Cool armor, cool mask!

January's the one with the beard, right?

Is that mother of all mudcrabs?

Kill those sea dogs!

Can lotus seeds be picked up?

The tree is alive!

Sadly, you cannot pick the Sacred Lotus seeds from the flowers. I so wanted to jump in that pool and start clicking on them, just like the good old days in the Imperial City. Sadly, you cannot even get in the pool.

I discovered where the Arcane Archer's stats were, with a little help on Obisidian's official Pillars 2 forums. They are in the LAXG subfolder. Apparently it is one of the additions in a later patch. So I was able to easily mod out the -5 accuracy penalty for non-Imbued arrows.

Speaking of which, I have been spending some weeks now modding. There are no official modding tools. But most of the things you would want to mod are in a bunch of json files. It is a plain text format, and you can open them with any text editor. But they will look like a fearsome wall of text. It is best to use an advanced editor, like Notepad++. It has a json view plugin you will want to add.

Then go to your Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\Exported\Design\gamedata folder. Or go to one of the LAX folders you will see off the Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data folder. Those are all the additions from patches and dlcs. The files will be named *.gamedatabundle. Open them with Notepad++. Select the entire document with Ctrl + A. Then go to the menu bar up top, and click on Plugins -> Json View -> Format Json. That will reformat the document into something readable.

From that point on it is just a matter of finding what section of code you want and changing it. You can just modify the gamebundle files directly. But it is better to create a mod. This forum thread is a great resource for how to make a basic mod. I created a template that I use for every mod I create. Then I just copy and paste that to my Override folder and start filling in the blanks.

For example, the Arcane Veil Modal mod I created looks like this:

manifest.json =


I saved a picture of the Arcane Veil icon from the wiki, resized it, and renamed it Thumb.png and put in my mod folder. You see that in the game where you can turn the mods on and off.

The main file (you can name them anything so long as they have the .gamedatabundle suffix) is Arcane_Veil.gamedatabundle =



I basically copy and pasted the entire Arcane Veil entry from the vanilla abilities.gamedatabundle file. You don't have to copy and paste it all. But I am not very good at figuring out how many of those trailing brackets I need when I try to pare it down. If you miss any, your mod won't work. I did manage to pare it down with my Arcane Archer mod to just this:

ArcaneArcherFixes.gamedatabundle =



Since I am already using the Ranger Unleashed mod that some other fixes and tweaks the Ranger class, I just added my new gamebundledata file into that.

Also, since I have been playing Maia as an Arcane Archer, I have been enjoying her immensely. I really like this class.

I just figured out how to get Visual Studio Code to format json files again. I know I was using it at one time, then I forgot how. This time I wrote down notes:


You can download Visual Studio Code here: https://code.visualstudio.com/

I cannot remember if I had to manually install a json plugin for it or not. The same site has a menu bar option for Extensions. Click on that and search for Json, and you will find a bunch of plugins.

Open Visual Studio Code and set the language to json. Down in the bottom right corner it will probably say plain text. Click on that, and it will bring up a search engine to select the language mode. Type in Json, and select it.

That will still not format your json files. Next you have to press Shift+Alt+F or left click to open a context menu, and select Format Document.

It might ask you to select which json formatting you want to use before it can continue. I used the Prettier version.


There are more particulars on editing json files here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/json




You can make Visual Studio Code automatically associate .gamedatabundle files with json by manually adding in some code.

Go to File -> Preferences -> Settings.

Look to the upper right corner of the menu bar. There will be three little icons. Click on the left-most, that looks like a piece of paper with one corner folded over, and an arrow coming out the other side and pointed back at the page.

This brings up the Settings.json file that Visual Studio Code uses itself. It will have two brackets already in it, and otherwise be empty. Between the original brackets add in the following code:




So in the end the entire file will look like this:



You will still need to format json files with Shift + Alt + F or through the left-click and context menu. But this will automatically put Visual Studio Code in Json language mode.

One thing I have not mentioned yet are Sigils. They are obelisks you will sometimes encounter that will give you a curse if you get too near them. Basically some sort of penalty, which you can only get rid of by resting. There are three or four different kinds. I have seen Sigils of Darkness, Death, Nightmares, and think Atrophy is the last type.

There are also consumable items called Wardstones. Each will negate the effects of one particular kind of Sigil. So you eat one beforehand and you can safely travel pass the Sigil. You only have to eat one to protect the entire party.

You can destroy them through normal methods. But if you get too near, you get cursed. In my experience even being in bow range is too close. You need to be really far away. I found that the Wizard spell Rolling Flame is ideal for destroying them, as you can cast it from really far away. Two or three hits by it will usually destroy the Sigil.

Here is an example of a Sigil and the Rolling Flame that heralds its doom

Fireball + Gunpowder barrels = excitement!

Fire Giants

Spirits

Fireball Arrow

Jan has a new hat

Having a devil of a time

Nice to follow Jan’s adventures and that she seems to be enjoying PoE.

Quite an explosion! With no gunpowder in TES of course, ESO has some quests where you can set off barrels of ‘kindlepitch’ as part of the quest to bring down a mineshaft or such.

Those fire giant are pretty darn big!

I expect there’s an interesting story associated with all those spirits.

Fireball arrows look pretty potent. I believe I do recall using them in BGII.

A new Golden Saint hat for Jan!

And finally, a red winged twilight?

I beat PoE2 like a red-haired stepchild. The end game has basically 5 different options. All involve you going to the lost city of Ukaizo, where the machinery that runs the forces of reincarnation in the world reside. The only real difference is how you get there. Either with the help of one of the four main factions, or totally on your own.

Since I was feeling pretty disgusted by all the factions, I went it alone. Though I do have second thoughts about maybe helping the native Huana. They are the faction I find least detestable, simply because their Deadfire is their home, and all the other factions are either colonial powers intent upon their conquest, or just plain criminals. Speaking of which, the Pirates are the faction I like second most, after the Huana. At least they are honest villains.

The final two factions are the Rauatai and the Vailians. The Rauatai remind me of Imperial Japan from the late 1800s through WWII. They are from a very hierarchical, aggressively expansionist society ruled by a military-industrial complex. The Royal Deadfire Company is their official presence in the area. But in reality it is just one part of the Rauatian Navy, staffed by the military. Along with this comes a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of contempt for members of every other culture. It is not racism per se, because the Huana are of the same race as them. Rather it is Nationalism and xenophobia. The Huana are beneath them, put in the world for them to crush and reduce them to what is slavery in everything but name.

The Vailian Trading Company is more like King Leopold II of Belgium, or the British Empire/East India Company. Where the Rauatians are overtly militaristic, they are overtly capitalistic, with absolutely no ethical or moral restraint. For example, they are blatant slavers. There is even an incident you can get involved in where the Vailians tricked a local Huanan chief into signing over the sovereignty of his island and tribe, all written in a contract that he literally could not read. Leopold II did this exact thing when he conquered the Congo. It was the pretext he used afterward to commit genocide, and start lopping off hands.

The Huana themselves are the natives of the Deadfire, the region the game takes place in. They are heavily inspired by Polynesian/Maori culture, with a smidgin of the Caribbean tossed in for good measure. Pirates and all. They have an inflexible caste system that leaves their poorest literally starving to death. There is one incident where a chief whose whole island is teetering on the brink of starvation executes a man for saving the seeds of their produce, so they can be replanted for the next year. This really got my goat. On one hand, a society too stupid to save their seeds to plant for the next harvest literally does not deserve to survive. Not from a moral standpoint. But from a Natural Selection one. If they are so incapable of surviving, nature will weed them out. That is just how reality works. But on the other hand, who the F is writing this crap? I mean, hunter-gatherers figured out the whole saving seeds and planting them thing tens of thousands of years ago. Do the game's developers really expect us to believe that these people are so utterly idiotic? It really pissed me off at the game designers themselves.

Finally there are the Principi, who are the pirates. They are divided into an old school gentlemanly breed of Vailians who like to put on airs of moral and cultural superiority, and opposite them are the new blood, who are just plain pirates with no pretensions. Turns out the old school guys are also in bed with slavers. While the new blood wants you to wipe out the slavers to destroy the old blood's power base. Not hard to choose sides after all there. But still, they were pirates, so Jan was not going to work with them. But I have to admit, Captain Aeldys of the new bloods did have a lot of flair and style. I liked her. She is a scruffy-looking scoundrel, and probably herded a few nerf in her day as well.

There are also the gods, who feature a lot more prominently in PoE2 than they did in PoE1. They seem to be written specifically to irritate me. Seriously, they are one arrogant, insufferable, repulsive lot. It really made me sympathetic to the one rogue god who is out to destroy the world. That is the plot of the game. The god Eothas who gets some mentions in PoE1 is back to finish what he tried to start before he was blown up by the Godhammer. It is not quite destroying the world, but close. He is going to destroy the machinery that created the gods in the first place. His end game is to end the gods. He knows he is going to die in the process. He knows he has to.

Unfortunately a side effect seems to be that the whole process of reincarnation in the world will also grind to a halt. Though they are kind of vague on this, as it did exist before the gods were created by this same machinery. Likewise whether or not this will actually end the gods is a headscratcher for me as well. Because some of the dialogue at the end makes me think they will still be around, just weakened. In any case the threat here is that with no way of souls to be reborn in new bodies, all life on the planet will eventually become extinct. Unless the kith (people) can find a way on their own to restore the Wheel. Whether or not that happens is left to a sequel, if another game in the series is ever made.

So in any case I went to Ukaizo, where there is an insane final boss fight before you get to talk to Eothas one last time before he ends the world. You cannot stop him. All you can really do is try to temper his actions in various ways, or push him into all-out entropy and ending everything for good. January, being January, convinced him to send his power into the souls of inventors and experimenters and thinkers and philosophers, so that they would have a better chance to finding a way to literally reinvent the Wheel of Life and Death.

Because January did not pick a side, the Deadfire was locked in chaos afterward, as all four factions continued to squabble and fight. It was open war between Rauatai and the Huana, while the Vailians exploited the countryside with the Huana's back's turned. The pirates, being pirates, of course profited by preying upon all the new Vailian ships hauling away the Huana's riches. That makes me wish I had stuck with the Huana in spite of the poor light they are portrayed in.

That is one of the things I really did not like about both PoE games. This need by Obsidian to portray every side as being awful. I get it that they are trying to create real factions/nations, all with their own unique personalities. And in the real world there is no such thing as a White Knight country. They all have their ugly sides. But I don't play computer games because I want more of the real world. I want to get away from how my country sucks, and how every other one does as well, just in different languages. I don't insist on a picture perfect society to support. But I do want the people I am helping to be worth saving. That is one of my mandates in my writing, as a matter of fact. Obsidian does not deliver that, by choice.

Will I play it again? Sure. I am little burned out right now, so I am going to move to something else. Maybe Baldur's Gate. It is worth playing? Yes. The combat - where you can find it - is really good. The world-building was really well done, if nihilistic in many respects. There are tons of options in character building. Lots to explore. Lots of quests. Much more moddable than the first game. Solid RPG fare. Buy it when it is on sale and you should not be disappointed.

What a welcome and insightful summary of PoE's factions and end game.

Buffy and I can identify with January's dilemma. Two bad choices in Skyrim ('Skyrim is for the Nords!' or 'Any last words before we lop off your head, elf?') so Buffy never chose. Both were too stupid to unite against the real threats (Thalmor and dragons). One thing I do rather like about TES though is religion. The devs and lore folks make the Divines out as pretty good lot and leave them vague enough for us to fill in our own gaps as suits our purpose.

ESO has some faction problems in some of the zones. Buffy really struggled to help any of the Great Houses or the Ashlanders while in ESO's Vardenfell since they were all very rude and condescending dirtbags in her view. Many of the large zones, however, have their own politics and factions with some manifesting pretty clearly as nice/good. Some of the factions encountered are a pleasure to help.

Skyrim is another good example of game designers insisting on pushing bad decisions on players. I imagine they think they are being really mature by presenting factions with bad things about them to balance out the good. But I think they just come off as giant bags of dicks by refusing to allow you to have a choice rooted in basic decency.

I have a ton of PoE2 pics.

Dracolich

Loving that gaping hole where her heart used to be

Gateway to Hel

The Beast of Winter

Fire Giantess

Pursuing a rogue god

Meeting him

January

The Guardian of Ukaizo

Ancient Weather Machine

By the way, the world is ending

Eothas

That dracolich is an interesting critter. A briarheart-style heart hole!

Ominous portal!

Wow, an abominable snowminotaur.

Nice shot of January.

Guardian of Ukaizo looks like the Dwemer got ahold of some dracolich plans?

That ancient weather machine looks a lot like the orrery.

Eothas is one big dude!