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jneer
Aug 31, 2006

Mush Mushi!
Visually, Twin Elms was pretty cool to me and I liked exploring a city that was untraditional, but my biggest problem was the total lack of content. It may as well have been another dungeon.

Athkatla and Baldur's Gate feel big as cities not because there's X amounts of square miles of city, but because they're filled with stories and NPCs that are worth exploring.

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Gyshall
Feb 24, 2009

Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.
Hopefully Twin Elms gets some love in the expansion pack.

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Volume posted:

Lady Webb told my character that Thaos travels his soul from place to place for...reasons. That was her explanation. Reasons. She never learned why he did it but clearly it must be for a sinister reason because...

Edit: Hell even at the end of Act 2 the game admits that no one knows what Thaos is up to when it claims "Thoas went off to Twin Elms for mysterious and unknown reasons"


I wasn't really paying attention much in the church of woedica so maybe I missed the whole "We're the one's doing the Legacy" plot dump there.

I think the plot would have been much improved if they had moved Thaos' big exposition dump that happens literally before the last boss fight to somewhere in mid/late Act 2. Having him lay all this poo poo on the table and basically being "Here's what's really going on puny mortal you think I give a gently caress about your bad dreams, I've ruined entire continents to prevent greater catastrophe on a scale that would wreck your mind" and THEN still having another act to go would have given you a lot more motivation for pursuing him. I think it'd even be cool if there were say two different paths the plot could take from that juncture, like you could either take in everything he said and still want to end the Legacy and attempt to defeat him for great justice, or you could decide that what he's doing maybe does serve a greater purpose and if the Dyrwood has to suffer in this lifetime, it's worth it for the overall stability of the cosmos. Comedy third option "I'll finish your quest before you can and steal Woedica's favor!"

CFox
Nov 9, 2005

homeless poster posted:

I think the plot would have been much improved if they had moved Thaos' big exposition dump that happens literally before the last boss fight to somewhere in mid/late Act 2. Having him lay all this poo poo on the table and basically being "Here's what's really going on puny mortal you think I give a gently caress about your bad dreams, I've ruined entire continents to prevent greater catastrophe on a scale that would wreck your mind" and THEN still having another act to go would have given you a lot more motivation for pursuing him. I think it'd even be cool if there were say two different paths the plot could take from that juncture, like you could either take in everything he said and still want to end the Legacy and attempt to defeat him for great justice, or you could decide that what he's doing maybe does serve a greater purpose and if the Dyrwood has to suffer in this lifetime, it's worth it for the overall stability of the cosmos. Comedy third option "I'll finish your quest before you can and steal Woedica's favor!"

Yea that would have been good. I'd have also preferred the explanation from the twins before you go after the gods favor (where they say that as a Watcher you're doomed to go insane but if you resolve the questions in your past life you might just be ok) to come a lot sooner in the story. Maybe have it insinuated by Maerwald or something. It would have given a lot more motivation to go after Thaos besides "I keep seeing visions of this guy so I better find him. He can help, probably, maybe, who knows."

Wizard Styles
Aug 6, 2014

level 15 disillusionist
Has anyone gotten use out of the Rogue's Coordinated Positioning? I took it on level 7 because gently caress it, how bad can it be, and so far it has been pretty much useless. Even in the Skaen Temple, where I thought it should be at its best due to the big groups of enemies belonging to all kinds of classes down there, I got nothing out of it.
I tried using it three times so far, and never because it was particularly good in the situation, only because I wanted to try it out. Once, I misjudged the range and had my Rogue eat a disengagement attack. The next time it worked and achieved very little. And the third time it just missed.
In general it seems like the combination of short range, needing to hit, and not being instant speed just amounts to too many limiting factors, and I'm close to just cheating it away and replacing it with Blinding Strike or something. Maybe Escape, even.

seorin posted:

There's a heavy emphasis on status effects, especially ones that take away control (charm/dominate/paralysis), and I get annoyed when the only challenge in a fight is based around losing control of my character. My main character was paralyzed for literally the entire Sserkal fight , and undead Raedric was easier to solo because negating charm completely defanged the encounter. Charm even felt too cheap for me to use (and that's saying a lot), so I wouldn't hesitate to install a mod that just removed it from the game entirely. I also found it less satisfying to slowly cripple an enemy by piling on effects instead of a more traditional fireball approach.
I enjoy the combat, but I would have preferred it if hard CC like paralysis and dominate, if they have to be in the game, would at least be harder to apply than simple debuffs like blind or sicken.

quote:

Part of that is the game felt too balanced. I'm weird, but I like some imbalance. It's fun to find the broken abilities and combos, but they've mostly been stamped out, making all the different character builds feel too similar. I went for a diverse party (Barbarian, Pallegina, GM, Hiravias, Kana, and Sagani), but none of them stood out from the rest. That's arguably a good thing from some viewpoints, but it felt so drat bland that it took the fun out of character building for me. I love the classes, stats, and abilities, but I wish there were a few more standout choices instead of being able to make a character by throwing darts and have it turn out 90% as good as an optimized one.
You can optimize characters and they're going to be notably better than just throwing something together as you go along, it's just hard to gently caress up completely. And, to be honest, I don't know how that could ever be seen as a bad thing.

Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jun 2, 2015

Seashell Salesman
Aug 4, 2005

Holy wow! That "Literally A Person" sure is a cool and good poster. He's smart and witty and he smells like a pure mountain stream. I posted in his thread and I got a FANCY NEW AVATAR!!!!
The atmosphere and backstory of Gilded Vale and Raedric's Hold is really great, so it's bumming me out to now get around to doing Kolsc's quest and being able to see a mile off that I will be made to feel bad/naïve in the ending slides if I kill Lord Raedric. Even though he shows absolutely no awareness of the terrible mistakes he made and it seems abundantly clear that he will continue down that same path until it totally destroys Gilded Vale. How will Kolsc turn out to be worse? Who knows, but just on principle I'm sure it has to turn out that way. It also seems like there isn't a way to end the quest peacefully unless I'm a paladin (which I'm not). Very tempted to just sneak back out of Raedric's Chapel (or is it a throne room?) and leave the entire quest unfinished to not give the game its smug satisfaction. Is that genius design or lazy design? Am I being paranoid and the quest is way more straight forward than I think?

GoodluckJonathan
Oct 31, 2003

Raedric is a bad dude.

Airfoil
Sep 10, 2013

I'm a rocket man
Second RPG Codex PoE review. This time written by a sane person.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9913

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Airfoil posted:

Second RPG Codex PoE review. This time written by a sane person.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9913

But this is not the inventory screen of a sane person!



Look at how randomly everything is placed! It's driving me nuts! I can't even look at it!

Seashell Salesman
Aug 4, 2005

Holy wow! That "Literally A Person" sure is a cool and good poster. He's smart and witty and he smells like a pure mountain stream. I posted in his thread and I got a FANCY NEW AVATAR!!!!

precision posted:

But this is not the inventory screen of a sane person!



Look at how randomly everything is placed! It's driving me nuts! I can't even look at it!

Once I realized the stash had unlimited space I just chuck every single item into it at all times. There should be some mode selector that toggles between either having a stash or having individual inventories, having both just feels very clunky and redundant.

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Seashell Salesman posted:

The atmosphere and backstory of Gilded Vale and Raedric's Hold is really great, so it's bumming me out to now get around to doing Kolsc's quest and being able to see a mile off that I will be made to feel bad/naïve in the ending slides if I kill Lord Raedric. Even though he shows absolutely no awareness of the terrible mistakes he made and it seems abundantly clear that he will continue down that same path until it totally destroys Gilded Vale. How will Kolsc turn out to be worse? Who knows, but just on principle I'm sure it has to turn out that way. It also seems like there isn't a way to end the quest peacefully unless I'm a paladin (which I'm not). Very tempted to just sneak back out of Raedric's Chapel (or is it a throne room?) and leave the entire quest unfinished to not give the game its smug satisfaction. Is that genius design or lazy design? Am I being paranoid and the quest is way more straight forward than I think?

As posted a few pages back, the "best" endings for Gilded Vale involve either killing Kolsc and leaving Raedric in power, or killing both of them and then re-killing Raedric when he pops back up. You can totally just bail on the whole situation, but now that you've activated it, leaving it unresolved gets a "bad" ending slide IIRC.

Head Hit Keyboard
Oct 9, 2012

It must be fate that has brought us together after all these years.

Seashell Salesman posted:

Once I realized the stash had unlimited space I just chuck every single item into it at all times. There should be some mode selector that toggles between either having a stash or having individual inventories, having both just feels very clunky and redundant.

One of the hardcore options does limit your use of the Stash. To what extent I don't know but it's there.

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Head Hit Keyboard posted:

One of the hardcore options does limit your use of the Stash. To what extent I don't know but it's there.

All it really does is limit you to accessing the stash when you're in town or by burning one of your camping supplies. There's more camping supplies in the game than you could ever need for any play through, even on the hardest difficulty combo which stops you at 2 supplies. As a bonus, using the supplies to open the stash in the wild ALSO gives you the benefits of a standard rest, which makes it doubly confusing why you would ever just rest. It doesn't limit the depth of the stash though, so you can still just chuck whatever you want into the stash and as long as you're paying even a little bit of attention to your character's inventory, it's never a problem. If you accidentally drop something into the stash that you wanted to use, just walk back to town and switch it out. All in all, the inventory system was something that was hotly debated during development, but in practice it doesn't matter.

Wizard Styles
Aug 6, 2014

level 15 disillusionist

precision posted:

But this is not the inventory screen of a sane person!



Look at how randomly everything is placed! It's driving me nuts! I can't even look at it!
Never mind that, where are the pets?

Sane or not, this reviewer clearly has no soul.

homeless poster posted:

things about Raedric
Don't tell the, probably, only person alive who has managed to avoid spoilers about the quest that.

Octo1
May 7, 2009

Wizard Styles posted:

Has anyone gotten use out of the Rogue's Coordinated Positioning? I took it on level 7 because gently caress it, how bad can it be, and so far it has been pretty much useless. Even in the Skaen Temple, where I thought it should be at its best due to the big groups of enemies belonging to all kinds of classes down there, I got nothing out of it.
I tried using it three times so far, and never because it was particularly good in the situation, only because I wanted to try it out. Once, I misjudged the range and had my Rogue eat a disengagement attack. The next time it worked and achieved very little. And the third time it just missed.
In general it seems like the combination of short range, needing to hit, and not being instant speed just amounts to too many limiting factors, and I'm close to just cheating it away and replacing it with Blinding Strike or something. Maybe Escape, even.

Coordinated Positioning is fantastic for switching places with allies, either because your formation is messed up and there's not enough room to move, or because you want to get an ally out of danger. Being able to use it on enemies is just an extra.

Wizard Styles
Aug 6, 2014

level 15 disillusionist

Octo1 posted:

Coordinated Positioning is fantastic for switching places with allies, either because your formation is messed up and there's not enough room to move, or because you want to get an ally out of danger. Being able to use it on enemies is just an extra.
Well, I'm about to head to Cliaban Rilag and that place is pure misery when it comes to giving you room to move, so I guess I'll see how much Coordinated Positioning helps down there.

Seashell Salesman
Aug 4, 2005

Holy wow! That "Literally A Person" sure is a cool and good poster. He's smart and witty and he smells like a pure mountain stream. I posted in his thread and I got a FANCY NEW AVATAR!!!!

homeless poster posted:

As posted a few pages back, the "best" endings for Gilded Vale involve either killing Kolsc and leaving Raedric in power, or killing both of them and then re-killing Raedric when he pops back up. You can totally just bail on the whole situation, but now that you've activated it, leaving it unresolved gets a "bad" ending slide IIRC.

This is what I was concerned about. They show that Raedric is clearly unfit to rule, show you there is at least another candidate of unknown ability, and then if you are tricked into taking a shot on the unknown candidate then you get gotcha-ed in the ending slides.

e: The priest Nedmar basically tells you "Hey I know this makes sense in real world logic but, trust me, in RPG logic somehow Kolsc will end up worse and your ending slides will get rekt."

Seashell Salesman fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jun 2, 2015

Autsj
Nov 9, 2011

Seashell Salesman posted:

This is what I was concerned about. They show that Raedric is clearly unfit to rule, show you there is at least another candidate of unknown ability, and then if you are tricked into taking a shot on the unknown candidate then you get gotcha-ed in the ending slides.

e: The priest Nedmar basically tells you "Hey I know this makes sense in real world logic but, trust me, in RPG logic somehow Kolsc will end up worse and your ending slides will get rekt."

This isn 't really true, people are just posting dumb/phrasing things awkward. There's no major issue with helping Kolsc, he doesn't particularly gently caress things up. Killing Raedric just means there's a part 2 to the whole thing in act 3.

There's no real "gotcha", the continuation in act 3 is just a little easy to miss. Gilded Vale ends badly if you miss that, or if you do nothing at all from the start.

Edit: VV Decent argument, totally irrelevant to the game though: Just gotta kill the mean king twice, is all.

Autsj fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jun 2, 2015

Freaking Crumbum
Apr 17, 2003

Too fuck to drunk


Seashell Salesman posted:

This is what I was concerned about. They show that Raedric is clearly unfit to rule, show you there is at least another candidate of unknown ability, and then if you are tricked into taking a shot on the unknown candidate then you get gotcha-ed in the ending slides.

e: The priest Nedmar basically tells you "Hey I know this makes sense in real world logic but, trust me, in RPG logic somehow Kolsc will end up worse and your ending slides will get rekt."

See, I felt like Nedmar was giving you a pretty good justification in-game in-character for why you don't want to oust Raedric. His point is basically that just because Raedric is one type of monster, it doesn't mean that Kolsc won't be a (potentially) worse kind of monster, and that the established structure of the region is going to be very heavily upset above and beyond you just icing Raedric. The idea is that yes, Raedric is personally an evilbad man, but his family has been ruling the area for awhile and they've got connections with the rulers of the other towns in the area and they've already got a decent infrastructure in place to ensure that life "could" return to normal if the present situation is resolved. Kolsc, in addition to being an unknown variable, has no relationship with anyone outside his band of ragamuffins, and isn't necessarily prepared to run a barony/fiefdom/etc. Remember that the historical timeframe the game is based on still had heavy involvement from noble families, and if the peasants in one region get uppity and overthrow the ruler, the nobility nearby are going to be rightfully concerned. It's also likely that the other nobility could see the power vacuum as an opportunity to just swoop in with their own army, and they are probably going to be even bigger dicks than Raedric.

I'd argue that the concept of "overthrow the mean king and put the plucky rebel leader in his place and everything will be just fine" is more of a video game expectation than the other way around.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

homeless poster posted:

See, I felt like Nedmar was giving you a pretty good justification in-game in-character for why you don't want to oust Raedric. His point is basically that just because Raedric is one type of monster, it doesn't mean that Kolsc won't be a (potentially) worse kind of monster, and that the established structure of the region is going to be very heavily upset above and beyond you just icing Raedric. The idea is that yes, Raedric is personally an evilbad man, but his family has been ruling the area for awhile and they've got connections with the rulers of the other towns in the area and they've already got a decent infrastructure in place to ensure that life "could" return to normal if the present situation is resolved. Kolsc, in addition to being an unknown variable, has no relationship with anyone outside his band of ragamuffins, and isn't necessarily prepared to run a barony/fiefdom/etc. Remember that the historical timeframe the game is based on still had heavy involvement from noble families, and if the peasants in one region get uppity and overthrow the ruler, the nobility nearby are going to be rightfully concerned. It's also likely that the other nobility could see the power vacuum as an opportunity to just swoop in with their own army, and they are probably going to be even bigger dicks than Raedric.

I'd argue that the concept of "overthrow the mean king and put the plucky rebel leader in his place and everything will be just fine" is more of a video game expectation than the other way around.

I murdered both of them to ensure the eventual takeover by mayor Edér (in my head).

Wizard Styles
Aug 6, 2014

level 15 disillusionist

homeless poster posted:

It's also likely that the other nobility could see the power vacuum as an opportunity to just swoop in with their own army, and they are probably going to be even bigger dicks than Raedric.
How could anyone be worse than Raedric?

Also, Kolsc is Raedric's cousin, although I'm not sure how much that means. I never really thought much about that, all I ever needed to decide what to do was a look at that corpse tree, although the game doesn't ever stop giving you good reasons to kill Raedric.

Edit: I still kind of wish there was a way for the Watcher to just go "gently caress it, as master of Caed Nua, I'm taking over." if both Raedric and Kolsc die.

CrookedB
Jun 27, 2011

Stupid newbee

Airfoil posted:

Second RPG Codex PoE review. This time written by a sane person.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9913

The first review was more of an unedited rant but it did have good points. Even this, positive review acknowledges that.

I do agree this is a good review, by the way, but I am biased.

Anime Schoolgirl
Nov 28, 2002

Seashell Salesman posted:

The atmosphere and backstory of Gilded Vale and Raedric's Hold is really great, so it's bumming me out to now get around to doing Kolsc's quest and being able to see a mile off that I will be made to feel bad/naïve in the ending slides if I kill Lord Raedric. Even though he shows absolutely no awareness of the terrible mistakes he made and it seems abundantly clear that he will continue down that same path until it totally destroys Gilded Vale. How will Kolsc turn out to be worse? Who knows, but just on principle I'm sure it has to turn out that way. It also seems like there isn't a way to end the quest peacefully unless I'm a paladin (which I'm not). Very tempted to just sneak back out of Raedric's Chapel (or is it a throne room?) and leave the entire quest unfinished to not give the game its smug satisfaction. Is that genius design or lazy design? Am I being paranoid and the quest is way more straight forward than I think?
Either you backstab Kolsc, or kill Raedric twice. Don't leave the job unfinished.
I'd rather not give Raedric validation for his actions, personally. The worst thing you can do is leave someone who did horrible things convinced that they're right.

homeless poster posted:

As posted a few pages back, the "best" endings for Gilded Vale involve either killing Kolsc and leaving Raedric in power, or killing both of them and then re-killing Raedric when he pops back up. You can totally just bail on the whole situation, but now that you've activated it, leaving it unresolved gets a "bad" ending slide IIRC.
You don't have to kill Kolsc, he dies regardless if you kill Raedric. It also solves the question of whether Kolsc would be a better leader, because he dies before he can show that :v:

Anime Schoolgirl fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jun 2, 2015

Krowley
Feb 15, 2008

precision posted:

But this is not the inventory screen of a sane person!



Look at how randomly everything is placed! It's driving me nuts! I can't even look at it!

spacejung
Feb 8, 2004
Get it together, gang...

Wizard Styles
Aug 6, 2014

level 15 disillusionist




I swear there's a method to this.

Malek
Jun 22, 2003

Shut up Girl!
And as always: Kill Hitler.
Sorry to break up the inventory talk but stupid question.

Fotosketcher. What filter settings are normally used by people to get a good conversion to a portrait? i.e. what have people had the more success with?

Seashell Salesman
Aug 4, 2005

Holy wow! That "Literally A Person" sure is a cool and good poster. He's smart and witty and he smells like a pure mountain stream. I posted in his thread and I got a FANCY NEW AVATAR!!!!

homeless poster posted:

See, I felt like Nedmar was giving you a pretty good justification in-game in-character for why you don't want to oust Raedric. His point is basically that just because Raedric is one type of monster, it doesn't mean that Kolsc won't be a (potentially) worse kind of monster, and that the established structure of the region is going to be very heavily upset above and beyond you just icing Raedric. The idea is that yes, Raedric is personally an evilbad man, but his family has been ruling the area for awhile and they've got connections with the rulers of the other towns in the area and they've already got a decent infrastructure in place to ensure that life "could" return to normal if the present situation is resolved. Kolsc, in addition to being an unknown variable, has no relationship with anyone outside his band of ragamuffins, and isn't necessarily prepared to run a barony/fiefdom/etc. Remember that the historical timeframe the game is based on still had heavy involvement from noble families, and if the peasants in one region get uppity and overthrow the ruler, the nobility nearby are going to be rightfully concerned. It's also likely that the other nobility could see the power vacuum as an opportunity to just swoop in with their own army, and they are probably going to be even bigger dicks than Raedric.

I'd argue that the concept of "overthrow the mean king and put the plucky rebel leader in his place and everything will be just fine" is more of a video game expectation than the other way around.

But Kolsc is Raedric's cousin (which means he is also a Raedric I guess?) and would have come to power himself if he were eldest, Raedric tells you this when you confront him. He should have exactly the same connections and 'training' to rule that Raedric does.

It really seems to me like the problems of Gilded Vale are actually caused by Raedric. Raedric didn't cause the Hollowborn crisis, but his reaction to it is entirely his fault and caused the economic problems, the mass killings, and the unrest.

seorin
May 23, 2005

2 Sun's Dusk (Day 78)
Of the Seven Visions of Seven Trials of the Incarnate, I have now fulfilled the Fifth Trial.

Jim Barris posted:

What exactly struck you as reminiscent of PS:T? It's been a while since I last played Torment but I don't seem to recall it hitting any of the same thematic notes as POE.

It's been awhile for me, too, but both stories heavily feature a quest for the truth about something bad "you" did in the past. Thematically, I'd say PoE veers more towards questioning the definition of truth whereas PS:T leans more towards the definition of self. Both have a secondary theme of religion and repentance, each with their own unique focus. It feels to me like each shows a different view of the same basic story.

Wizard Styles posted:

You can optimize characters and they're going to be notably better than just throwing something together as you go along, it's just hard to gently caress up completely. And, to be honest, I don't know how that could ever be seen as a bad thing.

These are two related but independent issues. I agree it's good design for average/bad builds to be functional instead of gimped. However, the closer together you bring the 'minimum' and 'maximum', the more you take away the impact of player choice. In the hypothetical (impossible) perfectly balanced system, choosing your character's colors would be equally important to choosing their class, abilities, and stats - just personal preference with no real impact on gameplay. That's why I say some imbalance is a good thing - feeling rewarded for making good choices requires that some choices are better than others.

It comes down to personal taste. You can pick any two of flexibility, variety, and challenge. PoE has flexibility and challenge, whereas I prefer variety and flexibility (challenge can be self-imposed). It's an oversimplification, but I think it illustrates what I mean.

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

seorin posted:

It's been awhile for me, too, but both stories heavily feature a quest for the truth about something bad "you" did in the past. Thematically, I'd say PoE veers more towards questioning the definition of truth whereas PS:T leans more towards the definition of self. Both have a secondary theme of religion and repentance, each with their own unique focus. It feels to me like each shows a different view of the same basic story.

The Watcher isn't on a quest to learn the truth about something bad he did in the past, he's pursuing Thaos to either (depending on what you choose via dialog) stop Waidwen's Legacy or to prevent yourself from going insane as a result of your awakening. They're not really the same basic story at all.

Does it matter if God is real if religion helps people to live more happily? That's basically the main question POE asks us. Contrast that with PS:T's big question "What can change the nature of a man?". They're very different questions because POE and PS:T aren't actually about the same things as you seem to be claiming. They share some basic themes, sure, but that's not enough to say they're the same.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

spacejung posted:

Get it together, gang...



this guy gets it.

e: I like how Durance has all the cats. He's a cross between a crazy cat lady and Fred Phelps.

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy
1.06 is out and live.

Also dang some of you are pretty free with the spoilers lately!

Jim Barris posted:

The Watcher isn't on a quest to learn the truth about something bad he did in the past, he's pursuing Thaos to either (depending on what you choose via dialog) stop Waidwen's Legacy or to prevent yourself from going insane as a result of your awakening. They're not really the same basic story at all.
There's a bunch of scenes where you talk to/see Thaos or some such through one of your previous soul visions. Even the intro after the tutorial leaves you hanging with notions that you know Thaos from somewhere and wanted to ask him questions.

Rascyc fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jun 2, 2015

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Now that it's live I'll mention again that 1.06 has significantly increased performance for me. I don't know how, I don't care, but the game suddenly runs as smooth as it probably should have all along, since I'm above spec and not running a ton of poo poo in the background ever.

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Rascyc posted:

1.06 is out and live.

Also dang some of you are pretty free with the spoilers lately!

There's a bunch of scenes where you talk to/see Thaos or some such through one of your previous soul visions. Even the intro after the tutorial leaves you hanging with notions that you know Thaos from somewhere and wanted to ask him questions.

Yeah, I know, I should have been more specific. You're connected to Thaos through that past life but it serves as a plot device to tell you about stuff that happened thousands of years ago rather then being the entire focus of your journey. Whereas in PS:T the nameless ones entire thing is finding out about himself and who he was and what horrible thing he did to be cursed like he is. These things are superficially similar but functionally totally different, is my point.

Also, I assume that spoiler comment was aimed at me. Sorry about that I just plain forgot.

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy

Jim Barris posted:

Yeah, I know, I should have been more specific. You're connected to Thaos through that past life but it serves as a plot device to tell you about stuff that happened thousands of years ago rather then being the entire focus of your journey. Whereas in PS:T the nameless ones entire thing is finding out about himself and who he was and what horrible thing he did to be cursed like he is. These things are superficially similar but functionally totally different, is my point.

Also, I assume that spoiler comment was aimed at me. Sorry about that I just plain forgot.
I agree. I think it's different enough but I think there's enough of a call back to get a Planescape vibe out of it all. Especially since the game does not give you context for all those scenes until much later in the game, so it's up to the player to make some interpretations for awhile.

The spoiler thing was more about all the Raedric stuff up above. There's been a bunch of people waiting ages for the game to be stable before they played :V

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice
So I just finished the game for the first time and quite naturally I hosed everything up for everybody and by the time I finished my characters were barely competent at swinging a pillow around let alone a sword. Hell yes I want to play through it all again and get different and better endings but maybe not taking quite so long as this first one did, and definitely not if it's as hard.

If I wanted to make my next playthrough's character just an all-conquering munchkin who can blast through everything that faces him is this possible? I hear D&D is infamous for this kind of stuff but I don't know if PoE is the same.

seorin
May 23, 2005

2 Sun's Dusk (Day 78)
Of the Seven Visions of Seven Trials of the Incarnate, I have now fulfilled the Fifth Trial.

Jim Barris posted:

The Watcher isn't on a quest to learn the truth about something bad he did in the past, he's pursuing Thaos to either (depending on what you choose via dialog) stop Waidwen's Legacy or to prevent yourself from going insane as a result of your awakening. They're not really the same basic story at all.

Does it matter if God is real if religion helps people to live more happily? That's basically the main question POE asks us. Contrast that with PS:T's big question "What can change the nature of a man?". They're very different questions because POE and PS:T aren't actually about the same things as you seem to be claiming. They share some basic themes, sure, but that's not enough to say they're the same.

First, I don't disagree with what you're saying. Each is its own unique story that asks its own questions. I'm not claiming that anyone would get to the end of the game and think it was just PS:T all over again.

That said, the beginnings especially share a lot of similarities. Your main character has an affliction that needs to be cured, and it seems to be related to something you did in the past, so you might be able to fix it if only you can learn what that was. Your soul will not know peace across many lifetimes unless you can put to rest this unsettled matter from your past. These are more than just superficial similarities, but each story picks up its own unique themes and takes them in a different direction.

Still, I'd say one or two themes invite comparison, and that's not at all a bad thing. What can change the nature of a man? PoE suggests one answer might be religion and asks you to choose whether or not you agree. Thaos acts entirely out of the belief that religion is the only way to change man's bestial nature and without it we will revert back to barbarism.

The only point I was trying to make in my original post is that TNO's curse/amnesia is a more compelling motivation (to me) than PoE's awakening. TNO manages to be unique even in an extremely bizarre setting, whereas everybody in PoE has past lives, and awakening is not unique to the main character. I took one look at TNO and thought "that's not normal," but reacted to PoE more like, "okay, sometimes people awaken to their past soul lives in this setting. Got it." Even seeing Maerwald didn't make me feel like I must find a cure because it seemed like - hey, that happened to him, but that doesn't mean it'll affect me the same way. Especially since you are only remembering one life, not a conflict between two as he was. That's just my subjective experience, not an absolute truth or anything.

Pierson posted:

If I wanted to make my next playthrough's character just an all-conquering munchkin who can blast through everything that faces him is this possible? I hear D&D is infamous for this kind of stuff but I don't know if PoE is the same.

I was just posting earlier lamenting that such a thing does not exist in this game. It used to, but it gets patched out every time someone finds a new one. There are still good builds that will alleviate some of the difficulty, but the days of effortlessly blasting through appear to be over.

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice
I mean in the end I can just shove it down to easy. :v:


Also does Baldur's Gate 2 still hold up? I want to try more CRPGs but Planescape Torment has been spoiled so much I feel like I've already finished it a half-dozen times. :(

Merdifex
May 13, 2015

by Shine
When the Engwithans made the gods, why did they make the gods as we have them? You'd think that channeling all those souls into the making of just one, omnipotent God would work out just as well, you wouldn't have the issue of petty squabbles between the gods, Woedica ruining poo poo, Eothas possessing farmers, and all that nonsense?

Somebody fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jun 3, 2015

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computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

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Pierson posted:


Also does Baldur's Gate 2 still hold up? I want to try more CRPGs but Planescape Torment has been spoiled so much I feel like I've already finished it a half-dozen times. :(

If you're fine with the mechanics then you shouldn't have that much of a problem.

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