Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, by Obsidian Entertainment

Does this game crash all the time for anyone else? I swear, this is less stable than New Vegas... Somehow.

Hasn't crashed for me and I've played it for almost 70 hours in total by now

edited 19th May '18 4:04:40 AM by SpookyMask

I did run into that annoying freeze that happens when you enter the sub arena in the ruins. I had to lower resolution and set graphics to lowest setting to get through it.

Had it freeze once or twice during area transitions, but thanks to the constant autosaving I didn't really lose progress. I'm actually finding the number of typos more unusual in an Obsidian release.

The last patch did fix most of the actual problems I was having, like being unable to imprison Scyorielaphas even after getting his surrender prompt and having the wrong Eder backstory for most of the game. Which did turn out to change his dialogue with Eothas, so that was neat.

Annoyingly enough, I'm getting the bug that's preventing me from finishing Pallegina's quest. The Godlike I'm supposed to follow to Lifter's Refuge simply isn't there, so now I'm stuck hoping any patches Obsidian releases will retroactively fix that.

On other news, man I'm enjoying the heck out of this game, especially the changes they did to ability usage and spellcasters in general. Sure, we get waaaay less casts per encounter, but the fact that every skill you get from the class trees (or nearly everything, as far as I'm aware) is now per encounter and no longer per rest, especially for spellcasters, makes things go by more smoothly. The fact that I can keep casting Delayed Fireball every encounter is great.

Speaking of, is anyone having issues with Freezing Rake not properly dealing damage in its AoE? I've tried to use it multiple times, and not once have I seen it deal significant damage at all. I've had more success using an Empowered Chain Lightning.

Multiclassing certainly makes things interesting. I'm playing on Classic on my first playthrough, so I don't feel a pressing need to min-max anyway. I'm thinking of multiclassing just about every companion (barring Aloth — I just think it's more in-character for him to be a pure Wizard) for the sake of flavor. Making Serafan a pure Barbarian makes no sense anyway since he's introduced using cipher abilities on you.

Besides, Eder as a swashbuckler just seems so fitting for him.

edited 20th May '18 10:24:50 PM by M84

Swashbucklers have a more... pirate-y feel to them, though, and Eder is a farmer-turned-soldier, though I suppose it can be flavored as him picking up some stuff while in the Deadfire. I myself ran a Ranger/Rogue (Scout) multiclass for my Watcher, and it's pretty fun, playing as a melee Ranger. Best part is I'm running with a Bear companion, with Laura Bailey's Vex'ahlia voice. Pallegina (Paladin/Fighter) and my Watcher are my only multiclasses, though; Eder, Aloth and Xoti are pure Wizard, Fighter and Priest respectively.

Serafen probably should've been a cipher, cipher/barbarian, and cipher/something else. I guess they didn't want another cipher/rogue with Ydwin running around, though.

The way skills are handled, it actually makes a fair bit of sense for rogues to be a type of soldier. One of the things I always liked from the first Pillars was the lack of restrictions on armor and weapons. Want to build a rogue in heavy armor who wields two-handed weapons? You can do that. (See: The Devil of Caroc.) It might not be the most optimal, but they'll have their own niche.

I probably should've made Maia pure Ranger on my first playthrough, and I probably would've gone Priest/Monk with Xoti if I could do it over again. Eder still made a pretty great tank even as a swashbuckler, though.

I started up a Royal Deadfire playthrough with a fighter (Black Jacket)/rogue (Assassin). The fact that many talents (like Knockdown and Hobbling Strike) work at range adds some nice versatility I hadn't really tried before.

edited 21st May '18 12:06:51 AM by Unsung

welp. finished my first playthrough with Huana as the winners. Gonna give it a bit of a wait before I try again.

My first playthrough I'm going with a pure cipher as my main. That's one reason I wasn't too concerned with making Serafan a pure cipher. Seemed redundant.

My main was a ranged chanter/cipher who focused on control spells and summons, so I made Serafen into a melee cipher/barbarian with mostly damage spells. They ended up offsetting each other fairly well, though I'd have chosen different weapon proficiencies for Serafen knowing what I know now about the late-game drops.

My main was a pure cipher of the type I forget now the name of that gets sneak attack bonuses to focus generation. Made a lot of lategame trivial because once I could haste myself I could generate like 150 focus in a matter of a few seconds and just utterly unleash high level cipher magic

Some of the weapons, as well, are amazing at making the game itself ridiculously trivial in Classic, even with scaling turned on. The Frostseeker war bow, for example, that you get from Maukotu's Canopy southwest of Nekataka on the same island is particularly nasty, especially with the Ranger's Driving Flight ability. A Fighter/Monk, as well, can make devastating work with Swift Flurry (33% chance to automatically attack again on a Crit, plus Quick) and Disciplined Strikes, which converts 25% of Hits to Crits. Of course, it doesn't work as well if the enemies have high resistance to Frost damage, but otherwise, it's a pretty deadly bow. Xoti has made amazing work with it, despite the Priest not exactly having abilities that mesh with War Bows. Here's a good example of what sort of havoc a Monk can wreak with Swift Flurry and Frostseeker.◊ All of that happened (and more, according to the original poster) in the span of a handful of seconds, absolutely obliterating 4 max-level Eotens in a blink.

Speaking of Driving Flight, that ability is also equally terrifying with a blunderbuss, since it bounces every projectile.

Think I'm gonna have to try that blunderbuss ranger/monk combination sometime...

I always kind of appreciate when a game like this lets that kind of emergent gameplay happen. Feels more sandbox-y than worrying too much about balance. I mean, if you're not going out of your way to stop players from deliberately hamstringing themselves, let them break the game a little.

From what I recall Driving Flight and Swift Flurry can be dangerous with the blunderbuss, since I think the projectiles themselves can bounce onto allies. I'm not too certain, though, since I'm not running a monk on anyone, and my only ranger is melee-focused.

edited 21st May '18 5:32:18 PM by ITNW1989

I'm positively loving my Fighter/Cypher (Soul Blade). Use fighter skills to build focus, then soul annihilate will one shot most enemies. Gave my fighter a bunch of passives to help disengage, so he can kill a few front liners, then run around to one shot a critical target.

Hit a guy for 300 dmg in one shot and he's going down.

edited 21st May '18 7:47:52 PM by Ghilz

So I accidentally broke into the Valian company headquarters and was kneedeep in slaughtered guards and paladins before I remembered to check the reputation I had with it. To no surprise, it had gone down. I reloaded an earlier save, but now I'm wondering: is it worth it to lose rep with the company in exchange for the gear and loot that early in the game? Or should I refrain from being a murder-happy asshole?

Well there's a ton of quests they give, and they also are the target of quests and they are one of the factions you can pick for the endgame

So I guess I made the right call in reloading the save.

You'll be hip-deep in loot once you start doing any shiphunting (or start getting attacked in transit). One thing to bear in mind, though, is that upgrading your ship is expensive, so you might want to start planning ahead if that's the road you decide to go down.

Fort Deadlight is worth getting out of the way fairly early on. It's basically the Raedric's Hold of this game, with similar rewards that don't really scale. You might want to do the Gullet questlines while you're in Neketaka first, though, since they add up to quite a bit of experience.

edited 22nd May '18 8:23:01 PM by Unsung

I'm in Neketaka now. I'm thinking of getting the flag to sneak into Deadlight there. Maybe do some of those quests you mentioned.

So I took the elevator into the Old City, not realizing (it was late and I was a bit tired when playing) that it's a one way trip. Then I ran into those Nightmare Sigil stones and got hammered by curses while fighting phantoms. Then I stumbled onto that lake with the conch in it, not realizing that getting it would summon a bunch of skeletons. Because it was late, I died once before realizing I only needed one character near the lake to actually get the conch, meaning I could reposition the rest of the party next to where the Squishy Wizard skeleton spawns.

Then after beating everything in the Outlook, I made it to the Ruins. And ran into two Greater Earth Blights. Just when I had them on the ropes, Eder somehow accidentally pulled in a bunch of the nearby Cave Grubs. That necessitated a reload.

It's frustrating. But in a good way, if that makes sense.

It's not necessarily a one way trip; as far as I'm aware, the Huana headsman gives you six hours, and I think the game tracks that as closely as possible, since before I headed down deeper into the Old City, I could still ride the elevator back up.

Welp, I'm already committed to exploring as much as I can of the Old City anyway.

also theres multiple other ways to get down into the old city if you play your cards right with the right people.