Pillars of Eternity - Exploration thread

2015-04-10 10:45:41 am

I didn't think about going minimum Con, that's a fair point. I'll play around with it.

You can "pre-aggro" Thaos twice by placing an offensive AoE at his spawn point and using pause on combat start, but you never get long enough control to get off anything significant. Debug stun somehow takes too long even though it'd be the fastest option I can think of. Durance's trip trap doesn't seem to trigger for some reason.

Aqfaq

Edit history:

Aqfaq: 2015-04-10 11:18:53 am

2015-04-10 11:13:22 am

So, now that the goal is to lose health as efficiently as possible it might be advisable to remove the armor from the main character. This allows killing the caravan fast while still receiving good damage. The regeneration potion helps a lot.

Edit:

Looking at it more closely now.

Druid has minimum 114 health and 29 endurance.

Without the endurance potion druid can take 28 damage in the battle.

114 - 28 = 86 health left.

The first sunbeam can do 28 damage without killing the player.

86 - 28 = 58

The second sunbeam would need to be a critical hit to cause 58 damage. This all seems very hard to manipulate.

It looks like using the endurance potion in the first battle is necessary.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-10 11:28:09 am

Onin: 2015-04-10 11:20:56 am

2015-04-10 11:19:59 am

I don't like the idea of using just autoattacks to clear the entire caravan. It's risky, entirely reliant on a really dumb AI, and so slow compared to just murdering everything with one spell.

With the right movement it's possible to tank two traps from the center without dying, which also skips having to disarm two of them, and puts you quite a bit lower. Whether it's enough to suicide from is entirely RNG, however.

Sunbeam targets Reflex, so maybe I just want as low Reflex as possible as well.

Fan of Flames also targets Reflex, so I don't want TOO low Reflex. x_X

Aqfaq

Edit history:

Aqfaq: 2015-04-10 11:41:07 am

2015-04-10 11:21:19 am

Hahaa, good catch.

Edit:

I tried the first battle a couple of times and now it seems that you just need luck. The player position should not matter much. Sometimes the player dies, but other times I can jiseed everyone to death without losing much health at all.

Oh, who is doing fan of flames on you?

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-10 11:53:41 am

2015-04-10 11:42:59 am

The traps.

I dunno man, all of this is so terribly RNG reliant, while just having the followers is a guaranteed suicide without any pointlessly complicated workarounds.

Aqfaq

2015-04-10 12:32:11 pm

You can easily disarm the few low-level traps that are there. No need to trigger them.

But yeah, do whatever feels the best for you. It is not a bad deal to do the caravan questline.

Onin

2015-04-10 01:02:39 pm

I think the best line is to go minimum Perception for lower reflex, and just trigger a few of the first row of traps, which rarely kill me, to get my health lower, and take some disengage attacks from the spiders for the last bit of health. That should consistently get me low enough. Then it's just praying sunbeam doesn't miss or graze for 8 damage ._.

Aqfaq

2015-04-10 06:35:11 pm

Have you practiced using Jiseed's trick effectively? It is an insanely powerful trick, because you can hit "I" and "ESC" almost simultaneously, so that there is practically no pause time at all. Later in the game, while others are busy casting spells, the remaining party members (at least one) should be doing this trick.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-10 06:46:51 pm

2015-04-10 06:44:08 pm

Yeah, it's pretty simple. But there aren't really any major 2-handed weapons in the lategame. The best melee damage is done by shapeshifted druids, but the druid also has the best spells. And if it doesn't work on guns, then it doesn't help with the most powerful weapons. It can definitely have some use cleaning up after killing most of the enemies (or while casting stuff if there's time), and I'll look into what weapon I can give Eder for that purpose, but its major use is really in the earlygame.

Oh right, the cypher also starts with a 2handed axe. I should give that to Eder, help clean up Caed Nua a bit faster.

Aqfaq

2015-04-10 08:38:22 pm

It works with guns too. You just need to be fast enough to not enter the reloading animation. Quite easy. Same with bows. As soon as an arrow is released, you can start shooting another one. Arbalest is a very strong weapon with very slow reloading time normally. Quite devastating now.

Jiseed

2015-04-13 01:38:41 pm

I cant get it to work with guns or crossbows, might be a version difference since I'm running on 1.03. I'm also surprised you guys can kill yourselves solo as a druid with sunbeam, I've only had it work once and have never been able to replicate it since.

I finished the game and decided to throw together a route for the speedrun considering all the new things we've found. I'll link the video below, its not too terribly optimized at this point but shows the general route off quite well.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-13 03:09:05 pm

Onin: 2015-04-13 03:08:15 pm

Onin: 2015-04-13 02:59:17 pm

Onin: 2015-04-13 02:55:56 pm

2015-04-13 02:17:05 pm

It's really not difficult. You just gotta pause buffer until the combat log says "You cast Sunbeam", then hit the transition. And then it has to not miss you or fail to kill you.

Your loading times are so much faster than mine, there's no way I can compete on this system Cheesy

Watched the run, a number of comments:
Skipping Aloth goes faster by aggroing some nearby villagers instead (not the ones he's fighing), running past his trigger, then killing them to end combat. He'll stay where he is but his dialogue should never trigger.
I really did not think you could stealth past so many encounters. I can see why you'd forego getting the companions, since their stealth skill all sucks. It takes you over a minute to stat up the rogue, but I guess it just ends up worth while.
Speaking of which, you can speed that up a little by not assigning any stat points until the last level-up and do them all in bulk.
Pretty sure you're taking a slower exit in Twin Elms to go to Oldsong. It doesn't matter which exit you take (as long as it's not the one going outside), they're always unlocked.
You can leave the dragon's nest faster by making the rogue stand as close to the exit but on top of the cliff, then using the exit, it's just close enough to count.
Before the one spectre in the pit, you could switch the axe back to the cypher. Bit of menu time to save time in combat.
Any chance you can use the rogue's vanish to escape combat with Thaos after you've killed him, and the statues have killed off the cypher?

Also, the timing is 37:53, from finishing character creation to the screen turning white. Smiley

It's really not difficult. You just gotta pause buffer until the combat log says "You cast Sunbeam", then hit the transition. And then it has to not miss you or fail to kill you.

Your loading times are so much faster than mine, there's no way I can compete on this system :D

Watched the run, a number of comments:
Skipping Aloth goes faster by aggroing some nearby villagers instead (not the ones he's fighing), running past his trigger, then killing them to end combat. He'll stay where he is but his dialogue should never trigger.
I really did not think you could stealth past so many encounters. I can see why you'd forego getting the companions, since their stealth skill all sucks. It takes you over a minute to stat up the rogue, but I guess it just ends up worth while.
Speaking of which, you can speed that up a little by not assigning any stat points until the last level-up and do them all in bulk.
Pretty sure you're taking a slower exit in Twin Elms to go to Oldsong. It doesn't matter which exit you take (as long as it's not the one going outside), they're always unlocked.
You can leave the dragon's nest faster by making the rogue stand as close to the exit but on top of the cliff, then using the exit, it's just close enough to count.
Before the one spectre in the pit, you could switch the axe back to the cypher. Bit of menu time to save time in combat.
Any chance you can use the rogue's vanish to escape combat with Thaos after you've killed him, and the statues have killed off the cypher?

Also, the timing is 37:53, from finishing character creation to the screen turning white. :)

Aqfaq

Edit history:

Aqfaq: 2015-04-13 05:15:15 pm

2015-04-13 04:16:28 pm

Well done, Jiseed. Good thinking and sneaking.

Looking forward to the next run that uses the sunbeam trick and doesn't waste time triggering so many traps in the first cave. It was an entertaining strategy, though. I am totally out of ideas on how to improve the route, so I'll just wait and see what comes up next. Good luck!

Edit:

Quote from Onin:

Durance's trip trap doesn't seem to trigger for some reason.

Have you tested placing ordinary traps?

Onin

2015-04-13 05:19:37 pm

Quote from Aqfaq:

Have you tested placing ordinary traps?

No, but I don't think there are any stunning traps, so I don't see it helping much.

Aqfaq

2015-04-13 06:05:03 pm

Yeah, I guess it is useless here. However, there are games where the boss health is loaded a bit late, which allows killing the boss immediately when it spawns.

I wonder if the two guardians can be left alive and lured off-screen, so that the battle can end when only Thaos is killed? Maybe if the guardians chase a summoned creature to the upper part of the area, then we kill Thaos and retreat to the lower part of the area? When the summoned creature is killed, then the fight ends even though guardians are still alive?

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-14 06:52:36 am

Onin: 2015-04-13 06:11:20 pm

2015-04-13 06:09:44 pm

There's that force wall blocking the entrance to the arena, you wouldn't be able to get past it. I've tried losing the guardians' aggro by stunning them on the opposite side of the area, leaving one character there to die, and letting the others retreat, but that doesn't work. But I never tried it with the rogue vanish.

While Thaos can take damage before the fight initiates, you can only place one trap at a time. Unless you can disarm the death ring trap in the Pit, you're never gonna have enough damage to achieve it.

Edit: I tried everything, but dropping combat after killing Thaos doesn't seem to happen. The statues just stay in combat for no good reason.
I also tried to get through sun in shadow without having to kill anything, but also no success there. I feel there's a perfect timing possible, where the cypher dies, the rogue vanishes, and runs into the last summon cutscene to teleport the cypher away before he stands up and aggroes things again, but I didn't manage to get it.

Jiseed

2015-04-14 01:28:38 pm

Thanks for the help with the sunbeam trick, works like a charm now. Additionally it seems to be a bit faster/safer to simply have Calisca hit you before you engage the caravan in order to lower your health. Running a moon godlike also helps speed things up as you wont be knocked out so easily. Definitely seems like the way to go for the prologue.

I found you can skip Aloth simply by taking a wider route around him, no need to waste time going into combat there now. All of the other suggestions were great time savers as well, thanks for pointing them out(the exit I used to go to Oldsong was in fact 1 second slower :P). Additionally I found you can skip the "Confession" cutscene before entering the Pit by following the perimeter to the left of it and clicking on it from above.

The big issue now is how to optimize the rogue. As far as race choice goes I can't decide whether Hearth Orlan, Death Godlike or Aumana/Dwarf is best. I did some testing with the Orlan, and the crits were a bit more noticeable. Then again, its only a chance while the 25% extra damage from Death Godlike and the +2 Might from the other races is always guaranteed. Probably going to need a little testing to really decide.

The second issue is weapon choice. 1h would probably be better than 2h due to the increased accuracy and therefore more hits/crits instead of grazes on the statues in the final fight. However, there are no decent 1h weapons on the route as far as I can tell. I've considered manipulating the drop RNG via resting, but that would throw off the guaranteed boots of speed on Burial Isle which complicates the skip there quite substantially. One option is to get the mace from the shop in Twin Elms, but that costs a good 30-35 seconds and I'm not sure it adds up to a time save. If 1h is completely out of the question, then it becomes an issue between killing Kana for his Fine Estoc (-5dr, 15 seconds to kill/loot Kana) or just simply keeping the Pollaxe. Minus DR is easily the best DPS stat, but we lose a decent amount of accuracy and little time if we use it so I'm unsure.

Theres probably more things that I'm not considering at the moment, but those are the main ones I can think of now.

Thanks for the help with the sunbeam trick, works like a charm now. Additionally it seems to be a bit faster/safer to simply have Calisca hit you before you engage the caravan in order to lower your health. Running a moon godlike also helps speed things up as you wont be knocked out so easily. Definitely seems like the way to go for the prologue.

I found you can skip Aloth simply by taking a wider route around him, no need to waste time going into combat there now. All of the other suggestions were great time savers as well, thanks for pointing them out(the exit I used to go to Oldsong was in fact 1 second slower :P). Additionally I found you can skip the "Confession" cutscene before entering the Pit by following the perimeter to the left of it and clicking on it from above.

The big issue now is how to optimize the rogue. As far as race choice goes I can't decide whether Hearth Orlan, Death Godlike or Aumana/Dwarf is best. I did some testing with the Orlan, and the crits were a bit more noticeable. Then again, its only a chance while the 25% extra damage from Death Godlike and the +2 Might from the other races is always guaranteed. Probably going to need a little testing to really decide.

The second issue is weapon choice. 1h would probably be better than 2h due to the increased accuracy and therefore more hits/crits instead of grazes on the statues in the final fight. However, there are no decent 1h weapons on the route as far as I can tell. I've considered manipulating the drop RNG via resting, but that would throw off the guaranteed boots of speed on Burial Isle which complicates the skip there quite substantially. One option is to get the mace from the shop in Twin Elms, but that costs a good 30-35 seconds and I'm not sure it adds up to a time save. If 1h is completely out of the question, then it becomes an issue between killing Kana for his Fine Estoc (-5dr, 15 seconds to kill/loot Kana) or just simply keeping the Pollaxe. Minus DR is easily the best DPS stat, but we lose a decent amount of accuracy and little time if we use it so I'm unsure.

Theres probably more things that I'm not considering at the moment, but those are the main ones I can think of now.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-14 02:27:56 pm

2015-04-14 02:20:28 pm

Going from 19 to 21 Might increases damage from 127% to 133%, less than 5% relative damage increase.
Death Godlike's ability is a multiplier, but it's an average damage increase of below 5% (20% bonus damage, less than 25% of the time.)
Hearth Orlan is a 10% increase in crits. I don't know how it rolls this, but I assume it just rolls a separate 10% chance on scoring a hit to make it a crit instead. Crits deal 1.5x damage.

The Wiki notes an odd way for the attack tables to work. Your base hit chance is 50%. Your Graze chance is 35%. Higher accuracy gives higher Crit chance and lower miss chance, and really high accuracy reduces Grazes for more Crits. Lower accuracy gives more Misses, and eventually trades Hits for Misses.

This means that Orlan will give at most a 5% damage increase, but it gets lower as you have lower accuracy. Thaos shouldn't have very high Deflection, so for him it wouldn't matter, but the Guardians probably have pretty high Deflection.

In short, they're all surprisingly similar. Which makes me think Borean Dwarf is the best choice: bonus damage against spectres along with +2 strength.

Going from 19 to 21 Might increases damage from 127% to 133%, less than 5% relative damage increase.
Death Godlike's ability is a multiplier, but it's an average damage increase of below 5% (20% bonus damage, less than 25% of the time.)
Hearth Orlan is a 10% increase in crits. I don't know how it rolls this, but I assume it just rolls a separate 10% chance on scoring a hit to make it a crit instead. Crits deal 1.5x damage.

The Wiki notes an odd way for the attack tables to work. Your base hit chance is 50%. Your Graze chance is 35%. Higher accuracy gives higher Crit chance and lower miss chance, and really high accuracy reduces Grazes for more Crits. Lower accuracy gives more Misses, and eventually trades Hits for Misses.

This means that Orlan will give at most a 5% damage increase, but it gets lower as you have lower accuracy. Thaos shouldn't have very high Deflection, so for him it wouldn't matter, but the Guardians probably have pretty high Deflection.

In short, they're all surprisingly similar. Which makes me think Borean Dwarf is the best choice: bonus damage against spectres along with +2 strength.

Onin

2015-04-15 08:26:13 am

Well, Jiseed, your run got posted on Kotaku, enjoy your internet fame Cheesy

Jiseed

2015-04-15 01:00:53 pm

Well that would explain all the Youtube notification e-mails this morning, I guess we're Hollywood now guys Tongue

.

On a serious note, I did a run using Kana's fine estoc and the difference was really noticable. The final fight took much less time, and to get around the lower accuracy for 2h I simply swapped putting points into 2h specialization and put it into Adventurer weapon spec for the +6 accuracy instead. It may be worth spending the 10 seconds to level up to level 8 before Thaos as well for an additional +6 accuracy. However one problem I'm running into now is that the boots of speed are no longer there for whatever reason, its been replaced by a Belt of Might. I did a little looking into RNG manipulation and as far as I can tell nothing's really changed as far as in game timer - perhaps spawning the debug character with companions versus solo may affect the RNG seed when he replaces the caravan character? Lots of variables to consider in this run =/

Onin

2015-04-15 01:08:19 pm

I didn't really get the idea that RNG is seeded from the old route, because I kept finding different items to drop from the catacomb in Woedica's temple. But it's always hard to tell.

Jiseed

Edit history:

Jiseed: 2015-04-17 03:48:13 pm

2015-04-17 01:10:46 pm

Couple of findings I'd like to share: First, RNG seems to be seeded when you open the game. If I do any number of runs up to burial isle in one play session the same drop (on the corpse before the ghosts) will always be there if the route is followed correctly. This may be a case of extreme circumstance but I'm leaning towards it being correct.

Secondly, if you initiate a dialog with a major character (Companion NPCS, Statue of Hylea, etc.) while transitioning to an exit, the dialog box will not disappear. This unfortunately doesn't open up the option of multiple dialog options as it does in infinity engine games, but it does make it impossible to trigger dialogue. So for example, you can have it active, initiate the Maerwald cutscene and his dialogue wont fire and you can simply kill him to complete the quest. However, the only ways I can figure out how to get rid of it is either by loading the autosave during transitions (you cant save while the glitch is active) or having the glitched dialogue be one that ends in "End Conversation", as you cannot click or hit buttons to advance dialog once the transition ends. There may be more to this glitch than I've figured out, and I think it warrants some investigation.

Lastly, you can stack modal effects. I've read reports of people somehow managing to get 5000 damage due to their relentless assault stacking an extreme amount of times, though its always explained as a bug and never have I seen an explanation on how it actually occurred. I've been able to replicate this to a degree by simply mashing the modal effect and quick save at the same time then loading after a couple seconds. The effects stack, but never to the numbers I've seen reported, perhaps this works better in 1.00 or theres a better method of stacking it?

Edit: You can also interrupt the dialog glitch by killing the agent that initiated it.

Couple of findings I'd like to share: First, RNG seems to be seeded when you open the game. If I do any number of runs up to burial isle in one play session the same drop (on the corpse before the ghosts) will always be there if the route is followed correctly. This may be a case of extreme circumstance but I'm leaning towards it being correct.

Secondly, if you initiate a dialog with a major character (Companion NPCS, Statue of Hylea, etc.) while transitioning to an exit, the dialog box will not disappear. This unfortunately doesn't open up the option of multiple dialog options as it does in infinity engine games, but it does make it impossible to trigger dialogue. So for example, you can have it active, initiate the Maerwald cutscene and his dialogue wont fire and you can simply kill him to complete the quest. However, the only ways I can figure out how to get rid of it is either by loading the autosave during transitions (you cant save while the glitch is active) or having the glitched dialogue be one that ends in "End Conversation", as you cannot click or hit buttons to advance dialog once the transition ends. There may be more to this glitch than I've figured out, and I think it warrants some investigation.

Lastly, you can stack modal effects. I've read reports of people somehow managing to get 5000 damage due to their relentless assault stacking an extreme amount of times, though its always explained as a bug and never have I seen an explanation on how it actually occurred. I've been able to replicate this to a degree by simply mashing the modal effect and quick save at the same time then loading after a couple seconds. The effects stack, but never to the numbers I've seen reported, perhaps this works better in 1.00 or theres a better method of stacking it?

Edit: You can also interrupt the dialog glitch by killing the agent that initiated it.

nR3c

2015-04-17 01:30:58 pm

Hey guys,

just saw both your runs and really enjoyed your strats and them being different.

gg, see ya

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-04-17 03:31:54 pm

2015-04-17 02:45:26 pm

I booted up a random autosave with the rogue, and noticed I could turn Reckless Assault on a second time, and the tooltip just says -16/+16 to prove it stacked. But quicksaving and reloading puts the tooltip back at -8/+8. I'll have a further look around.

Btw, here's how the swing timer reset works with guns:
If you open inventory after the target has taken damage, you'll interrupt the cooldown timer, but you'll still have to reload.
If you open inventory after you've taken the shot (i.e. the sound plays), but BEFORE the target takes damage (i.e. before the bullets are spent), you'll interrupt the entire cycle and won't have to reload to shoot again.

It's a much smaller window than 2handers, but if you get good enough at it, you could consider taking guns over 2handers.

nR3c

2015-04-18 01:03:19 am

Hey guys,

Minor finding : Only if you don't kill everyone at the start of the camp but do the quest to find the berries and all : you can save 5 to 6 seconds on the dialog with the Glanfathan Leader (Bandit leader in the Camp) if you have no weapon equipped in your current weapon set, this will unlock a new dialog option : "Lay down your arms, trespasser..." 6. "I am unarmed." The leader will then push Heodan to the ground and attack you. You can still save Heodan if you want to in the next 'cutscene' by throwing your weapon if you swap to a different weapon set with a weapon equipped during the combat vs the leader. That's only probably 5 secs of dialog but eh, save all the frames...

On a sidenote, the bug Jiseed found about killing the guardian and moving to the next area still works as to 1.05 this morning. Pretty hard to set up tho but really nice find.

See ya