Inherent flaws in Soulbound items...

[Kinowek]

In anticipation of Pillars 2, I've been running through Pillars of Eternity 1 again, with two different parties. With the Deadfire DLC, there's a Soulbound captain's hat (?) that you can get fairly early in the game.

 

The first level of unlocks just require taking some hits. Fine, this is doable, even in normal play.

 

The second level requires getting Critical Hit to trigger the Confuse Proc... okay, a bit more difficult, but doable. However there is the added wrinkle that it can only happen once per Encounter!?  Hopefully the next unlock of the hat is extremely powerful, because that is statistically unlikely through normal play. In Pillars 1 there are probably enough trash fights to get this hat unlocked by the end of the game, but supposedly Pillars 2 has less encounters?

 

*EDIT* Forgot to mention, the Confuse can also miss!?  or be resisted, wasting that entire encounter and the critical hit.

 

At this rate I will never get to the third unlock. As I type this, I realize of course that somebody already has this hat unlocked, via normal play or exploit, and is burning with desire to post a rebuttal.

 

This brings up the inherent flaw in soulbound items, in my opinion. They do NOT encourage normal play (ie. not taking damage, whole team participating, playing smartly and efficiently).  They encourage having the entire team stand around while the character with soulbound items either takes hits or hits a creature repeatedly to unlock the next level. (Excluding the few quest based ones, obviously)

 

While I love the powers of the Soulbound weapons from Pillars 1, and I did unlock them ALL on my first playthrough(pre-DeadFire DLC), it definitely slowed down the game greatly and required me to actually save up groups of enemies just to use them to unlock soulbound items.  It also definitely contributed to me NOT finishing a couple other runs I had going after that first playthrough, not wanting to grind soulbound items again.

 

Is this intended? I would think most players would attempt to unlock all soulbound items, and there literally are not enough battles for that to happen if you play as 'normal.' 

 

Now, obviously it's possible with some unusual play to do in Pillars 1, but with all this talk of Pillars 2 having less overall combat, and apparently still including Soulbound weapons, could the requirements be reduced? As it is, they are not difficult or fun to unlock, they just require repetitive farming style tactics. Or, more quest based style ones, PLEASE. The quest based Soulbound requirements were fine. Doing 1000 damage/getting Critical Hit 15 times/etc. just lead to farming style play.

 

As it is now, I'm leaning towards seeing if I can console in the soulbound weapons for my Pillars 1 Ranger and Chanter groups, instead of going through the hassle of going through the repeated hassle my first character's group did.

 

PS. Minor note, the latest patch(as of today, apparently?) through Gog seems to have bugged Soulbound items in Pillars 1, Eder has Hobbled about 20 people with that Deadfire club and yet the count is still stuck at 9/10.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Kinowek

[Silent Winter]

I don't think I've ever changed tactics to unlock soulbound items.  I've done the quest ones, sure, but for the 'do x, y-times to unlock' I've just waited until it happened naturally.  I never felt it took too long, or that I had to have it fully unlocked asap.

Most of them have a 'do difficult x y-times or do easier z more times' condition.

 

Haven't tried it with deadfire DLC yet.

[Wormerine]

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 

Never found unlocking soul bound a problem. I

However, I never bothered with unlocking soulbound which I would never use.

[Lord_Mord]

 

With the Deadfire DLC

 

Speaking of which... Where can I get that thing? It does not show up on my GOG account. At least not for linux. (It's patch 3.07 I'm looking for, isn't it?))

[Wormerine]

 

 

With the Deadfire DLC

 

 

Speaking of which... Where can I get that thing? It does not show up on my GOG account. At least not for linux. (It's patch 3.07 I'm looking for, isn't it?))

https://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_deadfire_pack

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 The problem is that "kill" means "make killing blow", not "make some damage contributing to killing by whole party". This essentially means that the one with such soulbound weapon should remain alone for each enemy he wants to kill while the rest of the party does nothing (except occasional healing) not to steal the kill.

[Heijoushin]

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 

Never found unlocking soul bound a problem. I

However, I never bothered with unlocking soulbound which I would never use.

 

I think it's randomized. And usually they were easy, but occasionally you got an annoying one. 

[Wormerine]

 

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 The problem is that "kill" means "make killing blow", not "make some damage contributing to killing by whole party". This essentially means that the one with such soulbound weapon should remain alone for each enemy he wants to kill while the rest of the party does nothing (except occasional healing) not to steal the kill.

 

That would be true if combat were sparse. and I am pretty sure the example I gave was from a two handed sword. The more "supprty" weapons had other requirements. 

 

They generally were tied to whatever theme of the weapon was. I don't remember even seeing a requirement that needed player to not take advantage of weapons main function, though it is true some unlocks took longer than others.

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

 

 

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 The problem is that "kill" means "make killing blow", not "make some damage contributing to killing by whole party". This essentially means that the one with such soulbound weapon should remain alone for each enemy he wants to kill while the rest of the party does nothing (except occasional healing) not to steal the kill.

 

That would be true if combat were sparse. and I am pretty sure the example I gave was from a two handed sword. The more "supprty" weapons had other requirements. 

 

This is correct for the soulbound items that are available more or less early in the game. If you are in the Act 3 already (and why would you go to the White March earlier?) you have a feeling that the remaining combat encounters are not enough for unlocking all item levels by normal play.

[Tigranes]

I don't know about the hat, but the last time I played (after release of WM2) soulbound items never really required me to artificially stand around and farm their requirement. Has something changed? The hat does seem more obscure a requirement.

 

Some people will farm and grind them no matter how they're designed, to try and 'optimise' their party (forgetting that they wasted 2 real life hours to enjoy 15 more minutes of the upgrade). 

Edited January 4, 2018 by Tigranes

[Ninjamestari]

I have a confession to make: I never liked the soul-bound weapons. They always felt kinda out of place and silly, with no real story to them and they just had this feature that was apparently a thing in the world but no one never talked about any of them and they didn't have any value what so ever outside combat. If it was up to me, I'd simply remove the feature from deadfire, they're dead weight that add zero value to the game due to being just another powerful item no one cares about.

[thelee]

In anticipation of Pillars 2, I've been running through Pillars of Eternity 1 again, with two different parties. With the Deadfire DLC, there's a Soulbound captain's hat (?) that you can get fairly early in the game.

 

The first level of unlocks just require taking some hits. Fine, this is doable, even in normal play.

 

The second level requires getting Critical Hit to trigger the Confuse Proc... okay, a bit more difficult, but doable. However there is the added wrinkle that it can only happen once per Encounter!?  Hopefully the next unlock of the hat is extremely powerful, because that is statistically unlikely through normal play. In Pillars 1 there are probably enough trash fights to get this hat unlocked by the end of the game, but supposedly Pillars 2 has less encounters?

 

*EDIT* Forgot to mention, the Confuse can also miss!?  or be resisted, wasting that entire encounter and the critical hit.

 

At this rate I will never get to the third unlock. As I type this, I realize of course that somebody already has this hat unlocked, via normal play or exploit, and is burning with desire to post a rebuttal.

 

This brings up the inherent flaw in soulbound items, in my opinion. They do NOT encourage normal play (ie. not taking damage, whole team participating, playing smartly and efficiently).  They encourage having the entire team stand around while the character with soulbound items either takes hits or hits a creature repeatedly to unlock the next level. (Excluding the few quest based ones, obviously)

 

While I love the powers of the Soulbound weapons from Pillars 1, and I did unlock them ALL on my first playthrough(pre-DeadFire DLC), it definitely slowed down the game greatly and required me to actually save up groups of enemies just to use them to unlock soulbound items.  It also definitely contributed to me NOT finishing a couple other runs I had going after that first playthrough, not wanting to grind soulbound items again.

 

Is this intended? I would think most players would attempt to unlock all soulbound items, and there literally are not enough battles for that to happen if you play as 'normal.' 

 

Now, obviously it's possible with some unusual play to do in Pillars 1, but with all this talk of Pillars 2 having less overall combat, and apparently still including Soulbound weapons, could the requirements be reduced? As it is, they are not difficult or fun to unlock, they just require repetitive farming style tactics. Or, more quest based style ones, PLEASE. The quest based Soulbound requirements were fine. Doing 1000 damage/getting Critical Hit 15 times/etc. just lead to farming style play.

 

As it is now, I'm leaning towards seeing if I can console in the soulbound weapons for my Pillars 1 Ranger and Chanter groups, instead of going through the hassle of going through the repeated hassle my first character's group did.

 

PS. Minor note, the latest patch(as of today, apparently?) through Gog seems to have bugged Soulbound items in Pillars 1, Eder has Hobbled about 20 people with that Deadfire club and yet the count is still stuck at 9/10.

 

Maybe it's the fact that I play on PotD all the time, but I've never had any shortage of enemies to unlock every soulbound weapon. I mean, some reasonableness is required - you can't do the stronghold questline to get Gyrd Háewanes Sténes after doing everything else in the game and expect there to be enough fights left in Sun in Shadow to unlock it all.

 

I actually found one of the quest-based unlocks to be far more annoying - the one where you have to drink in every bar in the Dyrwood. Maybe early on this is OK, but for me, by the late game, save/load times are looong from all the trash I've been accumulating/selling (even with an SSD), so hopping around maps to unlock the soulbound weapon involves many minutes of staring at loading screens and is just plain tedious.

[Kinowek]

Weren’t there always a second, more numerous but easier to do requirement? Like kill 10 wilder or kill 100 enemies.

 

Never found unlocking soul bound a problem. I

However, I never bothered with unlocking soulbound which I would never use.

Each of the Soulbound items has 3 tiers, as far as I know. So Unlock 1(usually not terrible), Unlock 2(somewhat harder), Unlock 3(depends on the item), for the most part.

 

As I said, they are doable. For my first playthrough, I unlocked them all, just so I'd know what each one does, and so I could get to use it in game.  Unfortunately it may be Obsidian's intent to have players NOT unlock them all, which I think is a mistake, but clearly you can just avoid the ones that don't seem interesting at first, or read an out of game website to see what each one does( I usually avoid spoilers! ).

 

The problem is, the unlocks aren't exactly fun, and if you do WM last, after Act 3, you probably won't even have enough encounters to unlock them all without unusual, farming style play.   I had forgotten about that one thelee mentioned, with the load times/drinking.

 

I had hoped the Pillars 2 Soulbound items would be less of a hassle, honestly, but the example ones in the Deadfire DLC indicate they are doubling down on some of the items.

 

Also I don't think it's possible for me to NOT have all quests/unlocks (that are possible) done in a game, especially on the first playthrough. :|    I'm guessing there is a not insignificant number of other players who do the same thing, and will attempt to have all Soulbound items unlocked in Pillars 1 and 2.

 

At the very least, I'd like for Obsidian to lower the requirements, particularly as I've noticed Procs can fire, but miss/be resisted/enemy is immune by default, etc. and they don't count at that point... really, really drags out the time to unlock. ie. hitting Shades with the Deadfire club, hobble procs, and it doesn't miss or be resisted, but apparently immunity by creature type just blanks out that successful roll, and the counter doesn't increase.

 

*EDIT* As an example of tedious unlocks, look at the Unlabored Blade. It's GREAT when it's done, but I recall having to basically keep my entire team idle except the Rogue wielding the blade, as he slowly hacked away at enemy after enemy. (The Unlabored Blade's first two unlocks made the weapon WORSE, so it took even longer)

Edited January 4, 2018 by Kinowek

[Wormerine]

I have a confession to make: I never liked the soul-bound weapons. They always felt kinda out of place and silly, with no real story to them and they just had this feature that was apparently a thing in the world but no one never talked about any of them and they didn't have any value what so ever outside combat. If it was up to me, I'd simply remove the feature from deadfire, they're dead weight that add zero value to the game due to being just another powerful item no one cares about.

Everyone has their preferences. I for one really like them. They were unique, momarable, had their own story and flavour. Possibly the new weapon system will be so good, those won't be needed, but for PoE they were a welcome addition to add something interesting to very dull regular equipment.

[kanisatha]

Nothing's more aggravating than trying to unlock that super-powerful dagger. I don't bother even picking it up anymore. Just not worth the ridiculous hassle. Seems useful only if you're a dagger-wielding solo player.

[divjak]

just play the game it will happen eventually

 

 

there is  another problem with soulbound items, and its their power level, so when you find one, you usually dont switch it ever because its best thing ever for that slot, which makes treasure hunting, and  item switching kinda pointless   

[algroth]

 

I have a confession to make: I never liked the soul-bound weapons. They always felt kinda out of place and silly, with no real story to them and they just had this feature that was apparently a thing in the world but no one never talked about any of them and they didn't have any value what so ever outside combat. If it was up to me, I'd simply remove the feature from deadfire, they're dead weight that add zero value to the game due to being just another powerful item no one cares about.

Everyone has their preferences. I for one really like them. They were unique, momarable, had their own story and flavour. Possibly the new weapon system will be so good, those won't be needed, but for PoE they were a welcome addition to add something interesting to very dull regular equipment.

 

My thoughts exactly.

[Ninjamestari]

I really don't understand this "ordinary stuff is dull" - thinking, I think over-inflated 'special' stuff is the very epitome of dull. Special isn't special anymore if there's too much special everywhere. Kinda the same reason I don't like the god-like races; they're simply too far out there to be so common. Same with the soulbound items, none of them were anything more than stat-boosts with an annoying grindy-extra-mechanic. You didn't get them under any special circumstances, you didn't work for them, you didn't even look for them, you just got them while doing the same stuff you would've done anyway. You don't create interesting weapons by having a 'weapon system', that stuff needs to be hand-crafted, the legendary items need to be mentioned in-game by NPCs and books, and they definitely don't need extra mechanics that put them into a category instead of making them unique. The soulbound items feel more like merchandising-crap than actual important objects in a fantasy world.

[Wormerine]

My biggest problem with weapons in PoE was that they were generic and recreatable. Picking weapons was uninteresting, because weapon you started with was probably (due to upgrading system) better than what you are picking up. Crafting system wasnt't too fun either, giving you weapons which simply hit harder and hit harder vs certain enemies. I missed those cool weapons which I would remember and use from BG2 like Celestal Fury or Silver Soul - weapons with unique low persantage ability. 

Soulbound weapons brought just that: 

A bot that essencially shooting lighting
A two handed sword which summons wilder to fight at your side
Breastplate which powers you unlock by mimicking deeds from previous owners life.
A basic dagger made by an amatour which get worse and worse with every upgrade until it gets really really good. 

That's what I want from my weapons. As a matter of fact with new weapon design I hope for more memorable weapons to find, so the choice will be: which one of those cool weapons best suit my characters, rather than "I will use those interesting weapons only because other are generic."

I can't say much about the balance, but I remember people complaining that Soulbound weapons aren't as good as maxout regular weapons and reply that that is very much by design with soulbound weapons being more unique/situational rather than overall better than anything else.
 

[Ninjamestari]

What's so wrong with generic?

[algroth]

What's so wrong with generic?

 

adjective

adjective: generic

1. 2. derogatory

   lacking imagination or individuality; predictable and unoriginal.

   "generic dance-floor fillers"

    

   (Source: https://www.google.com.ar/search?q=generic+definition&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=EmxSWv6jL6P28AfU5LOYDw ; https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/generic )

When you run across an item that can be turned into just about any other item you have on you, it removes the feeling of pleasure, surprise or worth you can get out of finding something nifty and unique. Obviously experiences will vary, but personally I can think of few things more satsifying in my gaming experience than when I ran across the likes of Carsomyr, the Ring of Gaxx, or completed the Crom Faeyr in Baldur's Gate II, for example. When the loot seems samey and uninteresting, it makes for the reward of completing a dungeon and exploring it to its fullest a little less satisfying in turn.

Edited January 7, 2018 by algroth

[Ninjamestari]

Generic hasn't been a derogatory term until these new pretentious hipster generations of people began using it as such, it used to be a completely neutral term, and it still is, unless you're a hipster.

[algroth]

Generic hasn't been a derogatory term until these new pretentious hipster generations of people began using it as such, it used to be a completely neutral term, and it still is, unless you're a hipster.

 

I've always known it as a derogatory term when used in a derogatory fashion, and it is recognized as such by all dictionaries I'm looking at. There's no evidence that this is a new use for the term or else, but if you want to go ahead and blame the 'pretentious hipsters' for it, suit yourself. Wormerine was clearly using it in this fashion, which therefore means it is a negative trait, and it is also valid since even if the use of the term is new, it is still widely understood as such and its use is correct as per this 'new' meaning. Language evolves, you just have to go with it.

Edited January 5, 2018 by algroth

[Tigranes]

Language does evolve, but a bunch of people using a word in a new way doesn't suddenly make the old meaning disappear / invalid, and it doesn't make the new meaning universal. Generic continues to be a neutral descriptor in many situations.

 

Anyway, now we all know how it's being used in this context, further hairsplitting seems inconsequential.

[algroth]

Language does evolve, but a bunch of people using a word in a new way doesn't suddenly make the old meaning disappear / invalid, and it doesn't make the new meaning universal. Generic continues to be a neutral descriptor in many situations.

 

Anyway, now we all know how it's being used in this context, further hairsplitting seems inconsequential.

 

Oh, I agree that it doesn't, but the term's context informs the way it is used. I never said it was the only way you could use it, I only said it was the way Wormerine did.

Edited January 6, 2018 by algroth