The Return of Goinio: Pillars Of Eternity Thread for NON GAMERS

[Bebpo]

I agree with that but the dialogue choices in this game and narrative role-playing are even better than Tyranny imo.

One of the smaller touches that I've really grown to love is all the events with your stronghold where people come to ask your help and you get to roleplay a lord and decide what to do. It can be really fun and satisfying as they are your choices. That part reminds me a lot of Tyranny since you were sorta the decision guy for commoner quarrels.

[desert punk]

I don't actually remember the stronghold stuff that much, but it could be that I just simply ignored it.

Did you have to go back there repeatedly to initiate these side quests?

[Bebpo]

You get little scroll notifications all the time that "so & so has arrived and is seeking an audience" or "is a troublemaker and wants to be paid off to leave." If you go back to the great hall these people will be there and you can engage dialogues and events to hear their stories and decide what to do with them.

You get more stuff/events the more upgraded your stronghold is (goes off prestige rating).

There's also the various quests you can send people on and they come back with some real nice unique loot.

[desert punk]

Yeah, I didn't really invest much time in my stronghold, so I guess I missed most of that content.

I'm gonna watch out for that in PoE 2, assuming that they're implementing another stronghold system.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I stumbled across a google link at some point that made it seems like they are in PoE2 but your stronghold will be

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Your pirate ship

Which makes sense to have a moveable base of operations.

[close]

[Freyj]

An obsidian dev has been posting in the PoE thread on SA a lot about the ship stuff lately. Seems much much more robust than the stronghold was.

[Phoenix Dark]

Still trudging through Raedric's Keep. Killed his animancer chick last night and freed her prisoner. The fight was a lot easier than I expected; she wasn't too different from the wizards/priests throughout the keep. I like how dungeons feel like actual dungeons. You get in and you're gonna be there for awhile. I found an exit via a moat, so if shit goes bad I'll just escape through there and head to town.

I've had to rest twice.

[Freyj]

PotD is the way to play this game. I know some builds become a little too micro-y but I’m had a blast surviving the temple in Gilded Vale on 2 supplies + another found in the temple itself. Once a Shade teleports to your ranged and your choke point crumbles the stress of trying to turn the tide back in your favor is so much fun.

Normal felt like swarming in comparison.

Getting new abilities is incredibly rewarding as well. You really feel the benefit of new choices rather than just selecting whatever looks good.

[Bebpo]

I feel like hard is a good middle ground. All that stuff applies on hard. The main difference is PoTD actually buffs the enemy stats whereas hard is same stats as easy/normal but larger mobs made up of tougher enemies. PoTD takes those mobs/enemies and buffs their stats further (I wonder if it's like how they handle level scaling which apparently is just giving the enemies a 33% increase in level, so level 10 enemies become lvl.13 ones).

Also one advantage of hard is that if anything becomes impossible, you can still switch back assuming you have a save before you entered that map for the first time (since difficulty is set on a per map basis when you first enter a map and can't be changed after).

[Phoenix Dark]

Finally beat Lord Raedric. He was nigh impossible with 4 party members (normal difficulty), and I kept trying until I figured I'd look for another party member. Found this weird ass chanter dude outside of a city. Went back to the keep, and things went much smoother. Basically I had Eder tank Raedric and multiple melee enemies, Goino tanked a couple other enemies, and alternated heals and aoe attacks with my ranged. Left Raedric alive until a couple of his adds remained (archer and a champion), then killed him and focused on the others. By the end I only lost Goinio and the chanter.

Hopefully this Kolsc guy is alright 

[Bebpo]

Started Act III a few days ago, now I'm a good deal into it. I'm kinda surprised how abruptly short the MSQ is

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like you get to Twin Elms, hear about burial isle, go to burial isle and once you jump in that's the end of the chapter I'm assuming? Sure there's the added sidequest stuff of doing one of the god's quests, but damn compared to the like 20-30 hour long Act II which was pretty huge, it feels kinda quick that I just got to town and already ate the potential Act ending put to jump in.

[close]

With all the sidequests and the few maps, it should be pretty satisfying size, but it's more like the White March pt.1 size act (which I was totally satisfied with). It feels like Act II is the big exploring the world meat of the game and Act III is like endgame main story and Act IV is probably just final dungeon/ending.

Also it helps that even if Act III's smaller, the main story is...getting interesting. It's actually going in a direction I didn't expect and I'm looking forward to how it plays out (and am now more interested in Pillars 2).

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I like how Act I/II is like a more normal wrpg story of humans and their factions and magic and politics with gods as a background

and then Act III is like Yo, gods everywhere in your face, godtime story. Reminds me more of a jrpg like Xenogears and stuff at this point.

[close]

Probably finish up Act III in a few sessions and then on to the White March II! Difficulty-wise I did the high level scaling + hard mode and with my lvl.13/14 party the enemies are tough and hit hard but as long as I can keep them around my tanks I've got enough buffs to hold out while smashing non-stop big spell damage & status effects from my Wizard/Cipher/Druid on the enemy groups that it's satisfying but I'm doing alright.

Next session I'm gonna try using Sagani again for the first time in like 50 hours because I want to finish her questline so I'll actually check a guide to making her useful, respec her and try running a mid-line ranger + priest/wizard/druid with 2 tanks up front. I've also been ditching shields completely and using a 2H Soul-bound sword on my Fighter tank MC to bring the damage. Been working ok but on the harder fights might need to drop back to shield. It's annoying how many of the good swords are all 2H.

[Bebpo]

Sagani's wolf was always the first casualty of every single battle :'(

Yup. I respec'd her and gave her a soulbound hunting bow. Gave her all the DR bypass skills as possible so she's got like 15+ DR bypass, twin shots, bounce shots, etc... get into battle and she is hitting for 20-40 damage -_- That's what my tank does in DEF mode. Meanwihle all my mages are hitting for like 70-90 damage as is my Barbarian. Oh well. Gonna keep her until I finish the last part of her personal quest and then she's getting dumped and bringing my Cipher Gunmage back.

I think my ultimate high damage party will be Fighter/Barbarian -> Priest/Cipher -> Wizard/Druid. But for White March II since I'll want to use the 3 WM characters I'll change it up.

Anyhow, I also finished the Soulbound 2H Grey Sleeper quest. The weapon maxed out is insane holy shit. I mean you got +45% damage, accuracy buffs, SUMMON SKELETONS ON HIT, drop crushing boulders on hit, and attack speed debuff skill against enemies...damnnnnnn. I have it on Maneha and she rushes in, does Greater Frenzy for +4 might and then Heart of Fury AoE swing on a group of enemies + carnage passive skill...omg like 90-150 damage to everyone at once. So insane. Combine that with Aloth launching a fireball or something on the group and Hiravias launching an AoE or bouncing fireball and I'm smashing groups for like 200-300 damage at once. Pretty awesome. Speaking of which, I'm a little annoyed that the soulbound weapons are locked to specific classes. I have a soulbound 1H mace and my tank fighter MC is a Mace + Shield specialization, but the soulbound mace weapon is only equippable by priest or rogue class so I can't use it :| Need to find some sort of 1H soulbound sword or something so I can run a 1H sword + 1H shield with my MC tank.

Also I fucking love the skill for Fighter where you teleport dash into an enemy knocking them down. It's like straight out ZoE zero-shift and it's great for zipping around knocking down distant mages and tanking them with my MC while my team takes out the frontline fighters with Barbarian tanking. Only problem is can't heal my MC whose far away, but she's tough enough to be self-sufficient for a while. That teleport dash is also great for if an enemy breaks through the defensive line I can teleport right into them and re-aggro them so they don't take out my squishy mages.

Game is so good. Probably gonna be my GoTY for games I've played in 2017. I'm around 70 hours in at this point.

[Bebpo]

Was questing in Act III and accidently ran into the Sky Dragon lol, wasn't prepared for the fight but was strong enough to wing it and make it through on my 2nd attempt. Then I tried the Cragholdt Bluffs and I did not expect that I was going to spend the next 4-5 hours going incredibly slowly fight by fight through that map. That was pretty hardcore. The boss was intense too. And there wasn't much story when you beat the boss so it kinda felt like the whole point was just the hardcore battle challenge. Oh well.

Just have a few quests left in Act III now.

[Bebpo]

Was questing in Act III and accidently ran into the Sky Dragon lol, wasn't prepared for the fight but was strong enough to wing it and make it through on my 2nd attempt. Then I tried the Cragholdt Bluffs and I did not expect that I was going to spend the next 4-5 hours going incredibly slowly fight by fight through that map. That was pretty hardcore. The boss was intense too. And there wasn't much story when you beat the boss so it kinda felt like the whole point was just the hardcore battle challenge. Oh well.

Just have a few quests left in Act III now.

Cragholdt Bluffs were insane on LVL1. Those 2 generic monks slicing through my party in 2 seconds were just terrifying. Hardest area in the entire game + WM1.

Which were the two monks? The drunken orlan at the start? I definitely fought some monks along the way but everything was tough so they didn't stick out that much to me.

Gotta say, at 80 hours now (and not even started WM2), I'm getting a little burnt out at this point. Some of the questing in Act III feels a bit simplified in terms of choices and ways to solve the quests. For example:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Servant of Berath quest where you have to kill the 2 leaders, there's a talk option for 1, but for the dwarf guy there's nothing you can do besides fight. Plus there should be an option to side with the 2 and outtalk Berath.

And then the Sacrificial clan where the elder wants you to kill a baby and the only options are 1) kill baby or 2) kill elder, and there's no 3rd clever option.

A lot of Act III feels rushed compared to Act II, like they didn't have time to really flesh out the questlines in big elaborate ways. So doing all that stuff + spending 4-5 hours going through Craghold just to have a non-story ending quest log = I killed a wizard.the end.

All that combined over the last 10 hours of gameplay or so is burning me out a bit. I'll probably finish Act III next session (just have the ice quests + raederic keep 2.0) and then maybe take a break for a bit before I jump in and do WM2 -> Act 4 finale.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Finished Act 3! Started Act 4 then reloaded and went to White March 2 instead and started that.

Act 3 was eh, alright. Felt rushed and like they spent all their time/budget on Act 2 and then had to do Act 3 with what was left. Too many quests felt like "wait, that's it?" when they end and too many end with "ok, kill everyone" because there aren't good workarounds. The city doesn't feel super developed/connected in the areas and the MSQ is ok but really short. There's stuff I liked in it, but overall Act 3 is sorta like what I would have expected after Act 1, a solid, but unspectacular 7/10 rpg or something. Act 2 was like 9+/10 awesome and WM1 was like 8-9/10 awesome as well, so it was a little disappointing. Also Endless Paths is pretty good and I did that before Act 3 so doing Act 2/WM1/Endless Paths back to back was like 50 hours of awesome and Act 3 was kinda so-so after that.

Funny story too about one of the optional super bosses in Act 3

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I heard that Undead Readeric was a tough super boss like Cragholdt and the dragons so was nervous going in. Got to the fight and just sat back and buffed, buffed, buffed because was going to play it careful.

Raederic rushes with his crew and my MC runs up and meets him and hits him for like shitty 12 damage (weapon ineffective msg). Oh well.
The there's this explosive flash and Raederic IS GONE and I'm like WTF and look at the turn log and it says MC destroyed Raederic.
What
So I check my MC's weapon which is the 2H Soulbound St. Redeemer weapon and it has 25% to do 30 raw damage and DESTROY VESSELS

So on the very first swing, it literally one-shotted Raederic into an explosion of goo

I was laughing for minutes after that. After hours dragging through Cragholdt and tough encounters I needed a moment like that in my playthrough. Even took a screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/r4lKw7t.jpg

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Also question for Act 4:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I realized in Act 4 that once you jump into the pit you can't leave. Which means you can't leave and resupply on camping supplies? Which means if you take too much damage and blow through your 2 camping supplies on the way to the final boss you could end up fucked and the game unfinishable?

I'm a little concerned about doing high level scaling because of this...how long is Act 4 before the final boss? Like is the final boss basically a few rooms in so it's no big deal? Because if it's a full hard dungeon and you can't leave and resupply before the last boss...that sounds like trouble.

[close]

Will play through WM2 soon. I'm lvl.16 across the board, so max level. Playing on high level scaling and will see how the challenge level is.

[Phoenix Dark]

Wow I have a stronghold now. It's just being built actually, and I had to leave the area and travel back to Gilded Vale because my party is pretty fucked up (and I'm out of camp supplies). By the time I get back I'm guessing my stronghold will be finished.

Brehs...can I get towns people and shit? I want my own town of people I defend, farmers etc. And an inn.

[Bebpo]

Yup, you can. You can also entertain various guests which will be fun. If you get a notification that someone has arrived at your stronghold seeking an audience, go back to the stronghold and go in the main hall and find them to start the event. They leave quick so you need to do it soon after they arrive.

Building up the various parts gives you various bonuses including a rest bonus so if you sleep at the stronghold you can get like +3 to base attributes (which can help in dialogue skill checks if there's an attribute you're weak on). +2 mechanics also helps for unlocking some stuff.

You also get money payments every so often and that'll be your main point of income. Pretty much never have to worry about money again unless you're constantly shopping expensive equipment.

The Warden's House upgrade let's you unlock Bounty hunter missions. These are a mixed bag, if they are around your level, they can be satisfying challenge boss fights, but they pay out a ton of XP and can overlevel you a bit. Then if you're much higher level they're kinda a joke and pointless.

Oh, sometimes you get a notice that bandits are going to attack, if you auto-resolve even with hired defenders they'll lose and you'll lose a building and have to rebuild. You can get around this by going back to the stronghold and doing the fight quick yourself.

[StealthFan]

Justicar armor

Also forge knights are such a terrible idea but Dyrwood needs all the help it can get 

[Bebpo]

White March 2 - Haven't left Stalwart yet. Talked to everyone and got some quests, did the Mines which are long and I was like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Man, another dungeon of Vithrak mind controlling people?
...but it was actually a spore controlling the Vithrak controlling the people, ic what you did there Obsidian.

I hope there are no more Vithrak controlling people subplots in Pillars 2. Like, the one in Endless Paths was good. The Stragholdt Bluffs discipline was zzz, and I swear there was one more along the way too. Just seems kinda repetitive.

Gonna head back to the White Forge now and check out what's new before heading to the new map enemy camp.

PS. That spore fight was kinda nuts with the amount of enemies. Only reason I survived was I had people teleporting straight to the boss and I took it out first and although I lost a character or two, the cleanup afterwards was manageable with the remaining party members.

[close]

Justicar armor

Also forge knights are such a terrible idea but Dyrwood needs all the help it can get 

haha, yeah it's like I don't want to stir the pot with these Crucible Knights who generally seem alright and are gung-ho on this forge knight thing, but boy does that seem like a bad idea.

[Bebpo]

Kinda over White March 2. Being max level from the start takes away a lot of the enjoyment. No xp rewards from quests and the items are ok but my party is basically invincible at this point so even the battles are easy, they just take a little while because so many enemies each mob on hard. Doing the MSQ on hard but the sidequest areas on storymode just to blow through them as quick as possible. I've finished up most of the sidequests and sidequest dungeons, working on the MSQ now, but will probably beat WM2 in like 10 hours at FF speed. Mostly just playing for the story (same with the final dungeon in Act 4 after). My party is OP and there's really nothing challenging the game can throw at me anymore. It was a fun ride going from lvl.1->16 with everyone, but now I'm ready to finish the plot and jump into Pillars 2.

[Bebpo]

Nevermind then, enjoying the 2nd half of the MSQ in WM2. Pretty cool stuff and the character quests for Zahua and Meneha are good. The only thing I'm not big on is the general sidestuff in WM2 and it's not because it's bad but because at 85-90 hours in now right before the final boss with a max level party and godtier equipment I'm really not in the mood for "hey, now let's explore this big area with constant time taking fights that has nothing to do with the plot", that was fun 50 hours ago when exploring the world was exciting.

The Bog area being another Cragholdt Bluffs was like "yeah, nope" and after doing a few fights that weren't too hard but just took time & effort I just switched it to storytime mode to blow through the area considering how big the map was and I had better things to do. Then I accidentlly ran into what I assume was the WM2 optional super boss and everything died in 20 seconds on storytime difficulty. Thought about reloading and doing the fight on hard, but my last save was at the start of the Bog map and I've fought enough superbosses in Pillars by now, so nah I'm good.

Headed to the Abbey for MSQ.

One thing I'm kind of sour on is the dialogue skill checks in Pillars get tougher and tougher as you go to the point where it's like you need to use equipment + resting bonus to pass them. I feel like this defeats the purpose. The whole point of stat checks in dialogues is for the roleplaying, and doing conversations, reloading and buffing stats and doing them over takes the fun away. In Act 1/2 the skill checks are normal enough that you can pass enough that you often have a lot of diplomacy ability.

Act 3 and WM1/2 however, by putting the skill checks much higher (at like stat 16-20 skill checks), you constantly fail any diplomatic route without save/reload buffing which is bullshit. Considering that your base stats don't change (outside equipment bonuses & resting bonuses), I don't really think the diplomacy checks should increase more and more as you get further into the game. Should be scenario based but generally just be pretty standard 12-14.

In Pillars 2 I'm definitely rolling a RESOLVE + INTELLECT character since those 2 stats seem to be where all the diplomatic choices stem from.
Also never rolling a godlike again. Losing out on the helmet equipment slot is huge since the endgame helmets have crazy base stat bonuses and you can't use any of them. Pretty fucked up.

[Bebpo]

Woohoo, beat the game.

White March 2 MSQ was pretty good. I liked the ending and the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gods v Gods stuff with Ondra calling down the moon and Abydon destroying it with his hammer and then Ondra re-using his mecha dolls to keep technology hidden. Also liked how it was more fantastical with giant Kraken boss and mecha dudes and you're weilding the hammer that destroys them on crit.

[close]

Act IV/aka the ending was ok, the final boss high-level scaling was fucking broken on hard. Dude would almost one-shot my entire party with magic spells even with buffs on. After a few tries lowered it to normal difficulty and was pretty easy. Not sure why he's so ridiculous on hard and higher.

Plot-wise the ending

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Felt really underexplained. Like Thaos's character, his motivations, what Woedica was going to do after coming back in power, etc...is not explained. Basically you show up and he's like "yo, I like things how they are" and the MC is like "gods are manufactured dude" and he's like "fuck you, let's fight". Like the entire flashback storyline that runs parallel seems pretty empty? MC worked for Thaos, and betrayed his/her master for him and then came down to Sun in Shadows and asked Thaos if there were no gods and he's like "who cares, go home and be a family man/woman" and...the MC did? And that's the whole backstory? Idk....

I hope Pillars 2 MSQ focuses more on the artificial gods of Eora. They're the most interesting part of the story which WM2 showed. The conversations with the gods in Act 3 and Act 4 were really good. I like Wael because he's like "do random shit for the lolz"

Also speaking of gods. The entire premise for the world in Pillars 1 is the Eothas god dude becoming personified in The Saints War and then Woedica? and Magran teaming up to blow him up with the Godhammer. But how Eothas ended up becoming personified and starting a war is never really explained at all.

Basically a lot of stuff isn't explained very well unfortunately which is kind of disappointing since there's a lot of interesting world lore. Hopefully Pillars 2 fills in some info gaps.

[close]

Was a great game. Took me around 90ish hours, probably 55 for main game, 35 for WM1+2 or something. Real good combat, interesting story, interesting companions, lots of good quests and dialogue choices. Great Soundtrack, great background art.

[Phoenix Dark]

Stronghold is slowly becoming decent. Meanwhile I'm exploring underneath it. I think I might have skipped a couple levels somehow: my party jumped into this bottom level full of blood, and I did some quick scouting and saw a big ass dragon that must be the boss. Will test my luck later today. 

[Bebpo]

Good luck!

[Phoenix Dark]

lmao it only took me a few tries because I couldn't get the spacing right. I'm still kinda baffled at the AI of character movement at time. My goal was to basically have Eder tank the drake alongside multiple xaurips, while my main character would tank the rest on another side of the room. Casters well out of melee/fire range. I finally got it so that Eder was right on the drake and the two xaurip priests...which allowed me to kill them quicker with Aloth's AOE+my range. Once the priests were down it was pretty easy.

Should I be trying to clear all this shit btw, or should I head elsewhere? Kinda wondering if I could end up over-leveling here.

[Bebpo]

Nice work, stick with endless paths as far as you can go. The difficulty ramps each floor and at some point you’ll hit a wall and then leave and come back later.

[Bebpo]

Even though I'm playing other good stuff now (XB2, City Shrouded by Darkness), I already miss Pillars. I'm half-tempted to start a second run, but I don't want to replay quests I already did. It's not that I miss and want to replay the story or quests, but rather I miss my daily dose of the combat. Probably the most fun & still strategic combat I've played in a wrpg. Maybe after 2 they can make a quick dungeon crawler spinoff ala Breath of Fire V/Grandia X.

[Phoenix Dark]

Before I logged off last night I got an alert saying someone had been traveling to my stronghold and was accosted by bandits. I'll leave the paths for a bit next time I play and see what's up. I know my main keep is finished, can't remember what else I built...but I know I didn't build a barracks yet.

[Phoenix Dark]

Returned to the surface of the stronghold and man...I got an update saying some bandits attacked...so I figured whatever, auto-defend (not knowing what that meant). They destroyed my barracks and great hall.


Re-loaded and hired some help, then manually defended my shit. I hired a couple guys too, most of whom quickly died. BTW all this has been...kinda expensive lol. I need to hire a merchant or something in my stronghold so I can sell the tons of shit I have (mainly armor and weapons).

Speaking of weapons, I found a very good 2H bow on the 4th level of paths. Gave it to Durance and it has completely changed my battle/dps makeup. I had kind of been struggling with damage before that. Eder/my main character (off tank)/Kana all do very good damage with their normal attacks. Aloth's spells are very effective but his normal attacks are just ok. On the flip side, Durance's ranged dmg was traaash. Now he has a very effective dps, plus his spells of course.

[Bebpo]

Helpful tip: You don't need to hire anyone, they do nothing but assist you in battles that are easy to win with just your standard team. Always manually defend, it's a 1 min easy battle and some loot. If you auto-resolve you'll almost always lose something you built.

[Phoenix Dark]

Took a break from paths to head to Defiance Bay. Man going from being knee deep in a dungeon to a big ass city has been fun. Interesting quests and the city is fucking huge.