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Broken Cog posted:Well, they could've just excluded the crafting, because, as with the fortress, it's really dull and uninspired, and it feels like it was just added on because "Hey, that's what people like in RPG's these days, right?". What fortresses were better outside of that one Suikoden game? Caed Nua blows the strongholds in Morrowind out of the water in my opinion and I'm wondering where all these other, much better strongholds come from (so I can play those games because strongholds rule). CottonWolf posted:It's not clear to me that that's true. They might have been programmed that way to start with, but they seem to be taking liberties at this point. It's been a long time for them to have personality drift. Take Eothas, if he really was possessing Waidwen, it doesn't seem very Eothasian to organise a revolution against an unjust government. That seems like it should clearly be Skaen's domain. I think the revolution in Readceras was primarily a means to an end. That end being "purge everything within the general area of the old Engwithan civilization of Leaden Key agents".
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Apr 14, 2015 13:28
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The Sharmat posted:What fortresses were better outside of that one Suikoden game? Caed Nua blows the strongholds in Morrowind out of the water in my opinion and I'm wondering where all these other, much better strongholds come from (so I can play those games because strongholds rule). The stronghold in the new Dragon Age is one of its greatest successes. Enormous, full of people, feels like a home base, lets you sentence corpses to community service, etc.
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Apr 14, 2015 13:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is actually fairly fair but BG 1 was basically the same except even moreso for me. Like I said earlier I just did a playthrough of it after having not touched it in decades, with a PC fighter dual-weilding hammers, and every single fight boiled down to "charge and smash everything with hammers." Sure in BG 2 the encounters started getting more complicated but even there, for key fights it generally boiled down to "magically know what to pre-buff with . . . then charge in and smash everything with hammers." That's BG:EE or BGT/Tutu. The sheer existence of the BG2 systems throws out the balance of the game and the spawn systems aren't the same allowing you to level at a much faster rate. I play BG1:TotSC vanilla instead. You can't dual wield in BG1. I also said this in my original codex post too quote:I realize that there are people who prefer this type of gameplay, where they want their strategy or planning to have more of an effect on the outcome of combat more than how they played the encounter, and don't necessarily want to have to always react to enemy actions or to be forced to be creative to beat different encounters. IMO the game seems to have been aimed more at the people who prefer the above quoted things / people who didn't like the combat in the Infinity Engine games for one reason or another. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 13:36
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EDIT: Nevermind, misread the post
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Apr 14, 2015 13:49
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Sensuki posted:The IE mod (of which I am not the sole creator, nor the main contributor and I didn't name it either) is mostly a UI mod. It currently has over 20K downloads, and got featured in a PCGamer article as mod of the week (which I admit, means nothing - it was a poo poo copy paste article and probably a slow week), so clearly there's quite a few people out there that enjoy at least some of the basic UI features that were in the Infinity Engine games that are not in Pillars of Eternity, or enjoy some of the other features. IMO Karkarov's HUD is easily the best feature. I only got this for the console commands and didn't use any of the optional features, every time I see it recommended it's for character editing or enabling the console, not the UI features.
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Apr 14, 2015 13:59
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quote:or enjoy some of the other features. Which includes the console commands - lots of people have downloaded it to edit companions and stuff like that too. The mod has three non-optional features, but you probably wouldn't have noticed them.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:04
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Sensuki posted:Which includes the console commands - lots of people have downloaded it to edit companions and stuff like that too. Yea, just pointing out we can't use the popularity of the mod as evidence people want more "IE". Don't really have a problem with the mod itself, I'm actually impressed how you guys made so much of it optional when many modders prefer to show their ideal version down others throat. So kudos for that. One thing regarding your critism and BG <> POE comparisons, some of them (health, per encounter resources) only work if you don't take unlimited resting into account, which is an optional way of playing those games. I think it's unfair to compare the systems of these games if you intentionally limit your options in one. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 14:12
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Hey Sensuki maybe the battle system seems boring to you because you already spent a million hours optimizing every single aspect of it
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Apr 14, 2015 14:15
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I want playable
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Apr 14, 2015 14:23
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Spergs gonna sperg
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Apr 14, 2015 14:27
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So wait, Ciphers get more conversation topics with people? What are they like? Just "I am an expert on Souls, let me tell you about them?"? ( yes i'm trying to get you people to stop arguing. )
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Apr 14, 2015 14:29
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Avalerion posted:One thing regarding your critism and BG <> POE comparisons, some of them (health, per encounter resources) only work if you don't take unlimited resting into account, which is an optional way of playing those games. I think it's unfair to compare the systems of these games if you intentionally limit your options in one. Yes, this is true however rest spamming is an exploit that pretty much completely bypasses the strategical resource management side of the game. The IE games have been out for a very long time, as has the Rest Anywhere mod, which I'm sure most people use (I do too). It's about as easy to rest spam in Pillars of Eternity as it is in vanilla IE, very similar restrictions other than the camping supply limit but it's not difficult to fast mode to the world map to the nearest Inn however I believe less people feel inclined to because the game doesn't require as much strategical resource management in the first place. Endurance automatically heals (and many people spammed rest because it was faster than manually healing). Health isn't an immediate concern. Per encounter abilities. Knockouts don't matter ... Arguably deliberately designed for people who rest spammed in the IE games 
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Apr 14, 2015 14:31
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Octo1 posted:I want playable I was sad it wasn't possible to be friends with them, like with the first one you meet. It was cool you could actually negotiate with the ant dudes, though.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:32
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Octo1 posted:I want playable Or at least ones we can talk to. I can make friends with floating psychic half-spider half-man monstrosities, why not cool little lizard guys? EDIT: That should be an easy way to expand the stronghold; have non-human ambassadors, or ambassadors from friendly factions, hang out and shoot the poo poo with you.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:34
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CommissarMega posted:Or at least ones we can talk to. I can make friends with floating psychic half-spider half-man monstrosities, why not cool little lizard guys? They're incapable of speech, but it only shows up as a minor footnote in the bestiary. Dunno if they can be ciphers or psychic, which is how the spidermen talk to you.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:38
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Rookersh posted:So wait, Ciphers get more conversation topics with people? What are they like? Just "I am an expert on Souls, let me tell you about them?"? Mostly it's just flavor, though there is one quest which outcome I was able to alter and another in which I'm not sure what would have happened otherwise. Grieving Mother can substitute in both of those cases, too.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:40
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If you're not playing on expert, there's a game option to hide or show locked off conversation options. It wont show you what you'll say if you dont meet the requirements, just lets you know that option might be there for you to take by boosting stats or for another run through.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:42
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jfood posted:They're incapable of speech, but it only shows up as a minor footnote in the bestiary. Dunno if they can be ciphers or psychic, which is how the spidermen talk to you. I would swear that one of the bounty targets is a talking xaurip chief.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:44
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Also all but two of the xaurips in the game seem to be hyper xenophobic religious fanatics, which hurts communication.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:49
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The Vithrak are probably one of my favorite aspects of the PoE universe, just because from what we've seen, they're not evil. They just happen to be a civilization of horrible psychic totally-not-mind-flayer spider monsters who live in underground cities. There's the one rear end in a top hat guarding the stairs in the Endless Paths, and the ones that are hostile before you meet their leader, but all the other ones just want to not get murdered. I really hope we get to see one of their cities at some point, and it is just like any other city, only with spider people living in a giant spiral orb structure or a funnelweb or whatever. Are there any other civilized underground races at this point? PoE dwarves seem to be explorers and inuits and inuit explorers, rather than cave dwellers and masters of rad blocky architecture.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:53
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babypolis posted:Hey Sensuki maybe the battle system seems boring to you because you already spent a million hours optimizing every single aspect of it This is exactly what I think. How're you supposed to enjoy the system or find any fight hard when your experience of it is so utterly utterly removed from the experience of 99% of the playerbase? It feels like the ultra rich complaining that something is too cheap.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:53
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Personally I think it would have been cooler if the facilities at your stronghold just came into existence when you sent back certain individuals within the world who had that kind of expertise. Like to do the Warden's Bounties you meet and rescue the Warden in some quest somewhere. Also, like you say, most of the facilities don't do enough for you to ever want to go back there anyway. But I also never want to go back because it's mostly full of NPCs who don't have any history or characterization. - Calisca's sister in Gilded Vale unlocking Brighthollow hearth - Guy hiding out in Catacombs - Guy stuck in Raedrics dungeons - Failed Vailan Trader at the Docks etc
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Apr 14, 2015 14:55
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Do the different voice sets sound different for chanters chants?
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Apr 14, 2015 14:56
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Anyone else ever play Aarklash Legacy? it was a small indie game with real time with pause combat. Sort of a weird mix between dota and BG. Anyways that game had great combat, better than the Baldurs Gate series and PoE for that matter, but it seems it was too small for anyone to notice
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Apr 14, 2015 14:59
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Jackard posted:Possible hires off the top of my head: Yeah I'd love to see this other than just generic npcs at the stronghold. Let me appoint my own priest, give me unique merchants with stories, and just more interesting NPCs in general
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Apr 14, 2015 15:10
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Yeah I really liked the combat feel of Aarklash Legacy but I didn't like the fact that it got repetitive very fast due to the MMO HP slog battles, you're basically just trying to out dps/disable the enemy doing the same thing over and over (specifically against the boss fights, they're basically MMO boss fights with a party). However movement in that game is *very* important and you constantly have to react to enemies (e.g., manually dodging the slow hitscan projectiles) - loved that about it. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 15:12
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Sensuki posted:At the point that I got Plate Armor, I've had my tanks wearing nothing but the heaviest armor possible and I think in my current save I have everyone else in either Exceptional Robes or Fine Robes because the recovery penalty is minimal and you get fairly decent protection from it. So exactly like Baldurs Gate then. Except now it's bad, because the option of putting people in lighter or heavier armor is worse than being forced to. Your health/endurance stuff is also grade A batshit crazy and contradictory ("I'm so good at tanking with my tanks I don't have to worry about health" is the most insane thing, because that is literally the situation where health is an actual worry). You compare PoE, a game you admittedly haven't even played entirely to your own imaginary version of Baldurs Gate, where you can't rest spam and every encounter is a unique little snowflake requiring such wonderful and complex combat tactics such as "drinking potions and running your party around the enemy to manipulate their targeting AI". Basically you're wrong on most of your PoE complaints and either lying or simply misremembering how the IE games actually played.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:14
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I don't think he's lying, he just played the IE games in a very specific and idiosyncratic way. Most of the stuff he's talking about, like manually dodging your tanks around, always seemed like a really exploitative way to play to me - coming from a gold box / tabletop background it was really clear that kind of play wasn't an intentional part.of the design, or for that matter something I was interested in anyway.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:26
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DatonKallandor posted:So exactly like Baldurs Gate then. Except now it's bad, because the option of putting people in lighter or heavier armor is worse than being forced to. No, you're just selectively picking out one sentence where I explained my experience of armor swapping and taking it out of context. MiltonSlavemasta stated his experience earlier in the thread MiltonSlavemasta posted:Playing on Hard, I found that because of the frequency of fights in open spaces, disabling effects, and teleporting enemies, you couldn't always bank on no one else being hit, and certain classes that tend to use daily abilities for huge burst damage instead of having strong basic attacks (Druids and Wizards mainly) or who were really important to keep alive at all costs (Priests), or who just weren't particularly damaging characters and weren't largely impacted by action speed (Chanters) all had compelling reasons to wear heavy armor in addition to the classes you'd expect to head directly into the fray and take some aggro (Monks, Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins). The only classes I don't really like Heavy Armor for are classes who don't like to tank and rely heavily on action speed for damage/effectiveness (Ciphers, Rogues, Rangers). Whereas I didn't find that I had a reason to change armor after a certain point in the game on anyone for any of those stated reasons, but for a different reason - to make enemies (ranged enemies, specifically) not target the character. I stopped playing Pillars of Eternity in Act 3. My characters are level 10? That's most of the game, as I've done all of the Act 1 and 2 side content. Lots of Od Nua and a few of the bounty quests. Don't care to continue at this point (mostly due to issues with the story/writing - if I actually enjoyed those, I would not have stopped playing). Feel free to continue making bullshit statements about me or the way you think I play, but I'm more interested in hearing how you think I'm wrong though. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I don't think he's lying, he just played the IE games in a very specific and idiosyncratic way. Most of the stuff he's talking about, like manually dodging your tanks around, always seemed like a really exploitative way to play to me - coming from a gold box / tabletop background it was really clear that kind of play wasn't an intentional part.of the design, or for that matter something I was interested in anyway. Before the IE games I played mostly Warcraft 2 and Age of Empires 2 (and Dark Sun Shattered Lands). Even in turn-based games, it's not difficult to play based on what the enemy AI does. Wasteland 2 for instance - enemies just charge you, you know they're always gonna do that so you take that into account. The Banner Saga - if you stick a guy out with that Shield Wall ability and keep all of your other guys 4 or so squares away enemies will just attack him and won't even try to go for your other characters as long as you don't make an offensive move. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 15:29
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Taear posted:This is exactly what I think. How're you supposed to enjoy the system or find any fight hard when your experience of it is so utterly utterly removed from the experience of 99% of the playerbase? This is really oversimplifying the matter. There are plenty of folks who have not played the beta who have exactly the same complaints. I don't personally agree with a lot of what Sensuki says (though some I definitel do agree with) but that doesn't mean that there aren't valid points there that shouldn't just be excused by A) he played too much of the beta and B) lol rose-tinted glasses. A lot of people sure like to hand-wave things away, saying things like "grognard" and how obviously PoE is the *new* way. Leinadi fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 15:33
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Jackard posted:Possible hires off the top of my head: I think the stronghold is actually a very good video game stronghold for the most part, it's just not as good as the build up and the game itself initially made me think it was. Sensuki posted:as I've done all of the Act 1 and 2 side content. Lots of Od Nua and a few of the bounty quests. Don't care to continue at this point Sensuki posted:(mostly due to issues with the story/writing).
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Apr 14, 2015 15:34
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Vermain has a lot of the same issues with the combat as I do, from what I saw of his posts recently.The Sharmat posted:There's your problem. You've got a level of systems mastery such that the game's kinda screwy power curve makes you pretty much invincible for the lategame after doing all this side poo poo. Lots of us had this issue. You just justify it with some weird rationalizations that don't focus on the real problem. My specific issue isn't that the game is too easy for me, it's that I'm not enjoying the combat because I don't have to react to anything the enemy does. It's the same positioning, the same per-encounters, rinse/repeat the same thing like literally every time. It's partially a power curve thing but a lot of it has to do with the design as well. The combat could definitely be improved, but stylistically I'm not really enjoying it that much. I didn't have this problem with any of the Infinity Engine games, I find them very easy (due to having played them loooots) but I make more adjustments/reactions in encounters. I find encounters in that game a bit more dynamic. In BG2 there are a lot of encounters where you literally win by auto-attacking but the setpiece encounters are way, way better than here IMO. The Sharmat posted:I desperately want to hear your thoughts on this. (Writing) Sure. Firstly I find the writing style too dry for my tastes and I found that dialogue had a lot of really unnecessary text and the game really ham-fistedly forces lore and exposition on you. Other games do this but here it's really visceral because it's like they thought due to it being a new setting that they have to explain ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING as if I'm not going to be able to figure it out for myself ... which is really weird considering that both Josh and Chris Avellone talk about how they dislike this type of writing in games. It's 'well written', but I found it really hard to care about pretty much anything anyone says. An example - in the interstitial where you first encounter the antagonist, the text describes what he looks like multiple times, but there's a picture of him right there and previously you saw his portrait and you saw his character model in the game previously, so you know exactly what he looks like yet they keep telling you what he looks like. I mean, sure I enjoyed the descriptive text in PST, but I think they force it/overdo it a lot in this game. I don't really like any of the companions except for Durance and the Grieving Mother ... although the VO for her is *hosed*, the sibilant S sound drives me crazy ... No game I've played has had such a bad VO recording as this. Kana is probably the most boring. The rest are okay at best. Chris Avellone's characters really stand out because they have really well developed relationships with the player. The others feel more like "Yo, help me out on this quest" with a bunch of optional questions about their homeland/etc. Eder's probably the third best simply because he sort of helps establish familiarity to the immediate setting. I got Pallegina and Hiravias really late so I haven't interacted with them as much of the others. Regarding the story specifically I found that the player motivation and agency for following the story to well .. be thin at best, I couldn't have been less interested in the antagonist and nothing really made me care about or be invested in the Dyrwood either, as really, most people you meet in the game are either boring or unlikeable. Neither did I care about Animancy because being a watcher, you find out animancy doesn't matter regarding your 'issue' and the game does a poor job at establishing why if at all, animancy is a good thing as pretty much everything about it seems to have had a negative outcome on the general population. The whole 'going crazy' thing also never seemed like an issue. You have some weird dreams of Adra Pillars and you can see souls ... but then you use this ability to your advantage to be able to do cool things and you learn that there are Watchers and Awakened Souls (e.g., Aloth) that function just fine - so why do you want to follow Thaos to try and make it stop ? (which is the only reason you have at one point). To me it feels like they're trying to use the same player motivation as in Mask of the Betrayer without a similar 'spirit eater' mechanic and I don't think it works. Then there's Act 2. I haven't read the majority of this thread since the game came out but I don't think I need to express my displeasure about the end of Act 2. Felt like the Mass Effect 3 ending all over again. The Faction alliances were also not handled very well. When you get to Twin Elms it feels like a totally different game. All in all I found the story so far to be very disjointed, poorly paced and poorly reinforced, to the point where I don't really care about finding out what happens (which I have now learned via spoilers on the Codex). Sensuki fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 15:34
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Kajeesus posted:The Vithrak are probably one of my favorite aspects of the PoE universe, just because from what we've seen, they're not evil. They just happen to be a civilization of horrible psychic totally-not-mind-flayer spider monsters who live in underground cities. There's the one rear end in a top hat guarding the stairs in the Endless Paths, and the ones that are hostile before you meet their leader, but all the other ones just want to not get murdered. I really hope we get to see one of their cities at some point, and it is just like any other city, only with spider people living in a giant spiral orb structure or a funnelweb or whatever. Same here; hell, I'm hoping it forms a hub in a sequel or something. Maybe even have one as a companion.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:38
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CommissarMega posted:Same here; hell, I'm hoping it forms a hub in a sequel or something. Maybe even have one as a companion. I'd say that could never happen because it would make no sense just to be walking around with a Vrithack in a major kith city but I said the same thing about a Geth companion before ME2 came out.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:40
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Sensuki posted:
Lack of complex enemy AI is one of PoE's big flaws but it's also something the devs said they want to include and then improve with the expansions, I.e., they ran out of Dev time //funding for it. I think a lot of your complaints will be addressed in patches and expansions. Not all - some are just matters of personal taste -- but I suspect if you come back to this series later on you'll like it a lot more than you do right now.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:40
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Have to agree with combat getting repetitive. There's a vast amount of trash encounters in this game and virtually all of them are handled, at least for me on Hard, in basically the exact same way. I'm also finding the story to be really uninteresting, and combined with the overall 'dullness' of the game world I'm kind of losing motivation to even finish my playthrough. I really do enjoy the basic mechanics of the game, though, and a lot of the worldbuilding is interesting. And the presentation is fantastic.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:41
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The Sharmat posted:I'd say that could never happen because it would make no sense just to be walking around with a Vrithack in a major kith city but I said the same thing about a Geth companion before ME2 came out. It could be a major plot point, or even a reason one joins you: "Yo biped I want to see your rockin' cities maybe snag some adra beetles- whaddaya say I join up for a bit?" And then ten hours in you finally begin its companion quest and solve its daddy problems. You also find out it's the only romance option in the entire PoE series, and after you complete it, you find a text message from all of Obsidian going 'What the gently caress, dude. Seriously'.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:44
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I'd have no problem romancing a Vithrak, but then, I'm not a racist like you, CommisarMega.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:47
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I am only level 5 and can see why people would say that combat is boring. I am having fun though, as I fee I have relatively plenty of options to deal with the situations provided. Also, does anyone have any recommendations on how I should build Sagani? I got her at level 4 and she came with Mark Prey and Wounding shot with Faithful Companion and Peasant Weapon Focus as her talents.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:49
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You can romance a locust dude in Mass Effect and it's more natural than most video game romances. S'all down to writing.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:50
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