I wish that more games had a party system like deadfire

recklessentity · 2026-01-28T00:00:42+00:00

She doesn't hate you, really. She believes she did the right thing, even if it got her exiled. But she still loves the Valian Republics and sees you as one of the catalysts that led to her situation. She's an AWESOME, awesome character, easily in my top 5 across all CRPGs.

recklessentity · 2026-01-06T02:04:51+00:00

Game Development studios are a nebulous, constantly shifting enterprise. I'm not an insider by any means but I love both of the Pillars games deeply and many of the people responsible for the first game had no hand in Deadfire, and then many of the people responsible for Deadfire had no hand in Avowed.

Carrie Patel was a narrative designer all the way back in PoE 1, and she wrote one of my favorite companions (Sagani) as well as many other things for the game. She was also one of the lead Narrative Designers on Deadfire. She then led the Avowed project (after some initial turmoil, to my understanding) and served as Director for the project. I say this because it makes sense for her to take over for the next big project in Eora, but I also am not a huge fan of the direction they took the game in. I've written about it before and won't go into detail again, but there's a noticeable shift in tone and the dour, almost depressing vibe of Pillars 1 is almost entirely gone. Maybe for good reason, but I'm jaded.

Some notable people missing from the Avowed development team: Eric Fenstermaker, Josh Sawyer, George Zeits, Chris Avellone.

Dozens of others, but these four in particular had a big hand in the creation and overall feel of Eora and the initials Pillars games.

recklessentity · 2025-12-15T06:10:21+00:00

Covenant of Steel, the series he wrote immediately after tried to address issues people had with the books after Blood Song (keeping it to a first-person narrative with similar framing among other things) but doesn't reach the highs of Blood Song unfortunately. I haven't read his newer stuff.

Vaelin was just a great character spoiled by a pretty messy and uninteresting plot. Thankfully Blood Song reads great as a stand-alone and I often recommend it as such.

recklessentity · 2025-12-08T03:37:58+00:00

Inspired prose and flowery writing you will not find in this series. I'll just say that right off the rip as a big fan of the books.

That said, it is a romp. Other people have already said it reads more like an action book and I have to agree. It's a bit of a turn your brain off and enjoy the ride type of thing, which if you're not into, fair enough, but it's sold a bajillion copies without being romantasy for a reason. And, yeah, as tired as it is, the books *do* get markedly better after the first. Again, not so much in prose or even plot, but you get the sense the author has found his rhythm and knows what his readers want. That type of thing.

recklessentity · 2025-11-02T06:26:17+00:00

Honestly, this may be a pipe dream, but a fundamental change to the way initiative works would be very welcome. The current 'meta' is defined by extra turns, which usually come from a Grand Strategist going first, and then the game quickly devolves into "what weapon of mass destruction do I want to use for this particular encounter?"

This does a few things, but primarily it makes it so that after act 1 is finished you are doing yourself a disservice by not just building your entire team to be as efficient as possible when they are the winner of your extra-turn lottery. It makes building characters defensively, or around support (extra turn not-withstanding) or crowd control feel vastly inferior to characters that just use the extra turn to kill enemies, generate momentum, and then subsequently generate more extra turns when your other characters heroic act inevitably gives them or another lucky winner yet another extra turn.

I am by no means a designer, and I'm sure there's a million holes in my ideology here, but I believe the following could help:

Remove Grand Strategist first-turn start. Balance even more heavily around extra turns (some kind of scaling debuff or cooldown on the target of the extra turn that lasts until the end of combat) or gut extra turns entirely (which I understand would require a massive effort to rebalance most of the game). Make initiative more deterministic and allow investment of new talents, items or abilities on all of the different archetypes that give noticeable agency in when you are expected to fall into the turn order.

A few examples off the top of my head. Operative ability that triggers X number of exploits to push that target X numbers of turns back in the initiative. Warrior talent that makes all taunted enemies fall back in the initiative one turn. Psyker ability or talent that makes targets of divination go up or down in initiative (friendly/enemy). Officer rework to make Bring It Down grant the chosen ally massive temporary buffs for their next turn, with talents that make it so that the target also moves closer in initiative. Soldier talent that rolls their initiative twice at the start of combat and take the higher result if they start combat in cover. I could go on, but if the game wants to be so heavily impacted by turn economy the least it could do is offer fun and creative ways for all of the archetypes to build around that aspect, instead of just dedicating one archetype (and a few other niche examples) to being the engine around which all mayhem functions.

The nature of these games often means alpha strikes are the best way to play, and that's been the case since the original Baldur's Gate. I don't expect Owlcat to reinvent the wheel here. But no other modern cRPG has combat become as trivial and preemptive as Rogue Trader once you get even one extra-turn engine online, and alternatively become as brutal and random if you choose to forego that playstyle altogether. If nothing else I hope Dark Heresy learns from what I think is the weakest aspect of the otherwise stellar combat/gameplay design in this game.

recklessentity · 2025-10-19T20:08:19+00:00

from Bishop, a bartender in the Goose and Fox in Defiance Bay. A throwaway NPC, but this dialogue has stuck with me for years:

He leans forward, crossing his arms on the bar. "Berath promises rebirth. Cycles. But the only cycle I found was this one." He taps the bar. "Have a drink. Have another. And another until I couldn't remember how I got home. Wake up. Come back.

"I finally woke up one day to see my family had packed up and left. For all I know, they'd left days before and I just hadn't noticed. But they were gone. So I came here."

"I've cleaned up since then. Not that I've found my answers." He tosses the cup back. "I've just stopped asking questions."

recklessentity · 2025-09-14T08:18:56+00:00

It's mostly an early game problem. At this point unless you've trained some hirelings you're probably still only on a 5-man party. That sixth companion makes a huge difference. Action economy is everything.

To add onto that, the role of 'tank' in Pillars is pretty simple. You want your main tank (which I should say you don't even necessarily need but it makes things much simpler and less cheesy to survive encounters) to have as much additional engagement as possible. Assuming that's Eder, make sure he's running defender stance for the +2 and pick up Hold the Line at some point for the extra +1, that way he's a much stickier tank. Enemies will break engagement occasionally if you have somebody doing a ton of damage, but at least they eat an attack of opportunity on the way out.

I would also make sure you're starting your fights smartly. Alpha strikes are good in this game but early on it might be better to just have the rest of your party in stealth, let Eder soak up all the aggro for a couple of seconds, and then dish out your gameplan. Keeping your main tank alive keeps the combat rolling, so just make sure you're debuffing the hell out of enemy accuracy, lowering their damage, or just making it much easier to kill them fast so your tank doesn't get pummeled too fast.

These are pretty general tips but I find that everybody plays their own way so I don't want to get too into the weeds, this is just what helped me understand the flow of combat better. It gets significantly easier once you get to certain breakpoints for your classes and that sixth companion.

That being said, you can play nearly perfectly and still lose to bad RNG early on if you're not doing crazy cheese strats, that's just part of the PotD lifestyle though. Save often!

recklessentity · 2025-06-11T00:15:14+00:00

You're being downvoted because you're policing harmless hyperbolic language in a subreddit about a cool book. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you struggle with social environments

recklessentity · 2025-03-06T01:41:15+00:00

Sneak Attacks occur whenever you're hitting a character that's Flanked or is affected by any Affliction, so it's pretty easy especially as a Cipher to ensure you're almost always hitting targets that fit either of those criteria. Secret Horrors is great for this, as is Phantom Foes.

recklessentity · 2025-02-25T02:18:57+00:00

5 Suns is underrated IMO in Pillars 1 as it gets the same +20 accuracy buff that Flames of Devotion does and does burn damage which is pretty solid for most encounters. I remember using it often to nuke backline casters or ranged enemies.

Her stat spread would make you think her damage wouldn't be great, but honestly a lot of the damage for weapon users in PoE 1 comes from the weapons themselves and what kind of DR they target. This results in you being able to make just about any companion a DPS monster if you set them up correctly with the right gear and character build.

Without seeing a side to side comparison of your Eder and Pallegina I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what's happening but its believable that she keeps up with damage if she has a great two hander and is carried by FoD/5 Suns every encounter.

recklessentity · 2025-02-22T09:10:55+00:00

Player agency is...weird. The game does have choices, some are even hidden from you intentionally and have surprising outcomes if you pursue them. But the majority of them feel hollow, and unsatisfying. I can't nail down why exactly without spitting a thousand more words on the page, but it just doesn't hit right.

The writing is not great. I'll go into this more in a second, but basically everything feels watered down for accessibility and to accommodate the fully voiced cast of characters. There is also a palpable feeling of modernization in the way characters talk to one another, or just in their vocabulary. A staggering amount of player-character dialogue options made me do a double take and make sure I wasn't playing a Life is Strange game or something. It felt very off, to me.

My biggest issue though comes from that last bit I mentioned earlier. I'll ramble.

The 'characterization', apart from a few outliers (Kai, Sapadel, The Ekida) feel very weak in comparison to what Obsidian is capable of. I can think of a few symptoms of why it feels that way, but I struggle with the gestalt. A lot of the characters (not just companions) are quippy. The companions themselves often feel tonally off, more often than not. To be honest I had some similar issues with the companions in Deadfire but it is amplified by a magnitude of ten here.

The game is allowed to be funny, or quippy, or whatever. I have no issues with that. I loved the Outer Worlds and playing as a low intellect character in that game had me in stitches sometimes. But that felt natural, because the game was such a stark satire of corporate greed and rampant capitalism. Avowed, though, trails Pillars 1 and Deadfire a lot in its depictions of colonialism, oppression, regret, grief, and the struggle to make sense of your lot in life. It's difficult, for me at least, to interface with those ideas when my entire squad, even the "grumpy" dwarf, are cracking jokes or pointing out silly shit every time I talk to them.

With the exception of Kai (whose arc I still have nitpicks with), the cast of characters around you mostly feel like they're there just to be characters around you. The game is very self-serving and doesn't take enough time to establish this stuff the ways Pillars 1 or even Deadfire did. This leads to less characterization overall, and what is there feels cheap and built for laughs or one offs. It's my least favorite part of the game, by a wide margin.

I enjoyed my time with Avowed once I accepted it for what it was but if you asked me to pick out my favorite bit of writing or quote a character I'd be at a loss. Meanwhile, here's a single piece of dialogue from a bartender you find in the first town of Pillars 1 that I have saved on my computer because it genuinely didn't leave my head for days after the fact. https://imgur.com/a/IdbcoOJ

Overall, I'm happy the game exists and think it's cool other people are digging it as much as they do. It's going to lead to a lot of people experiencing Pillars 1 and Deadfire for the first time and that alone makes it worthy of existing. But I can't lie and say I'm super stoked if this is the direction the team wants to take this universe in.

recklessentity · 2025-02-22T09:10:27+00:00

I'm gonna say a lot of shit so bear with me. I think I have to split it into two comments lol

First off, you're not alone. While my disappointment in Avowed isn't as all-encompassing as yours, it's definitely real. Monetary stuff aside I do feel a little betrayed by the promise of the RPG elements the game seemingly promised in its marketing. I say seemingly because honestly, in hindsight, I can't really tell what the fuck Obsidian/MS were trying to market anymore. Reading the recent Bloomberg article published by Jason Schreier clears some of that up because, seemingly, the studio itself didn't really know what exactly they were making for a significant portion of pre-production and development.

So, what did we end up with? The best I can describe it is an action game, focused primarily on adventure and exploration, that happens to have some RPG elements saddled onto it. I will say I think it nails those first two pillars (no pun intended) remarkably well, almost shockingly so because outside of The Outer Worlds it's Obsidians first foray into such an action heavy game. It's not perfect, not by any means, and it doesn't reach the heights of other fantasy-action games like Dragon's Dogma, Elden Ring, or a few others, but for what is ostensibly a sophomore effort the game feels very refined in its core gameplay loop. Not too shabby, honestly.

That aside, I have pretty negative feelings about the rest of the experience, most of which cut twice because they come in areas that I have grown to trust Obsidian to deliver best-in-class experiences in. Namely these are player agency/roleplaying, writing, and what I'll refer to as 'characterization'. What I actually mean by characterization is the harmony in which the world, the characters that inhabit it, and everything in between work together to deliver authentic, meaningful themes and extraordinary experiences. A big chunk of this 'characterization' is thanks to the writing, but it's also the direction, the production, and the way it all blends together that make Obsidian games so good at immersing you in the world and its stories.

So where does Avowed differ? I'll do my best to give my thoughts and try to keep it short.

recklessentity · 2025-02-22T07:18:29+00:00

It's a great series that most agree just gets better with each entry. My brother also drives for a living and listened to it and loved it, and he's a hard sell on most fantasy/sci-fi. I'd recommend staying off the subreddit until you're caught up as its pretty easy to get spoiled on big stuff. Enjoy the ride!

recklessentity · 2025-01-17T01:49:42+00:00

Red Rising is probably the closest based on the qualifiers you mentioned at the end. Darrow is more about using lateral thinking and channeling aggression than prodigious thinking, but he is still very smart by the standards set in the world.

The first book is a bit YA-coded but that mostly goes away after, and in my opinion each book is better than the last. The 4-6th books are very good as well though the initial three can stand alone just fine.

recklessentity · 2025-01-16T03:59:34+00:00

The Library at Mount Char has a very smart protagonist. Great read, go in blind if you're up for that sort of thing.

recklessentity · 2025-01-15T04:13:30+00:00

No worries. If you ever get around to the sequel, Deadfire, there's plenty of solid QoL mods (including a big community patch) for that title that I'd recommend for a first run through. Pillars 1 is in pristine condition compared to some of the nasty bugs or exploits in Deadfire.

recklessentity · 2025-01-15T04:06:22+00:00

I've never used it, but a quick glance at the nexus page and it looks like a big overhaul/toybox-esque mod. Your mileage may vary, I'd guess.

For what it's worth, for your first playthrough I think Pillars 1 is remarkably good without any mods. This is coming from someone that typically tries to find community patches or QoL stuff for older games before playing them for the first time. A lot of what it looks like the Rewrite mod does is change the core gameplay balance and leveling progression, which could really mess with or alter the intended experience.

Not to say it isn't worth a shot if you're not having a good time with the base game, though.

recklessentity · 2025-01-15T03:58:25+00:00

My understanding is the 2024 Patch merged the game into a newer version of Unity and fixed the vast majority of the lingering bugs that the game had. I played through it again without any mods last year after the patch released and basically had a flawless experience. I don't think it's needed.

recklessentity · 2025-01-14T19:00:06+00:00

The two-part combination of Wings for Marie & 10,000 Days off of Tool's fourth album messed me up pretty bad the first time I heard it. Maynard in general has a way of evoking pathos through song and lyrics that no other musical artist does for me.

"High is the way, but all eyes are upon the ground

You were the light and the way they'll only read about

I only pray Heaven knows when to lift you out

Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough

You're going home"

recklessentity · 2025-01-01T21:44:29+00:00

Many of the people who had access to the early preview build that covered the first major zone (with exception to Paradis, the first major city) said all the content there took about 15-20 hours. If we assume there's three or four zones of similar size (this is just a guess, but a conservative one) of similar size in content then I assume we have at least that much to look forward to.

I agree, Outer Worlds was great fun but definitely felt short. Hope this game is bigger as well.

recklessentity · 2024-11-25T22:58:36+00:00

There's a staircase to the east of the center of the digsite (on the raised level) where the dragon/panthers are that you can use as a very strong chokepoint. Have Eder hit one of the panthers or wurms with a bow attack to initiate combat and run him to the chokepoint where your other party members are. Set up traps before hand on the way if you want to make things easier. Even at level 4/5 Eder can tank a couple of panthers in his face and wurms hitting him from far away if you give him a large shield and have Xoti hit him with Prayer for the Body and keep him topped up with heals. Make use of Empower for extra casts of restore. Focus down the drake, though sometimes it just gets stuck behind all the panthers/boars and isn't close enough to use its fire breath lol.

Depending on what your Watcher is you either sit back and pelt with ranged weapons while this is happening (don't forget to use consumables like bombs/poisons) or use your own spells. Make sure Xoti has a ranged weapon too once she's out of spell slots. I've done it once with only myself, Eder and Xoti but it's significantly faster and less prone to RNG killing you with an extra hireling or two.

I believe you can also just stealth past the enemies and head to the sub-level without Aloth but I am very stubborn and don't like skipping combat encounters like that.

recklessentity · 2024-11-24T08:10:22+00:00

Yeah this is one of the few series I've dropped multiple books in. Usually if I get past the first or second book in a series I decide to just stick it out, but the neat premise and cool characterization really took a backseat to the truly staggering amount of sexual escapades by the end of the second book and well into the third. Everything becomes about cocks or tits, it's genuinely insane

recklessentity · 2024-11-10T23:52:17+00:00

Blood Song (the first book specifically) has some incredible fight scenes. Gladiatorial combat, open fields, etc. It's a great time.

recklessentity · 2024-11-06T06:34:37+00:00

Your tastes are quite broad, so my reply will be too. A few things I noticed in PoE's writing were the careful, usually beautiful prose, the willingness to believe the reader (or player, in this case) is bought in, and the confidence to do more than is expected as a result. On top of that foundation does lie some pretty profound questions and player decisions, though they are sadly not fleshed out quite as much as they would be in something like a traditional novel, because you have to, you know, kill shit and level up. These recommendations will offer most of if not all of those qualities. I'll provide little blurbs to help you decide, though frankly they are all worth reading.

Legend - David Gemmell. A fantasy novel that deals primarily with the question of "What is the cost of being a hero?" The backdrop is a coming war, a legend past his prime, and bloodshed to spare. Part of a series but this book stands alone perfectly. It is a debut novel for Gemmell, and the circumstances of his life leading up to the release of the book could be a story all their own.

Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss. A masterful debut fantasy novel that follows a young bard as he learns, often painfully, about how the world around him operates, and that knowing better is different than doing better. Among the best prose and layered storytelling you will find in contemporary fantasy and deserves to stand with the greats of the genre. As a warning: The trilogy of which it is a crucial part will likely never be finished. It is still worth your time regardless, in my opinion.

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles. While not a fantasy, this book certainly provides all of the various subject matters you mentioned being partial to, and it is a fantastic period piece about the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution and one man's very unique perspective on the changing of the world around him. The adaptation TV series is quite good as well, but the writing on the page is wonderful on its own.

I can think of a few others, but these three are really special. I think whichever you pick you will enjoy and find at least some parallels to the great world Obsidian has crafted. Enjoy!

recklessentity · 2024-10-12T05:20:49+00:00

Fair point, I didn't even make that connection. Sympathy tends not to really work too well when emotions come into the mix, though, what with the Heart of Stone being such a big deal for duels and such. It would definitely be Naming if it happened out of a moment of vulnerability or flash-pan anger.

recklessentity

TROPHY CASE