OK. Been playing this one a little since it came out Tuesday-- don't you just hate it when you a great new game to get into and that's when the phone rings, the doorbell rings, the cat shits on the carpet, trees fall in your front yard while aliens land in your back yard? And then the cat shits again on the carpet. Anyway despite all of life's distractions, I've managed to play this a little.
I'm happy to say I'm in love all over again. It does very little new, just some changes to the UI and you don't need Camping Supplies anymore. When you camp you use whatever things you've gathered to boost your stats like food, herbs, and ingredients. Otherwise it's just a new story where typical RPG-like you've got to save the world from a new challenge after losing all the great stuff you got in Pillars 1. :'( But the same old easy to use UI, beautiful graphics, dungeon crawls, fights, new loot, and some new and old characters are still here. Very little new, much old and done right.
Like Pillars 1, give yourself plenty of time at start because the Prolog and Character Creation are combined into one long act and it's a while before you get to a save place. Lots of new Character choices to choose from. I also had a Screen Resolution problem where the game started in with the wrong size and in the Attributes Screen I couldn't 'X' out as the point to click on was outside of my screen. So use whatever Screen Resolution you used for Pillars 1 in the 'Options' menu.
I'll post some more opinions later but for now, Sir Slash has returned to put his steel boot squarely into Evil's Lily White Ass.
I'm going to finish up the White March and refinish Pillars before buying this. I'm also hankering to play the Whites vs the Reds in Strategic Command World War 1. Probably Pillars 2 will be purchased on sale at Christmas.
I'm delighted you are enjoying it. Perhaps your Pug minions could write a review?
Will do. I hadn't even started the game before it was trying to sell me the 3 planned DLC's coming. :o I transferred my saved game from Pillars 1 over to Pillars 2 but it has to be an 'Act 4' save when you talk to the Deities. It didn't really matter much though because all of the choices you have, you still pretty much start out as a new character anyway. I'll post some screenies over at the Screen Shots Section.
I need to finish the first one before I buy this...and play more Battletech....and paint more minis....
Damnit...not enough time, too many games/hobbies to play!
Looking forward to your reviews/comments Sir Slash
I'm 26 hours in and here's my thoughts. First, I love the game. However, there are some things I'm not too crazy about. The party size is 5 from 6 now--personal peeve. And the few new things about the game aren't explained too well.
Case in point, the new 'Abilities Screen'. In Pillars 1, every other Level-Up you got a new Skill/Talent to upgrade. In Pillars 2, at every Level-Up you get one, occasionally 2 new 'Abilities'. The Ability Screen is supposed to be like a Tech Tree for your abilities that shows how and when they improve and what choices you'll have at Levels 2,3,and on and on. It works pretty well. But I was totally confused when a Priestess joined my party and her First Level Spells were listed on the Ability Screen-- I could choose 1 out of just 3 available. :o I want her to have ALL her First Level Spells at First Level, not just ONE?
Well I'm glad to report she did have all her First Level Spells, the ones on the Ability Screen were just additional ones I could pick. :clap: Problem was, this wasn't explained anywhere to me. But because I played Pillars 1, I was able to figure this out pretty quickly. But a new player might not. And that's the rub here. There's already a lot to learn with this game. The History, Factions, Countries, Deities, and all the stuff that it references from Pillars 1. Add in all these new decisions to make and a newbie player might just give-up and run back to Baldur's Gate EE. And you know me, I'm all about the 'New' guy. Which would be a shame. Because this is a great game. Nobody should quit on it.
Same thing when I couldn't camp unless I dragged Food Items over to each Party Member. The you can camp all you want. Until your food runs out. You get a mountain of items in this game, but you can't put almost any of them into your Belt Slot to use in combat. :idiot2: Instead you're supposed to 'Craft' them into items, potions and scrolls, that can be put in your Belt Slot. Nothing completely different here, just not explained well in my opinion. Fortunately the Tutorials are all available from the Options Menu and they help some.
So, if you're a Pillars Veteran, look around. Everything's there, it just maybe in a new spot or called something else. If you're a new player, give yourself plenty of time to peruse the game and don't be discouraged by all the choices to make. It'll be worth it in the end.
One part of the game that's been markedly improved is the 'Voice Acting'. I've talked to everybody in the Deadfire and haven't run across the same voice twice. Almost all dialog is voice acted now and nobody's over or under-acted any of it. It adds a lot to the game.
Pillars 1 was beautiful. Pillars 2 is drop-dead gorgeous! Wind now blows through the trees and bushes causing leaves to blow away and fires to sputter and blow cinders down wind. Torches in underground locations throw eerie long shadows of your party on walls as the pass by. Spell effects have been improved. The graphics are lovely. And there are 'Destructable Items in the game now-- Barrels that can be smashed with your weapons and yield items. Some contain 'Gunpowder' or 'Oil' that blow-up or catch fire when ignited. Nice!
The story is OK so far, you lose everything you had in Pillars 1 and have to start-over with almost nothing- typical RPG. The Music is very good, Combat about the same with some new wrinkles. And the game will display 3 Red Skulls if a Quest or area is too tough for your Party to try just yet. Totally new is the Nautical aspect of this game. The Deadfire is largely ocean and you explore it by ship which takes the place of your Stronghold like in Pillars 1. You manage it and crew and combat enemies and explore and on and on. I've barely began this part of the game but I'll post some thoughts on this aspect of it later but it holds great promise if done well.
This is a great if complex game. Easily as good as the first and probably better if the whole Ship/Crew Management Exploration/Combat thing works. Who doesn't want to be a :arr: :arr: :arr:
I'll be the party pooper and mention that this is the Tabletop RPG section, not Computer gaming, for future reference. :))
I do want to see some PoE2 impressions, though. <:-)
So sorry. I thought Role-Playing covered anything RPG.
Do your characters start at level one or is it like Baldur's Gate 2 where you starting characters were level 7 (or close to 7)....?
Level 1.
They make use of a common C-RPG cliche excuse for the reason why your character is level 1 again.
Quote from: Tpek on June 07, 2018, 12:30:21 PM
Level 1.
They make use of a common C-RPG cliche excuse for the reason why your character is level 1 again.
I actually prefer it that way. I didn't like starting BG2 at level 7 (or whatever it was). I like building characters from scratch.
You can import a 'save game' from Pillars 1 but with all the choices to make at creation, I don't know actually what the save does. It's a total new start.
Thanks for the impressions. I'm certainly going to purchase and play this one eventually. Voice acting is very important to me.
Can you post some more screen shots? Please?
Sure thing Airboy. Here's Sir Slash's first naval victory. OK, it was only 4 guys in a boat. But... they were really big guys. And mean. And apparently carried lots of garish clothes with them. I think we just sank the Beetles!
Mrs.B played the first one a lot, so she's now looking at getting this as well.
Looks like you intercepted a booze ship based on the loot picture.
That's probably why they couldn't fight worth a damn. <:-)
I have to finish the first one and the DLCs at some point so I can get this new one and not play it for a year.
A big up-date today. We will see....
Quote from: Sir Slash on June 07, 2018, 10:15:14 PM
A big up-date today. We will see....
Another big update: turn-based battles -- That's my speed.
I played quite a bit but got stuck trying to take on the giant crystal spider thingie and the iron colossus thingie. I get wiped every time and barely manage to scratch either of them.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on May 22, 2019, 06:31:06 PM
I played quite a bit but got stuck trying to take on the giant crystal spider thingie and the iron colossus thingie. I get wiped every time and barely manage to scratch either of them.
Early on its pretty retro...reminds me of say, Ultima 6 or something like that.
I dunno SDR, maybe you've gotten farther in the game than I have or I don't remember those enemies. I probably did fight them and just don't remember. I always look at the Combat Box at the bottom right to see who's hitting and how much damage they're doing and if they're not getting their licks in, I switch their weapons around. Also buff your group BEFORE and during combat if you can or need to. Usually big enemies by themselves can only go after one of your group at a time so have the rest try to flank him for extra damage. Summoning in some help can also distract a single opponent. And you can always drop the difficulty level if all else fails.
Here's the giant crystal spider thingie. It's on an island in the NNW area near the massive storm.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zH2TTDXkP7o/maxresdefault.jpg)
Here's the giant colossus thingie. It's SSW on another island.
(https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/eternitywiki/2/21/PE2_Dorudugan.png?version=1effb9371f27c820034c173b504d350b)
All my characters are lvl 19 or 20. They don't stand a chance against these things. I've read some how-tos and they basically all tell me I'm boned because I didn't choose the right progression path. I did fiddle around and custom made a party with the right skills and equipment but still only managed to get the spider down to about 66% health on my best effort.
Same thing happened to me in the first PoE. I reached some boss that I couldn't touch after 53 hours of play (just looked). I wasn't starting over so I packed it in.
As Sir Slash says, drop the difficulty down, then raise it after that section. As I suck at these game types I never would of finished POE1 without the ability to lower the difficulty at certain times.
You are definitely ahead of me SDR. I haven't run into either of these 'Mothers'. This game should warn you if the quest or enemy is too tough for you with the skull & sword icon but at level 20, that's at the top of the game's level so.... You could try swapping out NPC's in your party if there's some that are better at handling these 'types' of enemies or weapons that can do more damage against them.
I dropped the iron robot thing on medium. The spider thing I looked up what the tiny spiders were vulnerable to and hit it with that. The spider was not that bad but the iron thing was tough if I remember right.
I'm finding that I have more luck against the colossus than I do against the spider but both are brutal. Looks to me like all the little spiders act as buffs to the big one so you have to kill all of them in order to lower its defences to the point where you can damage it. The problem is that there are 4 or 5 nests that keep churning out more of the little ones and they can take a massive amount of damage. I'm able to game it a bit by putting my thief into stealth, sneaking off to a corner and plinking away at a couple of the nests with arrows but once the fight starts, I can't knock the little guys down fast enough to avoid getting killed by the big one. The poison/paralysis combo is what does me in even with potions and scrolls that are supposed to mitigate against it.
The colossus thing seems vulnerable to corrosion and electricity attacks but it spams delayed blast fireballs all over the map and fire heals it. I can't damage it fast enough to take it down before I run out of fire protection stuff.
You're scaring me. I'd like to talk about something else now. :hide:
My generic strategy is having one super tank as a blocker. Use everyone else to pick off the spider spawn while the tank is 100% defense. Then kill momma spider. Splitting the group is a mistake. Also scout slow to not reveal spawn spots. It has been a while but the spider fight was not memorable.
Iron guy - can you hit him with a slow spell or attack to reduce the healing rate?
Iron Colossus is clearly based on Jarhead's physical model.
He reminds me of a High School football player who used to steal all my girlfriends. I would've liked to hit him with a, 'Slow' spell but he was pretty much already there. :coolsmiley:
o snap