NickAragua wrote:I've been running into some AI bugs which really make the game work in my favor (but also reduce the challenge). Apparently, some skeletons that my chanter summoned way back in Act I have been following me around. They spawn in a random location on every map I enter. Sometimes, it doesn't matter, but sometimes, the bad guys see them and attack. Now, this is normally not a problem, but sometimes, the skeletons are in an inaccessible location, so the bad guys will just run at a wall, Superfly Johnson style, oblivious to the fact that my guys are pounding them to kibbles. The game also thinks the skeletons are in my party, because they routinely get "knocked out".
Also, I've discovered the chanter's "Summon Ogres" spell, which pretty much means that if I can get my chanter to 5 verses, the battle is over. Summon two ogres next to any remaining enemy mages/priests and watch as they disappear underneath the ogre clubs.
That would actually be a cool item that randomly summons skeletons.
I thought about getting the 2 Ogres for the Chanter spell, but chose the Drake instead for the coolness factor
I get the coolness factor part, but seems less useful than two ogres in battle.
I hate the chanter so far. I like the character, just hate the class. I dumped him for the Cipher recently, so I hope it works out.
Difficulties mastered are opportunities won. - Winston Churchill
Sheesh, this is one small box. Thankfully, everything's packed in nicely this time. Not too tight nor too loose (someone's sig in 3, 2, ...). - Hepcat
The cipher's domination and area-domination-plus-charm skills can make some difficult fights easy, but they can make some fights more difficult as well. A few times I've dominated/charmed a group of enemies and they've run off into the next room to attack more enemies, lol.
cheeba wrote:The cipher's domination and area-domination-plus-charm skills can make some difficult fights easy, but they can make some fights more difficult as well. A few times I've dominated/charmed a group of enemies and they've run off into the next room to attack more enemies, lol.
Ha! Yeah, I noticed that my fireballs don't affect controlled bad guys. Furthermore, my healing spells heal them. So I was not happy when a couple of ogres went from two pips to four.
I'm about 57 hours in and last night, I stopped just short of jumping into the pit. How much longer is it after that? I'm trying to decide whether I'll be able to get through that last part in the 2-3 hours that I have left before heading out of town for a "relaxing vacation" (with wife and 1.5 year old child) for a week. If there's still a lot of stuff left, I'll just hold off on it until after coming back.
I also talked to a gibbering frightened dude in the second major city's inn. Didn't see him at first because he didn't have a name, but then he popped up some dialog when I walked by. This starts up a quest.
Spoiler:
A rematch with Lord Raedric if you killed him.
It was actually kind of a tough fight because it's the boss guy and about six "Fampyrs" (seriously?) on open terrain with no real choke point. They liberally use a "charm" power that lasts about twenty seconds, so I couldn't establish a good battle line like I normally do, at which point they beat up the squishies quickly and the fight was over. The second try, I opened up by summoning everything I had up front. When Chanter McChantyface got up to five verses, I had him summon a pair of ogres. This was probably the first fight where the bad guys were powerful enough that they actually killed the ogres! And all the rest of the summoned guys, too. And KOd half my party. But I won, thanks to Aloth's super high int - the lack of friendly fire made it so I could unload about six fire cone spells into the crowd of vamps clustered around my guy and Eder in a short amount of time. My reward was a bunch of equipment I would have considered good half a game ago, and XP which I didn't need because my guys are all at level 12.
The Obsidian Forums have details on the new version 1.04 patch for Pillars of Eternity, along with first word on a version 1.05 patch they expect to release next month.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Done. Damn that last fight was tough. I actually almost had it the first time, and it was just down to one of my guys and the final boss, and I was slowly whittling him down by summoning ogres and attacking from range, but then he cast some kind of area of effect spell, killing Chanty McChantyface and ending the fight in his favor. Next time though, I had his number (after looking up the "trick to the fight" on the internet). Still challenging, even knowing how the fight works. Nice, satisfying epilogue, too. 9/10, would play again and pay money for more of the same. The only down side was how my buggy skeleton companions waffled on the last fight and didn't participate.
Tactical and storyline spoilers:
Spoiler:
Round 1:
Thaos + two giant golems. I had no idea that there was a trick to the boss fight, so I tried going after the golems. Pop all my summons right away, have Eder tank one of the golems, my main guy (dual weapon fighter) tank the mage and Sagani's wolf and everyone else beat the other one. Even popping all my spells as rapidly as possible, nothing is cutting the mustard. Thaos is a priest type and uses a lot of area attacks, quickly decimating my summoned creatures (and my fighters). I use Durance to bring my fighters back up and Chanter Guy to summon ogres to hold Thaos big buddies off. Thaos continues pissing me off by healing his golems. Eventually, I bring him down to half health, at which point he soul jumps to golem #1, who I bring down. Unfortunately, I didn't figure out to continue attacking Thaos after that, instead trying to take down golem #2. By that point though, my guys are running out of health (no, not endurance. health.) and Aloth is down to shooting off level 1 spells, which barely graze the enemies. As my guys start going down, the ogres finally knock Thaos down on his ass, but by the time we take golem #2 down, it's just Chanty and Thaos. Ok, let's go, motherfucker. Just you and me. Mano a mano. Me and you and my OGRES. Once we got to this stage of the fight, Thaos must have been running low on spells, because he was just using dual daggers to plink away at the ogres. Still killing them, though. Still, the ogres do a number on him - each hit they land is about 30 damage. He's just tough and has area attacks.
Round 2:
I start off focusing on Thaos to bring him down to half health. Still pop all my summons to keep the golems busy. Add ogres to the mix when Chanty reaches five verses. Aloth is pumping out spells non-stop. The low level stuff usually misses or grazes, but some spells land. Abilities that do raw damage perform quite well. We get him down to half health before anyone is KOd. He possesses golem #1, which I pin down with ogres, while Aloth goes to town. When golem #1 goes down, golem #2 has about two pips of health. I lucked out in that Thaos was set up and casting spells close enough to #2 that Aloth was able to whack them both with repeated fireballs. #2 actually went down first, and once that happened, all that was left was to dogpile on Thaos.
Non-spoiler pro tips:
Spoiler:
1) Leave your traps at home. You won't have the opportunity to set them up.
2) Buff up as much as possible. All that food and potions you've been hoarding? Chug it down. This is *actually* a hard fight.
3) Spread out. You will be seeing a lot of area attacks and area knockdowns.
4) Final boss group has ~20 damage resistance across the board, so learn to love raw damage, high-damage weaponry or spells that lower damage resistance.
It's 109 first team All-Americans.
It's a college football record 61 bowl appearances.
It's 34 bowl victories.
It's 24 Southeastern Conference Championships.
It's 15 National Championships.
At some places they play football. At Alabama we live it.
Do you lie awake at night and think about how awesome Baldur's Gate was? Do think back to how hilarious it was to adventure with Minsc in Baldur's Gate 2? I only have ~5 hours into the game and it was worth it. If you're a fan of the classic Infinity engine games this is a no-brainer.
Do you lie awake at night and think about how awesome Baldur's Gate was? Do think back to how hilarious it was to adventure with Minsc in Baldur's Gate 2? I only have ~5 hours into the game and it was worth it. If you're a fan of the classic Infinity engine games this is a no-brainer.
Yes
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I'm convinced. Baldur's Gate was one of the last great RPGs.
It's 109 first team All-Americans.
It's a college football record 61 bowl appearances.
It's 34 bowl victories.
It's 24 Southeastern Conference Championships.
It's 15 National Championships.
At some places they play football. At Alabama we live it.
I think it’s a very good game, yet I don’t find it anywhere near as compelling as Baldur’s Gate, at least not BG2. For me it comes down to, the characters aren’t as interesting and items are pretty boring. The crafting system takes all the fun out of finding a new “rare” item and item stats in general seem needlessly complicated.
MSD: This game plays almost exactly like an Infinity Engine game. You've got your choice for party members (a total of 7). They'll occasionally have something to say about your dialogue with NPCs, occasionally have their own quests, and occasionally shoot the shit with one another. I'll say that they never really lay into one another as they did back in BG2 (who didn't get a kick out of Korgan telling Aerie to quit whining?), nor is there anyone as hilarious as Jan Jansen. I don't know, it's like someone turned the volume down on the humor and insults. It's still there, it's just more about a bunch of dead serious grim dudes being all grumpy cat serious. The main storyline is pretty good stuff, and the side plots are all solid (as in good writing). I wound up feeling like an asshole half the time because there aren't really too many cartoonish bad guys, mostly just people who made crappy choices. For a few of those side quests, I got to the point where I threw up my hands trying to sort out who's right and who's wrong and just did the bare minimum to get paid and get the XP and killed anyone who got in my way.
What really sold me though was the combat. Once you get past the tutorial area, you get absolutely no hand holding, and will get schooled without a full party and some serious tactical positioning and ability use. Eventually, you'll get over the huge difficulty hump and be able to paste most bad guy groups barely blinking an eye, but until then, well, good luck. For me, that was probably after finishing act 1. At the very least, you'll need to figure out the "Damage Type/Resistance" mechanics and the engagement system. Also, proper chokepoint usage.
I did hit a few AI bugs and an annoying but not gamebreaking spell casting bug where my caster would finish his spell animation and then not cast a spell (but I wouldn't get charged for it, and combat hadn't started yet so whatever). Also, if you have a standard hard drive, you're looking at 10-15 second loading times for maps (at least, on my machine, which I would consider mid-range currently), which is super annoying when all you want to do is go to the second floor of your inn to take a snooze and then head back out. Really guys? You couldn't cram two small areas into one load zone?
I agree about the lack of unique items being somewhat disappointing. When you find what's supposed to be an epic sword of doom, and all it has is a little extra +5 accuracy over something you can make yourself out of kobold bones, copper wire and a gem you found in a random sack in the wilderness, it makes you a little sad. Also, the "stronghold" seems like an after thought and is kind of a waste of money for the most part. Now, the dungeon underneath it is pretty damn tough, so I had a good time in there.
Anyway, I figure I got my money's worth, though and steam tells me I've got about 70 hours on it.
I liked the unique weapon setup. Unique doesn't have to equal uber. Just interesting. Also disagree that the NPC party members were all 'grumpy cat serious.' There were some fun times had.
I don't understand the complaints over magic items vs crafting. Items you find typically have completely unique abilities that you can't get through crafting, and crafting limits how much you can do with it and how often due to the limited resources.
Just to be clear, all this nitpicking about the game, for me, is like when star wars fans argue over whether a star destroyer has 33 or 34 turbo laser batteries on the port side. Doesn't make it any less awesome either way.
Well, remember stuff like the Flail of Ages (+3 to hit/dmg, +1d6 acid, fire, cold damage, 33% chance slow, then upgrades to +5 and another two elements in Throne of Bhaal)? What about a simple "Robe of the Archmagi" (I don't even remember what the damn thing does to be honest), Staff of the Magi or Celestial Fury? What about the Shield of Balduran (reflects beholder rays but gives you a -2 strength). How about that ugly-ass leather armor made out of human flesh? Drops your charisma like a rock but gives you mad AC boost. You won't be finding stuff like that.
There are quite a few unique item properties that you only get on found items. Looking it up on the wiki, I'm seeing some "life draining", a few "chance to knockdown", a "+1 enemy engaged". A few items grant spells. Some give a minor debuff to enemies on hit. All of these things are unique in the context of the game. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Back in 2nd edition D&D, your fighters lived and died by their equipment. No fancy feats or talents, just you and your sword (and you spell casters in the back). And your sword could give you abilities that you would otherwise never have. Most of these unique weapon characteristics grant you an incremental improvement to existing capabilities, rather than brand new ones. I guess it dulls the impact of getting a +1 enemy engaged when your fighter already engages four enemies at a time.
Edit: I probably should have run with the druid, he was probably the funniest of the bunch. But you don't get access to him until after Caed Nua, which is a shame.
Finished it off this morning. I had gotten tired of it so I switched to easy and plowed through the end.
I liked the game. Steam says I played 50 hours. That was probably 10 hours more than I wanted. I never really felt engaged in the story. In generic terms, I liked that there was so freaking much gray... but just once having the right thing to do be clear and not just an illusion would be ok. I felt beaten down by the consequences of my actions again and again... so maybe I was engaged. In more specific terms (sorta spoilery ending stuff):
Spoiler:
The ending left me feeling more like a survivor than a hero. The world was hardly better for my efforts. I can respect what they did with the story, but that's not what I want to be in a game like this. It felt too big and I felt too powerless. I don't know how much variance in the events there is. I think I saw something indicating you could first Raedric again which I hope would stop that bit of it.
I guess it is all too dark and depressing for me. Which is saying something for a guy who loves to play Jack in Whitechapel.
I finished Act II last night. My foray into the Endless Paths over-leveled me for the rest of the Act, which was a nice break. My game time is rather limited which is why it's taking me so long to finish - I only get in an hour or so a night, but unlike most other RPGs I start, I still haven't grown bored with this one.
What do you guys think - can I successfully do the Endless Paths?
My party is at Lvl 7 (I'm about 30hrs in - yes, I'm slow), using the in-game chars and my main archer/ranger. I'm still within Act I, having recently done (almost) all quests in Defiance Bay and I'm now on my way to Dyrford crossing.
So far, my fighting went pretty good, I never wiped (never had to reload either) and it's challenging but clearly manageable (and I wouldn't call myself an RPG professional in any way). I don't want to enter the Paths if ythis means only frustration and failure ...
I'm kind of stuck now. I'm Level 11 but have run out of quests to do before the end-game other than one that I can't get past due to the difficulty. I went to finish up Endless Paths and got my ass beat there too towards the end. The difficulty curve of the boss fights compared to the general combat is a bit frustrating.
I guess I'm going to consult a walkthrough just to see if there are any quests I missed, then maybe set it to Easy to get past the Endless Paths portion I'm on. However, I don't know that an extra level is really going to help those boss fights. Obviously the combat tactics that have worked for 95% of the game don't apply anymore.
I hit max level and still did a ton of stuff after that. Have you done the bounties from your keep? There's pretty good xp there (and loot).
I did end up dropping it to easy for the end game... and barely survived, but I didn't really micromanage my party either. I just wanted the game over at that point.
Yeah, I hit max level before I even got into Twin Elms, so you're probably missing a whole bunch of quests.
If you're really hard up for XP, you can actually talk your way past the last two boss fights in the endless paths. Also, check out the bridge to the north of Defiance Bay. I actually missed that entire area and only realized it when I went back for bounties.
1.05 is out. If any of you were waiting in the wings for the game to get stable, this is your entry. They've now moved on from big fixes and into cool feature additions.
Zaxxon wrote:1.05 is out. If any of you were waiting in the wings for the game to get stable, this is your entry. They've now moved on from big fixes and into cool feature additions.
Paused for a short bit in anticipation for this patch. Now let the adventures begin! (again!)
Black lives matter!
Wise words of warning from Smoove B: Oh, how you all laughed when I warned you about the semen. Well, who's laughing now?
