I could NEVER, no matter how hard I tried, get into PoE. Is there any chance that the sequel improves upon the original and appeals to non-fans like me?
1) The White March has a more interesting story than the main quest. 2) The Endless paths and the Stronghold wreck the pacing of the main quest. Skip them unless you like mindless dungeon crawling and/or second rate management sims. 3) The setting is pseudo-18th century, not pseudo-medieval. 4) Combat has been vastly improved in patches compared to the original release.
I'm gonna be the weird one and say that 7 is the magic number for me. Though not for reasons of game mechanics. My biggest struggles with RPGs is choosing who to bring with because of their personality. I hate having to drop a character I love because I can't fit them all in with me.
2) The Endless paths and the Stronghold wreck the pacing of the main quest. Skip them unless you like mindless dungeon crawling and/or second rate management sims.
This was definitely a BIG drawback for me - not only the way it was so awkwardly inserted into the main storyline, but also the way the game basically deceived you into thinking you HAD to go clean out those underground areas as quickly as possible.
At first I was a bit disappointed with the 5 person party size but now I think it is a good idea.
The first time I played PoE was in 2015 and I liked it, the encounters were fun and enjoyable but I did not complete it because I waited for White March part 2 to come out in 2016. Eventually it wasn't until last Christmas that I picked up the game again to complete it but I really could not understand what the hell was happening in the fights, they were too chaotic for me as there was too much information on the screen. I don't know how much has changed to the game since the last time I played it but I really had a hard time with the fights.
There were some fights against around 10 enemies where your only choice was to spam CC magic like there is no tomorrow cause there was no other way your party could survive against so many opponents all of which had magic abilities, knockdown, CC, backstabbing etc. Even my tanks were killed pretty fast.
I think one of the reasons I had such a hard time was that the previous RPG I had played was Divinity Original Sin 2, were every hit, every action and every magic had an impact and you could easily follow what was happening and got used to this type of fights.
Nevertheless, I believe the party size reduction to 5 members will solve the aforementioned problems. I don't know if the reason they made that decision was because of that, but I believe that it was so that they improve the fights' experience. With a smaller party it means that the encounters can have less opponents and still be challenging hence reducing the information cluttering and making the fights more strategic. Also they implemented a feature that when you pause, all the effects from magic, explosions etc are dimmed so you can understand what is happening, and finally they have reduced the default battle speed (they will put a speed bar for each player to adjust the speed to his taste) which helps following what is happening.
I know a party of 6 worked on the IE games perfectly but these games have some major differences on how the encounters were designed and how the mechanics work.
In the IE games apart from the casters all the other classes have a limited amount of options, until you unlock HLA, whereas in PoE each class has many passive and active abilities for example a character might have 3 different afflictions Dazed, Stunned, Sleep all from different abilities from different opponents, whereas in the IE just being Stunned is enough.
The battle is slower on the IE games, the movement and attacks are slower and the casting times take more time, which gives you more time understand what is happening.
Finally, the encounters in the Vanilla (i.e. no SCS) IE games usually work this way, you either fight many simple enemies (with sometimes a boss) or a few strong enemies. For example in BG1 the Gnolls in the stronghold and the Sarevok fight which is against 4 high level characters (Sarevok, Angelo, Tazok and Semaj). In other words you either outnumber strong enemies or are outnumbered by the weak enemies. There are some exceptions such as the guarded compound in BG2 or the Iron Throne headquarters battle in BG1, but these are few but that's why they are memorable. In PoE that is not the case as you are outnumbered by strong opponents all of which have a number of abilities to use on you, as you have and are expected to use them if you want to stand a chance.
The main reason for reducing the party size was because they didn't have the resources to do many rounded characters with personal quests, so a party of six would have basically been "everyone" - which loses a lot of the replayability. Since then they have backtracked a little and added four "sidekicks" who are basically BG1 style companions without personal quests.
It looks like there indeed will be changes in mechanics. It would be cool to get one full list/spreadsheet of all changes between PoE I and PoE II.
"As is the case for just about every RPG ever released, the first thing you do in Deadfire is create your character. This works about the same as it did in the original Pillars of Eternity. There are still six races (aumaua, dwarf, elf, godlike, human and orlan), eleven classes (barbarian, chanter, cipher, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, priest, ranger, rogue and wizard), six attributes (constitution, dexterity, intellect, might, perception and resolve), seven cultures, and sixteen backgrounds.***
But there are also a few changes. All of the classes get subclasses now (instead of just paladins and priests), the number of skills (like athletics and history) more than doubled, weapon proficiencies were added, and abilities, spells and talents were reworked and reorganized. You can also choose to play the game as a single class character or a multiclass character now, where the latter gets the abilities / spells / talents from both classes but levels up more slowly and can't reach the highest peaks of their single class counterparts.
You also get to travel with a party of characters. The party size was reduced from six to five to make combat "more streamlined and easier to follow" (according to the baby manual I received). You can sometimes choose the character you want to do something (like climb down a rope), so having a well-balanced party is a good idea. But something new in Deadfire is that your party can help the selected character with their skills. So if you're trying to disarm a trap, then the game will start with your rogue's mechanics skill and then add in a boost if other characters have mechanics as well. I couldn't tell exactly how the boost works, but it was always a small amount (like +1 or +2). This system might make it more advantageous to spread points around rather than have five specialists in your party. Otherwise, companion characters look like they work and advance just like the main character."
"Instead of the strange health system from Pillars of Eternity (where characters only got to use some of their health for each battle), now characters just have health, and if they lose it all during a battle, then they get knocked out and receive an injury. If your entire party gets knocked out, then you die and have to load your game, and if a character gets knocked out while they have an injury, then they get killed, and you have to replace them (or, more likely, load your game).
All abilities and spells are limited on a per battle basis, and characters automatically (and quickly) regain their health at the end of a battle. So the only reason to rest is to remove injuries. That means you don't need to rest very often, and you can hang onto resting bonuses (gained from resting at an inn or from eating special foods when camping) for much longer."
*** from the comments - Might has indeed become Strength, which means that it no longer affects the raw strength (damage and healing) of spells and other similar abilities, which are now affected by Resolve. But according to comments by the director, they might go back to Might if the change proves to create more problems than it solves.
Let me say I really like the changes in the health system and the effects of Might/Resolve. To me it was counter-intuitive that a wizard had to have a high might score to deal more damage.
I was one of those expressing my anger at the party size reduction on the Obsidian forums. Love how that game is shaping up but still hate this one change. For me the reason is that a huge part of my enjoyment of a game is developing my party, including not just leveling up but also such things as optimally distributing equipment, distributing "roles" for party members, etc. I also get attached to my companions and hate having to drop someone to take along someone else. So there is a direct correlation between party size and game enjoyment for me, but with the understanding that there has to be a reasonable upper limit to party size for game balance reasons. This is also why I don't care for non-party based games such as The Elder Scrolls or Witcher games or NwN1. No party of companions => no interest.
This makes me sad. April was gonna be three cool things (Battletech, Pillars, Phoenix Point Alpha), but now it'll only be two. Darned first world problems.
I'm sure we'll get a better product because of this, though.
Replaying PoE 1 now and getting a pretty big PoE2 hype built up in my body. I had almost forgot how very good that game was. It has some oddities I'm not overly fond of but overall it's by far the best RPG to come out in a long time. I look forward to the sequel even more now that I've refreshed my taste for PoE. Also looking forward to multiclassing.
I have followed basically nothing about this sequel past the ship mechanic. However, I was very impressed that they released their THREE DLC roadmap in advance of release, and plopped down a nice chunk of change for the Obsidian Edition this afternoon. While I suspect that, like it's predecessor, it will remain outclassed by Divinity: Original Sin 2, there is no one else working in the space of real-time with pause combat. If it's the same leap forward that BG2 was from the original, we'll be in for a treat.
I have followed basically nothing about this sequel past the ship mechanic. However, I was very impressed that they released their THREE DLC roadmap in advance of release, and plopped down a nice chunk of change for the Obsidian Edition this afternoon. While I suspect that, like it's predecessor, it will remain outclassed by Divinity: Original Sin 2, there is no one else working in the space of real-time with pause combat. If it's the same leap forward that BG2 was from the original, we'll be in for a treat.
I thought Tyranny made a number of improvements over PoE1, although the story seemed to fizzle a bit over the second half IMO. Still, the improvements in Tyranny give me high hopes that these games could be on an upward trend, much like the two BGs (with IWD1 being the Tyranny-like bridge between the two games).
I have one of those GOG "Fig" packs, but I just can't get it too DL. I'm a huge noob obviously and have only DLd from Steam previously. Do I need to install the GOG Galaxy (which I guess is kinda like Steam) and DL in there?
All the links to the downloaders are empty when I go into the game.
Apparently this was a known issue and I had to refresh my account, so now it works.
Now how the hell should I choose what class(es) to play!
EDIT Heh, I still had to DL some kind of free DLC to make the game "unlock" for me to DL. Damn, it's almost that I miss just going to a store and buying the goddamn physical copy to install instead. How in the nine hells is it even possible to make something so easy so difficult; creating a simple installer for a game? Anyways, now it's on its way (about 20 minutes before nap time).
Aaw well, 'nuf ranting. Looking forward to trying this when I have some time.
@mlnevese yeah probably there's a throng of ppl all DLin at the same time. Mine is going well now that it started, 6% in 5 minutes or so, so once I got a slot it goes very smooth.
@mlnevese yeah probably there's a throng of ppl all DLin at the same time. Mine is going well now that it started, 6% in 5 minutes or so, so once I got a slot it goes very smooth.
I'll let the wheel spin until it times out... I certainly miss the 8mb/s download speed I normally get from GOG
Heard it install when I was in bed yesterday and went in and turned off the comp this morning. Had a slight urge to "work from home" today, hehe.. :P It'll have to wait, maybe I'll have some time on Friday to try it out.
Comments
I could NEVER, no matter how hard I tried, get into PoE. Is there any chance that the sequel improves upon the original and appeals to non-fans like me?
1) The White March has a more interesting story than the main quest.
2) The Endless paths and the Stronghold wreck the pacing of the main quest. Skip them unless you like mindless dungeon crawling and/or second rate management sims.
3) The setting is pseudo-18th century, not pseudo-medieval.
4) Combat has been vastly improved in patches compared to the original release.
Deadfire:
1) Has Pirates!
2) Ham Night.
The first time I played PoE was in 2015 and I liked it, the encounters were fun and enjoyable but I did not complete it because I waited for White March part 2 to come out in 2016. Eventually it wasn't until last Christmas that I picked up the game again to complete it but I really could not understand what the hell was happening in the fights, they were too chaotic for me as there was too much information on the screen. I don't know how much has changed to the game since the last time I played it but I really had a hard time with the fights.
There were some fights against around 10 enemies where your only choice was to spam CC magic like there is no tomorrow cause there was no other way your party could survive against so many opponents all of which had magic abilities, knockdown, CC, backstabbing etc. Even my tanks were killed pretty fast.
I think one of the reasons I had such a hard time was that the previous RPG I had played was Divinity Original Sin 2, were every hit, every action and every magic had an impact and you could easily follow what was happening and got used to this type of fights.
Nevertheless, I believe the party size reduction to 5 members will solve the aforementioned problems. I don't know if the reason they made that decision was because of that, but I believe that it was so that they improve the fights' experience. With a smaller party it means that the encounters can have less opponents and still be challenging hence reducing the information cluttering and making the fights more strategic. Also they implemented a feature that when you pause, all the effects from magic, explosions etc are dimmed so you can understand what is happening, and finally they have reduced the default battle speed (they will put a speed bar for each player to adjust the speed to his taste) which helps following what is happening.
I know a party of 6 worked on the IE games perfectly but these games have some major differences on how the encounters were designed and how the mechanics work.
In the IE games apart from the casters all the other classes have a limited amount of options, until you unlock HLA, whereas in PoE each class has many passive and active abilities for example a character might have 3 different afflictions Dazed, Stunned, Sleep all from different abilities from different opponents, whereas in the IE just being Stunned is enough.
The battle is slower on the IE games, the movement and attacks are slower and the casting times take more time, which gives you more time understand what is happening.
Finally, the encounters in the Vanilla (i.e. no SCS) IE games usually work this way, you either fight many simple enemies (with sometimes a boss) or a few strong enemies. For example in BG1 the Gnolls in the stronghold and the Sarevok fight which is against 4 high level characters (Sarevok, Angelo, Tazok and Semaj). In other words you either outnumber strong enemies or are outnumbered by the weak enemies. There are some exceptions such as the guarded compound in BG2 or the Iron Throne headquarters battle in BG1, but these are few but that's why they are memorable. In PoE that is not the case as you are outnumbered by strong opponents all of which have a number of abilities to use on you, as you have and are expected to use them if you want to stand a chance.
It looks like there indeed will be changes in mechanics. It would be cool to get one full list/spreadsheet of all changes between PoE I and PoE II.
"As is the case for just about every RPG ever released, the first thing you do in Deadfire is create your character. This works about the same as it did in the original Pillars of Eternity. There are still six races (aumaua, dwarf, elf, godlike, human and orlan), eleven classes (barbarian, chanter, cipher, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, priest, ranger, rogue and wizard), six attributes (constitution, dexterity, intellect, might, perception and resolve), seven cultures, and sixteen backgrounds.***
But there are also a few changes. All of the classes get subclasses now (instead of just paladins and priests), the number of skills (like athletics and history) more than doubled, weapon proficiencies were added, and abilities, spells and talents were reworked and reorganized. You can also choose to play the game as a single class character or a multiclass character now, where the latter gets the abilities / spells / talents from both classes but levels up more slowly and can't reach the highest peaks of their single class counterparts.
You also get to travel with a party of characters. The party size was reduced from six to five to make combat "more streamlined and easier to follow" (according to the baby manual I received). You can sometimes choose the character you want to do something (like climb down a rope), so having a well-balanced party is a good idea. But something new in Deadfire is that your party can help the selected character with their skills. So if you're trying to disarm a trap, then the game will start with your rogue's mechanics skill and then add in a boost if other characters have mechanics as well. I couldn't tell exactly how the boost works, but it was always a small amount (like +1 or +2). This system might make it more advantageous to spread points around rather than have five specialists in your party. Otherwise, companion characters look like they work and advance just like the main character."
"Instead of the strange health system from Pillars of Eternity (where characters only got to use some of their health for each battle), now characters just have health, and if they lose it all during a battle, then they get knocked out and receive an injury. If your entire party gets knocked out, then you die and have to load your game, and if a character gets knocked out while they have an injury, then they get killed, and you have to replace them (or, more likely, load your game).
All abilities and spells are limited on a per battle basis, and characters automatically (and quickly) regain their health at the end of a battle. So the only reason to rest is to remove injuries. That means you don't need to rest very often, and you can hang onto resting bonuses (gained from resting at an inn or from eating special foods when camping) for much longer."
*** from the comments - Might has indeed become Strength, which means that it no longer affects the raw strength (damage and healing) of spells and other similar abilities, which are now affected by Resolve. But according to comments by the director, they might go back to Might if the change proves to create more problems than it solves.
I'm sure we'll get a better product because of this, though.
I have one of those GOG "Fig" packs, but I just can't get it too DL. I'm a huge noob obviously and have only DLd from Steam previously. Do I need to install the GOG Galaxy (which I guess is kinda like Steam) and DL in there?
All the links to the downloaders are empty when I go into the game.
Apparently this was a known issue and I had to refresh my account, so now it works.
Now how the hell should I choose what class(es) to play!
EDIT Heh, I still had to DL some kind of free DLC to make the game "unlock" for me to DL. Damn, it's almost that I miss just going to a store and buying the goddamn physical copy to install instead. How in the nine hells is it even possible to make something so easy so difficult; creating a simple installer for a game? Anyways, now it's on its way (about 20 minutes before nap time).
Aaw well, 'nuf ranting. Looking forward to trying this when I have some time.