AlexDeLarge

That moment when you're actually playing FTL then stumble unto this post ^^

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412913589 This is the build i used for my POTD run, and the rest of my part was almost identical with yours (Tekehu instead of Aloth), my Sage was by far the biggest damage dealer. Lost Sinner (aka Sin Tee) has amazing guides in general, i recommend checking them out.

I feel you, my first attempt at P:K when it first launched was also Unfair (edit: no, it was actually on Hard), until i got to the spider swarm fight and couldn't beat it after ~30 reloads. I think the game was also very bugged at the time, could have played a part, but still, from what i've read, the hardest difficulties in that game are insane, even for the most seasoned players. Planning on starting a proper playthrough in the upcoming days, excited about it! Edit: Just how much XP did you reduce btw? Because Deadly Deadfire mod reduces it to -25% IIRC, and you would still get to level 20 reasonably fast even with that handicap.

Ohh, you didn't finish the game, why didn't you say so in the first place. The general consensus is, once you get to level 20, the difficulty becomes rather trivial. They did take some steps to alleviate this in the DLC's, but not enough to satisfy a veteran player's desire for true challenge. But, who knows, maybe a couple of years from now, we will get a mod called Eora Stratagems

Hah, my own experience with Alice Alisceon the fire witch was also brutal, she steamrolled my party like 5 times, despite me teleporting her on the beach to fight her minions first. But you can also teleport her to Jahan and he instakills her, which is kinda cool, there are always countless ways to approach a situation in this game. You can even kill Alexander in Fort Joy with death fog barrels so you don't have to fight him later.

There are some quirky traits about DOS environmental combos indeed, like the poison exploding as you said, but i focused on the positive side, which is that it brought a lot of versatility and only your own imagination was the limit of what could be accomplished. I am curious though, why do you say POE combat is league above in terms of tactics? Because, in my own experience, playing on the hardest possible settings (POTD full upscale + 5 challenges), once i reached max level in this game - which is very fast in this game sadly - and semi-optimized my toons, i could go into every single encounter and autopilot the same routine as before, worked every time. I can even tell you my party composition and action order if you are interested. And 3 out of my 4 companions were story ones, so not even min maxed. So, where is the tactical depth?

My ranger was the most effective damage dealer in the party, and i think a big part of that is because i always tried to get him in good positions to exploit high ground advantage (you can get up to 60% more dmg from high ground IIRC). As for the elements, i mostly used a combination of geomancers (earth) and pyromancers, and those 2 elements rely more on raw damage (including damage over time) than debilitating status effects. But if you go hydro/aero route, the terrain will become a much bigger factor, allowing you to setup chain stuns or freezes. One aspect i find super neat is that the concept of how you build your party is essential in DOS2. You can build a party around targeting the enemies' physical armor or magic armor, which will prove very efficient but at the cost of versatility; like in the final battle on Bloodmoon Isle, where they have undispellable aura of evasion, good luck tackling that with an all physical party. You also have to be very mindful of anti synergies when you construct your characters, the most obvious one being Pyro and Hydro, but there are quite a few more. So this makes party design a much more creative and rewarding process. Back on topic, what Larian did with environmental battlegrounds is truly incredible and it will most likely pave the way of how future RPG's work imo.

I don't want to get into an indepth debate about DOS2 ending here, so i don't spoil it for people who might wanna play, but there wasn't anything particularly ambiguous about it from what i remember, however i only played the Definitive Edition. And, apparently Larian redid the entire chapter 4 Arx in the Definitive, it's way, way better now. Talk about commitment to their craft, just like they retroactively added complete voice over for the first DOS. I'm happy Obsidian is following suit with the TB mode.

@bringingyouthefuture Don't get me wrong, despite all i've written here that might make me sound like a DoS fanboy claiming superiority over Pillars, i actually enjoy playing Pillars more. The universe Obsidian built is more realistic and relatable than Rivellon (even though the detail with which Larian crafted their world is remarcable, i keep getting this feeling of inauthenticity, like it's not genuine), also i enjoy playing with a class system more than classless, even if both games are objectively great in their delivery. Finally, having to constantly change most of your gear every single time you level up can become a major drag. And who could forget the fine art of thievery, where you have to use one character to distract the target, 2 other characters to distract other targets to prevent their line of sight, then use the final one to steal and then dump all the stolen gear in a dropped backpack so you won't be revealed as the thief. That's a really fun process. So yeah, even though the game is objectively amazing, can even call it a masterpiece, i found to be forcing myself to continue playing it on several occasions, if only because the combat and C&C quests were worth doing so. But why did DOS2 ending upset you, bro? I thought it had a very cool twist, and, depending on your choice, you fight two different battles. Compare that to my Deadfire experience, i didn't even actually get to see the Guardian of Ukaizo, because of a deal i made with some dragon previously, and then my final discussion with Eothas offers nothing that i didn't already know when i initially met him in Hasongo. Talk about anti climactic.

@bringingyouthefuture Have you tried playing on Tactician? It's quite challenging, they also upped the overall difficulty in the Definitive Edition.

...wow. I think this is way more a reflection of you than anything else. I may be viewed as shallow, but i will not gonna apologize for my extremely common genetic predisposition, which is being most attracted to gorgeous women. The fact that the game designers made a conscious choice to completely exclude this very popular real world female characteristic and inherent archetypes (such as the seductress) from their game should raise some question marks regarding their agenda. Not directly to your point, but: Two things BG2 did right about romances: a) unique romance music, so you basically had a big audio cue of HAY WE'RE HAVING A ROMANCE DIALOGUE. b) LOTS of romance dialogue. One thing that BG2 did wrong: a) LOTS of romance dialogue. Was great for a completionist playing the first time, but on successive runs I had to use console commands to manually advance the romance, simply because I'd be playing through the game too quickly. Jaheira was particularly bad about this because there were so many forced waits in between dialogue that were only ticked off with actual played time not in-game (who thought this was a good idea??). I never had a problem with them on subsequent playthroughs, could always re immerse myself in that context. W.R.T. Deadfire, I agree that they are romances that basically aren't. You get like a special dialogue when you hit max companion affinity and... that's it. I mean, granted I skim, but with every companion I'm kind of surprised by how sudden it starts and how it basically never comes up again once we're a "thing." I think this is kind of like the ship combat mini-game. IT was promised or players demanded it, but they really couldn't spare the time to do it right. Probably would have been better to not do it at all. Couldn't agree more. Re: BG2 I submit there's a lot of nostalgia at play here. There's taste also, since I truly think Deadfire's music is exceptional -- I actually found PoE1 to be kind of derivative and forgettable (except for the combat music which I heard a bajillion times so I can never forget it--and neither can my wife), and the only music about Deadfire I dislike is music that was imported directly from Deadfire. But I think claims about how BG2 or some other classic game did it better have to be couched in the context that htey are likely heavily influenced by nostalgia or worse: being played in an especially formative time of one's life. I admit that there might be some nostalgia at play, but only partially. Because, when i recently played DoS2 or Witcher 3, i completely stopped what i was doing when a great tune started, and just sat there to completely take it in. I was gripped by their beauty. Here are a couple of examples:

Except Jaheira (In fact most bg characters) and romance subplots were cringy. Funny that you mention a game with terrible itemization after talking about deadfire's. Most d:os 2 'encounters' are just initially invisible enemies popping up to ambush you. Difficulty in deadfire has been fine since the rebalance patches from last summer, have you tried not playing on story mode, PotD, various challenges, megabosses and even solo? Encounter design overall is fine too, even great in DLCs, especially in SSS and forgotten sanctum. Deadfire also does pay attention to small details. Following your example, eotens have double vision cones in stealh mode and various wisps and elementals have weirdly shaped ones Your only valid criticism is about the OST, yes they should hire a proper composer for the OST and let Justin Bell do rest of the general audio design. I remember Viconia romance to be quite compelling, in got me very invested in her character, to the point where i experienced great sadness in her epilogue where she gets assassinated. But, to be fair, i was 14 and quite impressionable at the time. I felt nothing for any character in Deadfire towards the end, although i did somewhat relate with Tekehu's inner struggle. Yes, DoS2 has terrible itemization that suffers from power creep, but that (and inventory management) are the only aspects where it's inferior to Deadfire. The encounter designs are incredible, what are you talking about. Nothing comes even remotely close in Deadfire to the Alexander fight at the end of chapter 1, or the slime fight in the Blackpits, or the Aeteran. And yes, i just finished Deadfire on POTD all upscaled + 5 Magran's Challenges, completed all content including the megabosses. The encounters you praise are very gimmicky, there's no deep complex strategy involved in beating them. For example Doru, looks insane on paper, but all you need to do is equip a monk with Kitchen Stove and Nemnok's Cloak, then just spawn Souls while shooting and dodging his fireballs, for 30 minutes straight, until you gather enough Resonance. Insanely tedious. Anyway, bar this megaboss, I found myself succeeding by doing the EXACT same sequence of actions with all my 5 characters in every other "difficult" challenge, the only variations were to occasionally switch to different weapon set or using different aoe damage spell if enemies were resistant to my default ones. Contrast that to DoS2 where you have to be very mindful of all your characters and enemies positioning, attempt to gain highground advantage with your archers, be cognizant of the elements on the battlefield and what combinations you can use or the enemy can use to trigger them, also the initiative order and so on. It really puts your brain to use, instead of autopiloting every encounter.

Much better optimization, (no more memory leaks, etc.); they should just stray away from Unity altogether. This is honestly almost a deal breaker atm, a game that would be a solid 8.5 is dragged down to a 7 in my book because of technical issues and bugs. Stronger and longer main campaign that demands a lot of player urgency, with a much better antagonist. Preferably with an epic multi encounter showdown, a-la Irenicus. More aesthetically pleasing companions and less emphasis on the whole liberal SJ agenda. Not a single beautiful female companion is available in the entire series, and i'm sure it's no accident. Also, if you are gonna do romances, do them right, not this half arsed ****. I can still remember touching moments from when i romanced Viconia or Jaheira, 18 years ago, yet i just finished Deadfire campaign and i don't recall a single thing about the Xoti romance. The game's strong suits are: exceptional character building depth with endless options, and very solid itemization. However, both these aspects are somewhat wasted on lackluster encounter design and low difficulty threshold. We basically have a Ferrari at our disposal, but we can only drive it in an alleyway. This is an area where DoS2 shines and maybe Obsidian can take a page from their book, especially now that they implemented Turn Based Mode. More attention to minutiae. I read a post recently about a guy who complained that a blind NPC in Deadfire has line of sight when you stealth. Boeroer immediately dismissed it as trivial and not worth the devs hassle to change it. I completely disagree. These are tiny wondrous moments that, if done right, can change your entire experience about the game, and you see plenty of them in DoS2 or Witcher 3, not so much in Deadfire. More memorable music score. Even now, almost 20 years after BG2 release, whenever i hear the SoA main theme, i'm immediately transported in the Forgotten Realms universe, it just fills my soul with pure joy. And that's just one of the countless exceptional tracks from that game. This one, for example part of the epilogue, where you can see the fate of every NPC after you parted ways, still brings tears to my eyes. With the exception of a pleasing tavern song in Deadfire, nothing even came remotely close to offering me a catharsis effect or lingering in my head.

Lmao i also didn't get him to spawn, and we're in march 2019, how is this major bug not fixed yet? Edit: NVM apparently the dragon i helped earlier kills the guardian. Shame, i really wanted to experience that battle

You mean this? https://wiki.fireundubh.com/deadfire/dialogue-options