The White March is now released

Along with patch 2.0.0, release notes.

Page to buy on GOG and Steam, Kickstarter backers who pledged for the expac, should have their key in the backer portal.

Main features (the one with * are available with the patch, the expac is not required):
Raised level cap from level 12 to level 14.
New areas to explore
Soulbound weapons
New companions: The Devil of Caroc, a rogue, and Zahua, a monk
Multi-class talents
Party AI*
Enhanced Enemy AI*
Respec available at any inn or tavern*

P.S: Make sure that the base game is fully patched to 2.0.0 before installing the expac.

Anyone playing this?

Is it worth starting over with and playing the whole game again?

Originally Posted by CelticFrost
Anyone playing this?

Is it worth starting over with and playing the whole game again?

Personally waiting till "part 2" is out and a few patches after before I pick it up again.

I don't have the white mach, but I have been replaying a new party with patch 2.0. The AI is not …well. The pathing is still terrible (and deadly at times) and leaving the AI to run things under those circumstances can be infuriating. I have characters set to aggressive and sometimes after being attacked and dispatching the enemy, they stand there. Other times they do the right things and dash off to find new enemies…I suspect this is a pathing issue - seems to happen mostly in tight quarters where they "can't" path past party members to attach an enemy. Other times the AI still has them ping ping back and forth indecisively, or even (ghost of BG!) head off in the opposite direction through enemy infested territory to come from behind :-S… All they had to do was allow characters to squeeze through an allies space - which they seem to do normally when moving. Sure they can't just ghost over them, but you allow partial coverage of each characters circle. DnD even has rules for this (I know its not DnD I'm just saying, a grid-based battle system exists which has rules for this). It almost seems like they have implemented a basic A* search on a grid..really, the field of game path planning has moved on since then. I think I'm going to turn off AI and just revert to micro(micro) managing everything.

booboo

Is this your first play through the game or did you play it before the release of patch 2.0?

I ask because finished the game with later patch so I am aware of how the combat AI is? I hope you are not telling me it is worst.

Originally Posted by CelticFrost
booboo

Is this your first play through the game or did you play it before the release of patch 2.0?

I ask because finished the game with later patch so I am aware of how the combat AI is? I hope you are not telling me it is worst.

I played it through before the patch (2.0), to completion. I think the AI is 'better' in the sense that it is at least somewhat customizable now. But better AI doesn't really help if the pathing is still crap, which it is. I have set it to minimal (i.e. defend self if attacked) and I'm back to micro managing. When there are no pathing issues, the AI seems to behave quite sensibly. Fixing pathing would require a lot of low-level work, so I don't see that happening in PoE, maybe PoE2?

Originally Posted by booboo
I played it through before the patch (2.0), to completion. I think the AI is 'better' in the sense that it is at least somewhat customizable now. But better AI doesn't really help if the pathing is still crap, which it is. I have set it to minimal (i.e. defend self if attacked) and I'm back to micro managing. When there are no pathing issues, the AI seems to behave quite sensibly. Fixing pathing would require a lot of low-level work, so I don't see that happening in PoE, maybe PoE2?

Thanks, I was going to wait until the second part came out but what the heck. I noticed I finished it with patch 1.3…. so I am going to start a new game with the new patch.

What level did you play it on? Not sure with the AI the way it is I want to try death march.

Well I can remember having some problems with the game loading my saved games back in the spring. Looks like I must have deleted my save game files when trying to fix the problem.

So looks like I will be doing a full replay.

Originally Posted by CelticFrost
Thanks, I was going to wait until the second part came out but what the heck. I noticed I finished it with patch 1.3…. so I am going to start a new game with the new patch.

What level did you play it on? Not sure with the AI the way it is I want to try death march.

I played on "normal", which is not that challenging. Yes, for a harder setting I would definitely turn off AI and micro-manage everything. Ouch with the saved game…but probably better to start over if you do want to do white march?

Call me crazy, but 98% of the fun of the combat system in a game like Pillars of Eternity, for me, *is* the micromanaging.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Call me crazy, but 98% of the fun of the combat system in a game like Pillars of Eternity, for me, *is* the micromanaging.

I think the point is the pathing is brutal which it is. I like the combat, though giving orders over and orders again is tiresome.

Anything about improved loading times? Just remembering my time in the town there makes me not want to go back.

edit: found a developer post from 6 days ago:

The upcoming patch will have some transition and saving optimizations that should hopefully reduce the amount of time those take by at least 25%-40%.

We also have a few additional transition optimizations we're currently investigating that would hopefully go in the following patch after that assuming those work out well.

gamepedia has the next patch listed as "Announced for 1st week of september".

Glad that something is finally done. Guess I'll be waiting until the addon is complete though, which will be far enough in the future so I can eventually start over with a fresh party.

Originally Posted by Arhu
Anything about improved loading times? Just remembering my time in the town there makes me not want to go back.

The panel I shared on the forums from Pax Prime said they optimized the load times in the next game patch, and the sequel will be more optimized do to the fixes.

Sadly I still haven't found time to play the first expansion.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The panel I shared on the forums from Pax Prime said they optimized the load times in the next game patch, and the sequel will be more optimized do to the fixes.

Sadly I still haven't found time to play the first expansion.

I restarted this game with the new patch and expansion. Though I haven't put that much time into it the load times seem much better so far.