Balancing is in a seriously bad place right now. I think part of it is level scaling is still broken although working as they intended. The caps on how far most enemies can scale are far too restrictive. On top of that Veteran and POTD are just pathetically easy right now. As you mentioned multiclassing probably has a large part to do with that but Flames of Devotion and a 50% charged Soul Annihilation shouldn’t be one shotting nameds.
Game needed probably another 2-3 months spent on balancing alone.
Keep in mind though that when you played Pillars 1 it was vastly improved from release. Deadfire will get there and the good thing is they really built the game with multiple playthroughs in mind. I hate that they caved to the ridiculous whining of achievement hunters so that there’s no out of game recognition of multiple playthroughs though.
I’m probably 75% through the available content in the game and I’m not sure what I’ll do from there. A full party POTD run I’ll save for the full DLC / fully balanced version a year from now but I think a solo POTD run with an Assassin / Bleak Walker would be a lot of fun in the games current state. I don’t know that I’d be able to Borys that once the balancing patches hit.
Yeah, as someone who never replays rpgs (unless they're like <20 hours like Tyranny), I'm not a big fan of focusing more on replay ability across multiple playthroughs. And I do agree that part of the difference is that I played Pillars 1 after 2 years of patching/additional content + DLC content. But even in 2 years of patches + DLC, I'm not sure if any of that will fix some of my issues with Pillars 2 because they're more design decisions & writing choices than bugs/glitches (although maybe they'll get the balancing right for the higher difficulties).
Like I'm not far enough to see, but did they really force you to choose between companions so that you miss out on an entire companion/companion story arc just so there's more replayability?
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I picked Mia > Pallegina when meeting the queen at Nekatata because I'm more interested in having all new characters and stories, but I'm still gonna be ticked if that means I don't get Pallegina and see the continuation of her arc.
And things like not being able to respec job classes with the multi-classing all kinda add to that. I love games where you can do everything in a single playthrough and Pillars I was pretty close to that outside some quest outcomes. But you could constantly respec your team and try out different team builds as you went along. Tyranny focused on replayability where you would miss entire chunks of the plot and areas in a playthrough, but the game again was <20 hours and on top of that it only took like 2 playthroughs to see everything even with that.
I do appreciate the new game+ stuff in Pillars 2 though. I guess if I feel like replaying the game someday it'll make the 2nd run much faster and more enjoyable.
Like I'm not far enough to see, but did they really force you to choose between companions so that you miss out on an entire companion/companion story arc just so there's more replayability?
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If you go to the trading company in Queen's Berth later on you can still recruit her into your party.
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Gave the 3 books to Nemok and then fought him for fun and kept him as a pet after haha
And beat that stupid Fampyr cave that gave me trouble earlier. The undead city crypt was a decent challenge pre-20
Just landed on Ashen Maw. Time to finish up act 2 and then do the rest of the game. My team is craaaaazy overpowerd at this point. Like even when I was lvl.17-18 taking on lvl.20 major optional bosses I just spammed empowered versions of the biggest strongest AoEs from everyone and demolished everyone on veteran. Like with Priest I do the giant blue fireballs form the sky + druid do lvl.2 lightning storm + Paladin/Chanter I do the giant 5 way ice attack + my wizard does giant fireball or ice AoE + my Cipher does mind-plague to knock everyone's defenses down and then the AoE stomp. Combined that pretty much destroys any enemy group. I also like to use the priests +4 might and +2 penetration buff on everyone at the start sometimes for more damage. Definitely ready for some challenging DLC at this point.
Ehhhhh, finished it. I feel like out of all the Obsidian games I've played this had the most leaps in logic between things I chose and outcomes either in conversations, questlines and endings which left it a bit unsatisfying in some ways. Like I always notice that in most crpgs because they can't read your mind and finely tune a playthrough exactly how you want to do it, but a lot of this felt off towards the end. Also hit a bunch of narrative glitches where dialogue pre-quest would start after a quest was done a different way than the norm.
Also main story, I dunno. I really, really liked the lore of Pillars I and, especially with the DLC, it gave just enough plot and info to build a really interesting world with the gods and there were some legit good theories on how everything all connected. Now comes Pillars II and it's supposed to be this big epic sequel involving the gods more directly and that was an exciting concept, but did it pay it off with a big epic story of the gods and explanations in the end? Not really. Was it a complete dumpster fire disaster? Nah. The direction they took it was ok, I guess, a bit unsatisfying.
One thing I that felt weird from the start is Pillars II opens stating certain facts as if they were plain knowledge which were never actually explained or revealed in the first game. Later on there's parts where your MC is arguing form a position of having established facts that were never established in Pillars I because they left a lot very vague. Pillars II also sometimes has a problem communicating what is happening by trying to purposely make things vague & ambiguous. Like this works ok in games like Pillars I where future games will explain things more thoroughly, but if there isn't a Pillars III, it just makes the plot and certain aspects of the lore more confusing and will lead to people still not really knowing things.
I also felt like this game retcons what was happening behind the scenes with the gods in Pillars I. Because what Eothas and the other gods were supposedly trying to achieve makes little sense in the context of Pillars I. Feels weirdly retcon.
Spoilers for Pillars I below
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I thought there was a real strong theory that Eothas' whole march as Waiden was to stop Woedica's plan that is the base of Pillars I's plot, and then Woedica and Magran teamed up to stop him (and teaming up was a big no-no in the god laws). The one flaw in that theory was there was never really any good explanation of why Magran would've helped Woedica.
Spoilers for Pillars II below
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The Pillars II retcon that Eothas was using Waidwen to go on a march to show people what the gods really were, and expose the Engwithian ruins and machines and reveal everything and so Magran & Woedica teamed up to kill him...is both kinda dumb and totally unsubstantiated by anything Waidwen was doing or trying to do...pretty sure there was no mention of him trying to do anything with the ruins
Also I didn't like how all the factions were shitty and some of that felt like contrived bad writing where factions were good BUT in the end they take a stupid forced stance so you have to CHOOSE.
Pillars II spoilers
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Like the Queen and Neketaka/Huana people seem pretty decent outside their shitty caste system, but then when it's time to choose they're like fuck everyone we're keeping the city to ourself, which kinda made them a no go for me.
Likewise the Valian's actually seemed sorta decent. Especially the older director guy. Was advancing science, making deals with the locals. I read they were doing slavery, but I never saw that in my game because I killed everyone at crookspur and that plot never triggered for me. Anyhow I was gonna go with them but then they're like if you choose us, go and blow up the Brass Citidal and kill lots of innocent people, so nope.
Ratuatua were totally shit. Going around assassinating people everywhere. Taking places by force. Fuck them.
So I ended up going with the pirates because they seemed to be the only one without a choice that involved killing everyone else. Plus I killed Furrante and the old crew since they were pro-slavery and Aeldys was anti and she seemed pretty alright to me.
But yeah, all the faction choices kinda sucked. I really didn't like how you could only choose like ONE and diplomacy completely fails. Would've liked it better if you could use your diplomatic ties you've built up to get factions to work together. Like ideally I'd have gone for Huana + Valian, where Huana gets their roots back and Valian gets an outpost on it to study the adra. But nope.
I think one of the downsides is the game got rid of most of the interesting mysticism of the gods and not in the most interesting and satisfying explanations. Like in Pillars I the best story part is the ending of White March II with Abydon/Ondra's story and all the mystery and mythos involved around it. There were also great quests like Wael's missing scroll and I liked the Galawain stuff with Hiravias. The Magran/Durance stuff was really good too. The gods were interesting in Pillars I because they were more involved than typical fantasy gods, but still kept mysterious enough to have appeal.
I kinda miss all that stuff in Pillars II. Like one of my favorite parts in Pillars II was at the Berkana Observatory when
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You look through the telescope and Wael obscures your vision and says something like "heyyyy, gotta leave some secrets out there" and it got you thinking hmmm, I wonder if there's gonna be a sci-fi aspect to it all. I mean we still don't really know what adra is, or how a lot of the god/souls stuff still works. It was interesting because it was very Wael and it brought a little intrigue and tease to more interesting lore.
Generally Pillars II is missing most of that. Also the Deadfire isn't that interesting of a place and pulling stuff from all around Eora to just happen to show up at Deadfire was sorta contrived. The factions were ok, but not great and same with the companions. I liked Serafan the best, but generally they all seemed pretty one note and some of the companion quests were a joke like Aloth's. Teheku doesn't even have one! I'm guessing it'll be in the DLC.
Combat was solid other than too easy, graphics were great, music was ok. I kinda missed having a second major city. Ship combat in the end was kinda pointless along with ship upgrades. The keep and the things involved in the keep upgrades and the questline the patches added about the rightful ownership of the keep were a lot better than just like a boat you can't do much with besides sail and fight. Don't like how they changed rest bonuses to foods. I liked the keep upgrade and rest bonus system of the original.
There's definitely a lot of good stuff, and some odd design decisions and still the DLC to come. I don't think Pillars II ended up being the 9/10 or 10/10 magnificent crpg it would have been nice if it had been, with a great fantastic sequel story, larger and more developed cast, better questlines, combat and dungeons. I think it just ended up being a pretty good crpg 8/10 that does most of that stuff pretty good, but very little is really memorable. In a few years I don't see myself remembering much of the game (aka, not making much of a mark) whereas I'll still remember some of the characters (Durance/Hiravias) from Pillars I, a few of the quests and the White March pt.2 msq, along with the Adra Dragon fight and Endless Paths as some of my favorite memorable crpg moments in the last decade from Pillars I.
Since the DLC is 3 parts this time instead of 2, I'm going to hold off and wait until all 3 are out and play it all together. Will also give them more time to patch and improve the game. Hopefully the DLC brings a lot to Pillars II to make it a more memorable crpg.
The more I think about it, the more it feels like everything was worse outside polish and multi-class builds.
Take quest design for instance. In Pillars I you have that town where Skaen cultists living under the town kidnap a rich family’s daughter to brainwash her to bring the downfall of her entire family in a very Skaen. There’s like nothing even on that level in II. And a lot of the fun quests like that Wael one is missing (the librarian at the Wael library was great).
Also the companions just do not compare in depth at all. In Pillars 1 you have characters overcoming major person things like:
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Hiravias who was kicked out of his tribe and ridiculed for his Druid animal form. Who spends the game questioning his belief in his god and what it all meant until it brings him face to face with another Druid like him and they have to fight to the death and by victory he overcomes the trial.
Or Durance who gave everything to his god, only for her to stop talking to him after the godhammer bomb, so he turns to curse and spite her at every chance thinking she rejected him after he gave everything and she finally appears and it turns out she can’t even see him because his soul was splintered in the bomb and the impact it has on him is a powerful moment. One of the deeper character stories in rpg companions.
Or Eder and his brother who fought on the side of the enemy, Aloth and his past and dealing with his split personality, Pallegina’s question of her faithfulness to the republic.
The companion stories compared to those are trivial little “oh hey all these souls are hard to carry, what should I do with them”, etc...feels like a completely different writer/tone.
In retrospect, I feel like this should have been Pillars III. Like it had the Justice League movie problem of the first game just introduces the world and lore and mysteries and then suddenly the second game is like everything is at stake, conclusion of it all. I think Pillars, given how expansive the lore they created is, needed a middle game that further fleshed out the lore concepts while having fun with them and having a more down to earth story before we got to Pillars II’s story.
Also, there’s like games where the story or combat is awesome, but it’s got some annoying issues and it’s an 8/10. Pillars II feels like the opposite of that. Where everything is just good and nothing (outside maybe mutli-classing) is awesome imo.