|
Fair Bear Maiden posted:Tyranny was a great game but it obviously had different design goals than Pillars of Eternity and was developed by a different team anyhow. I always chuckle at how fragile Basic Chunnel is, though. Its cool that they view them as functionally very different games with completely different design goals but there are one or two things i hope they take from tyranny. In particular the highlighted text with exposition is a pretty neat way of fixing the character knows the world but the player doesn't problem, and team up attacks are super cool as a combat mechanic and a narrative way of showing "these two have been through some poo poo and work really well together" but i'm not really expecting those to make an appearance since they are very much tyranny's thing. At best maybe one or two similar types of attacks for rangers and their animal companions, since the tech exists at obsidian and it would fit the class well.
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 08:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 12:12 |
|
|
User0015 posted:I liked Tyranny. The magic system is fun, when you aren't locked away from essentials because you did or didn't do a thing at the start of the game. The story was far, far, far better for a few reasons: I cared more about my main character, my motivations and goals were a lot clearer, I felt like I had an impact depending on the choices I made, alternate routes means I can change what I was doing or more aligned with what I wanted, villains were clearly defined (or at least clearly set up, depending how what you do). The only thing I really disliked is that the game difficulty assumed you had certain spells, and if you didn't it was staggeringly hard. If you did, the game became a series of "buff up, right click to blow up entire groups of baddies". The magic construction was kind of fun, but the nature of it meant you couldn't get the variety of weird-rear end spells and effects you can in Pillars. The backstory and setting were pretty interesting in Tyranny, but beyond the initial set-up (i.e., post getting the first pillar) the story in-game was meh. And for a game that's meant to be about the impact of choices - none of the playthroughs really felt very different from each other.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 12:20
|
|
|
I'm not really gonna debate the rest, but I felt there were pretty significant differences between my Disfavored and Tiersmen playthroughs of Tyranny. Sure, the major events are the same, but a lot of plotlines that weren't present in one were present in the others, locations I had to visit changed to a certain extent, and Act 3 was dramatically different even though the main beats were the same.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 12:25
|
|
|
AfricanBootyShine posted:Power bloat ruled in Baldur's Gate/MotB but mostly because I had read Forgotten Realms books throughout my youth and punching out gods I had read about for years was awesome. I am not necessarily for power bloat. But BG2 was one of the first games I played on PC as a kid when I was like 11 (yeah really - the only previous games I'd played were Age of Empires one and two, and FIFA 99) and punching out awesome monsters and getting amazing items was still super fun without even knowing poo poo about the first game much less DnD as a whole. It was basically my introductions to RPGs since I'd mostly juts been playing SNES platformers at that point. Well, I guess Pokemon was technically that but its EU release was so delayed it was probably around that time as well. Point is, you don't need to know the backstory or setting for high-power settings to be fun, especially if you're a kid. E: Also Tyranny was a fine game with great ideas but let down by its execution IMO, as well as feeling like I got little bang for my buck and - same as PoE - being very bugged and imbalanced at release. I actually shelved PoE halfway through on my first playthrough because of stuff like that and came back to start a new game after both expansions and 3.0 was released, which was a vastly improved experienced and made me really like the game where I was positive but not hugely so during my initial playthrough. E2: Also I gotta say playing as a non-caster, the magic stuff really didn't resonate with me. Mainly for two reasons - A: neither of my mages, not even Lantry with his +Lore, felt like they ever got ENOUGH Lore to really experiment with spells. And B: there were so many combinations of potentially useful spells that, combined with the overload of class-abilities and companion moves you get, it really felt like the game suffered badly from ability-bloat. And I say that as someone who has played MMOs. I ended up basically just using a small handful of spells on my casters and experimenting little - when I got a few new expressions and accents I'd go back in and see what I could make now and inevitably it'd be a couple seemingly not very useful spells that'd waste space on my quickslots and a cool one that took like 25 more Lore than Lantry had. Insurrectionist fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 13:07
|
|
|
Quoting a thing from the comments of a bad RPS article;quote:”If you look carefully, you’ll see a spiral shape to the upper right of the Eder quote. That’s a Vailian letter A, according to the Vailian alphabet Josh Sawyer posted on Twitter and Instagram earlier this month. But wait, there’s more! A clever user on the Obsidian forums dug into the teaser page’s innards and found an additional seven symbols, presumably timed to be revealed over the next week. These symbols too are letters, some of which are from the Engwithan and Aumaua alphabets posted by Josh last year.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 13:32
|
|
|
Certainly sounds like a more interesting region than the Dyrwood to me! We better get some pirate adventures.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 13:34
|
|
|
project Louisiana isn't fallout related 
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:13
|
|
|
Neurosis posted:i like both games, though, i just found tyranny to have better writing and a more interesting world. poe was undoubtedly more complete and had better systems but i never felt as involved in the story and found a lot of the writing to be kind of bland. I think the comparison of PoE and Tyranny really does come down to a personal taste thing more than an objective quality thing. They're both really great, and they both set out to do something different, even though they're superficially similar (being isometric, choice-driven RPGs with RtwP combat). I prefer PoE over Tyranny because I like having six party members and a greater variety in what both I and enemies can do in combat, plus the larger number of interesting side quests. But what Tyranny lacks in those, it makes up for in having a more reactive main quest (even if that starts to narrow in the second act, it should still be commended for having essentially four separate second acts), a really neat magic system, and some fantastic advances in delivering exposition (the Conquest prologue owns really hard and I love hovering over highlighted terms for a brief explanation). I hope both games have very good sequels and I look forward to playing them. And if PoE2 somehow had the really reactive, New Vegas-ish main quest that Tyranny does (even though I know that's not really PoE's goal), or Tyranny 2 the wealth of side quests and more robust companion stories that PoE does, I'll be in video games heaven.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
Enjoy posted:With the fall of Woedica and the death of Eothas, there are 9 gods left meddling in mortal affairs. Maybe after PoE2, there will be only 8. But Woedica wasn't actually destroyed, she just didn't get her big power boost of souls she had been planning for I thought? E: And the quote could be interpreted as implying that Eothas is coming back in some way, but less forgiving.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
Well, maybe you get a boat as your stronghold this time.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:42
|
|
|
SunAndSpring posted:Well, maybe you get a boat as your stronghold this time. We've been operating under that paradigm for quite some time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:58
|
|
|
Chapter predictions: Chapter 1: wheeling and dealing for a boat in some poo poo town coastal town in the Eastern Reach. The boat becomes your stronghold. Chapter 2: Politicing in Old Vailia as the gods foment an internal power struggle and divine war over the events of The Saints War becoming common knowledge through the pantheon after POE1 Chapter 3: wrestling krakens in Deadfire because there are special adra pillars there or something which means its easier for the gods to manifest
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:05
|
|
|
I'm starting a new campaign with a Cipher, does leaving DEX at 10 still hurt even if you're going totally unarmoured? My statline basically goes STR 16 CON 8 DEX 10 PER 18 INT 18 RES 8 I'm playing on Normal, so I'm aware I've got a lot of leeway on not having to totally char-op this sucker. I'll probably be sticking with pistols and blunderbusses for weapons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:17
|
|
|
What kind of weapons are you going to use? If you go ranged, DEX is pretty important.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:19
|
|
|
frajaq posted:Also please send us far away from that boring country in the first game thanks I think it's for the best that Durance remain buried with Chris Avellone (who was not-too-surprisingly open about wanting nothing to do with a sequel). Any future Durance would be some other character wearing his skin.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 17:12
|
|
|
The Tyranny vs. PoE discussion is a bit like comparing to apples to oranges. The games are trying very different things, and the scope is completely different. Certainly some mechanics are worth carrying over (combo abilities and the mouse-over text) but other cool features like the Conquest prologue are probably better suited for other projects. I am going to compare PoE to Baldur's Gate 2 though, since it's supposed to be a successor. ...and PoE's plot kinda sucks in comparison despite many other improvements. There's hardly any motive. Supposedly the driving force is to stop seeing dead people (which actually seems pretty cool???) by finding a faceless man who doesn't appear to care or even be aware of the PC's existence until halfway through the game. I would say that not going insane is also a motivation, except there is no mechanical impact on the player. The Hollowborn plague likewise has no mechanical effect on the PCs, leaving less philanthropic characters wondering why the heck they are getting involved at all. Only very late in the game does the plot gather momentum. Contrast that to Baldur's Gate 2, where the villain is entertaining, actively fucks with the player by abducting/subverting party members and the PC is afflicted with the Slayer form, a curse that comes with both major mechanical advantages and disadvantages. PoE is front-loaded with so much world-building and metaphysics that it feels more like a travelogue than it does an adventure. I hope the sequel is plotted more tightly, now that the world has been established.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
Fruits of the sea posted:The Tyranny vs. PoE discussion is a bit like comparing to apples to oranges. The games are trying very different things, and the scope is completely different. Certainly some mechanics are worth carrying over (combo abilities and the mouse-over text) but other cool features like the Conquest prologue are probably better suited for other projects. Irenicus is cool because of David Warner. There's really no depth at all to his character. He's your typical power hungry mage. Bg2 is great because of the sheer amount of locations you visit and amount of stuff to do. And the fact that its sidequests are all huge in scope and fairly well written. The main plot is actually pretty bland and by the book. If Irenicus wasn't voiced by Warner nobody would remember the slightest thing about him. Lack of urgency to the plot is definitely an issue with POE, but at the same time there is only so much you can do with that before it feels intrusive to the player. A lot of people bitched endlessly about the Spirit Eater mechanic in NWN2 and Obsidian was actually quite forgiving with that where if you played a good character you could easily manage it, and the evil characters had a tougher time but got powerful bonuses. I don't see how a similar mechanic would have worked in Poe though since there's so much to do and especially with WM 1 & 2. Nobody wants to feel rushed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 17:33
|
|
|
a slim pixie posted:I think it's for the best that Durance remain buried with Chris Avellone (who was not-too-surprisingly open about wanting nothing to do with a sequel). Any future Durance would be some other character wearing his skin. Oh I didn't know he wrote Durance, a shame
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
Furism posted:What kind of weapons are you going to use? If you go ranged, DEX is pretty important. I tend to go for pistols or blunderbusses for the ridiculous amounts of Focus I've been able to wring out of them per-hit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 17:37
|
|
|
Fruits of the sea posted:I am going to compare PoE to Baldur's Gate 2 though, since it's supposed to be a successor. ...and PoE's plot kinda sucks in comparison despite many other improvements. There's hardly any motive. Supposedly the driving force is to stop seeing dead people (which actually seems pretty cool???) by finding a faceless man who doesn't appear to care or even be aware of the PC's existence until halfway through the game. I would say that not going insane is also a motivation, except there is no mechanical impact on the player. When the plot has an impact on the gameplay people complain. I don't particularly care about the plot lacking urgency, anyway; RPGs have struggled with plot/sidequest balance forever and I prefer one that errs on the side of letting you feel like you can do what you want. In something like the Witcher or Mass Effect games you blow off the story to do sidequests despite everyone telling you how urgent the main quest is; in POE the player character has no agenda but their own so heading off to the seaside cave to find something this priest had a vision about is easy to justify. I also like the way POE's plot feels quite diffuse and vague at first and gains focus as you begin to unravel a multi-millennium conspiracy of lies that literally goes right to the top.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:11
|
|
|
Important question to ropekid: will there be a save import bonus for a save in which you brought that orlan baby you kidnap in Twin Elms with you when you beat the game
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:19
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:Irenicus is cool because of David Warner. There's really no depth at all to his character. He's your typical power hungry mage. Yeah, Warner is great and I wish they could have drafted someone like him for PoE. Still, I think its important to note that Irenicus actually interacts with the PC: Pillars goes out of it's way to imply that the player is completely forgettable to the villain, which is just a very odd choice to make. Warner wouldn't have made much impact either, if he didn't speak to the player for the first 6 hours or so of playtime. Ginette Reno posted:Lack of urgency to the plot is definitely an issue with POE, but at the same time there is only so much you can do with that before it feels intrusive to the player. A lot of people bitched endlessly about the Spirit Eater mechanic in NWN2 and Obsidian was actually quite forgiving with that where if you played a good character you could easily manage it, and the evil characters had a tougher time but got powerful bonuses. I don't see how a similar mechanic would have worked in Poe though since there's so much to do and especially with WM 1 & 2. Nobody wants to feel rushed. Well, BG2 didn't punish the player for dawdling, in fact most of the game's content could be completed right after the starting dungeon. Ironically, people bitched endlessly about that too.  But surely there could have been some sense of urgency in PoE. It would have been nice if the Watcher's abilities had been expanded upon and differentiated from those of a cipher. Implementing something like the Fade from Dragon Age could have made the Watcher's recollections a lot more visceral, and painted a picture of growing insanity.I don't remember the Spirit Eater thing, but coincidentally I just started a run-through of NWN2 after a podcast (Watch out for Fireballs) covered it. On normal difficulty and probably easy later, because gently caress that game's camera and interface.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:19
|
|
|
It makes more sense to compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate than Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate 2. And the comparison is more apt: more wondering around wilderness areas, establishing the central story conceit, etc. I think we tend to look back on BG2 with rose-colored glasses. Its combat was basically about figuring out spell defenses and the characters were kind of one dimensional cartoon characters.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:25
|
|
|
prometheusbound2 posted:It makes more sense to compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate than Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate 2. And the comparison is more apt: more wondering around wilderness areas, establishing the central story conceit, etc. I think we tend to look back on BG2 with rose-colored glasses. Its combat was basically about figuring out spell defenses and the characters were kind of one dimensional cartoon characters. Huh, well their pacing is much more similiar. That's fair. Lets nod kid ourselves about the depth of BG1's characters though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:36
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:Irenicus is cool because of David Warner. There's really no depth at all to his character. He's your typical power hungry mage. Irenicus is a BDSM switch who got kicked out of his Christian private school and went way off the rails as a result. PoE suffers from incoherency in part because it had to be all things to all people (fans and developers alike), as well as the Infinity Engine/D&D games not being all that stable a foundation for modern design.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:37
|
|
|
The biggest beats I found POEs story to fail is that it didn't know itself when the character was going to swap from personal interest to saving the Dyrwood and back again so it hedged its bets with a slightly lame investigative Chapter 2 which covers the personal and political interests broadly instead of specifically. As it is its totally open version which is neat, but the quests involve you completely missing Leaden Key activities twice and the third time you run into the boss (what are the chances) except its slightly confusingly framed to not even be 100% sure that the boss was literally there until you compare notes with Lady Webb. It could have been a much more adversarial experience if it was more bound, like you get the Heritage Hill lead, investigate, get bought into the fold by Lady Webb and told to investigate the sanitarium, one on one with Thaos happens with him skipping away, Webb gives you the ruins lead, you get there as Thaos is setting up and the sacrifices are charged with stopping you, you and Lady Webb put together the hollowborn conspiracy and prepare the legal defense which Thaos then interupts as much as part of his plan as a personal vendetta against you for screwing his stuff up personally. I like comparing BG1 to POE1 as much as anyone but its not like BG2 happened in a vacuum. And for being such a simple plot, people absolutely loved the adversarial nature which necessarily came with directly confronting the enemy and ruining his plans halfway through, even if some people might be slightly icked by the villain escaping with the help of plot armor. It seems a change directly from response to BG1, where Sarevok is set up as adversarial but you never see him again except in notes for 40 hours. Thaos does better than Sarevok for screentime, but its spread thinly between personal interest and politics
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:42
|
|
|
Eothas coming back but changed is a rad concept. Reminds me of this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:55
|
|
|
a slim pixie posted:I think it's for the best that Durance remain buried with Chris Avellone (who was not-too-surprisingly open about wanting nothing to do with a sequel). Any future Durance would be some other character wearing his skin. I think Avellone went on record saying that Durance as is in game was largely(?) written or very heavily rewritten by another Obisidan writer (Carrie Patel?), based off his original concept and work?
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:56
|
|
|
Did the last few patches make any significant gameplay changes? Last time I did a run a patch hit halfway through and nerfed my debuff spamming barbarian, so I've never actually done a full run including all of white march.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:56
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:I think Avellone went on record saying that Durance as is in game was largely(?) written or very heavily rewritten by another Obisidan writer (Carrie Patel?), based off his original concept and work? Yes, due to Avellone submitting a novel's worth of content for Durance that had to be trimmed down to fit into the game proper.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:58
|
|
|
Sabres were debuffed (but still good) and a Soulbound weapon was nerfed for seemingly no reason (there was certainly no player feedback in that sense) but for the most part the last few patches didn't alter gameplay dramatically, as far as I recall, and mostly contained bugfixes. EDIT: Also, as far as I know, most of the writing for Durance and the Grieving Mother is still written by Avellone. Some banter and interjections, especially in The White March, came from other writers though. Avellone definitely had bigger plans for their arcs though, and he didn't seem to take the cuts particularly well, though that might have more to do with internal politics at the company and how they happened than their necessity, and I'm not privy on info so I can't really comment there.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:14
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:20
|
|
|
Personally, I could have used more Maneha fangirling over her waifu Pallegina.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:22
|
|
|
Zeerust posted:I tend to go for pistols or blunderbusses for the ridiculous amounts of Focus I've been able to wring out of them per-hit. Then you really want to boost DEX because it decreases the attack, recovery and reload durations and those weapons have the longest of those durations.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:24
|
|
|
gently caress off Aloth
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:26
|
|
|
zedprime posted:The biggest beats I found POEs story to fail is that it didn't know itself when the character was going to swap from personal interest to saving the Dyrwood and back again so it hedged its bets with a slightly lame investigative Chapter 2 which covers the personal and political interests broadly instead of specifically. As it is its totally open version which is neat, but the quests involve you completely missing Leaden Key activities twice and the third time you run into the boss (what are the chances) except its slightly confusingly framed to not even be 100% sure that the boss was literally there until you compare notes with Lady Webb. It could have been a much more adversarial experience if it was more bound, like you get the Heritage Hill lead, investigate, get bought into the fold by Lady Webb and told to investigate the sanitarium, one on one with Thaos happens with him skipping away, Webb gives you the ruins lead, you get there as Thaos is setting up and the sacrifices are charged with stopping you, you and Lady Webb put together the hollowborn conspiracy and prepare the legal defense which Thaos then interupts as much as part of his plan as a personal vendetta against you for screwing his stuff up personally. For what it's worth, the rift between side questing and plot is not irresolvable, it just takes commitment (which Obs circa PoE was stingey with). The better RPGs of the last 15 years have all been tight and deliberate in how they distribute side quest content: ME2, AP, Bloodlines, Dragonfall. Side content pushes the plot forward as you run it down or provides context for choices you make later on. When and if open world fatigue sets in it will be a good thing for RPGs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:28
|
|
|
Anyway there are two possibilities, one of which being that they wrote the denouements for the PoE1 companions with the possibility that there would be no sequel in mind, the other being that they're coming back as NPCs but not CNPCs. Given that it's going to be placed within the Deadfire Archipelago, the latter might be hard to justify. The third possibility is in keeping with PoE's overall design - writing an ending just in case there are players who would rather not recognize that there are any sequels
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
Basic Chunnel posted:Anyway there are two possibilities, one of which being that they wrote the denouements for the PoE1 companions with the possibility that there would be no sequel in mind, the other being that they're coming back as NPCs but not CNPCs. Given that it's going to be placed within the Deadfire Archipelago, the latter might be hard to justify. The last save is before the end game. The could simply bypass all that and have some event happen where you arrive too late and Woedica gets her soul infusion. By definition, nothing that happens post-jump can be considered canon for your save file.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 20:03
|
|
|
I could see that happening. I can also see it going down about as well as NWN2's canon ending
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 20:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 12:12 |
|
|
More to the point, the save state doesn't matter because Obsidian will be doing the right thing and ripping off the Dragon Age Keep Right rope kid?
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 20:08
|
|