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Pillars of Eternity - Eat my Cipher!


Relic

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The tough thing about the story is that it's deliberately set as a mystery early on; you've got these vague visions that don't mean much to you. It's not until after you've started to piece things together that it really starts to grab you, and by then you're 2/3 through the game. PST just felt more personal right from the start, whereas here, it feels like you're just going forward because the game demands it. Sigil was also inherently a lot more interesting than the Dyrwood, but that's a rather high hurdle to clear.

I'm on my second playthrough now, and the early stage writing feels a lot more interesting now that I have context. The problem is that without a compelling character to tie you to the story, the mystery can feel more irritating than interesting.

That's my main problem with the Endless Paths, too - it's too much of a dungeon crawl, and not enough of a narrative. You walk in you clear a level of monsters, then you go down to the next level. It's not until you get further down and start seeing the why of the dungeon that it becomes interesting - they really should have interspersed that from the beginning, and added more quests instead of just populating more tunnels with monsters to kill.

All in all, thoug, I still love this game. I wish there were more role-playing opportunities, as hinted by the character creation screens.

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So I started doing Knights quests to get into the hearings and when one sent me out of Defiance Bay, took that opportunity to go a couple more levels down the endless paths. I'm really having trouble playing for more than an hour or so at a time now. I've done enough sidequests that I'm way overleveled for the content I'm on (though I imagine that won't be an issue once I get a bit deeper into the paths), and I'm really not hooked on the story. It started with such promise, but it now feels bogged down in side stories while the main quest stalls out; also I'm disappointed that most of the party members have had so little to say since my initial conversations with them.



Its a good game, albeit too long, and I don't regret getting it; but its not getting anywhere close to PS:T or Fallout 2 on my list of favorite cRPGs.


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The Master Below...



Holy shit, that was ridiculous.



I thought I could threaten her out of a fight with a high Resolve dialogue option and she totally kicked my ass, so I reloaded that and tried a different approach, wherein I ended up talking her into letting me try to put some necklace on a dragon hunter. But then I went to the dragon hunter out in the Black Meadow and, because my character is a nice guy, I admitted my purpose in doing so - thinking that perhaps the hunter might decide, well, life's been boring lately so sure, why not let a dragon take over. As it turned out, telling her about the necklace meant the dragon was pissed and there would be no more takeover.



So... back down to the bottom level needing to fight. The dragon at this point was not insta-aggro, I guess because her essence was still in the necklace. I took out the adragan adds in the back and the xaurip ones off to the side before the dragon waddled over to fight me... about eight fights later I managed to shred the xaurip fast enough to get in some semblance of a position to fight the Master Below, who tended to use a breath attack that took 4/6 of my party to zero endurance. Eventually I got her focused on my character (tank fighter) and facing away from the rest of the bunch, enough to at least get a fight going.



Not so easy as all that, even so, because when Durance came over to restore my fighter's endurance, he got caught in the breath and KO'd. I had to try to do some revival (Pallegina and Kana both had capability to do so) and grind out the fight. The Master knocked out my tank and then steadily all the rest of my party, except for Sagani, who eventually plinked her down and dealt the killing blow when she herself had about 8 Endurance.



This was at level 12 with some decent gear. No easy task, but now it's done. So now to see if I can go win the game.


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The Master Below...

Holy shit, that was ridiculous.

I thought I could threaten her out of a fight with a high Resolve dialogue option and she totally kicked my ass, so I reloaded that and tried a different approach, wherein I ended up talking her into letting me try to put some necklace on a dragon hunter. But then I went to the dragon hunter out in the Black Meadow and, because my character is a nice guy, I admitted my purpose in doing so - thinking that perhaps the hunter might decide, well, life's been boring lately so sure, why not let a dragon take over. As it turned out, telling her about the necklace meant the dragon was pissed and there would be no more takeover.

So... back down to the bottom level needing to fight. The dragon at this point was not insta-aggro, I guess because her essence was still in the necklace. I took out the adragan adds in the back and the xaurip ones off to the side before the dragon waddled over to fight me... about eight fights later I managed to shred the xaurip fast enough to get in some semblance of a position to fight the Master Below, who tended to use a breath attack that took 4/6 of my party to zero endurance. Eventually I got her focused on my character (tank fighter) and facing away from the rest of the bunch, enough to at least get a fight going.

Not so easy as all that, even so, because when Durance came over to restore my fighter's endurance, he got caught in the breath and KO'd. I had to try to do some revival (Pallegina and Kana both had capability to do so) and grind out the fight. The Master knocked out my tank and then steadily all the rest of my party, except for Sagani, who eventually plinked her down and dealt the killing blow when she herself had about 8 Endurance.

This was at level 12 with some decent gear. No easy task, but now it's done. So now to see if I can go win the game.

Easily the hardest fight in the game. Nothing comes close. The end boss might take two ries to adapt, but is much easier overall. No need to worry too much.

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And now finished.



I took the Berathian path in the end, although I was very tempted also by Hylea's resolution. Due to a bit of a misunderstanding on my part, I ended up telling both Berath and Hylea that I would help them... so Hylea was rather pissed and it said she controlled dragons and flying creatures to kill thousands of people across Defiance Bay over the next several months afterwards. Oops!



I am still not sure about that one. Restoring the souls to the Hollowborn just seemed kind of, I don't know... like people deserved a fresh start rather than coming into a body with all of that baggage. But then again, most Hollowborn probably didn't live for very long so it really would have just given the babies a chance? That was a hard choice. I didn't give any thought to any of the others. Wael tried to talk me into going for a chaos ending. No chance.



Several bits in the ending left me feeling like, well, what was the point of all of that? Maybe I just resolved them the "wrong" way. The fact that killing Lord Raedric twice led to the Gilded Vale being rulerless and a "lawless" kind of place was a bit unsatisfying, but even more than that, the Heritage Hill machine getting re-activated and the place getting sealed off again despite my efforts was a bummer. I suppose it fits with the theme of the game though, as I was not blind to the fact that most of the party members' quests ended up in a "journey is more important than the destination" kind of way anyway. Poor Pallegina, followed her conscience but still forever an outsider.



In the end I enjoyed playing this game, though it was more of a slow burn than it could have been. The back half and especially third of the game where you're unraveling what the gods are/aren't is good stuff. I wish there would have been more revealed steadily about the Thaos/Iovara conflict rather than not seeing her until Twin Elms. I don't think it has a lot of replay value, though I might be curious enough to try from the beginning with a different party configuration now that I know more of what I'm doing.



I'm also glad that I supported this kind of game with a purchase, very much a vote with your wallet thing. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. Better voice work than I expected, Durance in particular was A+.


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  • 1 month later...

I just started playing the game the other day, and I am about 5 hours in. I missed these types of games when they were first introduced, and got an introduction to them playing the new Shadowlands RPGs. I then went on to play Wastelands II.



All of the games that I mentioned were extremely enjoyable, but this is something else. The writing in this game is superb. Instead pf being annoyed by blurbs coming up, I am finding myself relishing in the prose, and it really helps me get into the story. It is as accomplished as most of the books that I read. I understand that this is a very long adventure, and I am really glad that I wound up playing this one based on board recommendation...



What I am trying to say is.... Thank you guys.


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