the Eternity Engine

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the Eternity Engine

Postby Newbie » Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:00 am



Pillars of Eternity is a Kickstarted isometric RPG by Obsidian and Paradox, very much in the vein of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment of yore. Preliminary reviews suggest that, rather than merely embodying that lineage, Pillars of Eternity surpasses it, taking the best elements of those games and making something glorious and triumphant.

It is a good time to be alive.
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Thad
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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby Thad » Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:43 am

I bought the D&D Pack (y'know, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, the usual suspects) maybe a year ago but haven't gotten around to playing them, partly because I can't get the resolution quite right in GemRB and partly because there are so damn many other games to play anyhow. This looks like good stuff, but since I've got no income (well, I made $30 last week, but ALMOST no income) I should probably focus on the games I already own.

It's a real pity The Broken Hourglass was never completed. And I'm not just saying that because I worked on it and would have gotten royalties. I'm saying that because you could recruit a goat as a party member.

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beatbandito
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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby beatbandito » Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:36 am

Oh yeah, I knew there was a reason I was recently inspired to do a BG playthrough. Time to shelf that for another decade!
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ocksi
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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby ocksi » Sat Apr 04, 2015 2:41 am

I just finished Pillars. It's really good. I think I'll play through again soon with a party of less story characters so I can play with some of the other classes and play-styles.

That said, I wish there were a Dragon Age-style AI control to curb some of the combat pausing and I wish story characters came at level 1 rather than your current level, so you could prevent some of their stupid specs. A few annoying bugs (though they've already announced a fix-up patch) like cursor leaving its cage whenever a forced camera movement happens.

The last fight took a few tries, but there wasn't much on normal difficulty that really caused problems otherwise. I accidentally chose the wrong dialogue option at the end, so I couldn't finish certain things (Endless Paths, trying to repair Defiance Bay, unused story character quests).

My party ended up being my main character (Druid) and five story characters (Hunter, Priest, Fighter, Paladin, Chanter), which is fairly vanilla RPG class spread and thus lame. I look forward to a harder difficulty and trying out some of the classes I never got to fiddle with.

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sei
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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby sei » Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:11 pm

IEmod for Pillars of Eternity supposedly can let you respec the shitty party member configurations.

Been playing on hard with Cipher (main) and a bunch of story companions (fighter, chanter, priest, wizard, druid). Probably still in Act 1, though the keep is pretty far through being built.

Might do Path of the Damned later and reclass some of the shitty companions (paladin, ranger) and respec some of the badly built ones (cipher and wizard spring to mind).


Giving a cipher penetrating shot, the soul whip upgrades (draining & biting), and a blunderbuss has proven to be pretty effective burst. Wizard and druid seem to be doing most of the crowd work on hard fights.

People on the PoE forums say chanters are really good, but I catch myself forgetting to check their spell availability indicator. The summons were supposedly powerful, though.
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ocksi
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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby ocksi » Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:50 pm

My hard mode party is Monk, Barbarian, Rogue, Chanter, Story Chanter, Story Priest. Homemade chanter is built for heavy armor, shieldy tankiness, and chants buff, while story chanter is his normal ranged self and chants fear and damage. The chanter nukes seem a lot stronger than their summons and getting three chants up to use rank one spells takes no time at all. Double chanter is very nice.

The rogue with an arbalest just deals ridiculous amounts of damage, usually one-shots an enemy to start fights, and Hobbling Strike is great because it's a full attack that gets all the sneak attack bonuses. I was originally planning on trying out cipher in this spot in the party, but I didn't feel like looking up if they could be viable from range or how good their magic is. I should still check at some point and see what kind of heal/support they have as I'd like to get rid of the priest.

Barbarian has been pretty disappointing. Their huge stat bonus when berserk is nice and their self-heal is very good, but the damage output so far seems really bad. I think it might get better.

Monk is very fun. Reflex-tanking one or two enemies has gotten viable around the end of Act 1 and his damage output is on par with rogue in a medium-length fight and higher in a long fight because he can always jumpkick people while rogue gets limited attacks per encounter.

I really like this new party more than my first even though I like Eder as a character and would like to change priest out (but don't know if there is any way to replace the support).

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Re: the Eternity Engine

Postby Newbie » Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:22 am

I am finally about to leave Gilded Vale after spending my limited play time over the past week beating my head against the temple of Eothas on hard with a two-character party. I restarted on normal, actually recruited the wizard and hired a chanter, and things seem to be much more manageable.
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