Pillars of Eternity 2 Wish List and Suggestions

[Fenixp]

I'd like to point out that party size has already been dropped down to 4 in Tyranny, basically with a rationalization that "6 member parties were confusing so we're using 4 member parties now." Source.

 

I'm not happy about this decision. Not one bit. I do hope they'll keep 6 member parties for PoE 2 and 4 member parties remain specific to Tyranny.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It's likely not going to happen but co-op would be awesome.

[mindswayer]

I'd like to point out that party size has already been dropped down to 4 in Tyranny, basically with a rationalization that "6 member parties were confusing so we're using 4 member parties now." Source.

 

I'm not happy about this decision. Not one bit. I do hope they'll keep 6 member parties for PoE 2 and 4 member parties remain specific to Tyranny.

Sawyer actually talked about this whole number of party members dilemma a while back: https://soundcloud.com/usgamernet/axe-of-the-blood-god-episode-46-obsidians-josh-sawyer-reflects-on-pillars-of-eternity

Skip to 36:10

Start at 35:03 if you wanna hear the "question" that's posed.

Edited July 31, 2016 by mindswayer

[Fenixp]

Thanks for that. He's terrible at sticking to topic. So what I got from that is that he thinks 6 member parties are just a leftover from ye olden days driven by nostalgia and difficult to manage? *double sigh* I'd say he knows his own game and therefore realizes that 4 member parties are not only supported in Pillars, they're totally viable. And then us, Uber Humans with brains augmented by CPUs from supercomputers, geniuses of our time, quite simply, people who can control entirety of 6 characters without feeling confused, we can have fun too then!

[AndreaColombo]

Appreciate this is just wishful thinking, but I'll throw it there nonetheless:

 

— A.I. that scales with difficulty level (i.e. what makes an harder mode actually harder is A.I.; no cheating on the A.I.'s part and no artificial stat increases.)

 

 

Additionally:

 

— Optional bracketed scaling for the whole game.

— A.I. that actually makes use of potions, item abilities, a wide variety of spells and buffs/debuffs, etc. Basically, whatever is available to the player should be available to the A.I. as well. How far the A.I. goes with it depends on difficulty level (see the first point in this post.)

— At least one unapologetically hard difficulty level geared toward completionists. Right now even PotD becomes easy in Act III and IV if you're a completionist with a full party of 6 (even with enemy scaling on.)

— Armor design that doesn't make male models look fat in plate.*

* appreciate it's more "historically accurate" the way it looks right now, but it is also unsightly and nobody wants a fat party member tallying about

— Deeper, more elaborated side quests and backstories for joinable NPCs. They should also be more vocal about stuff they feel strongly about, to the point of actually fighting you/another party member if **** hits the fan. They shouldn't be afraid to leave the party (for good or otherwise) if your course of action ticks them off.

 

— MOAR portraits for non-human races. Seriously: MOAR.

— MOAR reactivity. You can never have enough of that one.

[Jojobobo]

Nature Godlike needs a strong boost, rather than it just being a weaker human. I'd suggest a per encounter (or two per rest) summon with 15s duration that's strong early game but tapers off mid to late, either that or per encounter (or again, 2 per rest) charm beast - or both.

 

There should be more interesting weapons in each class to incentivise their use - currently there's very little reason to use say a pistol (which are outclassed by an Arquebus or Blunderbuss) or quite a few of the other melee weapon options, giving one or two a strong or interesting enchantment could rectify this.

 

I think there also needs to be a slightly more emphasis on making multiple builds for a particular class more or less equally as good as one another. For example a Twinned Arrows Stormcaller/Persistence Ranger is quite a lot better than most other Ranger builds, likewise for a shock focussed Druid.

 

Beyond that, a big branching path in the main quest would be nice with 3-4 branches to help more strongly differentiate different playthroughs.

 

Other than that, I think the current game is pretty solid, so there's no need to radically change the formula.

[kanisatha]

Thanks for that. He's terrible at sticking to topic. So what I got from that is that he thinks 6 member parties are just a leftover from ye olden days driven by nostalgia and difficult to manage? *double sigh* I'd say he knows his own game and therefore realizes that 4 member parties are not only supported in Pillars, they're totally viable. And then us, Uber Humans with brains augmented by CPUs from supercomputers, geniuses of our time, quite simply, people who can control entirety of 6 characters without feeling confused, we can have fun too then!

This is the single biggest reason I cannot bring myself to enjoy, or even to play, the Elder Scrolls games. I cannot stand RPGs that are not party-based. Immersing myself in my companions and their quests and stories and quirks, micromanaging my party, optimally distributing items (and even skills and abilities) across my party, having significant variation in classes and builds across my party, etc., are what make a game truly enjoyable for me. I accept there is such a thing as too large of a party, but I think six is ideal and optimal. And as party size drops further and further below six, my interest in the game drops exponentially until it gets to be practically zero interest with a party size of one.

[demeisen]

Immersing myself in my companions and their quests and stories and quirks, micromanaging my party, optimally distributing items (and even skills and abilities) across my party, having significant variation in classes and builds across my party, etc., are what make a game truly enjoyable for me. I accept there is such a thing as too large of a party, but I think six is ideal and optimal. And as party size drops further and further below six, my interest in the game drops exponentially until it gets to be practically zero interest with a party size of one.

 

 

​Exactly!  Also, you get to try a decent number of classes in a single playthrough, and you get interesting synergies between the classes where their abilities augment each other.  E.g making a line of tanks to keep creatures off your softer chars, but you've run out of tanks, so you use a cypher or druid to "adopt" another one or two in the right place at the right time to keep the battle from falling apart.  The more everything is squished into just a few team members, the less interesting and positional it all gets.

​

​Thankfully, I haven't heard so much as a rumor about reducing the party size for PoE2, but in case anybody at Ob is entertaining the slightest inkling of a thought about that during the design process... please allow me to buy you a long series of beers until you get so drunk you have forgotten all about the idea when you get back to work the next day . 

​

Edited July 31, 2016 by demeisen

[mindswayer]

 

Thanks for that. He's terrible at sticking to topic. So what I got from that is that he thinks 6 member parties are just a leftover from ye olden days driven by nostalgia and difficult to manage? *double sigh* I'd say he knows his own game and therefore realizes that 4 member parties are not only supported in Pillars, they're totally viable. And then us, Uber Humans with brains augmented by CPUs from supercomputers, geniuses of our time, quite simply, people who can control entirety of 6 characters without feeling confused, we can have fun too then!

This is the single biggest reason I cannot bring myself to enjoy, or even to play, the Elder Scrolls games. I cannot stand RPGs that are not party-based. Immersing myself in my companions and their quests and stories and quirks, micromanaging my party, optimally distributing items (and even skills and abilities) across my party, having significant variation in classes and builds across my party, etc., are what make a game truly enjoyable for me. I accept there is such a thing as too large of a party, but I think six is ideal and optimal. And as party size drops further and further below six, my interest in the game drops exponentially until it gets to be practically zero interest with a party size of one.

 

Damn. Sorry you missed out on New Vegas.

 

Thanks for that. He's terrible at sticking to topic. So what I got from that is that he thinks 6 member parties are just a leftover from ye olden days driven by nostalgia and difficult to manage? *double sigh* I'd say he knows his own game and therefore realizes that 4 member parties are not only supported in Pillars, they're totally viable. And then us, Uber Humans with brains augmented by CPUs from supercomputers, geniuses of our time, quite simply, people who can control entirety of 6 characters without feeling confused, we can have fun too then!

I don't know if it's in that segment, but somewhere in that same podcast Josh also talks about how he understands the benefits of 6-man parties and can see why 4 man parties would be too restricting.

But you can rest assured that PoE 2 will have 6-man parties. If I had to bet, I'd say Sawyer will slow down the combat instead (actually I'm pretty sure I heard him saying this as well in some interview).

[anameforobsidian]

I need more party members than four.  I was very unhappy when I played NWN and had two characters.  NWN2 was better with four, but still wrong.  Combat just wasn't as complex.

 

To use 4e parlance, you're always going to have a controller, healer, tank, and striker.  More party members lets you play with off-tanks, dedicated buff characters, combinations of spell casters, and different builds of the same class.  Narratively it also gives you more room to experiment with different characters.  I think they could warn players during character creation to build their party with high and low action characters to make it easier on non-micromanagers.

[kanisatha]

​E.g making a line of tanks to keep creatures off your softer chars, but you've run out of tanks, so you use a cypher or druid to "adopt" another one or two in the right place at the right time to keep the battle from falling apart.  The more everything is squished into just a few team members, the less interesting and positional it all gets.

HA! This is why I love taking along Sagani because you get an extra with her foxy fox. That fox is awesome! It serves as my cavalry, my strategic reserve. Because it moves fast, I can send it where it needs to go to support a party member who's in trouble. It can also serve to trigger an encounter and draw enemies to my position, or to hold enemies in place and away from my squishies until my melee warriors can close with them. It is so very versatile!

 

But, if we had only four party slots, Sagani just wouldn't make the cut.

[Messier-31]

My wish for PoE 2: please make Gacgen as a joinable companion NPC.

 

Puahleez.

[InsaneCommander]

Sometimes I wish I could have 7 or 8 party members. 6 is perfectly fine, but the sixth character is always a difficult choice. I never had any problems managing them. If anyone have, just restrict party size to 4. Even a new player can learn how to deal with combat and in the worst case scenario can play at normal with a smaller party with no problems.

[Faerunner]

This one's weird, but I want more Wild Orlan content.

 

I LOVE playing wild orlans, but darn if it doesn't depress me that there's only one head shape, one portrait (thank goodness for fan artists), and few to no NPC's. Granted, it's fitting that there are so few wild orlans given how they tend to shun the bigger kith races, but that's actually something I want too.

 

I also hope the sequel explores wild orlan and pale elf cultures, since we know next to nothing about them from the game. I realized all the descriptions of their cultures in Pillars are based on in-universe outsiders, and since few to no people have even been to the White That Wends or the wild orlan camps deep in the forests, we don't know anything about them either. Makes headcanoning our characters' upbringings pretty hard.

[DreamWayfarer]

I also hope the sequel explores wild orlan and pale elf cultures, since we know next to nothing about them from the game. I realized all the descriptions of their cultures in Pillars are based on in-universe outsiders, and since few to no people have even been to the White That Wends or the wild orlan camps deep in the forests, we don't know anything about them either. Makes headcanoning our characters' upbringings pretty hard.

As someone who rarely plays anything but Pale Elves, I agree. My heart sunk three miles when all Manahea had to say about the White That Wends is that it was cold. **** you, obsidian, offering the option to talk to her about it just to tease us. Next PoE better have entire questlines or companions that let we dive into the cultures neglected by the first game.

[Elric Galad]

There is an entire quest and location about pale elfs in act III. It's hard to say that there is nothing about pale elf.

 

Deadfire Archipelago ? Living lands ? Even Old Valia has pretty much zero content.

 

I guess pale elfs are secretive and that conquerors never try to attack their homeland for obvious reasons. So they are not the most famous culture. But for sure, more content won't hurt in PoE 2.

[DreamWayfarer]

There is an entire quest and location about pale elfs in act III. It's hard to say that there is nothing about pale elf.

 

Deadfire Archipelago ? Living lands ? Even Old Valia has pretty much zero content.

 

Deadfire Archipelago has Sagani and some item descriptions, but I agree on Living Lands and Old Valia. I actually forget that the Living Lands are a thing sometimes.

[Nemesis7884]

- smaller party size (i think 4 is optimal)

- more encounter and less per rest

- more variability in the possible builds of each class

- accuracy not being so over-dominant / combat defining vs all other stats

- a simpler to understand system of what effects are stacking and which arent - i think this is really complicated with pillars

[Nemesis7884]

Never understood the hate for lvl scaling - i LIKE it, especially in a tactical rpg. It makes every fight interesting and as hard as its supposed to be. Without it, you will have 20% of the fights way too hard and 50% way too easy cause youre over or underleveled. Its something different for different type of game structures.... of course with a game like poe which os more linear and you can guide the player more through quests its less relevant....

[Jotra]

My main wish for PoE 2 would be integrating the companions better into the story. Have them comment on things happening around them and the places we go to. Also have them talk between each other a LOT more. The DLCs certainly moved in this direction compared to the main game, but I'd still like to see more of it.

[Ser Pontonnier]

Some things i like in PoE :

 

- Choices and the possibility to build a behaviour’s reputation, and that reputation bring consequences.

- Observations from NPC on PC’s background (merchant, dissident, labourer, etc.)

- voice acting. They were convincing (well, Durance’s wail of despair was so convincing that my neighbour came knocking at my door to see if I was well…)

- party commentaries. They make the NPc more lively

- the possibility to use the traps you disarm

- I don’t know to mention them correctly, but I really like the short passages with scriptures, like the burning house, the climb for the dragon egg, the escape from the moon.

- the battle of Yenwood. Mass battle was interesting.

 

 

 

Wish list :

• Party with a goal : NPC shouldn’t join your party just because you give them a small service. OF course it wasn’t the case for all of them : Kana Rua needed your help to get through that dungeon…. But the others are just individuals that are passing by or just needed an excuse. I wish that the NPC join you because they have a good reason to risk their lives doing so. Moreover, they shouldn’t be compelled to do things they have no interests in. Kana Rua should have left the party as soon as his quest was finished, for example.
• Freedom and evolution for Party members : after their goal is achieved, they should leave… and you may find some of them again in later acts with different belongings or talents following the result of their quest(s) and your choices for them. In other words : impacted by the choices you made for them.

 

• Better “time management” in the story : even if the main story told the contrary, I never felt in a hurry. Taos busy resurrecting Woedica ? The man is waiting for you taking the long way while all he has to do is push a trigger… and you can make him wait for months alone there without food. Next game should at least use some tricks to make you feel the urgency. No side quest at tensed moments or side-quest that close when you choose one ; consequences if too many days passed without doing the main quest would give more rythme to the game.

 

• Navy stronghold. That would be great. You may add being able to do a few navy battle with it, like the Yenwood battle. After all, many countries have powerful fleets in the PoE universe.

 

• Factions : more of them or a least more than 3 quests with them. Also, choosing one of them should have more importance in the in-game. Doing quests for them should have direct influence in the followings Acts.

 

• Less contriving story, your choice should matter more in game : final stage and final boss shouldn’t be the same for complete opposing choices.

 

• More contriving game : you shouldn’t be being able to do all the quests and side-quests in one run. I would enjoy more redoing the game if it allows me to do thing I wasn’t able to do in the first run. Some quests should open with conditions, like a specific value in a certain behaviour, reputation in a place, who you have in your party, class or background etc. and I wouldn’t mind less background options if it allows to focus more on them.

 

• Side-stories were good. Main story…. Meh. It could have been better if it was more articulate. The beginning hook is very generic and unfitting for someone who will fight a lot (getting a small land to cultivate… let’s say that for a barbarian, I didn’t expect an answer to the question “what’s best in life” to be water crops and growing salads). Then you infiltrate a sect without much problems and; much conveniently, the one person who should have suspicions about you give you missions… when you were supposed to ask them questions to know more about your state and ask them for a cure. And at the end, after learning fortuitly that there is no cure to your state, you got magically ridden of it without reason. Your character was threatened to become mad without return to sanity, and the situation resolves by itself. Your main motivation to advance in the story was just a useful power that fades when the game ends. It fell flat.

 

 

Examples to flesh out some of my expectations :

 

• The goal is to explore a newly discovered archipelago/land. You can ally with 3 different factions like Vallian Republics, Rauatai or Aedyr that want to control and colonize it. Each have different assets, trump cards and disadvantages. You’ll work for this faction for many acts, or defect to another one, or side with the natives to help them fend off the invasion, and doing their jobs will impact the following acts, not just the slides at the end.
• Inside those 3 mains factions, you’ll have sub-factions that have different approach to solve the same problem or different objectives. Your actions can support some of them, to make the whole faction’s actions more aggressive or more diplomatic, more focused on conquest or discovering knowledge... etc.
• A few months will pass between different acts, so you can see intermediate results of your actions : like building a fortress on some place to control/survey the area, or to install some trade to gain some funds… etc.
• If you have merchant as a background, you’ll be approached by merchant who want you to help them conclude a trade agreement. A ranger would be asked to explore a dangerous are or to hunt a specific beast… etc.

[Sannom]

 

And at the end, after learning fortuitly that there is no cure to your state, you got magically ridden of it without reason. Your character was threatened to become mad without return to sanity, and the situation resolves by itself. Your main motivation to advance in the story was just a useful power that fades when the game ends. It fell flat.

The power doesn't fade when the game ends, your character is still a Watcher and their powers are still there.

[Prince of Lies]

Most of the stuff on this thread appears to be subjective- objectively, Pillars of Eternity was a phenomenal renewal of the CRPG genre.

Most of my original complaints about the game were addressed with content patches and WM1/2. (Weapon/Armor Variety, more useful Stronghold, unique companions and enemies, AI scripts for party members, etc.)

 

Companions in Pillars of Eternity were interesting- they just didn't seem to have much of an impact. Romances are a good way to do this- personally I like romance options, especially considering that you can generally just not pursue a companion romantically if you so choose. As many have said before- more inter-party interactions would be cool. Making a choice in the game that completely counters what a companion stands for should have consequences. What I'm not saying is to add an arbitrary morality system, I love that Pillars of Eternity is many shades of grey.

 

My only qualm with the Stronghold (while partially addressed with the Yenwood arc, and in the improvement of the "Adventure" system) was that it felt like it was only there for the sake of the stretch goal. Apart from improvements (which, given an amount of time, anyone can get all of the upgrades), there wasn't any customization. There wasn't a choice of "If I build a tower here as opposed to a tavern, it will affect me in this way" which made it feel like it wasn't *my* stronghold.

In general, level-scaling is fine, and makes sense, especially at the end of the game. I did find, however, that certain enemies didn't seem to scale. An example would be final boss of WM2, which I just rolled over. While it's a little nit-picky, I found it odd that the final baddy of WM2 was less difficult than a certain fungi earlier in the expansion.

 

Crafting could also be improved- most notably the ability to learn/find recipes for enchantments, food, and potions. Maybe (as previously mentioned) the ability to make traps.

 

The last thing, also mentioned earlier in the thread, which is super nit-picky, is not being able to have a separate slot for neck jewelry and a cape/cloak. 

Edited August 7, 2016 by Prince of Lies

[Nemesis7884]

My main wish for PoE 2 would be integrating the companions better into the story. Have them comment on things happening around them and the places we go to. Also have them talk between each other a LOT more. The DLCs certainly moved in this direction compared to the main game, but I'd still like to see more of it.

 

true...some companions story just feld realy not relevant at all and resolved kinda quickly

[hrwd]

Setting:

 

-> Either Old Vailia or Rauatai(Venice or Maori you choose )

-> Tho, Ixamitl or White could be exotic and nice as well(but perhaps too close to BG and ID respectively)

 

Improvements:

 

-> Possibly a total move away from Vancian spellcasters(they're severely outdated anyhow and make the game be designed around them)

-> Consider hiring an editor for your writing(trust me, P of E made the exact same mistake Martin constantly does: Namely "overwriting" sometimes too much's too much)

-> Fully voice acted main / semi main characters? Would be nice.

-> More impact to all the choices(think how Kreia nagged about practically everything): Races, Classes(how come Eder and Durance don't argue? I mean, just listen to what Durance actually did do), Dispositions etc etc

-> I'd like if you could play it as NWN 2 in 3rd person, but would be fine with TD as well

-> Smarter AI: At the very least for companions

-> Chris Avellone: self explanatory

-> More customisation: Various tokens on Armour(think how WAR did it), the ability to choose an emblem for a cape etc

-> Better / more important stronghold / housing: Not important personally, but could be very much so for others, so...