of Awesomeness. I was expecting Poko Kohara, Motare o Kōzi or at least Cignath Mór tier of dungeon crawling. One big level, 3-5 encounters and a climax fight for the reward and the quest progression.

Generally, I liked the smaller dungeons in PoE2. The ones in PoE were so long that they began to feel oppressive. Some of the PoE2 dungeons are quite extensive, but generally only if they are on the main path. I agree it wouldn't have hurt to mix in a few longer ones among the random islands.

 

2 hours ago, Telas said:

I never did a full run with scaling on but from a small test with it, i don't believe it works as intended. I would expect to see a level 12 area scaled upwards to my level 16 party but instead of that, the game was trying to up-scale even the equal level areas. Example: Level 12 party in a level 12 area, full of mobs made for a level 16 party. 3 skulls and red skulls everywhere.

I agree that autoscaling keeps you slightly under leveled, but not to the point of being unfair. Maybe half of the enemies in an encounter will have red skulls. Around level 8 I facerolled about 3 encounters in a row, so I turned autoscaling on and it kept the game tough the rest of the way through.

[xzar_monty]

2 hours ago, Telas said:

Just a made up example to make it more dramatic, but Subterranean temple with Magistrate's Cudgel is pretty close to a one room dungeon delving. 1,5 rooms, one encounter(a small party), one attribute check and back on your ship with loot and a tier 3 soulbound.  I can give you 30 more

Can you, really? My point is that Magistrate's Cudgel is not an especially potent item. There are no such items in the game. (There are both positive and negative sides to this. One positive is that there is no must-have, better-than-everything-else loot, and one negative is that you're never thrilled when going through your loot, because there's never anything that's especially good.)

Your original words were "Superb Hammer of Awesomeness". Magistrate's Cudgel is neither superb nor awesome. It's better than an ordinary item, but not that much better. It's a souldbound, yes, but you will never miss it you don't use it. You won't miss Lord Darryn's Voulge or any of the other soulbounds, either. They're just not very special.

Edited October 23, 2021 by xzar_monty

[xzar_monty]

36 minutes ago, Helz said:

I agree that autoscaling keeps you slightly under leveled, but not to the point of being unfair. Maybe half of the enemies in an encounter will have red skulls.

This, by the way, is really interesting. The difficulty of an opponent is more a factor of your absolute level (low level = more difficult) than it is of level difference as measured by these skulls. This at least has been my experience.

I played on Hard, or whatever is the name of the difficulty setting one notch down from PotD. Autoscaling everywhere, only upwards.

And so: on Gorecci Street and the Engwithian Digsite, the enemies have one white skull, at most. But these encounters are by far and away the most difficult ones in the game. Later on, I would meet many encounters with three-red-skull enemies, but none of them ever posed a problem. I remember being particularly disappointed by the Engwithian guardian on Poko Kohara, the one in the desert before you can enter the dungeon. It was a three-red-skull enemy for me, but it was dead easy, and soon dead.

[Telas]

41 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Your original words were "Superb Hammer of Awesomeness". Magistrate's Cudgel is neither superb nor awesome. It's better than an ordinary item, but not that much better. It's a souldbound, yes, but you will never miss it you don't use it. You won't miss Lord Darryn's Voulge or any of the other soulbounds, either. They're just not very special.

My point was that in order to address the overly long dungeons of POE, the devs made most dungeons of Deadfire a one room fight instead of choosing a middle ground. You can collect most of the unique gear in the game just by visiting these cute small places and just by having a quick lil fight. 

41 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Can you, really? My point is that Magistrate's Cudgel is not an especially potent item. There are no such items in the game. (There are both positive and negative sides to this. One positive is that there is no must-have, better-than-everything-else loot, and one negative is that you're never thrilled when going through your loot, because there's never anything that's especially good.)

Yeap. A page long worth of names. Almost every area not part of the Faction/Main quest. Again, items being brokenly OP wasn't really the point. The fact that they are unique, they have cool lore and that you can upgrade them just by sprinkle some gold and mats is what makes them awesome. 

1 hour ago, Helz said:

I agree that autoscaling keeps you slightly under leveled, but not to the point of being unfair. Maybe half of the enemies in an encounter will have red skulls. Around level 8 I facerolled about 3 encounters in a row, so I turned autoscaling on and it kept the game tough the rest of the way through.

Making a new party right now just to test the upscaling option a little more, maybe for 15 levels and i'll see from there. Veteran difficulty as always

[xzar_monty]

10 hours ago, Telas said:

Yeap. A page long worth of names. Almost every area not part of the Faction/Main quest. Again, items being brokenly OP wasn't really the point. The fact that they are unique, they have cool lore and that you can upgrade them just by sprinkle some gold and mats is what makes them awesome.

Ok. Then we'll just have to disagree. My view is that "awesome" should mean something. If you have a page long list of awesome things, they are not awesome. Their number must be quite limited, by definition.

The game itself is great, no question. But there are a few very odd things. The difficulty curve, the fairly indifferent loot and the fact that you can completely disregard all scrolls, potions, bombs and traps and not suffer one bit for it.

Edited October 24, 2021 by xzar_monty

[Boeroer]

9 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

The difficulty curve, the fairly indifferent loot and the fact that you can completely disregard all scrolls, potions, bombs and traps and not suffer one bit for it.

While I agree that the difficulty curve lurches around a bit I do def. not agree that a) the loot is indifferent and b) that you don't "suffer one bit" for not using consumables.

a) The unique and soulbound items are balanced fairly well but several of them are different enough in form and function that they are worth building whole character concepts around them. If one can do that (and be happy with the result) they can hardly be indifferent.
This is not the case for every unique item in the game of course, but for enough of them to call your claim exaggerated.
Just because some unique items don't outshine the others in sheer power doesn't mean the loot is all indifferent. 

The balancing of the loot is not even boring per se - I'd say having a few superpowerful items that would kind of force you to use them or else you'd feel you're gimping yourself - that is boring. To prevent such things was/is one design goal of Josh Sawyer - which I am grateful for. 

Deadfire greatly improved the enchantment system of PoE. That made sure that no weapon became useless if you liked it for whatever reasons (cool imo) - or if you skilled for great swords and then found the sabre of awesomeness - which would both lead to frustration, especially with players who only play through such games once.
So - nice decision imo - but the similar enchantment options made upgrading a bit bland. With Deadfire you get unique enchantment options for all unique weapons/armors which was a lot more work/more expensive but also is a lot more interesting. 

Because of that I can't see how the loot is indifferent... except when it comes to "power level". As I said that is a design goal which you might or might not agree with.

b) It strongly depends on the player's skill level, the game mode, party composition, the meta knowledge and the difficulty settings (incl. god challenges and solo/expert/trial of iron etc.) whether you will miss consumbles or not. I almost never use consumables (because I want to avoid the added item management) except basic food when camping and I'm doing fine - but if I would use them they would make the game a lot easier for me. I think it's great that you aren't forced to use consumables to play the game successfully because you can tune the challange in so many ways to make it work. 

I would have preferred if consumables would have been implemented in a more inventive/unconventional way (especially scrolls!) - but I think not being forced to use them is a good thing.

---

Tl;dr: besides the difficulty curve I think the other two things you mentioned are deliberate design decisions which worked out well - at least for me. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Tl;dr: besides the difficulty curve I think the other two things you mentioned are deliberate design decisions which worked out well - at least for me. 

(I thought it wisest to quote just this. No disrespect; your comment is good.)

They are deliberate design decisions for sure, and I'm not saying that they worked badly, just that they took away some of the magic these games generally contain, for me.

When it comes to point b concerning the consumables, I'm sure there's a lot of things you can do with them, but my point is that you never have to. Even when playing on Hard, there was never any need for scrolls or bombs. I thought it would have been really nice if I had had to rely on them even a little bit. There are some scrolls you can (almost?) only gain by crafting them, I think one was called Rusted Armor or something. I thought it was a great idea, and I did in fact use it a couple of times, only to be bitterly disappointed: it only brought the enemy's defences down for something like 5 to 8 seconds. There was never a fight where something as minute as that would have made a difference in my game.

When I talk about awesome loot, I mean stuff like Celestial Fury or Carsomyr from Baldur's Gate 2. Obviously I'm not blind to the problems of these items, either: they are somewhat unbalancing to the entire game. In Deadfire, the developers really went for the balance, and when it comes to the game as a whole, it most certainly worked. But when it comes to the loot, I was not too impressed by the results, because there was no "wow" factor for me with any of the loot I found. It's fine if we disagree on this.

[Boeroer]

Okay, I can relate.

[NotDumbEnough]

I do think that about 60% of the unique items you run into are not particularly interesting. Unique armor that you get later on tends to be good, but unique weapons can be very hit or miss, as are a lot of the shields and accessories IMO. For weapons in particular, there are really only 4 types of unique weapons worth using, IMO:

1. Caster stat-sticks like Magran's Favor or The Eye of Wael or Marux Amanth for priests, Spine of Thicket Green for druids, etc. Kitchen Stove also counts as Thunderous Report fills your focus instantly. There aren't a whole lot of these in the game, so they're so essential that you kind of want to plan your play-through around them. I do wish they had given more thought to weapons that casters might want to use given that they very rarely attack.

2. Amazing damage, whether it be through triggered abilities, lashes, or something else. Like Voidwheel for lashes and triggered Necrotic Lance, Red Hand for double shots per reload, Scordeo's Edge for Blade Cascade cheese (which is so overwhelmingly powerful that I refuse to use it as it trivializes the game), Spider's Fang on ciphers due to the amazing DoT. Not going to list them all.

3. Weapons with stunlock capabilities. There's a flail that prones on crit, and another that stuns on crit. Don't deal a lot of damage, but you can permastun someone with Gambit.

4. Blunderbusses for doing goofy stuff like Stunning Surge in an AOE. Why use Embrace of the Earth Talon from a druid when you can stunlock in a similar AOE for free (and with no friendly fire)?

I've generally found that weapons that don't fall into one of these 4 categories kinda suck. Like Rod of the Deep Hunter gives you about -10 deflection and +30% recovery on one particular target if you do nothing but attack and never miss or graze. Um, OK? There are also quite a few meme weapons like Vion-Ceth where even if you completely lean into what it wants you to do, the results are underwhelming.

I guess what I want to say is:

1. Unique weapons should feel more like interesting sidegrades over generic weapons (with both advantages and a price to pay for using them), rather than strict upgrades to different extents, so that a weapon type is not defined by what unique weapons it contains. A Greatsword Devoted will have lots of fun with Voidwheel. Some newbie who chooses a Warhammer Devoted will not have a very fun time at all.

2. Unique weapons that are picked up early should have more powerful upgrades to help keep up. I get that the first unique item you find shouldn't be as broken as Scordeo's Edge, but it would be nice if some of the weaker unique weapons weren't just stepping stones that you never bother to upgrade.

3. I also wish that weapon modals were replaced with more interesting per encounter weapon abilities, as a lot of the modals are not worth using past the extreme early game and take away from the identity of different weapon types. e.g. You probably won't use the Sabre modal once you have a priest with Champion's Boon. What's the point of so many weapon types when their identities are overshadowed so strongly by unique item properties?

[Boeroer]

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

1. Caster stat-sticks like Magran's Favor or The Eye of Wael or Marux Amanth for priests, Spine of Thicket Green for druids, etc. Kitchen Stove also counts as Thunderous Report fills your focus instantly. There aren't a whole lot of these in the game[...]

Lord Darryn's Voulge, Lance of the Midwood Stag, Engoliero do Espirs, Chromoprismatic Staff, Watershaper's Focus, Griffin's Blade, Blightheart, Twin Eels, Slayer's Claw, Sun and Moon, Sasha's Singing Scimitar, Xoti's Sickle, Xoti's Lantern, Frostfall, Ngati's Tusk, Weyc's Wand, A Whale of a Wand, Resounding Call... and I'm sure I missed some.
Most of those are quite abscure in their quality to support casting though so I agree that there could have been more obvious "caster stat sticks" where even new players would go like "whoa this is nice for casting ma spells". 

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I've generally found that weapons that don't fall into one of these 4 categories kinda suck.

Willbreaker, rods, Whispers of the Endless Paths, Eccea's Arcane Blaster, Scordeo's Trophy, Animancer's Blade, Essence Interrupter, Lover's Embrace, Pukestabber, Squid's Grasp, Baradatto's Luxury, Magistrate's Cudgel, Rännig's Wrath, Kapana Taga, Spearcaster, Cadhu Scalth, Dire Talon and many more don't fall into those categories and yet don't suck at all. 

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

A Greatsword Devoted will have lots of fun with Voidwheel. Some newbie who chooses a Warhammer Devoted will not have a very fun time at all.

Bad example imo because all three unique war hammers are nice and war hammers in general are a good pick for a Devoted. Also Voidwheel comes quite late. ot that much to have when the weapon you are supposed to have fun with comes to you when the game is in its last stage (sort of, at least without DLCs). Luckily there are other unique great swords before that.
Maybe Great Swords vs. Crossbows would have been more revealing. Crossbow is a bad pick for a Devoted. 

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Unique weapons that are picked up early should have more powerful upgrades to help keep up. I get that the first unique item you find shouldn't be as broken as Scordeo's Edge, but it would be nice if some of the weaker unique weapons weren't just stepping stones that you never bother to upgrade.

 You mean stuff like Essence Interrupter, Whispers of the Endless Paths, Grave Calling, Amra, Sun & Moon, Watershaper's Focus, Spearcaster, Hand Mortar, Gladiator Sword and more don't count? If the weapon/armor enchantments and the upgrading system do something then it's making sure early weapons do keep up. If anything then it's unusual that you can collect weapons that are top tier in terms of their special properties are so potent you will keep usig them from beginning to the end. In fact that is on point of criticism of many players: that you can keep using the early weapons without the need to change to better ones - so basically the criticism is that a lot of early uniques are NOT stepping stones. It's like the two most criticized aspects of the difficulty setting I suppose: "it's too easy" and "it's too hard"... "items can get upgraded and enchanted so you don't have to change them because they stay viable - i hate it" vs. "items can get upgraded and enchanted but you have to change them because they still won't stay viable - i hate it"... 

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

3. I also wish that weapon modals were replaced with more interesting per encounter weapon abilities, as a lot of the modals are not worth using past the extreme early game and take away from the identity of different weapon types. e.g. You probably won't use the Sabre modal once you have a priest with Champion's Boon. What's the point of so many weapon types when their identities are overshadowed so strongly by unique item properties?

I think the basic idea of weapon modals is great. I personally don't need even more per-encounter stuff to micromanage. Party size got reduced from 6 to 5 just because having more active abilities (also with martial classes/builds) means a lot more micromanagement. Adding per-encounter-management to resource-pool-management adds more... well... management. Even with 5 party members I already find myself using "select all, attack" in numerous fights because - while it's less effective - it's just faster. 
I only wish the modals were a) treated as passives so that modals wouldn't stop to be useful once you swin in active buffs and b) wouldn't show signs of "we couldn't come up with any more interesting stuff so we gave +PEN and +recovery time to a bunch of them". But modals like Body Blows, Overbearing Shot etc. are awesome imo and do exactly what they are supposed to: you activate them in certain situations and then they will give you a real advantage - and you deactivate them when they won't have an impact. That's way better than some 1/encounter ability imo.

---

Where I agree is that some weapons that have a special niche should have been more impactful. "Wood Bane" from Vion-Ceth for example used to do +60% (or even +100%? ) of bonus dmg against enemies with plant effects on them - so it was a great weapon once you had druids and rangers in the party. And since it's only additve dmg it wasn't OP with that bigger bonus either, just a really good pick and a nice synergy. I don't know why it got tuned down so much while you can have a lot of other weapons that have significantly more impact on nearly all encounters.  Especially because you still needed to apply a spell/ability to the enemy which also is costing you. Other weapons that are supposed to be good against other types of enemies (beasts, vessels etc.) should have effects that are really impactful against those types on enemies and not just a lame dmg bonus or a bit more ACC (looking at stuff like Amaliorra etc.). At the same time you get an arquebus that does double barrel dmg to begin with and then also is THE bane of low level vessels if enchanted accordingly. I mean I get the From Dusk 'till Dawn reference but I would have preferred to see those effects on two different weapons, but whatever...

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Whispers of the Endless Paths

This is an interesting one.

In PoE, you it took essentially no work at all to get the Whispers of Yenwood. I found it to be quite good at the start, i.e. when I found it. Later on, I replaced it with something else. Fair enough, nothing wrong here.

It took quite a lot of work to get the Blade of the Endless Paths. By the time I got it, I was mightily disappointed: its attributes were in no way exceptional, and in my view, the game has a much better two-handed blade that you can find just lying around (Tidefall), and much earlier, too.

So, in my two playthroughs in PoE, I never used the Blade of the Endless Paths, even for a second.

In Deadfire, I was able to forge the Whispers of the Endless Paths. I think it's so-so. In one of my two playthroughs, I used it for a while and then replaced it with something else. It had no standout qualities for me. It's not bad but there's very little to really recommend it. The place where you get the Whispers of the Endless Paths also contains another remainder from PoE, the Devil of Caroc Breastplate. I bought that when I had the money and never replaced it. It's very good.

You clearly know the system an awful lot better than I do, there's just no question. You also know how to optimize a lot better than I do, again, no question. But even playing on Hard, there are very, very occasions where extensive knowledge or optimization is needed (Neriscyrlas is one example). Pretty much all items and character combos work quite well. This is somewhat odd.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Xoti's Sickle, Xoti's Lantern

Btw, in both of my playthroughs, Xoti used both of these from start to finish. It didn't feel as if she ever needed anything better. I thought this was a bit odd, again.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

This is an interesting one.

In PoE, you it took essentially no work at all to get the Whispers of Yenwood. I found it to be quite good at the start, i.e. when I found it. Later on, I replaced it with something else. Fair enough, nothing wrong here.

It took quite a lot of work to get the Blade of the Endless Paths. By the time I got it, I was mightily disappointed: its attributes were in no way exceptional, and in my view, the game has a much better two-handed blade that you can find just lying around (Tidefall), and much earlier, too.

That is unfortunate since the Blade of the Endless Paths -in the right hands - is one of the best two handed weapons in PoE. As all weapons it's not overpowered - but it's pretty great because it has speed. Due to the multiplicative speed stacking in PoE, the speed enchantment is the best DPS enchantment (besides wounding). Tidefall is good as well, but it's not "much better" than the Blade otEP.

For particular classes/builds the Blade is actually better (melee Cipher, marking Paladin for example). But yes: Tidefall comes earlier (with the right metaknowledge that you'll need 10 mechanics and the scouting mode to even find it) which might lead to the assumption that it should be worse. But that would not follow the basic item design principle I mentioned earlier so...

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

In Deadfire, I was able to forge the Whispers of the Endless Paths. I think it's so-so. In one of my two playthroughs, I used it for a while and then replaced it with something else. It had no standout qualities for me. 

It is a weapon that has exceptional qualities for certain builds - but is not especially good for others. Combos like cone AoE + afflictions and other special attacks like Soul Annihilation and cone AoE + AoE abilities (for example Clear Out) on one hand and Offensive Parry (retaliation) on the other hand make it a very good pick for certain effective (rather diverse) builds. Thus it doesn't "suck" per se but can be a cornerstone of a fun and successful playthrough.

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Btw, in both of my playthroughs, Xoti used both of these from start to finish. It didn't feel as if she ever needed anything better. I thought this was a bit odd, again.

It depends on how you play Xoti. You don't need to use something else if you don't want to. Both weapons are tailored to her and her class combos.

For me it's a good thing that you don't necessarily have to switch out those (style- and lore-wise) fitting weapons.

But you can for example focus on kill-stealing/interrupting with her (and get 3 wounds everytime you do that because of her monk subclass which in turn is great with Rooting Pain) - then you would rather want to use something like Twin Eels for example.

Or you focus on her Blessed Harvest spell and give her a Morning Star + modal instead of sickle + lantern so she doesn't miss the spell. Also works well.

I once gave the Sickle away to the party Rogue/Barb (skilled him for max Religion) and paired all the speed buffs, Sneak Attack and Deathblow stuff with the up-to 60% dmg bonus and the speed bonus of the sickle. Made Xoti an SC Monk and used the Lantern to gain +4 wounds and +1 Mortification when killing squishies with Inner Death. I like that you can play around with weapons so much. This wouldn't be possible if weapons would be desiged more like in the BG series or so where they just become more powerful the further you go.

Granted - this is more attractive to players who play multiple times/try out multiple chars and less for one-time players who couldn't care less I guess. 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

28 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I like that you can play around with weapons so much. This wouldn't be possible it weapons would be desiged more like in the BG series or so where they just become more powerful the further you go.

Granted - this is more attractive to players who play multiple times/try out multiple chars and less for one-time players who couldn't care less I guess.

I think both these statements are true. So yes, I guess it's a case of you win some, you lose some. Luckily, the end result is a great game -- just with some flaws. I can live with that.

I wouldn't say I couldn't care less about the mechanics and fiddling around with them, but certainly my main interest is in the story and roleplaying. This is why I agree it's also nice that you can use Xoti's initial weapons right until the end, because it seems right from a roleplaying perspective. I also hesitated to give Eder anything other than his initial mayoral medal, because, well, I got the impression that Eder was sort of proud of that thing and would prefer to keep it. (I was faced with a nasty roleplaying problem when Serafen gifted me with an item that was worse than the one I was already wearing in that spot. But gifts can be like that.)

[thelee]

On 10/23/2021 at 10:58 AM, Helz said:

Generally, I liked the smaller dungeons in PoE2. The ones in PoE were so long that they began to feel oppressive. Some of the PoE2 dungeons are quite extensive, but generally only if they are on the main path. I agree it wouldn't have hurt to mix in a few longer ones among the random islands.

i agree.

in base game, there's only like one decent dungeon that you can stumble on in the islands, the woedica temple. it kinda takes the fun out of random exploration if 99% of what you see is a single encounter. it lowers the stakes of visiting a random spot.

we don't need a 15-level dungeon again, but a couple more woedica temples, even at the cost of existing dungeons in nekataka, would've been nice.

 

22 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

What's the point of so many weapon types when their identities are overshadowed so strongly by unique item properties?

you know, i agree that weapon identity pretty much disappears by mid-game, if it ever had a strong impact to begin with (aside from club, flail, morningstar). maybe they could've exaggerated base item differences more in this vein. but ultimately, i think this is a "good" thing in the sense that unique items are special. it makes looting exciting, whereas in poe1 there was an endless list of magical items that were nothing special (including backer-made ones) that you couldn't already do with your own enchantments.

i'm not sure there's a good example of a game meaningful unique items and differentiate based item types. in the end, it doesn't matter is a d4 weapon or a d12 weapon if it has a killer ability.

Edited October 25, 2021 by thelee

[Helz]

10 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Btw, in both of my playthroughs, Xoti used both of these from start to finish. It didn't feel as if she ever needed anything better. I thought this was a bit odd, again.

I think it works because they can be improved. The subtle change in appearance as gear gets upgraded is something else that I love about this game.