History YMMV / PillarsOfEternity

* BrokenBase: A [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent backer-submitted]] poem about a man who was DrivenToSuicide after discovering that the woman he slept with [[UnsettlingGenderReveal was actually a man]] due to getting pissed drunk the night before was changed after getting the backer's approval and edit. Some applaud the developers for being sensitive towards transgender fans, others see this as an example of PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad, with people like TotalBiscuit pointing out that this is a CrapsackWorld where such a thing is common anyway.
** This was further complicated with the revised poem being a TakeThat from the user to the people who complained, which only led to more arguments in the fanbase. It's worth noting that right now, one of the more popular mods in the game is bringing the original limerick back. %% As this is a sensitive topic, please observe the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement when elaborating.
* DemonicSpiders: Shadows, made worst by the fact that they show up early in the game. They deal a surprising amount of endurance damage, have a chance to stun on hit, and, perhaps most annoyingly, love to ignore your frontline fighters in favor of teleporting right to your squishier long range characters. And then there's Shades, which [[MookMaker spawn Shadows]]. Fortunately, [[CriticalExistenceFailure once the summoning Shade is gone, summoned Shadows dissipate as well]].

* GeniusBonus: This game is basically ''[[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra]]'': the game. The overarching plot is that [[spoiler:the ancient Engwithans used animancy to create the "gods" so that folk would have something to believe in that would give their lives order and meaning]]. They also [[spoiler:used animancy to grant a form of immortality to Thaos]] so that he could make sure that the lie would never be uncovered. [[spoiler:Iovara]], however, discovered the secret and tried to reveal it to the world, believing that people would still be good, and that life would still have meaning, even if the truth were exposed. This was, in essence, Nietzsche's view of religion: a handful of ancient visionary heroes had created religion to give humanity something to believe in that would give our lives order and meaning. Without that, humanity would slowly go extinct unless a new visionary hero could somehow create values that people would live and die for without any belief in a higher power.

* ThatOneAttack: Charm and Dominate spells are vicious, especially considering how common they are in the late game.

* ThatOneLevel: Related to the DemonicSpiders entry, the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale can be this, depending on how early in the game you take it on--its second level is absolutely filled with Shadows. Still, this can be mitigated by building up a full party, or a bit of leveling and returning later.

** The almighty ''Devotions of the Faithful'' priest spell, which not only dramatically increase your character's accuracy (+20 for both melee and ranged), but also decreases your enemy's accuracy by the same amount, while improving your Might by 4 and decreasing your enemy's Might by 10. This one spell can absolutly cripple your opponent while buffing significantly your allies.

** The Cipher's ''Mental Binding'' spell. It's a paralysis spell that's fast, fairly cheap for a Cipher spell, and most importantly, available by ''third level''. This is thee absolutely earliest one can inflict paralysis, allowing Ciphers to shut down plenty of enemies right from the start. Considering one can be only a few hundred experience short of level three before they even reach Gilded Vale...

** Also the Cipher spell ''Amplified Wave''. It's a level 6 spell, so you'll get it only very late but boy is it ever powerful. It's targeted on a friendly and inflicts an ''enormous'' foe-only AoE, dealing a substantial amount of crush damage and knocking prone. Encounters that would have been challenging like Banshees and Shades become an absolute joke as they'll be knocked down for basically the whole time. And this being a Cipher spell you can cast it every encounter multiple times if you wish, there's no limit on daily usage.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: In Aloth's personal quest, a sanitarium consultant cheerfully asks Aloth to slip into a machine that measures souls. Considering it looks like a rusty medieval torture device, Aloth firmly declines. This is hilarious until one reads [[https://eternity.obsidian.net/media/stories Aloth's short story]], [[AllThereInTheManual which reveals]] [[spoiler:that while at the academy some classmates illegally acquired one and tried to test it on him. He narrowly avoided being the test subject, while the one who did became a drooling vegetable.]] No wonder he doesn't want to get anywhere near that thing.

* ArtificialStupidity: Your party members are completely incapable of doing anything in combat without direct orders. If the target they are attacking is killed, they will simply stand idle until ordered to do something, even if their companions are in combat with other enemies just a few inches away. Also their pathfinding is terrible. They will often get stuck behind other party members while going though doors, hallways, or rooms, even if there clearly is enough room available for them to go around.

* DemonicSpiders: Shadows, made worst by the fact that they show up early in the game. They deal a surprising amount of endurance damage, have a chance to stun on hit, and, perhaps most annoyingly, love to ignore your frontline fighters in favor of teleporting right to your squishier long range characters. And then there's Shades, which [MookMaker spawn shadows]. Fortunately, [CriticalExistenceFailure once the summoning Shade is gone, summoned Shadows dissipate as well].

*** Really, anything that petrifies the enemy counts, since petrification ''doubles'' any and all damage they receive. And ''that'' is after it was heavily nerfed: it used to '''''[UpToEleven quadruplicate]''''' the damage received by the petrified target. Even after the nerf, it is enough to trivialize any and all fights, up to and including [[spoiler:the Adra Dragon, Thaos and the Sky Dragon]].

** Any petrification spells, for the reasons listed above.

* DemonicSpiders: Shadows, made worst by the fact that they show up early in the game. They deal a surprising amount of endurance damage, have a chance to stun on hit, and, perhaps most annoyingly, love to ignore your frontline fighters in favor of teleporting right to your squishier long range characters.

** Perhaps surprisingly, the Mercenary Brawlers and Drunken Orlans in the Cragholdt Bluffs can be some of the toughest enemies in the game, thanks to a combination of their ability to duplicate tehmselves, other mobs in the area supporting them (such as mercs with ranged weapon stun abilities), and having the ability to teleport, which they use to attack your squishiest party members.

** ''Gaze of Adragan'', a 6th level wizard spell, can petrify multiples foes. It comes pretty late, but once you can cast it, every single encounter of the game becomes a joke if your targets are petrified, since not only are they stunned, but they also completly lose their damage reduction, and the effect lasts for 20 very long seconds (and since Wizards usually have high Intelligence, your foes can be petrified for over 30 seconds quite easily, leaving you ample time to kill them). Scrolls of Petrification have a similar effect and can be crafted from relatively common ingredients.

** The Orlans are like a sort of hybrid between hobbits and cat people, and have been constantly enslaved and victimized by all the larger kith races, to the point that they've been driven further into the wild or resorted to guerrilla warfare. This is as likely as not inspired by an interview by Tolkien, where he denied Literature/TheLordOfTheRings being a direct allegory to WWII because, among other reasons, both the humans on Aragorn's side and Sauron's side would have enslaved the hobbits since they were so small and easily dominated. In a world filled with Tolkien-esque fantasy settings, it's funny to see that idea of the small hobbit race being enslaved and victimized by the larger races for their size finally take root.

* HesJustHiding: The game makes it clear that Eothas was nuked and destroyed. Indeed, [[spoiler:he is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4; even the ones who refuse you at Teir Evron, Wael and Woedica, prove themselves quite alive at other times]]. Many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his resurrection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since [[spoiler:the candles in his temple never stopped burning]]. Also, the Watcher can be a priest of Eothas, and still cast spells; while [[AllThereInTheManual spells are explicitly cast from intense belief in a god's philosophies rather than directly derived from gods]], it's ambiguous whether or not it's possible to be a priest without ''any'' god to at least provide the "spark".

* FridgeBrilliance: There are a grand total of [[spoiler:two dragons]] in the game--residing, respectively, at the highest and the lowest point in the entire game: [[spoiler:the Sky Dragon in the mountaintop temple of Hylea and the Master Below on the lowest level of Endless Paths of Od Nua]].

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Much ink has been spilled over the issue of the French translation of the game. There are multiples cases of sentences which are oddly translated and overly literal, prompting players to wonder if the translator gave up at some point and just Google translated parts of the script, not to mention that some texts aren't translated or are in another langage altogether ([[http://tof.canardpc.com/view/9d933fbc-69d1-4650-add4-c08a5f5a1b03.jpg Italian]], for example).

* SturgeonsLaw: The quality of the vignettes for the backer-written {{NPC}}s varies. There's some legitimately interesting gems to be found, but a significant percentage are pretty cookie-cutter: unstoppable badasses, perfectly cunning rogues, et cetera.

* WinBackTheCrowd: Between this game, ''Videogame/DivinityOriginalSin'', ''[[Videogame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun: Dragonfall]]'', and ''VideoGame/{{Wasteland 2}}'', it seems to be a great time for WesternRPG fans who were burned out by recent AAA disappointments from Creator/BioWare and Creator/{{Bethesda}}.

** ''Gaze of Adragan'', a 6th level wizard spell, can petrify multiples foes. It comes pretty late, but once you can cast it, every single encounter of the game becomes a joke if your targets are petrified, since not only are they stunned, but they also completly lose their damage reduction, and the effect lasts for 20 very long seconds (and since Wizards usually have high Intelligence, your foes can be petrified for over 30 seconds quite easily, leaving you ample time to kill them).

** Some combinaisons of spells can quickly lead to the demise of your enemies. The Wizard in particular has ''Chill Fog'' which deals Freeze damage but, more importantly, blind your targets (which reduce their Accurancy and Deflection by a whooping 25 and 20 respectively!), ''Expose Vulnerabilities'', which lower damage reduction, deflection and concentration of your foes (and there is no risk of friendly fire while using it) and ''Call to Slumber'', which make characters prone, preventing them from taking any actions and reducing once again their deflection.

* WinBackTheCrowd: Between this, Videogame/DivinityOriginalSin, [[Videogame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun: Dragonfall]], and Videogame/{{Wasteland 2}}, it seems to be a great time for RPG fans who were burned out by recent AAA disappointments from Creator/{{Bioware}} and Creator/{{Bethesda}}.

* BrokenBase: A [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent backer-submitted]] poem about a man who was DrivenToSuicide after discovering that the woman he slept with [[UnsettlingGenderReveal was actually a man]] due to getting pissed drunk the night before was changed after getting the backer's approval and edit. Some applaud the developers for being sensitive towards transgender fans, others see this as an example of PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad, with people like Total Biscuit pointing out that this is a CrapsackWorld where such a thing is common anyway.

* HesJustHiding: The game makes it clear that Eothas was nuked and destroyed. Indeed, [[spoiler:he and is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4]]. Many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his resurrection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since [[spoiler:the candles in his temple never stopped burning]]. Also, the Watcher can be a priest of Eothas, and still cast spells; while [[AllThereInTheManual spells are explicitly cast from intense belief in a god's philosophies rather than directly derived from gods]], it's ambiguous whether or not it's possible to be a priest without ''any'' god to at least provide the "spark".

* HesJustHiding: Though the game makes it clear that [[spoiler:Eothas was nuked and destroyed, and is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4]], many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his ressurection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since the [[spoiler:candles in his temple never stopped burning]]. Also adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the Watcher can be a [[spoiler: priest of Eothas, but somehow still has the power to cast spells.]]

* HesJustHiding: Though the game makes it clear that [[spoiler:Eothas was nuked and destroyed, and is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4]], many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his ressurection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since the [[spoiler:candles in his temple never stopped burning]]. Also add to the fuel the fact that the Watcher can be a [[spoiler: priest of Eothas, but somehow still has the power to cast spells.]]

* HesJustHiding: Though the game makes it clear that [[spoiler:Eothas was nuked and destroyed, and is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4]], many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his ressurection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since the [[spoiler:candles in his temple never stopped burning]].

* HesJustHiding: Though the game makes it clear that [[spoiler:Eothas was nuked and destroyed, and is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4]], many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his ressurection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since the [[spoiler:candles in his temple never stopped burning]], and the Watcher has the possibility to play as [[spoiler:an Eothas Priest, which begs the question of how he is able to channel divine powers from a supposedly dead god]].