Pillars Of Eternity Options

[Lopov]

I had troubles before as I said earlier in this thread, even with a party of four. I think that the Archmage was a source of the problem that's why this time I concentrated on him.

I'm about to play now and see if the tree in Gilded Vale has "changed" with Raedric gone. Then it's off to Caed Nua.

[SubRosa]

Ice Troll

Deadwalkers vs Ice Trolls (Serana is maneuvering around the flank to use her Ray of Fire on the trolls).

The same without the ui

Exploring the White March

Caed Nua was attacked by an undead horde

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 22 2015, 08:54 PM

[Acadian]

SubRosa, those are some great action shots. Your Deadwalkers look really good. And those ice trolls look like quite well done monsters.

Glad to see Serana maneuvering to sweep fire through all three trolls with no friendly fire.

[SubRosa]

I finished up White March today, except for Cragoholdt. The final area was Durgan's Battery, which has a large exterior area, and the actual dwarven fortress with two interior levels. In the exterior is Galvino's Workshop, which is another interior area. So there is lots to do in just that final section.

It all went well, I ran across a few Laugerfeth's near the entrance of the Battery, but Sofie was ready for them with her Prayer Against Imprisonment, so no one was paralyzed. The interior had a few big fights, but nothing I could not handle. The final big fight in front of the White Forge got so busy the game got slow and choppy. That is the first time I ever had performance issues with the game. I think it was just too much stuff going on, and too many fancy fx, for the game engine to handle.

Now the Deadwalkers have returned to Caed Nua, where I have also finished the final piece of construction. So it is all built. I think I am going to concentrate on the bounty quests, and then tackle the Endless Paths of Od Nua for once and all.

[mALX]

I have done some more exploring into the White March. The new game world has it locations set up in a diamond-like shape. You enter at Stalwart Village at the bottom of the diamond. Then to the east is Longwatch Falls, and to the west is Russetwood. Finally Durgan's Battery - the final area - is to the north.

After defending Stalwart Village from the ogres I went east to Longwatch Falls. I am disappointed to report that the enemies there are all very overpowered. Nearly every one either paraylzes or petrifies with every hit they land on you. There is a 5th level Priest spell called Prayer Against Imprisonment which can protect you from the paralysis. So you have to be at least 9th level before you go there (to get 5th level spells), and your Priest needs to cast this before every fight. That means a lot of resting since you only get two 5th level spell castings per rest at 9th level, and three at 10th level.

There is also an Ice Dragon in Longwatch. But you only meet him if you go down in his cave. With the right stats you can talk your way through the encounter as well, rather than fight him and his army of ice blights. I did the latter, as I was sick and tired of overpowered enemies by then.

West of Stalwart Village was a lot nicer. Russetwood was mostly filled with wolves, ice trolls, and ice blights, plus one group of undead. So no constant paralysis attacks. The whole area went very well, and I only rested once, after clearing out the entire surface area and venturing down into the ogre cave. I left off just inside the ogre cave, so I am not sure how that will go, or what Durgan's Battery will be like yet.

Maybe there is a certain order that you have to follow for your character to develop up to the enemies they will be facing? Like clockwise or something?

[SubRosa]

Not really, its pretty random. I think Obisidian just did not really playtest and balance the difficulty in certain parts is all. The Laugerfeths would not be particularly bad if they did not paralyze with every hit, including grazes. If they only paralyzed on a critical hit for example they would be in line with all the other monsters. As it is you cannot go against them until you are 9th level and have Prayer Against Imprisonment. So basically don't consider the White March until you are at least that level.

[mALX]

Not really, its pretty random. I think Obisidian just did not really playtest and balance the difficulty in certain parts is all. The Laugerfeths would not be particularly bad if they did not paralyze with every hit, including grazes. If they only paralyzed on a critical hit for example they would be in line with all the other monsters. As it is you cannot go against them until you are 9th level and have Prayer Against Imprisonment. So basically don't consider the White March until you are at least that level.

Obsidian did a leveling system in New Vegas where enemies were extremely overpowered at early levels; a decent fight at medium levels; and way underpowered as compared to the player at high levels. Maybe that is the same standard they used for this game. (go back there at level 20 and own those paralyzing beasts, lol).

[SubRosa]

It is weird, because like in New Vegas, it is a fairly linear world. It is basically divided into three areas. You start out in one, and then each successive area is unlocked by moving along to specific points in the main quest. So it should not be too hard to match the level of the monsters to what level the players are going to be when they encounter them.

But Obisidian still gets the difficulty out of whack, with areas that have monsters that are a walkover for a your level mixed with others that are impossible for your level. Or areas you reach early like the Endless Paths of Od Nua or Cragholdt Bluffs, which are impossible for low level characters. With all the people playing the beta you would think they would have recognized how unbalanced the creatures can be. But it just went right over their heads.

Instead you learn that there are some areas you just cannot go to until late in the game. White March is one of those, don't try it until Level 9 and you have Prayer Against Infirmity. Don't try Cragholdt Bluffs until right before the very end of the game and you are Level 13 or so. Don't try going past the first level of the Endless Paths of Od Nua until you are level 10 or higher.

Speaking of which, I have done a bunch of bounty quests. That makes a little over half of them done. Now I have returned to The Endless Paths of Od Nua. I am down to Level 12. So I am hoping to finish it all off before moving on to the Third Act area.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 25 2015, 09:01 PM

[mALX]

It is weird, because like in New Vegas, it is a fairly linear world. It is basically divided into three areas. You start out in one, and then each successive area is unlocked by moving along to specific points in the main quest. So it should not be too hard to match the level of the monsters to what level the players are going to be when they encounter them.

But Obisidian still gets the difficulty out of whack, with areas that have monsters that are a walkover for a your level mixed with others that are impossible for your level. Or areas you reach early like the Endless Paths of Od Nua or Cragholdt Bluffs, which are impossible for low level characters. With all the people playing the beta you would think they would have recognized how unbalanced the creatures can be. But it just went right over their heads.

Instead you just learn that there are some areas you just cannot go to until late in the game. White March is one of those, don't try it until Level 9 and you have Prayer Against Infirmity. Don't try Cragholdt Bluffs until right before the very end of the game and you are Level 13 or so. Don't try going past the first level of the Endless Paths of Od Nua until you are level 10 or higher.

That is so strange! But I remember reading about the original Fallout games being nearly impossible to live through at any stage due to the toughness of the enemies (same developers as this game), and since those early Fallouts developed a cult following maybe they are striving to reproduce that success with this game by using that same method.

It does seem to be their signature; "if you somehow survive the first 10 levels, we'll reward you by making you strong enough to beat 7 more, then give you three you can breeze through..."

[SubRosa]

I finished the Endless Paths of Od Nua. It went pretty easily for the most part. There were a couple of fights where paralyzing enemies gave me some trouble, but I was able to work though it with Prayer Against Infrimity and Suppress Affliction.

There was an Adra Dragon at the end of it. But Team Deadwalker was able to slay it without too much trouble. The Deadwalkers turned 14th level just before facing it, and I am sure that helped. Serana was able to turn the paralyzing tables, and paralyzed it for most of the fight. It only got one really good hit in (which took the entire team down by more than half their health). But Sofie's healing kept the Deadwalkers in the fight, while the others put a lot of killin' on the dragon and its minions.

And I think I forgot this pic of the White Forge from The White March.

[Acadian]

Great pictures, SubRosa. I'm still greatly enjoying following Team Deadwalker through the Pillars of Eternity.

[mALX]

I finished the Endless Paths of Od Nua. It went pretty easily for the most part. There were a couple of fights where paralyzing enemies gave me some trouble, but I was able to work though it with Prayer Against Infrimity and Suppress Affliction.

There was an Adra Dragon at the end of it. But Team Deadwalker was able to slay it without too much trouble. The Deadwalkers turned 14th level just before facing it, and I am sure that helped. Serana was able to turn the paralyzing tables, and paralyzed it for most of the fight. It only got one really good hit in (which took the entire team down by more than half their health). But Sofie's healing kept the Deadwalkers in the fight, while the others put a lot of killin' on the dragon and its minions.

And I think I forgot this pic of the White Forge from The White March.

Ooh, cool forge!

[SubRosa]

Tonight I beat the game like a red-headed stepchild. A sky dragon was crushed under Persephone's undead heel, and the same fate would befall Woedica's Guardians.

Before embarking on the final set of levels, the game told me I was higher level than intended for the content, and asked if I wanted to increase the difficulty. The same as the White March did. I kind of just wanted to get it over with, so I left the difficulty as it was. By this time Team Deadwalker was Level 14, the maxiumum for the game with the White March expansion. I think it is 12 without White March.

At the end you get to decide what to do with the big bad you defeat, and then with all the souls of the people he has been stealing (I don't want to give away too many spoilers). After you make your choices, you get a slideshow of how your actions affected the world. This not just about the main quest, but all the other things you did, such as how Gilded Vale fares depending on what you did to Raedric, what faction takes over Defiance Bay, how Caed Nua fares, the Endless Paths of Od Nua, The White March, etc... Pretty standard stuff for an Obsidian game these days.

[Acadian]

Congrats for beating the game with your toons!

[mALX]

Tonight I beat the game like a red-headed stepchild. A sky dragon was crushed under Persephone's undead heel, and the same fate would befall Woedica's Guardians.

Before embarking on the final set of levels, the game told me I was higher level than intended for the content, and asked if I wanted to increase the difficulty. The same as the White March did. I kind of just wanted to get it over with, so I left the difficulty as it was. By this time Team Deadwalker was Level 14, the maxiumum for the game with the White March expansion. I think it is 12 without White March.

At the end you get to decide what to do with the big bad you defeat, and then with all the souls of the people he has been stealing (I don't want to give away too many spoilers). After you make your choices, you get a slideshow of how your actions affected the world. This not just about the main quest, but all the other things you did, such as how Gilded Vale fares depending on what you did to Raedric, what faction takes over Defiance Bay, how Caed Nua fares, the Endless Paths of Od Nua, The White March, etc... Pretty standard stuff for an Obsidian game these days.

Holy Cow, those enemies are HUGE!!!

[Lopov]

Congratulations!

I assume that the big bad boss is the masked guy from the ruin in the tutorial. Woedica's guardians remind me of fire giants from Baldur's Gate

[SubRosa]

Thaos - the guy with the big helmet at the end of the tutorial - is indeed the big bad. When you get to the endgame you learn a lot more about him and his motives, as well as why you see all those people being tortured in flashbacks, and even what your own involvement was in all of it in a previous life. The story overall was well done.

All in all Pillars was a very fun game. Players of the Baldur's Gate games will easily recognize it's style and gameplay, and I would say it holds up to them extremely well. Better in many regards. I am in the mood for other things right now, but I know I will get back to playing Pillars some more in the future.

I have a mind to try playing a Wizard, and using only the vanilla companions throughout the entire game. After having some time to play with Serana as a Wizard adventurer-companion, and even doing another quick test creating a Wizard PC for the first level of the game, I think it would work fine. Something I would never say of the old BG games.

Magic works a lot better than I initially realized. I believe all Wizards start with an implement (a wand, rod, or scepter). These are not melee weapons as I had initially thought, but ranged weapons. They are like the staffs in Oblivion or Skyrim. A Wizard's spell casting is still limited by per rest, but they can use their implement indefinitely for a ranged magical attack. The damage is comparable to the starting one-handed swords, daggers, axes, etc...

If you take the Blast Talent (which I believe you should), attacks with your implement get turned into a small area-effect blast with a 5 point DR bypass (armor-piercing). Add the Penetrating Blast Talent, and that turns into a 10 point DR bypass. So you have a continual source of magical attacks with your implement that are nothing to sneeze at.

Plus of course you always have your Arcane Assault ability, which gives you two ranged magical attacks every encounter.

Finally, IE Mod allows you to change how many spells you can cast per level, how many your grimoire can hold per level, and whether your spells are castable per rest or per encounter (also selectable by level). I highly recommend IE Mod, not just for spellcasting.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 28 2015, 10:09 PM

[Acadian]

Thanks again, SubRosa. The rich details, insights and advice you have shared in this thread really do make it a wonderful resource for anyone undertaking this game. It also serves as a neat sharing place for those who are playing it.

[SubRosa]

I discovered something today. The Weapon and Shield style stacks with the One Handed Style. So take both for your Sword and Board characters. However, the caveat is that they don't stack if you are using a shield with the Bash effect. Turns out the Bash makes the shield count as a second weapon.

[SubRosa]

I have some news for the other Pillars of the community. The White March Part 2 was released on Gog just a few days ago. Since I bought both back when the first DLC was released, I am downloading it now.

Turns out my game is so out of date that White March 2 won't install. It is too out of date for the patches Gog has up as well. So now I am redownloading the entire thing.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Feb 19 2016, 09:16 PM