Confused about buying 'The White March' or not

[Chane]

So I just bought Pillars of Eternity yesterday and started playing last night. Although only one hour into the game I really love it. The game was on Amazon sale and if you buy a hard-copy you get the printed manual, the printed map, the soundtrack and only need to download the updates missing on the DVD. And it was still cheaper than on Steam sale.

Now Steam comes up with another sale and I wonder if I should buy 'The White March' DLCs. Some players wrote that it makes the game harder, which I probably don't want, right? And some players wrote the game is too hard anyway. Since I haven't played the game long enough I can't tell if that's true.

Will I have to restart the game because 'The White March' offers new player classes and companions?

Should I complete the main game before turning to 'The White March'?

Will I even know if I'm following the main story or 'The White March' once I bought the DLCs?

As far as I understood your characters level up during the game. I assume there are areas with harder enemies and areas with easier enemies. Does the game guide you in a certain direction so you get the chance to level up the way you are expected to? Or does the game let you run into enemies you are not ready to defeat, leaving you frustrated?

I searched through the forums but they left me confused.
Should I buy 'The White March'?

[White Knight]

The vanilla game worths its price. If it's cheap, take it; the DLCs is awesome too. Play the vanilla game, and if you like it, buy the dlcs. I came near the final boss with 80hs of gameplay and didnt finished cause I bought the expansions and wanted play everything again.

I didn't care about the end/conclusion of the game, cause every little piece of the game was worth to me (and I'll continue replaying the game again and again).

a) You don't need to begin a new game to play the expansions; b) Quests give more experience than grind; c) The game is a kind of open world on which u can ignore or follow some quests (press J to see the main quest); d) the game difficulty is satisfying, u can choose a mode with almost no battles too.

[KG]

The White March expansions don't do anything to the difficulty of the original game. That said, their own content is not always as easy as the original game's content. There are, however, two difficulty levels below Normal for people who have trouble with this, one of which is called "story time" for very good reasons.

You can completely skip The White March if you're silly enough to buy it and do that.

No new classes are added by WM1/WM2, though you do get more options for existing classes.

No need to restart from level 1 for expansion content.

Don't complete the game first or you'll have to reload an old save to travel to the White March. It isn't added after the end of PoE, it is a place you can travel to in the middle.

The expansion content happens in a new land so you'll know you're in it.

The game gives you big, neon-lit hints, but it doesn't force you to stay near where the story sends you. You are allowed to wander off into the wilderness and get eaten by horrible things if you enjoy that sort of thing.

If you like regular Pillars of Eternity, yes, you should buy White March/White March 2.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Searching the forum isn't easy, but one can point Google at it and find the many topics about it. It's a FAQ.

You cannot conveniently complete the main game and then start The White March. There's a so-called point of no return in the main game, an autosave you must not delete, because when the main game end is reached, you cannot return to "the world" to continue playing. And so late in the game you will be over-powered for the expansion anyway, and then your only option would be to load the pre-endgame autosave or an older savegame or answer "yes" to the content scaling option that appears while playing the game. Playing the entire expansion "up-scaled" isn't a safe solution, however.

The White March is an expansion that is inserted into the main game and consists of multiple parts and also adds some events to the main game areas. First opportunity to start it is around level 4-5 (which is when you learn about the extra areas while advancing the main quest), which can be very difficult, so many players start it around level 7-8. You can travel forth and back between the expansion and the main game for all the extra items and XP. The second part can only be started when the first has been completed. And a third area is high-level content for level 13 and higher.

[Chane]

Thank you very much for your answers, they are very helpful. I think I am going to buy 'The White March'. The urge to buy it is pretty strong.
Thanks again!

[Bob3]

White march is like over 30 hours of extra content. There is no reason not to get it unless you think the game is too long already.

[Hawk]

Does the expanion DLC add anything to the base game that the free patches didn't already? Or are the DLC's just explicitly for the extra storyline?

[KG]

New talents, 4 more character levels with appropriately higher-level spells and abilities, new items that often do more interesting things than items in the original game, and two new companions.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by KG:

and two new companions.

Three.

Btw, the way the DLC is done, it also adds a little bit to the base game world.

[KG]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Originally posted by KG:

and two new companions.

Three.

Btw, the way the DLC is done, it also adds a little bit to the base game world.

Right, three. One of which I obviously don't use enough to think of. :/