Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Catch-All

Game crashed at a loading screen some time ago. Havent been able to get it to run again yet. Really frustrating.
The only time I managed to get the PC to respond again after the black screen, other than by powering it off, steam was suddenly in Big picture mode - which I never ever use. I still suspect that Steam is part of the problem here.

Shadout wrote:

Game crashed at a loading screen some time ago. Havent been able to get it to run again yet. Really frustrating.
The only time I managed to get the PC to respond again after the black screen, other than by powering it off, steam was suddenly in Big picture mode - which I never ever use. I still suspect that Steam is part of the problem here.

Obsidian have posted to the projecteternity subreddit that they are actively monitoring the Obsidian forums bug reporting threads. You certainly aren’t the only person having issues from what I can gather, I’d post there. Sounds like it’ll be fixed before too long. Not decrypted my pre-load yet (probably do it tomorrow now) so no idea it’ll run for me yet

FWIW Shadout, your character looks wicked!
So wicked that it is crashing your game ;P

It seems like the level of detail in Deadfire has been dialed up a TON from POE1.

Man, started replaying 1, as I had stalled out. May just say screw it and jump into 2.

I got in about 30 minutes. No joke, I really like the change in the dialogue window to a smaller, semi-transparent one. Looks slicker, less obtrusive. I imported my save but changed from a female elf rogue to a male godlike cipher.

Only got to play for a bit. First impressions:

- Spent forever in the character creation screen. TheSandlotForever.wav
- Sound design is really good.
- The game is gorgeous. I still don't really understand how the lighting works in this game but it looks great.
- Feels good to be palling around with Eder again.
- Very minor stutters here and there.
- I like the revamp to the "choose your own adventure" segments.
- Holy cow the AI customization is pretty in depth.

Prologue spoiler

Spoiler:

I totally "beat" the game in 5 minutes :lol:

All I have to say is: "So effing good!"
Granted I'm 30 minutes in...
#hooked
#thisgamewillkillme
#alreadystartinganalt

I am having so much difficulty in deciding on a character, and torn on multi classing. The idea of loosing out on top tier abilities has me wondering if it is truly worth it.

Started decrypting my pre-load this morning and 2 hours later it' still going. It only took 30 minutes to download in the first place......................

Arkon wrote:

I am having so much difficulty in deciding on a character, and torn on multi classing. The idea of loosing out on top tier abilities has me wondering if it is truly worth it.

Yeah, so far both my companions have ended up being one-class. Tough choices. But it feels like you need to have some decent idea on how the classes should synergise (within the character and with the group) for it to be worth it (if I discount "fun" being a reason of worth :P).
Like Eder went Fighter only, because I need a tank, not a tanky dps. And some other companion went Priest instead of Priest/Monk, since my main character is Monk.

Sorbicol wrote:

Started decrypting my pre-load this morning and 2 hours later it' still going. It only took 30 minutes to download in the first place......................

Yeah... it’s quite a process

In the clear light of morning, I am rethinking some of my choices. I think I would like some continuity and will “remake” my character from the first game, a rogue, but add on cipher as a multi-class.

I have changed a few times. Multiclassing is overwhelming. There are so many abilities once you add in subclasses and proficiency modals. I can see going one class just because you want to hack/stab/pummel things.

Posted my launch issues on their forum. It got moved into another long thread of people being unable to start. But the thread is all over the place, clearly not the same problem. Like some people got a dark screen where they can still see and move the hand cursor, so their monitor is receiving some signal.
No luck getting the game to appear today, think I tried ~40 times so far, with various driver reinstalls etc. in between.

Shadout wrote:

Posted my launch issues on their forum. It got moved into another long thread of people being unable to start. But the thread is all over the place, clearly not the same problem. Like some people got a dark screen where they can still see and move the hand cursor, so their monitor is receiving some signal.
No luck getting the game to appear today, think I tried ~40 times so far, with various driver reinstalls etc. in between.

Hope it gets sorted for you. Sure it will, it’s a fairly major issue by the sounds of it. I know how frustrating it can be not to be able to play a game you really wanted to play!

Decryption took about 3 hours. That’ll teach me to pre-load a game

So many little QOL improvements!

This is probably obvious, but does anyone know what the number up by the ? and X boxes on the menus means?

Edit: Oh... haha, that’s probably me monies.

You definitely have to be careful with multiclassing.
I wanted to create a dual wielding, high dex, blunderbuss character. I wanted to pick classes that complement that playstyle. I considered: sharpshooter ranger, devoted warrior, assassin rogue, a couple cyphers subs, and skaen priest.

To the best of my knowledge the Skaen priest was supposed to get an "apprentice" version of sneak attack yet I could not find it in the in game class description. I didn't want to take the chance so I opted out of the priest despite it adding a wealth of utility/options if I encounter something that brushes off blunderbuss fire.

The cyphers would be really powerful but I wanted to be a blunderbussing fool and worried the cypher stuff would just take over. So I scrapped the cypher subs.

The assassin rogue will definitely bring some burst oomph. I figured though that experience with the first game is there are lots of monsters that make a bee line for your back row fighters. So 15% more damage would make you too much glass cannon.

So I went with devoted + sharpshooter. Devoted is a really strong choice since I quite literally do not want to use anything other than blunderbusses. Sharpshooter works really well also but the problem is that blunderbuss range is too short to take advantage of 15% hits to crits at >4m range. I only get more penetration < 4m range.

I also made a transmuter/bleak walker that I should have cranked everything into dex because the Ogre form spell takes too long to cast and can be interrupted. The effect is cool and other stats kinda don't matter since you assume the Ogre stats when you transform.

So even veteran PoE players have to be careful. There is definitely going to be a Diablo 2 style "builds" thing going on. It would be cool if they patched in an arena or horde mode or endless dungeon to grow, perfect and test builds.

So far it hasn't mattered. I have level scaling on critical path only and only up scaling. The combat is not difficult but I have only progressed 1 hour into the story.

Dont know if it is a bug, but the game keeps changing the formation I set up, so my wizard goes to the front instead of the tank. Not cool!
At least my game is running - without crashing on alt-tab. Ill just have to never close it!

Btw, the 'move spells around' while casting them is great.
Having cast times to begin with, less so.

fangblackbone wrote:

I also made a transmuter/bleak walker that I should have cranked everything into dex because the Ogre form spell takes too long to cast and can be interrupted. The effect is cool and other stats kinda don't matter since you assume the Ogre stats when you transform.

So even veteran PoE players have to be careful. There is definitely going to be a Diablo 2 style "builds" thing going on. It would be cool if they patched in an arena or horde mode or endless dungeon to grow, perfect and test builds.

So far it hasn't mattered. I have level scaling on critical path only and only up scaling. The combat is not difficult but I have only progressed 1 hour into the story.

Are there any good build guides you guys would recommend out there? After finishing 1 I definitely want to go monk something. Transcendent seems fun, but after this week’s podcast I’m inspired to go ranger/monk.

Even if there was a good reddit post out there, it is quite possible that many little changes have happened in release.

Note my example of Skaen Priests getting a version of sneak attack and then not. That is a pretty big change.

You can also retrain your talents for a few hundred copper. (but not class or subclass)
And you can train adventurers at the inn just like in PoE 1. Same restrictions where the max you can hire is 1 level below your level. You find your second companion really early though and I am liking them more than I did the first game.

And for now in lieu of an arena or endless dungeon, once you level to 10+ I'd bet playing around with custom companions will be very illuminating.

Monk/Cipher seems fine so far. Only lvl 5 so hard to say, but that nuke you start with /from Ciphers Soul Blade subclass) surely deals a lot of dmg (in exchange for using all your focus). Haven't really gotten anything for the monk, as in, not a single attack ability yet. Hope that changes soon.
All my other team members are single class so far. Not exactly what I wanted, but the combos just haven't seen very good so far. Well, they might be good, just not for my team. Already got too many melees, they are struggling to get close to the same enemy, and yet all the premade multiclasses seems melee focused. But maybe that is just my lack of imagination.

That is definitely one big change: areas are much more cramped/tighter. So I think it is going to be even easier to plug a choke point and blast from range.

However, the enemy can do that to you also. I haven't seen it yet but I bet spell disruption will be big. Check that, I have seen it a little in a street fight where 3 scattered gunners (one rifle, two pistol wielders) focus fired me before we could get them all. My pet and companions finished them off but this happened at only level 3.

Fighters also get a "pull" spell a la WoW deathknights that will be valuable.

Do the enemy still swarm the glass cannon at the back requiring melee "taunters" to pull them in? That was probably my biggest gripe with POE1, where my glass cannons spent more time running away than anything else.

That is unclear. So far only 2 fights have not been onesy-twosy. The street fight I mentioned above with 3 and the opening fight. I am just about to enter my first real dungeon I think.

If you are that worried about it then look at subclasses. I am pretty sure there is a mage sublclass that automatically casts mirror image on being struck the first time in combat. Or take something like the gold pact paladin as a multiclass.

They certainly try. You need to be able to protect your characters one way or another, whether that is by tanks blocking the way to the weaker members, or make the weaker ones tanky themselves. For instance wizards got a looot of tank abilities. Well, or kite, but that can be quite the damage loss.

Fextralife has a bunch of good class guides on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyT5NcCVqdX_v0H1q2j4_cYo7xTXgQjhr

Amazing they didn't learn to let us freely spec the companions this time. Cant pick their stats, can't pick their sub-classes. At least make it an optional setting. Once again you are forced to choose between a better story (having premade companions around) vs. better build customization.

Yeah, the POE1 companions had terrible starting stats if you were trying to min-max a build; it's been a while since I last booted it up, but from memory it got to the point where I was running with a majority of custom characters just so I could do ridiculous things with monks and barbarians. I think I put it down when I got to the bottom of the dungeon and that dragon ate me for a light snack (I still have to travel east and finish the plot before I am ready for POE2).

Bfgp wrote:

Do the enemy still swarm the glass cannon at the back requiring melee "taunters" to pull them in? That was probably my biggest gripe with POE1, where my glass cannons spent more time running away than anything else.

Life in pillars (I and II) is infinitely less aggravating if you couple at least 1 tank that stacks every 'engagement' skill (and/or gear benefit) they can -- specifically +engagement and not free attacks on if-the-enemy-disengages; next, adding a cipher or multiclass w/cipher specced CC (cipher CC abilities tend to AoE enemies only) negates this further as you can drop CC AoEs right by your tank when he initially sticks an enemy group.

I'm also a big fan of using the custom formation and having the tank out front by a few ~formation tiles. Beyond that, rogues can pick up some escape skills, wizards various defenses to this, and I always have my priest keep 'withdraw' handy just in case some alpha boss-like is pounding a low-HP party member. I'm lvl 6 with my group and haven't kited any of my characters around once yet. That said, PoE2 seems a bit easier in this regard (or possibly the game as a whole).

edit: to be fair, I suspect this wasn't an issue for me, primarily, on account of the CC cipher. They seem borderline broken. In PoE1 I don't think l I touched my wizard till 3/4 of the way through.

another edit/add: a paladin + cipher MC character is just absurd for this in PoE2. Being able to retarget spells halfway through cast is also crazy QoL. If you don't like ciphers, the fact that wizard spells are per encounter (vs the old per rest) means you can still build for CC sans a cipher.