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I generally don't spoil myself in these games other than to sometimes check out after the fact if a quest ending is unsatisfactory, but I did on the Abbey because I really didn't want to kill all those monks, nor did I want to lie to them, and went looking after not being able to reconcile the two goals. That's pretty cool - that I cared enough to have those be my goals in that map. Good game vibes right there. It's also cool that you're not the Tidebringer and that you're there for a specific goal, and not the center of that or any other universe except where a specific set of circumstances right at the beginning affected you (like the Courier).
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Oct 19, 2020 19:00
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Don't you always have to kill that one group of monks right after opening the grate? I've been able to avoid all the other ones (other than the forced fight with Kaoto) but that one group of crazy monks near the grate in the basement always aggro after I open it. Maybe I missed something.
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Oct 19, 2020 19:25
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They only aggro right as the gate opens, the final sound. So if you sneak off to the cave next door after using the gate lever they won't aggro you and will go back to their rooms. There's a soul in that cave next door which is first-person from a monk's view who talks about the fear and anger caused by a strange and horrible sound and how that anger went away when the sound went away - a nice way of giving a hint. v1ld fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 19:31
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You can avoid the fight with Kaoto if you head straight to the Reliquary after getting the aspergillum, don't go back and talk to him. After events unfold, looks like you can walk out of there if you don't talk to him after - which is very much in line with your motivations for being there in the first place. If you do go back and talk to him like I did, just to get his take, he has specific dialog about going to the Veil without him and starts a battle on that basis, not the reasons he gives at the Veil. Which also means no way to talk any of the monks over to your side there, you have no moral weight. There're some other bits of reactivity which I only realized on reading the wiki in detail after the quest. Very well done, you won't even realize it's being reactive if you're just playing through normally.
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Oct 19, 2020 19:57
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I’m also playing through White March for the first time, and agree that it’s really, really good. Definitely a cut above many parts of the base game, which can sometimes be dry or restrictive. In fact I’m not particularly looking forward to getting to Twin Elms, which will also be new to me, I just get the feeling it’s going to be a step down
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Oct 19, 2020 20:02
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It will be. I don't know what exactly is wrong with it but it left a very small imprint in my memory.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:45
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It's the part of the game where you're sick of the trash mobs and try to wrap things up asap.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:48
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ilitarist posted:It will be. I don't know what exactly is wrong with it but it left a very small imprint in my memory.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:09
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Twin Elms is a cool area, but you get to it at a point where the main quest has become more urgent so you might be impatient to get through it. Also there are several quests where the main way to complete them is "kill every single member of the tribe" which feels weird to do when they're a very insular community and don't trust you when you first arrive
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Oct 19, 2020 22:36
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v1ld posted:Which shield is that? Aila Braccia. It's arguably the best shield in the game because of this. If you build your tank right every single of her defenses will be in the 100-130's, that's before buffs, so this effect will activate left and right.
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Oct 19, 2020 22:41
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My main problem with Twin Elms is that it doesn't feel very... Penultimate climaxy? The end of the main quest chain there leads to a point of no return but if the game didn't explicitly tell you it was a point of no return, you'd never really have guessed. It's also the point where The Watcher's connection to Thaos is revealed; and rather quickly too since it introduces important characters in the last real act of the game. To be honest, I kinda blame Act 1 for that though. Most of Act 1 is just slow and plodding and doesn't even relate to the main story much that Acts 2 and 3 feel a little rushed to show the politics of the Dyrwood and what the main villains goals are. I bounced off PoE1 pretty hard multiple times until I finally finished Act 1. I definitely agree that The White March is much better paced overall, with better dungeon and encounter designs, some of my favourite NPCs and an interesting mystery to follow. It feels more like the penultimate Act more than the actual Twin Elms Act does.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:12
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By Twin Elms I was reaching the top of the PoE power curve, and my build was solidified. I’d already taken one deep breath to plunge into a city’s worth of loose ends and sidequests, and I didn’t have the stamina or patience for a second buffet, full of lucrative rewards and nothing to spend them on.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:48
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You get to steal a baby in Twin Elms, and that justifies the existence of the entire city.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:06
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I like the music in Twin Elms a bunch.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:30
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I liked the city of Twin Elms itself but northweald/elmshore/stormwall gorge were very dry imo. Although I liked the actual map for northweald a lot. The council of stars quest is great.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:35
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X_Toad posted:Really ? Huh. It was the opposite for me, I thought that Twin Elms was much more memorable than Defiance Bay, the tribes with specialized skills and ways of doing things imprinted themselves better on my memory... although I cannot claim to remember all six of their names. It's not that Defiance Bay was good either. Really apart from Gilded Vale, all the settlements were meh. And for Gilded Vale the tree and Eder did most of the heavy lifting. There was one with a big windmill and Skaven cult, that was OK I guess. But you go into Defiance Bay expecting it to be Athcatla or Baldur's Gate or Tarant or even Cyseal from Divinity Original Sin. And it's so generic and not memorable at all. I remember zombified district and flooded docks. By the time I went to Twin Elms I expected it to be a generic elven town with Native American gimmick but it wasn't even that. It had an ice fortress, I guess. And native council for Pallegina to talk to. Playing PoE1 made me think that maybe I'm not in RPGs anymore, just dungeon crawlers, cause those towns are boring me and Obsidian can't write boring dialogues and lore, can't it? Then in PoE2 you get a more or less single culture and the towns are so unique and interesting without being gimmicky.
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Oct 20, 2020 09:54
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I've always been baffled by the decision to set PoE1 in the Dyrwood. You've got this marvelous tapestry of regions that are deeply rooted in world history without the ubiquitous Tolkien tropes, and the very first foray into that setting is a slice of... fantasy colonial America, but the indigenous peoples are fantasy celts.v1ld posted:Had to cheat to get the tempered ending, I was at 5 of 6 condintions - felt those conditions were a bit too rigid. Out of curiosity, why did you do that? It's been a while since I've played through the White March, but I've never understood why anyone would go for that outside of being a harder ending to reach.
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Oct 20, 2020 12:17
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I've always been baffled by the decision to set PoE1 in the Dyrwood. You've got this marvelous tapestry of regions that are deeply rooted in world history without the ubiquitous Tolkien tropes, and the very first foray into that setting is a slice of... fantasy colonial America, but the indigenous peoples are fantasy celts. That was explicitly the point. They wanted to focus on a familiar region to introduce the setting. And judging by the negative response of a lot of people to the setting of the Deadfire, they sadly weren't wrong with their choice.
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Oct 20, 2020 12:35
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I've always been baffled by the decision to set PoE1 in the Dyrwood. You've got this marvelous tapestry of regions that are deeply rooted in world history without the ubiquitous Tolkien tropes, and the very first foray into that setting is a slice of... fantasy colonial America, but the indigenous peoples are fantasy celts. They had to sell the game to D&D nostalgia crowd. Probably the same reason there are elves and dwarves in the game and I can't remember any interesting about them. You already have Adra pillars and the whole weird soul business, they didn't want to overwhelm you. And I have to say I like PoE1 intro very much. It's a very familiar setting, it does a good job of allowing you to form your character and then throws you into the wild. PoE2 is much better game overall but it starts too weird even if you've played PoE1.
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Oct 20, 2020 12:39
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I've always been baffled by the decision to set PoE1 in the Dyrwood. You've got this marvelous tapestry of regions that are deeply rooted in world history without the ubiquitous Tolkien tropes, and the very first foray into that setting is a slice of... fantasy colonial America, but the indigenous peoples are fantasy celts. The way Ondra described it, it seemed like it was in some way better, since they claim the process "provides context" to Abydon or some poo poo, but then I went and reread about it and was like "wait, no, we're just kinda brainwashing the dude" and had to replay.
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Oct 20, 2020 14:20
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I need to finish PoE 1. I ran into the problem of bouncing off the lingo / fantasy words because it had a large dump of it at the beginning of the game, then I struggled in that temple under the first town with 3 party members. I know now that, that is a higher level dungeon but between getting my rear end kicked, not following the new combat system and dropping the difficulty down to feel I could stand a chance, I put it down for a long time.
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Oct 20, 2020 14:25
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Out of curiosity, why did you do that? It's been a while since I've played through the White March, but I've never understood why anyone would go for that outside of being a harder ending to reach. Not a particularly good reason, but here you go. A sequence of events that started with me not wanting to either lie to the monks nor slaughter them en masse, which made me google if a stealthy pacifist path exists, which is turn spoiled me on a bunch of stuff in that quest including a reference to the tempered ending, which I then wanted for no reason other than it had the best ending from my perspective for stalwart and surrounding regions. Basically I played through the latter half of WM2 with full knowledge of what was coming. Also played through a couple of different routes through Kaoto and the Low Tide Monks because the wiki authors where I was spoiling myself didn't seem to have tried out a few options that seemed logical. This is never how I usually play but having decided to look things up, I fully embraced it.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:11
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There's a real weariness for me when it comes to large RPG quest hubs, especially when done in the Infinity Engine games tradition: enter large town, enter every door and talk to every named person to get every quest. It's ok if the number of quests is small and each is more involved and has some lore/setting/character development or depth (TW3 gets this very right), but bad if they're fetch quests with only a little sprinkling of content on top - PoE is generally good, but there's still Something Secret as an example of a fetch quest that feels like filler for the large urban area. E: The BG games had a lot of these and they were not fun there either. PoE 1 is just being faithful to its named influences here. Just did Dyrford last night and it was fine: a small number of quests spread over a couple of areas. Each had a decent reward. Two of my PoE 1 starts ran aground at Defiance Bay for just this reason: entering a large area with many doors and people to click on to look for quests. The second one I picked up again and am continuing now, but it's not coincidence that both were put aside at almost the same point. E: It'd have been cool if all of the "Villager" and "Townsperson" character were non-interactable, but still had all their usual barks. Don't name them if they are not characters you need to interact with. The backers are a whole different problem, ugh, but I guess a necessary learning experience for Kickstarter games. v1ld fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 15:20
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v1ld posted:E: It'd have been cool if all of the "Villager" and "Townsperson" character were non-interactable, but still had all their usual barks. Don't name them if they are not characters you need to interact with. The backers are a whole different problem, ugh, but I guess a necessary learning experience for Kickstarter games. This is more or less how Deadfire handles it, actually. Generic NPCs do not get nameplates. I agree, it was really annoying in the original to sift through a sea of generic NPC nameplates to find the important ones.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:53
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I get that weariness as well, and it's getting triggered a ton as I go through PoE 2 for the first time since all the large settlements so far have a bunch of quests and tasks to pick up. I liked how The Witcher 3 handled it with Notice Boards sprinkled around the settlements--you grab all of the notices in a second, get a little inkling of what each quest could be about, and head directly to each quest giver when something interests you. No hunting to figure out who needs bear asses in every locale.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:57
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NPCs with quests will have little barks when you approach them for the first time, like “Oh Rowena, my love... *sigh*” or “Psst! Hey you!” or “Won’t anyone at least hear me out?” Also, I would suggest making it so that objects and nameplates are constantly highlighted, by making Tab a toggle instead of a “hold to highlight” key. It feels much better to me. Relatedly, I’m getting good at ignoring buildings that wouldn’t hold immediate interest for my character. Why would my guy want to check out a fishery, or some random noble’s house, or a warehouse?
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Oct 20, 2020 17:41
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I actually kinda like big city hubs because they often have short and easy quests to do which give good xp or item rewards. Defiance Bay for example has a lot of short quests you can do which fit that criteria. I actually find Raedrics Keep and Caed Nua much more of a grind to get through on new playthroughs. Both have difficult fights and mobs with annoying mechanics. By the time I get to Defiance Bay I feel like I've made it as now I can start doing quests to get very powerful items like the healing boots from Crucible Keep or the monocle that lets you charm people from the Dozens, etc. You also by that point have a full party with strong npcs like Pallegina and Sagani available.
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Oct 20, 2020 17:43
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TW3 loot may be a good comparison where it does a really poor job with its loot tables for the same reason: makes you click on every container. I got a Demeterium ingot or something from a broken chest in a burnt out cottage in that first village you encounter in the game: this teaches me as a player that I must check every box in the game because they're all as likely to have something nice as any other. The Ghost Mode mod for TW3 (best overhaul mod for any game I've played) changes this, the good stuff comes from "good" chests which are the gold ones you find at the end of quests and dungeons. It effectively says you never have to go look at anyone's cupboard in this game ever again and that's hugely liberating: you stop checking every random chest or cupboard. The game's quest structure, where you get them from notice boards, gets it right as mentioned ^^^: don't make the player look into every possible location to find quests, be specific in how/where they can be found. E: Ghost Mode does other stuff to improve the itemization. Reduces the sell value of random junk, adds encumbrance that's well balanced with the economy to where there's no value in carrying and selling every rusted sword you find, etc. It makes non-Witcher gear balanced and viable without ruining Witcher gear's special nature - the Witcher sets let you focus on specific build types instead of just having bigger numbers than everything else. The good loot, weapons and armor, come from those good chests. In general, it removes a lot of looting busy work and lets you focus on the gameplay and story again. I think that's an important thing for a cRPG: make the focus be on the story, gameplay, world and characters, not the busy work of looting every container or searching for quest givers. v1ld fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 18:19
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One big issue I had with Witcher 3 was the tutorial area giving you side quests which can be failed if you progress the main quest before completing them. As a player, that tells me "do all of the side quests before doing the main quest or else they might vanish" so 50 hours into the game, having finally thoroughly explored both the countryside and the islands, I decided I was now ready to go meet Dandelion in Novigrad or w/e. In practice that really only applies to a few side quests, but I don't recall the game signposting which ones. Of course, the game also trains you to not worry much about side quests by not giving you xp if you're above the quest's level, so you learn early enough on to only do quests if you want to watch the cutscenes
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Oct 20, 2020 18:29
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Witcher 3 honestly had too much content
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Oct 20, 2020 18:41
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I'll say this for it, it's great value
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Oct 20, 2020 18:51
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ilitarist posted:They had to sell the game to D&D nostalgia crowd. Probably the same reason there are elves and dwarves in the game and I can't remember any interesting about them. You already have Adra pillars and the whole weird soul business, they didn't want to overwhelm you. I think Ropekid basically said literally the only reason there's elves and dwarves is pitching the original kick starter to D&D nostalgia.
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Oct 20, 2020 19:50
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At least the dwarves don't have inexplicable Scottish accents
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Oct 20, 2020 19:58
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I think Witcher 3 had pretty good pacing outside of Novigrad, which should have been about a third as long as it was.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:00
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Skwirl posted:I think Ropekid basically said literally the only reason there's elves and dwarves is pitching the original kick starter to D&D nostalgia. Elves at least had some interesting stuff which comes into play a few times, like their long lifetimes. Dwarves seemed completely replaceable with just a human culture though. There were several times where I was confused who was a dwarf and who was a human.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:06
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I remain extremely interested in how Avoiwed will handle 1st person POV, provided 1st person POV is what they go with, and racial choices can be made. How do you design around a good two meter variable in perspective?
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Oct 20, 2020 20:32
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Did they confirm race choice? I can't imagine them allowing playing dwarves or even orlans.
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Oct 20, 2020 21:34
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I don't think we know anything beyond what the reveal trailer shows, do we? Edit: and the fact that rope kid is not attached, I guess, if you want to count that.
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Oct 20, 2020 21:42
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definace bay let me lie to a child so its good imo
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Oct 20, 2020 21:55
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Basic Chunnel posted:I remain extremely interested in how Avoiwed will handle 1st person POV, provided 1st person POV is what they go with, and racial choices can be made. How do you design around a good two meter variable in perspective? Probably the same way Elder Scrolls does. Dwarves and Orlans might be a pain though due to size differences. Either that or you play as a preset character. I think that people have theorized based on the trailer that it might be a prequel showing Woedica's downfall? Might mean you'll run into Thaos if so. Edit: Actually just checked and its set in The Living Lands so dwarves are pretty much a given. Sounds like we'll get killer plants and the return of New Vegas Cazadors. Selenephos fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 22:57
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