I've started playing pillars again (level 7, just arriving the village where you recruit grieving mother, not really done anything in Defiance apart from recruiting Pelican or whatever her name was).
And, while i do enjoy the game (and fucking love that we have arquebus's and flintlock pistols), i kinda dislike combat.
Too fiddly, spell selection ui kinda sucks (trying to find out what cleric/druid spells do is real pain in the ass), and i can't really get into status effects beyond spamming oil slick and grieving mothers knockdown thingy.
Also, i hate that i feel like i have to bring Durance (who's an ass) with me for heals, the second change and lay on hands just are not enough in lot of the fights.
And not entirely intentionally, I chose to side with neither faction of the Overlord's army. Although in order to finish the big fight at the end of Act I I had to use the arcane tactic of dropping the difficulty to easy. (And, TBH, I may just leave it there for a while; I'm enjoying the story, but the combat seems a bit fiddly, at least with my current party composition.)
And I'm further now and this is probably a game where I should try to rein in my standard RPG impulse of telling everybody what they want to hear and/or what I think will make them happy.
And the combat got a lot more manageable once I figured out that you can access all of your spells & abilities from the bottom of the character's window, and you're not limited to the row of quick access icons across the top.
Finished, just under 40 hours, albeit with more stuff unfinished or failed than is usual for me in one of these games. I generally enjoyed it although it definitely could've used more time in the oven -- another quality of life pass or two. I ended up leaving the difficulty on easy because the combat just never stopped being kind of irritating -- trying to manage a 4v4 fight in that kind of isometric perspective was just more annoying than it was worth. Ah, well. At some point, maybe I'll go through and try a very different playthrough. I'd also love to see a sequel, but, sadly, am not holding my breath.
Again, I played my character as an exasperated civil servant. She has a job to do, and she's not trying to be a dick, but seriously if you don't get your shit together I'm gonna have the boss breathing down MY neck, and I ain't taking a goddamn edict to the face for any of you primadonnas.
Also, I wouldn't rule a Tyranny sequel out, especially if Pillars of Eternity 2 does well. Speaking of which, I actually liked Tyranny's combat and leveling system a lot more than PoE's.
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And, while i do enjoy the game (and fucking love that we have arquebus's and flintlock pistols), i kinda dislike combat.
Too fiddly, spell selection ui kinda sucks (trying to find out what cleric/druid spells do is real pain in the ass), and i can't really get into status effects beyond spamming oil slick and grieving mothers knockdown thingy.
Also, i hate that i feel like i have to bring Durance (who's an ass) with me for heals, the second change and lay on hands just are not enough in lot of the fights.
Aw yeah Anarchy for life.
And the combat got a lot more manageable once I figured out that you can access all of your spells & abilities from the bottom of the character's window, and you're not limited to the row of quick access icons across the top.
Also, I wouldn't rule a Tyranny sequel out, especially if Pillars of Eternity 2 does well. Speaking of which, I actually liked Tyranny's combat and leveling system a lot more than PoE's.
I did really like the spellcrafting, even though I only scratched the surface of the system. Ditto the equipment and consumables.