Pillars Of Eternity Options

[Acadian]

Nice shots. Those detection aides for stealthing make great sense. It is nice being able to pause combat to issue orders and control how quickly combat proceeds. A necessity really if you're controlling a group of NPCs. No doubt which one is Stormcrow in that last shot!

[SubRosa]

I just finished (mostly) a mod that replaces all the 'watercolor' pictures with real artwork from various portraits packs or otherwise stolen from the internet. It was a real pain going through every picture, resizing and renaming them all. But it looks so much better.

I still have to go through the game and see how appropriate they are for the characters. A lot of the watercolors are so poorly done that I literally cannot tell the race or gender of the individuals. I looked them all upon the Pillars wiki, and that helped with a lot of them. But some did not have entries, so I just had to guess.

Finally there are about 2 dozen from the expansions that I could not replace, as they are just too weird to find anything appropriate to replace them with.

[SubRosa]

I just found out that Sidekicks do not exceed the 5 character limit to your party. It seems that Sidekicks are just Companions without a quest or as much unique dialogue.

[SubRosa]

I am still playing PoE2. I am enjoying it, now that I know what to expect. I really like the setting, which is a big departure from the standard Merry Old England of so many CRPGs. It is part Maori, part Italian, part African, part Japanese. The music is just pure awesomesauce. The actual gameplay within battles is an improvement from the past. I just wish there were more battles.

I have taken to using the Ctrl + T command to teleport around when sailing. That allows me to cover the big, empty spaces of the ocean without wasting much time in the real world, which really drove me nuts playing the game the normal way. It allows me to skip over the islands with nothing on them, to find the few where there is something to actually do.

The capital city of Neketaka is amazing! It is jam-packed with quests to do, and has a number of hidden dungeons to explore.

I am still playing January as a Kind Wayfarer Paladin. But I decided to use the console to give her some of the Lightning-based powers from the Knights of the Storm mod. This way I get the best of both worlds. I still get dialogue options based on being the Wayfarer, and I still get lightning in her games. I started with just the Avenging Storm power, which is like the lightning cloak spell from Skyrim. It does shock damage to enemies around you. I will also be giving her the lightning bolt power that comes with Knights of the Storm too soon, once she reaches the same level it normally becomes available to the KotS.

I also discovered some handy graphics tweaks. The visual effects can become overwhelming in a fight. But in the Graphics options there is a slider call VFX Pause Opacity. What that means it that it makes the visual effects transparent whenever you pause. If you put it all the way over to the left they disappear entirely. There is also an Occlusion Opacity option too. What it does is make your characters visible with a white outline around them whenever they walk 'behind' a wall that would otherwise obscure them. Both are handy little tools to help see what is going on.


January disarms a ruffian

Don't look back!

Boom!

Jan is called the Stormcrow for a reason

Battling the reptilian hordes

[Acadian]

Haha, Lopov is right – nice Jack Sparrow outfit.

The only Rolling Flame that really hurts is the one you don’t see!

Stormcrow opens up a can of shock and awe!

[SubRosa]

Jan started out with the pirate outfit - a Vailian Frock Coat - but had to move up to some more serious armor.


Here is an example of an ordinary island (most of them are like this)

Walking up to that little stand of trees and clicking on it gives you some fruit

Down in the corner of the island is an Abandoned Village and a little pond

Clicking on the pond gives you some water

Clicking on the village gives you to option to search it

It always takes hours to search any place

This one did not yield anything. Sometimes you get a weapon or piece of armor. That's it for the entire island. You never leave the Strat Map.

[Lopov]

Interesting, so it's point'n'click, I thought that as you click on the village or on something else that can be interacted with, that the view switches to 3rd person.

Can combat take place from this perspective?

This post has been edited by Lopov: May 25 2020, 09:56 AM

[Acadian]

Thanks for the screenshots, SubRosa. Unless I'm missing something, exploration seems a bit. . . underwhelming?

[SubRosa]

Interesting, so it's point'n'click, I thought that as you click on the village or on something else that can be interacted with, that the view switches to 3rd person.

Can combat take place from this perspective?

It is all point and click and text messages. The only time it switches from this strat map to the 3d isometric view where you fight is when you find an actual dungeon, or a surface encounter. The surface encounters are usually part of a bounty quest. It will be a small outdoor area, with the monsters in the center. It will be the only fight on the map. The dungeons tend to be 3 - 4 rooms, again, with one group of monsters to fight at the end, and maybe one or two lone monsters in the hallways as you get there.

That is how probably 90% of the islands are. The remainder seem to be part of the main quest or the faction quests, which have more meat on their bones. There is a large pirate castle that you can explore in Fort Deadlight. There is a little pirate island that is basically a small city with 4 areas which you go to. The capital of Neketaka is a sprawling city, bigger than the city of Baldur's Gate. That has tons of city quests, and several dungeons.

Thanks for the screenshots, SubRosa. Unless I'm missing something, exploration seems a bit. . . underwhelming?

The whole exploration side of things left me really unenthused. I spent hours sailing around, finding only nothing-burger islands like that. What I have started doing is using the teleport cheat = Shift + T = to quickly teleport around the strat map of the islands, so I can see where there is something that might be worth looking at. Then when I do land I still use Shift + T to quickly get to the places of interest and back. Otherwise entire days in game time can pass when you explore a single island with no encounters.

[SubRosa]

I uploaded my first mod to the Nexus - Arcane Veil Modal. It simply changes Arcane Veil from a spell you have to cast to a modal ability that you can have always on if you like.

[SubRosa]

Gog now has both Pillars games on sale for 50% off. If I haven't completely ruined everyone's desire to play them.

[SubRosa]

I am still playing Pillars 2, and in spite of the previous gripes, I am still enjoying it, now that I have a better idea of what to expect.

I am finally figuring out some of the changes in the combat system. Pillars 2 has a Penetration stat for all weapons and spells. When you attack someone, you compare this to the armor stat of the enemy. If your Penetration is higher than the armor, you do full damage. If it is lower, you do less damage, by a magnitude of how much lower it is. If your Penetration is way higher, you do increased damage than normal. More on it here in the third post down

I have also mentioned Power Pools. Your active abilities are all used by spending the Power Points from your class. There is also an Empower mechanic that everyone can use. You click on that number 3 in the Hud, surrounded by yellow flames, and that starts the Empowerment. I have not quite figured it all out, but you can Empower a spell or attack, and it will do more damage. If you click on your character portrait underneath, it will refresh some of your Power Points. Every time you use Empowerment, the number drops, until it is 0 and you cannot do it anymore. Resting refreshes it. I think the number goes up as you level.

I have also been doing some experimenting with January. I rearranged some of her abilities, and have been using just a regular sword with no shield. Doing this with the One Handed ability gives you extra Critical Hits. Basically a Critical is any time your attack roll is 100 over the enemies defense. Then you do extra damage of course. January has been getting a lot of Crits this way, and because a one handed sword is faster than a two handed, she hits more often. So far it seems to be balancing out with the two hander.

From a min/maxing point of view, it looks like this would work better with a Fighter class. They get some abilities that give you bonuses to your attack roll (which will help you get up to that magical 100 mark for a critical).

I have even considered re-rolling January as a Paladin/Fighter, to get those extra abilities. But I don't know that I really want to do that.

[Lopov]

I'm following your PoE observations, because this is one of the games I will try in the future, but I'll start with PoE 1. I already tried it a few years back, but it didn't really gripe me back then. But I like what you describe in PoE 2 - sea exploring, the big town with lots of quests, etc.

If your Penetration is higher than the armor, you do full damage. If it is lower, you do less damage, by a magnitude of how much lower it is. If your Penetration is way higher, you do increased damage than normal.

I got some odd thoughts reading about penetration but thanks for explaining anyway.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Jun 1 2020, 07:54 PM

[SubRosa]

When I saw that Penetration was a statistic, I immediately imagined that the developers must have been male...

The Fighter class has an ability called Penetrating Strike at 2nd or 3rd power level (which I think it class level 5), which gives you a bonus of 3 points of penetration. Once I get that, I just ignore Knockdown.

There is also something called a Full Attack vs. a Primary Attack. It seems to be for Dual Wielding only. There are more specifics on it here. As I understand it, an ability that uses a Full Attack works for both your dual-wielded weapons. While an ability that uses a Primary Attack only works on your main hand weapon.

So for example that Penetrating Strike ability I mentioned is a Full Attack, so it would work with both your weapons

[SubRosa]

Still playing Pillars. I picked up Maia and Pallegnia in my party a few days ago.

Maia is a Ranger, whom you can multiclass with a Rogue. I tried that at first, but found I did not like it much. It seemed like I wasn't really using the Rogue abilities to good effect with her. So I went back and tried her as a pure Ranger. That seems to be working much better. She puts out a steady amount of damage throughout every battle. Usually 30 points every shot, which is quite respectable.

She is a Gunhawk, a special NPC only class that gets a bonus to the reload speed of firearms and crossbows. But even with that, and the Gunner ability (which again gives you a bonus to reload speed), the amount of time it takes to reload an arquebus is just ridiculous. She spent about three-quarters of the first battle just reloading.

For a while I left her with the arquebus and gave her a war bow as a backup. She would make the first shot of the battle with the arquebus, then switch to the bow for the rest of the fight. But then she picked up an Exceptional level bow, and I noticed that it does the same damage. So I just gave up on the arquebus all together and went pure bow. She is really shining with it.

I also found that you cannot modify your animal companion's stats through the console the same as you can with the regular companions. I usually give animal companions a Constitution of 30 so they can survive the battles. So instead I created a mod that raised the stats of her bird companion. You could do that with the other animal companions, but I suspect the changes would apply to all animal companions in the game, not just yours. Which might make fighting enemy Rangers really difficult.

I am playing Pallegina as a Paladin/Fighter. She is working out as a really tanky tank that way. The Fighter class gives her abilities like Armored Grace (which lowers your armor's recovery penalty) and Penetrating Strike (which gives you more penetration. I use her Flames of Devotion Paladin ability for melee attacks, and the Penetrating Strike for when she uses a bow. The Fighter's Disciplined Barrage also gives her a bonus to hit (and thusly to Crit). Finally the Fighter's Weapon Specialization means more damage for her proficient weapons.

I have gotten more experience with multiclass characters now. It is a little tricky, because you get roughly the same amount of abilities when you level up, but you have to spread them out across two classes instead of one. So you really need to pick and choose very carefully. You also get less power points in each class than you would if you went single class. So you might not be able to rely upon one class' powers for a long fight. With Pallegina it is working out, because she is primarily melee, and she can use either Flames of Devotion or Penetrating Strike with her sword.

I also learned that with two paladins in the group, their zealous auras don't stack with one another if they are the same. So I started having January do the accuracy aura, and Pallegina do the Endurance one. Combined with buffs from my Priest, everyone typically has lots of bonuses in every fight.



Avery sent over the Stormcrow armor

Not hard to tell which one is January

This was just ewww...

Sending off the boarding party

Sacred Lotus seeds

This is one creepy-looking place

[Acadian]

Neat. Jan is the one with the short circuit. Eww is right - even the name 'cave grub' sounds pretty yuck.

[SubRosa]

I managed to change Maia to an Arcane Archer subclass. I am really liking it. Every other level or so you get a new Imbue ability. These are basically you imbuing your arrows with a spell. The first one is Minoletta's Minor Missiles. The second is Web. The third is Fireball, and so on. Basically you fire your arrow and it does its normal damage. And the associated spell goes off as well.

Here is an Imbue: Minoletta's Minor Missiles. You can see the arrow itself did 41. The additional fire damage of 7 added to it is from one of the Paladin's Flames of Devotion auras (when a Paladin hits with Flames of Devotion, it gives your entire party a bonus). Then beneath that you can see the damage results for the Minoletta's Minor Missles spell that came with it. So it basically pushed 50 points of damage into 100 points of damage.

The downside is that the Imbue powers are expensive in Power points, so you cannot use a lot of them in a fight. I might mod them to make them cheaper.

The other downside is that an Arcane Archer has a -5 Accuracy penalty if they are not shooting with an Imbued arrow. Other things can make up for the loss. For example Jan's Paladin zealous aura gives a +5 to Accuracy to the party. But it is a downside.

Edit: I guess it is not that bad of a penalty overall. Here is a screenshot of an arrow without using an Imbue ability. In the Accuracy section you can see the -5 for Arcane Archer. But there are a lot more bonuses.

The other penalty to Arcane Archers is they have -15 hit points. So they are a bit of a glass cannon. But that is not too big a deal really, given that your health is going to be up around 200 in no time anyway.

I have tried looking around the game files to mod out the -5 Accuracy for Arcane Archers, but I cannot find the data for the classes anywhere. Nor can I find anything online that mentions it.

[Lopov]

Cool armor, cool mask!

January's the one with the beard, right?

Is that mother of all mudcrabs?

Kill those sea dogs!

Can lotus seeds be picked up?

The tree is alive!

[SubRosa]

Sadly, you cannot pick the Sacred Lotus seeds from the flowers. I so wanted to jump in that pool and start clicking on them, just like the good old days in the Imperial City. Sadly, you cannot even get in the pool.

I discovered where the Arcane Archer's stats were, with a little help on Obisidian's official Pillars 2 forums. They are in the LAXG subfolder. Apparently it is one of the additions in a later patch. So I was able to easily mod out the -5 accuracy penalty for non-Imbued arrows.

Speaking of which, I have been spending some weeks now modding. There are no official modding tools. But most of the things you would want to mod are in a bunch of json files. It is a plain text format, and you can open them with any text editor. But they will look like a fearsome wall of text. It is best to use an advanced editor, like Notepad++. It has a json view plugin you will want to add.

Then go to your Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\Exported\Design\gamedata folder. Or go to one of the LAX folders you will see off the Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data folder. Those are all the additions from patches and dlcs. The files will be named *.gamedatabundle. Open them with Notepad++. Select the entire document with Ctrl + A. Then go to the menu bar up top, and click on Plugins -> Json View -> Format Json. That will reformat the document into something readable.

From that point on it is just a matter of finding what section of code you want and changing it. You can just modify the gamebundle files directly. But it is better to create a mod. This forum thread is a great resource for how to make a basic mod. I created a template that I use for every mod I create. Then I just copy and paste that to my Override folder and start filling in the blanks.

For example, the Arcane Veil Modal mod I created looks like this:

manifest.json =

CODE

{
    "Title" : {
        "en" : "Arcane Veil Modal"
    },
    "Description" : {
        "en" : "Makes Arcane Veil a Modal Ability"
    },
    "Author" : "SubRosa_Florens",
    "ModVersion": "1.0",
    "SupportedGameVersion" : {
        "Min" : "1.1.0",
        "Max" : "10.0.0"
    }
}

I saved a picture of the Arcane Veil icon from the wiki, resized it, and renamed it Thumb.png and put in my mod folder. You see that in the game where you can turn the mods on and off.

The main file (you can name them anything so long as they have the .gamedatabundle suffix) is Arcane_Veil.gamedatabundle =

CODE

{
    "GameDataObjects":[

{
    "$type": "Game.GameData.GenericAbilityGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
    "DebugName": "Arcane_Veil",
    "ID": "93c081c1-7177-4380-83cf-0deec9c7fd69",
    "Components": [{
        "$type": "Game.GameData.GenericAbilityComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
        "KeywordsIDs": ["ad3de01a-e7a8-4a5e-9ec3-7d858d1ffea7",
        "d0748495-899c-4db1-a2e1-d474ed455e7d"],
        "DisplayName": 26,
        "Description": 315,
        "DescriptionTactical": -1,
        "UpgradeDescriptions": [],
        "UpgradedFromID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
        "Vocalization": "GenericSpellCast1",
        "Icon": "gui/icons/abilities/wizard/arcane_veil.png",
        "UsageType": "None",
        "UsageValue": 0,
        "AbilityClassID": "acfd1303-4699-4939-91eb-6ac46d4af0bd",
        "AbilityLevel": 2,
        "IsPassive": "false",
        "StackingRuleOverride": "Default",
        "TriggerOnHit": "false",
        "IsModal": "true",
        "ModalGroupID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
        "IsCombatOnly": "false",
        "IsNonCombatOnly": "false",
        "HideFromUI": "false",
        "ShowStatusEffects": "false",
        "HideFromCombatLog": "false",
        "UniqueSet": "None",
        "NoiseLevelID": "82bc1ce9-3a81-41ca-a61a-cc1f73a53de7",
        "DurationOverride": 0,
        "OverrideEmpower": "Default",
        "ClearsOnMovement": "false",
        "CannotActivateWhileInStealth": "false",
        "CannotActivateWhileInvisible": "false",
        "ActivationPrerequisites": {
            "Conditional": {
                "Operator": 0,
                "Components": []
            }
        },
        "ApplicationPrerequisites": {
            "Conditional": {
                "Operator": 0,
                "Components": []
            }
        },
        "DeactivationPrerequisites": {
            "Conditional": {
                "Operator": 0,
                "Components": []
            }
        },
        "PowerLevelScaling": {
            "ScalingType": "Default",
            "BaseLevel": 0,
            "LevelIncrement": 1,
            "MaxLevel": 0,
            "DamageAdjustment": 1,
            "DurationAdjustment": 1,
            "BounceCountAdjustment": 0,
            "ProjectileCountAdjustment": 0,
            "AccuracyAdjustment": 0,
            "PenetrationAdjustment": 0
        },
        "StatusEffectKeywordsIDs": [],
        "StatusEffectsIDs": [],
        "RandomizeStatusEffect": "false",
        "VisualEffects": [],
        "SelfMaterialReplacementID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
        "AttackID": "2c13d833-12a8-48aa-acd1-0e7ae75cacab",
        "AITargetingConditional": {
            "Conditional": {
                "Operator": 0,
                "Components": []
            },
            "Scripts": []
        },
        "AudioEventListID": "f0cc2e6f-77db-4bfb-b691-4cc3bf3a730e",
        "GrantedViaScript": "false"
    },
    {
        "$type": "Game.GameData.ProgressionUnlockableComponent, Assembly-CSharp"
    }]
},


    ]
}

I basically copy and pasted the entire Arcane Veil entry from the vanilla abilities.gamedatabundle file. You don't have to copy and paste it all. But I am not very good at figuring out how many of those trailing brackets I need when I try to pare it down. If you miss any, your mod won't work. I did manage to pare it down with my Arcane Archer mod to just this:

ArcaneArcherFixes.gamedatabundle =

CODE

{
    "GameDataObjects":[

{
        "$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectGameData, Assembly-CSharp",
        "DebugName": "Arcane_Archer_SE_AccuracyPenalty",
        "ID": "bed4d99f-8d93-4a8e-b1e7-b3765a31cbf0",
        "Components": [{
            "$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
            "StatusEffectType": "AllAccuracy",
            "OverrideDescriptionString": 687,
            "OverrideDescriptionStringTactical": -1,
            "UseStatusEffectValueAs": "None",
            "BaseValue": 0,


        }]
    },

    ]
}

Since I am already using the Ranger Unleashed mod that some other fixes and tweaks the Ranger class, I just added my new gamebundledata file into that.

[SubRosa]

Also, since I have been playing Maia as an Arcane Archer, I have been enjoying her immensely. I really like this class.