Obsidian's "Pillars of Eternity"

[Ingmar]

None of the gold name people have any plot relevance, you can just completely ignore them. Even color blind me can tell their nameplates apart.

[Tebonas]

Sure, but until you realize this isn't a feature like in Divinity 2 (where reading thoughts could led to quests) you read enough fanfic crap to let you seriously contemplate suicide.

[Ironwood]

Just popping my head in to comment that I always felt that combat in Torment was utterly, utterly pointless.

[lamaros]

Later on weapons with the DR bypass become real good.

Companions are good, but hired adventurers are better, as you get to build them up from scratch, meaning they are much, much better put together and don't have wasted attributes/talents. That said, I'm running a full Companion party for this first run. I'd ditch Durance if I could, but he's a Cleric. Already ditched Kana for the dwarf ranger who I like more. I've just reached the big city, though. Which brings me to an important tip (mild spoilers);

[Ceryse]

It's a system that I'm not fond of for choosing factions, mainly because it isn't all that clear that you can bend yourself over a table simply by accepting certain quests. I might have screwed myself in a slightly different way, as one of the factions absolutely loathes me now, because of a different quest (the one that unlocks the Paladin companion) and my choices during it. I wasn't planning on siding with them, but it'll be interesting if I can even do their entry quest now to slightly mitigate my horrible rep with them.

As an aside, regarding the companions, I've yet to meet the Druid or Cipher, but of the ones I've met, I like Eder, Pallagina, and Sagani, and am ambivalent towards Aloth. I dislike Kana and loathe Durance.  Currently running a dual-wield warrior (pc), Eder (pure tank), Pallagina (her accuracy aura should help when enemy DR gets higher and am using her as a secondary tank), Sagani (mainly for the fact I like her and her fox makes a decent off-tank.. be better if her damage was higher), Durance (need a cleric, sadly) and Aloth (want a wizard due to some of the nice spells they have). The dps in the party is a bit low (I dropped my ranged rogue adventurer to fit in Pallagina, and the rogue was, by far, my highest dpser due to constant sneak attacks) but I'm pretty hardy. I can lock down even a large group of enemies and retain enough dps to drop enemy spellcasters quick. Currently everyone's just about half-way through level 5 and I still have a large number of side-quests left in Defiance Bay, haven't touched the Endless Dungeon and haven't progressed the main story past arriving in Defiance Bay. With a level cap of 12 (I think), I'm interested to see how many levels I'm short by the end, or how long I'm capped.

So far in the game I've been a bit disappointed in the difficulty; it's very un-even. Raedric, for example, was a push-over, even by doing it 'proper' and just talking with him first and then fighting in a slightly dis-advantageous position. Comparatively, the Spider Queen wrecked faces and was the first, and only, fight where I almost had half my party go unconscious (only had two do so, due to a clutch knock-down from the pc). Granted, I'm only on Normal difficulty, but I haven't even begun to min/max anything yet.

I'm actually considering re-rolling because I futzed a number of talent picks on my pc, but I'll probably stick it out. Depending on how much I like the Cipher and Paladin companions, I may just do a full adventurer party on my second playthrough because so far the party banter has been fairly sparse.

One good tip for increasing party dps; equip everyone, even your tanks, with the best high damage/slow ranged weapon you can. Have them use it at the start of fights before you close to melee, then swap to their normal weapons and your ranged to their normal weapons (i.e., rod for Durance, wand for Aloth, bow for Sagani, hatchet/shield for Eder, etc.). It will add a significant amount of damage and you don't have to worry about the slow as shit reload times on those weapons (which is the main reason not to use the heavier guns despite their massive damage output).

[lamaros]

Hmm, I've done two of each. Very high rep with both. When do I know if I've stuffed myself or not, later in the main quest chain?

I find the "this area is meant for level x" indicators very poorly signposted, I've been doing a bunch of stuff out of order it seems by how easy or hard they've been.

[Khaldun]

Huh, that's weird, the Raedric fight was difficult for me unless I started it from the sideroom and blocked the enemies at a doorframe, but the Spider Queen was nearly an insta-gib only a short while later. I think in both I was running fighter-fighter-cleric-chanter-wizard-wizard.

[Sophismata]

Well, I restarted so I could change portrait and now I keep getting killed in character creation. Whole game freezes and I'm forced to reboot.

[Reg]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

[CmdrSlack]

So is monk as gimpy as I'm afraid it'll be? My only deaths so far were to stupid party following me over a specific trapped floor. I have noticed that I'm not getting wounds fast enough, so I can't evaluate any powers.

[tmp]

I have 30000 money, I literally cannot spend it fast enough. And there is a seversevere companion shortage in many class options. Second play through I'm building half the squad as I like it.

Well, I was talking about the starting part (first village and such) where I definitely didn't have 30k or even 1k to spend. Although even 30k doesn't seem that hard to get rid of -- I see vendor stuff listed at 5-10k a pop, and that's not even the allegedly good vendor plus then there's stronghold upgrades and whatnot. Granted, there's decent gear to be obtained from questing and such but if you really want to get rid of money you easily can.

Also unrelated but holy shit people paid 1k a pop to put these Soul Fanfics in the game?

[lamaros]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

[lamaros]

I have 30000 money, I literally cannot spend it fast enough. And there is a seversevere companion shortage in many class options. Second play through I'm building half the squad as I like it.

Well, I was talking about the starting part (first village and such) where I definitely didn't have 30k or even 1k to spend. Although even 30k doesn't seem that hard to get rid of -- I see vendor stuff listed at 5-10k a pop, and that's not even the allegedly good vendor plus then there's stronghold upgrades and whatnot. Granted, there's decent gear to be obtained from questing and such but if you really want to get rid of money you easily can.

Also unrelated but holy shit people paid 1k a pop to put these Soul Fanfics in the game?

If all the stronghold options cost 4 times as much I still couldn't spend money fast enough. The time delay means I make way more than the cost in the time it takes to build. I've bought every named weapon in the game and still have 20k left on me now, probably back to 30k when I sell again.

[schild]

You can kill them for being obnoxious without the real people of that world minding? That annoying feature just got awesome.

I would actually rather the "real world" version of those people get notified every time someone murdered them in game. That's a social feature I can get behind.

[Merusk]

I for one, plan on going back and killing Desslock. I recall him as being particularly obnoxious back in the day.


If they do another Kickstater, I am totally going to buy an NPC and have him remember a flame war from a forum board that no longer exists, about a world no one cares about. There's some guy with a hat I need to hunt down one day....

Why does the name Desslock sound familiar?

Also, you should let that beef with Arcadaian just go. Guy wound-up managing a Chic-Fil-A someone else owned. Be happy at that and move on.

[Jeff Kelly]

For an Obsidian game this has an astonishingly low amount of bugs.

[schild]

For an Obsidian game this has an astonishingly low amount of bugs.

Paradox also.

I figured the two of them together would create something that was something akin to a power point deck.

That shows you how low our expectations were though.

[Malakili]

This looks like great steam summer sale material to me.

[Ingmar]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

Same here. Seems more or less like 'don't play a ranger and you're fine'.

[Malakili]

. Seems more or less like 'don't play a ranger and you're fine'.

Story of my life. 

[Khaldun]

No bugs for me yet and I even have the dwarf eskimo ranger in my group.

[Hawkbit]

Sure, but until you realize this isn't a feature like in Divinity 2 (where reading thoughts could led to quests) you read enough fanfic crap to let you seriously contemplate suicide.

The first 30 of these I read I thought it was going to lead somewhere. I'm so glad to know these are skippable. I thought it was very out of place that the NPC named Strom Brightblade's flair text mentioned being an archer.

Also, I'd like the ability to patch out all the KS mentions on the loading screens. The 77,000 number is etched in my head. I get it.

[Senses]

I'm not so bothered by the gold names or the memorials because I appreciate that the kickstarter was driven by this sort of thing.  That being said, I would've liked to know from the beginning what was going on because like others have said, I went through them several times on several restarts when I clearly didn't need to.

I have most recently settled on a Moon Godlike Tank that is awesome.  I don't think I'm good enough with micromanaging the other characters to attempt to do this without a good tank so it might as well be my starting character.

[Ironwood]

Wow.  I'm going to lose a lot of time to this one.

[Teleku]

Same here. Seems more or less like 'don't play a ranger and you're fine'.

Damnit!

[Ingmar]

Apparently there are a couple bugs with stats and such as well, but they haven't hit my game.

[drogg]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

i think your monk's toughness might be one: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73449-stat-bonus-modifiers-can-erroneously-be-applied-multiple-times-allowing-stats-to-grow-beyond-intended-values/

that particular bug aside (which has made hard mode trivial in act 2 :( ) i've had a great run so far.

[Ingmar]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

i think your monk's toughness might be one: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73449-stat-bonus-modifiers-can-erroneously-be-applied-multiple-times-allowing-stats-to-grow-beyond-intended-values/

that particular bug aside (which has made hard mode trivial in act 2 :( ) i've had a great run so far.

I don't think that bug can happen to the PC, only to companions (from the description anyway.)

[WayAbvPar]

Still waiting for someone to sell me a key!

[drogg]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

i think your monk's toughness might be one: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73449-stat-bonus-modifiers-can-erroneously-be-applied-multiple-times-allowing-stats-to-grow-beyond-intended-values/

that particular bug aside (which has made hard mode trivial in act 2 :( ) i've had a great run so far.

I don't think that bug can happen to the PC, only to companions (from the description anyway.)

there's another thread (i believe its linked therein) which mentions that it appears to only consistently happen to monk PCs, for some reason, or to characters that have a certain drinking horn equipped.  something to do with the way wound thresholds work?

[Lucas]

Now, granted that there always will be good and bad players, some of those bugs (both the stats accumulation and the equipment one that permanently erase racial and other buffs) could explain some of the threads like "this is trivial on hard/face stomped on normal" that I've seen popping up quite frequently since launch. Patch should be out in max. 2 or 3 days (hopefully sooner, who knows); meanwhile, I'll go back to Divinity:OS 

[lamaros]

I'm a big fan of Obsidian games but I have to say how glad I am that I didn't  purchase this at release. I'm willing to pay full price but I haven't got the patience to deal with Obsidian's typical release day game-stopping bugs.

Nah, not something I have. My monk is just tough. Alost its not that he is hard to hit, just just does massive damage. His flying kick is a little constantly repeatable aoe, and his unarmed damage scales faster than the ability to get good weapons or enchant them.

I've experienced zero so far. Of any kind.

i think your monk's toughness might be one: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73449-stat-bonus-modifiers-can-erroneously-be-applied-multiple-times-allowing-stats-to-grow-beyond-intended-values/

that particular bug aside (which has made hard mode trivial in act 2 :( ) i've had a great run so far.

[Ironwood]

Apparently there are a couple bugs with stats and such as well, but they haven't hit my game.

Hmm.  I'm missing a point after character creation and I thought it was just me being thick.  But I think maybe it's not.

[Ingmar]

Apparently there are a couple bugs with stats and such as well, but they haven't hit my game.

Hmm.  I'm missing a point after character creation and I thought it was just me being thick.  But I think maybe it's not.

I've seen people say that double-clicking a piece of equipment to equip it removes some/all of the points you get from race/country/background.

[schild]