No way in heck that ultimate is going to happen

[Wildeyn]

I did ultimate successfully, first try (after 1000+ hrs and simulating it) in Pillars 1. But Ultimate in Pillars 2 is a joke. Whoever was in charge of making it doesn't have a proper grasp of the game in that sense. It is so obviously impossible. I thought maybe it could be doable, until I started checking out what the bosses look like as you start to interact with them will all of the God challenges turned on, with level scaling, etc.

And, come on... the dragon in the Maw is vampiric (Galawain challenge)! Really, a character is supposed to exist that can protect Vela, deal with all of the highly unfun (if you are solo) god challenges with their armor breaking every second, etc. and plus then DPS down a vampiric dragon who turns things to stone, keeps making magma oozes, etc? Not to mention the other fight against the mega-boss. Or the Dragon under Nekataka with the water whips that target Vela. Or one ship-to-ship combat that goes badly (since you can't expect to do a boarding fight on Ultimate with Vela sitting right in the middle of it all, and given that you have to be playing a character that can win fights while keeping her alive in the fist place).

As far as I can tell, only one class combo can reasonably expect to protect Vela. But killing a vampiric dragon? Every fight, even the normal ones, take me on the order of an hour to finish. It would take 1000's of hours just to get a sense of different classes on ultimate plus the layout of the game with the new dlc, etc.

No way this is possible, but even if it were, somebody would have to make Pillars 2 their full time job for a year or so. I was "only" lvl 16 at the maw; maybe somehow if I was lvl 20 I could outrun that dragon's vampirism. That would mean finding 4 more levels; maybe that is doable. But the God challenges add up to such an un-fun drag. Again, every combat takes an hour or more. And how could I possibly play a higher dps character? With gear getting clobbered for 1000's of cps every fight and with Vela staying right next to you, how could there be a way? Ultimate needs to at least not involve the God challenges. Finishing the game and beating the bosses solo on expert and iron man on PotD would be super hard, probably impossible given that Huana a whe ooze mega boss (I haven't even seen most of the new content - I finished the game solo on PotD over a year back).

I'll eat my words if somebody proves me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

Maybe there is some crazy combo with blood mage spells and items, and maybe you can get a character like that to high enough level to get to the combos you need. But I won't be holding my breath.

[Wildeyn]

Here's another gem for Ultimate. I'm fighting Scyorielaphas (on a test run that isn't ironman), and have things pretty well under control. Vela has survived a few times when the dragon decides to target her with breath, despite other choices of summons and myself who are closer. Then, she's far from him as far as possible given the small area, full health, and he casts a spell that I believe is called Tidal Wave (I couldn't see much because the game ends instantly if Vela dies and you can't see what happened), many rounds into combat and one-shots her despite facing away from her and being nowhere near her. Brilliant design. I suppose you can try to see the symbol of him casting that and try and withdraw her before he gets it off, although in practice that will often not work, given various timing or movement issues that could come up. Hard is fine; stupid is another.

[psychotron666]

In the video where the ultimate is announced Joshua sawyer says his dev team told him it was impossible and some even wrote pages of essays in how its impossible. So they released it to see if anyone can prove them wrong.

The most likely scenario is that it is indeed impossible.

[Sock_von_Rocker]

Not going to read your entire essay but I think being impossible is kind of the point; certain kinds of people will see that as a challenge and want to see how far they can get.

[Yaldabaoth]

It's actually really easy. Here are two way:
Steam Achievement Manager (quick and dirty)
or
Cheat Engine (slow and dirty).

I've given up even trying to get all achievements for Pillars 1&2 ever since they decided to punish players by including a backer only achievement. This company just doesn't understand what achievements are for.

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Yaldabaoth:

It's actually really easy. Here are two way:
Steam Achievement Manager (quick and dirty)
or
Cheat Engine (slow and dirty).

I've given up even trying to get all achievements for Pillars 1&2 ever since they decided to punish players by including a backer only achievement. This company just doesn't understand what achievements are for.

The second game doesn't have any achievements that are impossible to get. The ultimate isn't a steam achievement for this game, it's just an impossible challenge. They learned their lesson with the achievement for Kickstarter in the first game

[Somulo]

guys its really obvios what it is imba challenge

but do you really need to complete it i mean - rewards not too great - your name in obsidian office ? - rofl

if they want this kinda challenge happen just give us a million dollars and maybe (maybe) someone crazy mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥ do it

i really agree but why should we even care about ultimate - no achiev - no profit

also vela is the main purpose why ultimate is impossible - remove vela and ultimate is kinda easy with solo monk even without pause (you can use turn based with slow mode)

so really dont bother yourself and just play some really new games

i myself if i need to just test my skill take some action rpg like ys and just play it on nightmare and its really challenging and kinda impossible but at least its balanced in the way

thats why most western developers are really dont get a grip where to stop theory and start practice

[Timbermaw]

Well it's there if someone is crazy enough to want to do it. There were a few streamer attempts some weeks ago, but I don't know if any is still trying either..

[Monkee]

I am sure someone will find a way...they always do. I like the fact that save scumming is prohibited though...I cracked a smile and thought of Pathfinder.

[Wildeyn]

Oddly, enough, I am getting pretty close to proof of concept (showing myself that it is actually possible with a particular character I am playing). I managed to kill the water dragon and the lava dragon, despite my complaints. I managed to kill Dorudugan as well, and the Spider Queen. The Beast of Winter is one of the worst, because you get conversation-teleported right up to him and Vela is right there as the fight starts, but I managed to figure that out, as well as the undead dragon. I haven't tried the kraken and the guardian with the god challenges, but from what I remember those are probably doable. I'm totally in the dark on the Forgotten Sanctum - never even played that content yet, so not yet sure if it is all possible. Getting to lvl 20 is definitely possible with my build. Doing it all in 80 days is probably possible. Actually doing it all in real life with trial of iron and with the Wael challenge (all of the ?'s) is probably not going to actually happen. Fights in POE2 take FOREVER. Like, 10X-100X longer than comparable games. I fought Dorudugan for about 3 hours in real life (I had no idea of him when I created the char, so I'd be better specced in a real run, but still). Trash fights can take an hour.

It would take extra playtest games to deal with the Wael challenge by having such clear knowledge of all of the info you won't see with that challenge on, and there are bugs that slow the game down too much in turn-based, which I use for some fights.

As I said earlier in this thread, the other issue, besides the potential impossibility, is that it would be something like a full time job for months, if not a year, to do this. I might consider it for a $100,000 reward, or at least somebody else might.

Maybe to make the challenge truly impossible, you should be required to spell each of the dragon's names...

[.//slayer]

and there are bugs that slow the game down too much in turn-based, which I use for some fights.

Do you just switch modes on the fly? Won't that mean that in a "real" attempt some fights won't work out so well due to differences between the two modes?