Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire [May 8 release]

[Freyj]

It is a weird pace but I really appreciate Neketaka in retrospect and wish there were more catacombs, ruins, etc. to explore there. I just think the game needed it placed further out as it pushes you to go there asap.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, it really pushes you right to it. I stopped on some island and did a quest before it was given in Neketaka and it was a bit weird, made me want to go there and grab all the quests.

Personally I would've enjoyed 2 cities each half the size over 1 gigantic city. Or at least to have more interaction between the wards of the city, I swear a lot of these areas feel totally self-contained.

[Bebpo]

Finally got my crew morale back to 100 after screwing up initially by not understanding how to feed my crew so it dropped almost to 0. Also figured out how to beat ship battles now and started getting some ok money. Just hit lvl.8 cast.

The more I play Pillars II, the more I'm not so sure about it. There are some really good improvements like I really enjoy the power levels and uses system, the multi-class stuff is cool, the additional conversation stats are nice. Graphics are good.

But the free form aspect of the game when not using level-scaling just means when you go back and mop up all your quests, a ton of stuff is jokingly braindead easy if you've gained a few levels in the city doing other quests. Whereas the quests that are 1-2 levels higher range from "challenging" to "impossible" and you basically go and do lower level quests that are braindead and then you get stronger and can do the next quests. It's kinda crappy progression and difficulty imo. Feels like everything is either too easy or too hard and there's no good challenging difficulty on veteran. Compared to the first Pillars where on veteran it felt like after a certain point, most major quest/story/bounty battles were a solid challenge and made you think strategy-wise and were rewarding to win.

I kind of feel like this is a result of now having 300+ potential classes. There's probably no way to balance all this stuff just right so they go with the more generic, above level/below level quest structure. I think in Pillars I with a lot fewer party options (especially if using story companions only) they were able to fine tune the challenge level tighter.

I also feel like a lot of this is dumbing down the game for wider appeal. Like the story quests all feel a lot simpler. Instead of some interesting or unexpected way to figure out a quest and/or having to combine equipment + food + inn resting to get the dialogue stats you need to accomplish it, you just walk up to guy B and hit "diplomacy/intimidation/bluff" action and you win, quest over. I feel like the challenge level of the questing is really low which combined with the battle difficulty being low just makes it feel a bit entry-level instead of the really fun hardcore challenge of Pillars 1 on veteran.

The companions also don't seem as interesting, the world seems less pulled together and connected because all these islands are spread apart, and the main plot sure ain't moving much so far in the first 20 hours or so. It's fun enough, but just doesn't feel very engaging on any level from story to companions to battles to questing to cities/towns. It's all just a bit blander.

I'm still hoping this is basically the "Act I" of the original Pillars and that as the story moves along things will get better in every aspect. If not, eh, it'll still be a fun game but not amazing like Pillars I was. Pillars I is probably the best wrpg I've played in a decade.

The more I think about it, the more Pillars I really lucked out in having everything going for it. The world lore setup was interesting, the politics solid, they had a couple of really fantastic companion stories with Durance (my favorite companion in forever; really good character quest too), Hiravias and Zanza in the DLC (feather hair gal was pretty solid and Eder was fine as the depressed boring guy), and excellent strategic pause by pause combat. Plus a great score as well and solid enough visuals. The companions also had a really dynamic between them in the party dialogues and felt like a cast that got along. The companions in II so far seem a lot more strangers and maybe a bit try hard.

[Freyj]

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.

[Human Snorenado]

It's an Obsidian game tho so is any of this REALLY a surprise?

[Freyj]

The game has been fairly playable and mostly bug free for an Obsidian release. They just cut corners elsewhere to get it there.

[Bebpo]

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?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.

[close]

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.

[Great Rumbler]

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?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you go to the trading company in Queen's Berth later on you can still recruit her into your party.

[close]

[Freyj]

Yeah I picked up both within 10m of each other

[Bebpo]

Did the underground old city dungeon in Neketaka. Was alright and I was probably underleveled since a lot of the fights were 1-3 levels above. Was still doable except for the big boss cave grub at the mural. No idea what level it is since it's red 3 skulls meaning 3+ levels higher, but yeah no way my team could take him after a few tries. Will come back way later for the fight.

Trying to clear out all the Neketaka quests completely before moving on to Hasonga. I'd guess Neketaka is like 50% of the game?

[Great Rumbler]

You won't be able to do all the Nekataka quests in one go, since a lot of them require you visit other places in order to complete and I think some won't pop up until you do other stuff first.

[Bebpo]

I don’t like things popping later unless they are specifically on the path of the msq. I just spent a week exploring the city and talking to every damn npc to gather quests. Ain’t gonna do that again.

Also 5 person party sucks, I’m running tank/off-tank/healer/ranged/ranged and it’s ok. Kinda having trouble keeping aggro with only two tanks on some of these mobs. My MC is a ranged cipher but sometimes switch her in as tank #3 with sword & shield but she’s a bit squishy.

I actually like Mia as a ranger/wizard. Firing off spells until you’re out and then using shots while pet tanks is pretty useful. I ditched Aloth because of that. Xoti is a decent healer but too squishy. Pallegina is a bit squishy for off-tank with 2H greatsword and no shield. Probably gone give her 1H. Eder is a great tanky tank and I gotta eat crow on the multi-class rogue build. Like 75% of the skills I use with him in battle are from the rogue set like using escape to get around and severed foot thing for raw bleed damage. With Pallegina I doubled up with chanter thinking she could buff the frontline passively while holding the line with Eder and occasionally summoning helpers. I have Xoti as pure priest which is fine because she just heals & buffs, blue guy as pure Barbarian since my MC is already cipher and he’s fine as off-tank dps but squishy. I think aloth is pure wizard, which is ok but less useful than hybrid spellcasters. I bet a hybrid wizard/healer mage would be good, either priest or druid.

I may end up needing to use a no-name as a 2nd healer later on if Xoti+Pallegina can’t keep up. Hiravias/Durance/Aloth were a pretty amazing mage set in the last game that allowed 3 melee chars up front (fighter/monk/barb was my party).
 
And companion count (6) feels a little small since 3 are returning. Kinda wished they didn’t bother doing returning companions (they could be quest NPCs you meet) as I’d rather have a fresh set of 6 faces. If the DLC expansion adds another 3, I hope there’s no more returning ones and it’s just 3 new faces.

[Great Rumbler]

I'm coming up against the final section of the game at 46 hours [so, about 50 hours total, or roughly the same as the first Pillars]. Been a really great run, I've enjoyed it immensely. A few things here and there could have been better, but it's mostly minor stuff. Overall, I like the story more than the first game and the more open-ended exploration was better than the linearity of the first Pillars.

[Bebpo]

Finally finished up all the quests within Neketaka itself. Hit lvl.10 with my crew and headed out to do some sea exploring and questing now. Feeling the game more. The Arkemyr Mansion quest was pretty fun.

[Freyj]

Finished this up. It’s a great game that will be incredible once the DLC and polish is wrapped up. I still want to see a more traditional follow up to PoE1 and I think the Icewind Dale spin-off that’s next will be just that.

I would also given Obsidian $20-30 to backport multiclassing, Berath’s Blessings and Magran’s Fires to PoE1.

[Bebpo]

Icewind Dale spin-off?? What?

[Freyj]

Not literally IWD but similar in scope / idea. An Eora RTWP CRPG that’s not Pillars 3.

To be clear: nothings confirmed but Obsidian employees have been very coy about it whenever the notion of it is brought up on their forums, Reddit, twitter. It’s kind of a no brainer really: they have all the tools necessary and it wouldn’t involve crazy narrative related changes like Deadfire did.

[Bebpo]

I'm still confused about what you are saying.

Are you saying Obsidian's next game is rumored to be a story-less dungeon crawler set in the Pillars world that is combat based? I mean, that'd be kinda disappointing because half of the fun of Pillars is the narrative...would rather they just do a Pillars 3 in a smaller contained area without the boating.

[Freyj]

Next game? Probably not. Next CRPG set in Eora? Likely.

Sawyer said he’s done leading RTWP CRPGs and wants to step back for a few. I’m assuming he’s doing design on Tim Cain and Boyarsky’s unannounced CRPG before being involved with another Pillars game.

[Bebpo]

So, how do you make money in this game? Because of the 3,000 gold skill enhancement NPCs everywhere I'm always running around super broke. And then gotta keep food/water stocked to keep morale up and crew costs money each day at sea. Is there a good way to make infinite money like your base brought in in Pillars 1?

So I'm at Dunnage picking up quests and it kinda highlights why the game feels a bit bland. It's like you go to a town and pick up a bunch of quests and half of them are bounties at sea and the other ones are mostly back at Neketaka. Feels like there isn't a lot of unique character at each place so far outside Neketaka. I thought Port Majae was good at the start, but idk game just doesn't seem to have a strong narrative focus imo. I'm almost 30 hours in and it feels like a lot of the game is just picking up quests and then sailing around the sea checking them off almost like an ubisoft game.

I hate to sound so down on it because I am enjoying it, but it's just probably halfway into the game and nothing's really grabbed me yet. It feels more like a popcorn game from one of the game franchises I enjoy on a yearly/bi-yearly basis. Going through the motions and having a good 8/10 time, but nothing wowing me 9/10 or 10/10 amazing game like the original did for me.

I also want to keep saying how much I hate the 5 person party downgrade. Even combat aside, it means less companions in your group and less cross-party banter. I find it really hard to fit Aloth or Pallegina in because Eder is a better tank and blue orlan is a new character so I want him in my party and he's basically the off-tank and can't fit more than 2 tanks in. Did they ever give a reason why they went from 6->5 person party?

[Freyj]

There are towns at sea that serve no real purpose but as a place to dump your Fine Exceptional Superb vendor trash. They give you 50% discount / sell bonus and I made 100-200k dumping gear there after a few hours.

[Bebpo]

Also, is there anything like the Endless Paths in this one? I thought EP gave a good pacing balance to the main story of the original. Do some questing in towns -> do some dungeon crawling floors in EP, etc...

[Freyj]

I think Fulvano’s journey was sort of supposed to be that but it ended up mostly just being the narrative heavy sidequests of the game (the ones with an achievement).

[Bebpo]

Did the Hasongo bit and moving onwards now. Got about 25% of the map explored with the SW quadrant. Lvl.11 team now.

The combat really needs to be fixed. It’s so brain dead easy and there’s so many damn encounters with 20x the bounty fights that I’ve resigned myself to just putting everyone on AI and let the game play itself. I only step in for hard fights and that definitely takes some enjoyment of it because when most fights are just watching the AI do it for you at FF, each encounter is more of an annoyance.

Fights need to be much harder and there should be like 1/2 the number of encounters imo. Make them meaningful instead. I guess I could skip the hand to hand ship fights by destroying them with cannons but ship parts are expensive and I have no money and even shitty lvl.5 ships that will die in an instant if boarded have more hull & sails hp than my ship so I lose in a cannon battle.

[Bebpo]

Spent my day playing a heck of a lot of this. Almost 40 hours in now. Lvl.14 party. I'm enjoying it more now that I'm far enough in all the various factions and quest-givers are starting to tie together more and give a sense of cohesion. At this point I can appreciate that instead of the game having 2 opposing major factions, or 3 groups like the city in Pillars 1, there's essentially 4 factions (Huana/Valian/Deadfire/Principi) that aren't necessarily all opposed but still generally competing and sometimes working together. Feels like there's more complexity, it just takes a while to start to all come together.

I'm almost done with the south half of the map (haven't gone north of Neketaka at all yet outside Hasongo), and there's been some good quests in there. I finally have some money now (~50k) which is nice, but I kinda find buying ship parts to be pointless? Because ship battles mean you're taking damage and crews are being injured and it's easier to just get close and board them and beat them in a fight unless they're like 3+ levels above you.

I ended up going back to turning all the AI off and controlling the battles. Playing in slow motion 1/2 speed now with occasional pauses for spell casted and enemy destroyed and it's pretty fun playing it out in slow motion doing all your spells and such. I went to a 1 tank setup with 1 cipher MC and 3 spell casters and casting like 3-4 giant AoEs at once is pretty baller. Also had a nice kill with my MC cipher who disintigrated an enemy 3 levels+ above in 1 hit. Btw, Ascended Ciphers are so busted. You build your focus to max and then you get like 20+ seconds of 0 cost cipher spells, which means you can launch 4-5 of the top level spells back to back which can do insane damage. Very fun.

I think if they can make the combat more challenging and fix the overall balance (it's way too easy to become incredibly overleveled if you're doing all the quests, I always have like 10+ quests to do and they're always all below my level outside like one or maybe two, which means even on Veteran the other 8 will be a pushover in combat scenarios), and once they add a couple more companions, it'll be a damn good game.

I found one glitched map spot that you search a bunch of times and it crashes every time if I try to search it. Doesn't matter, so just skipped it.


I think one of my problems with the next Eora game being a combat focused dungeon crawler is that only works if they can balance the combat. And if they add even more class complexity/abilities/loot, I just don't have a lot of faith they can pull that off. If it's too easy and all there is is combat, then it'll be a zzz game. I guess we'll see if they can balance Pillars II over time.

[Bebpo]

Cleared the entire south half of the map. That trap temple in the SW was fucking bullshit. Started into the north a bit, went to Sayuka first and doing the Druid quest.

I still don’t get why your companions only get one quest. It’d make a lot more sense if it was a huge many hour quest across the length of the game but some of these quests are like 30 min short like Pallegina’s. If I were designing this game I’d give each companion like 3-4 quests to develop their character. It’s not like there’s a ton of companions. As is you pretty much get most of their development from the party chat..but when they’re not in your party...

Also there’s way too many bounties, they’re the worst part of the game for sure because they feel like filler to pad the gameplay/length.

But at the end of the day, like the original, the best part of the game are all the quests. You do enough over time that the world and it’s factions and characters really develop. Which again makes the idea of a combat focused spinoff sound dumb, since their strength is dialogue.

Feels like the game’s going to be about 60-80 hours for me at this rate. Also in retrospect I think a ranger/healer would be a good multi-class. Pet attacks while character heals & buffs.

[Freyj]

Running through PoE1 PotD solo right now with a Rogue and while it’s still a blast it is very noticeable how much better of an experience multiclassing provides. Solo Assassin / Bleak Walker on the Deadfire Beta was incredibly fun and dynamic whereas solo Rogue in 1 is more of the usual tanky, scroll-y, summon-y affair.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, the combat without a doubt feels & flows much better in Pillars 2. It’s very smooth and I haven’t used scrolls or summons at all.

But I wouldn’t say it’s better than Pillars 1 combat because of the 6->5 person party and lack of challenge.

[Freyj]

They’re fixing the challenge in early June. Deadfire is in a bad state right now but I think the upcoming balance and content (free dlc or otherwise) patches over the next year or so will lift it above PoE1.

It’s sort of like how KotOR2 took 10+ years for fans to finish but this time Obsidian at least is able to continue working on the game. I hate GaaS as much as the next guy but this is a game that would’ve been left in its current state even 5 or so years ago and I’m really excited for the future of Deadfire and CRPGs using the Deadfire mechanics and systems.

[Bebpo]

While I’m probably never gonna replay the main game, if they can up the difficulty by the time the DLC rolls around, at least that’ll be a good 20-30 hours of challenging end game content for Pillars II.

[Bebpo]

Also I hate nitpicking on this game, since I'm gonna end up giving it like a 9/10 or something probably, but I got the achievement for all sidekicks and it reminded me...wtf is the point of sidekicks? Like they are just custom characters you can make yourself with a unique battle voice and portrait...who cares? Since there's only like 4-5 of them, couldn't they have made like 4-5 little quests and given them each a character quest even if they didn't give them party chat lines? Something to make them beyond just a custom character. Because otherwise don't see the point at all with any of these guys and I'd never use them just like I wouldn't use custom characters.

[Bebpo]

Damn, played a lot tonight. Did Crookspur and some other stuff. Was the first time I skipped all the questing and just murdered everyone at the location. Felt like the right thing to do 

I guess I'm actually getting closer to the end of the game even if I haven't touched much of the MSQ. Last thing I did was Hasongo and left it off at Ashen Maw as the next location. Meanwhile a lot of the faction questlines are ending and I'm almost out of every sidequest besides those ones. Give another day or two and I'll probably have no more sidequests left and only the MSQ. ~47 hours now. Lvl.16 party. Dunno if more sidequests will open up as I get further in the MSQ.

[Bebpo]

In retrospect sailing back and forth between places to turn in quests or progress the next quest is kinda tedious. At least for bounties they could have had them all base on your ship or something. Also walking back and forth between areas in th city is zzz after you’ve seen all the random encounters. Like some of the stuff they added for immersion just makes the game more tedious than the original. But at least they let you warp to a specific room when entering town, just wish you could do that in reverse when exiting.

[Bebpo]

Ok, so yeah, the sidekick system is a real issue because you can't tell if someone is a real companion or a sidekick unless you put them in your party and try talking to them and see if they have dialogue. 53 hours in, lvl.18 party, finished up all the sidequests (available up through now since I still haven't gone to Ashen Maw in the MSQ or the NE portion of the map behind it), all that's left is a handful of islands left to map and bounties left to fight.

...and I just found out that Teheku is a companion and I never used him. He's not in the loading screen and nothing about him seemed to be a companion when I recruited him vs the sidekick characters. The only reason I found this out was I was looking at my character reputations with my MC and saw he had an icon which seemed odd. So I put him in my party and see he's a companion except since I never used him and xp split isn't 100% he's stuck at lvl.15 while everyone else is lvl.18 making him less useful :\ Will use him for a while since I'm way overleveled at this point for the msq.

Very curious to see where this goes plot-wise by the end. Some of these sidequests seem to be setting up some interesting things. Was kinda sad I couldn't join the council of wizards after the observatory quest. That would have been a fun faction to be part of.

Tomorrow gonna finish up mapping the remaining islands and the last bounties and then head to Ashen Maw. Depending on how much is left might finish it up tomorrow, dunno.

Btw, I love soul-bound weapons in Pillars I & II. I've got that lightning rod 2H on Serafen as a Barbarian and at full unlock he can activate blood fury -> leap into a crowd -> heart of whatever spinning attack x 2 and pretty much kill everyone. Meneha was an amazing barbarian fighter doing a much of the same in Pillars I; Barbarians are boss for melee damage on high levels with the right soul weapon. My wizards are doing pretty good damage too with the high end AoE spells and my Eder rouge/fighter is pretty great at shadow-stepping -> withering attack or hit the head attack to paralyze an enemy instantly anywhere on the map. Honestly this game has made me appreciate the rogue class a lot more, didn't use it much in Pillars I. As a fighter with heavy armor + heavy shield he can also tank like crazy when needed.

It's kinda ironic but just like Pillars 1 my MC is one of the weakest damage dealers on my team. In Pillars 1 it was because my MC was a tank fighter and Pillars II as a Cipher...eh, not really impressed with the high level spells (though haven't unlocked the final power level). Cipher's best stuff is low-level/mid-level with group charming and confusion/flanking and stuff. On high end all I can do is cast disenegrate and AoE knockdown over and over and they're becoming less effective against enemies on the higher levels. Also can't think of like a single sidequest that made use of the Cipher dialogue choice for a new outcome, so was pretty pointless. Next time around I should just make my MC a Barbarian or a Rogue to mass damage deal.

[Bebpo]

Well, finished all the sidequests and fully explored all the islands. Hit lvl.20 party and had like 500k+ gold so bought the biggest ship with all upgrades and filled it out. Some of the boss fights were pretty good like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

[close]

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.

[Bebpo]

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

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.

[close]

Spoilers for Pillars II below

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

[close]

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

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.

[close]

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

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.

[close]

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.

[Bebpo]

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:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.

[close]

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.