Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

I just finished the first game and I have one question, dose the twist at the end matter at all?

Overall I enjoyed the game, it got great characters and small scale stories and l liked almost all of the companions, except Durance who I intentionally let burn himself and Grieving Mother who spouted cryptic nonsense but at least wanted to help the children I think? But the main campaign suffered from a weak villain who never grabbed me and the whole starting a riot that end of act 2 just served to piss me off as it didnt matter in the end and yet felt like I was being punished for going forward with the story.

Also RTwP is just a bad system and hearing that they put gambits in the sequel is real encouraging. Thats the only reason FF12 is as playable as it is.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 13:41

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:20

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Thats good to hear, how is the combat in the sequel ? Did they improve the UI so that its not so tiny? Really the story flaws I can handle but the playing the game felt like juggling 5 awkward shapes at once also did they give martial classes, besides rogue, fun abilities because thats a problem in the game. Also wizards were way too versatile, even if I did like Aloth.

dbzfandiego fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Oct 19, 2018

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 14:15

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

2house2fly posted:

I don't like the switch to per-encounter abilities but it is what it is.

Per Rest works if you have standardized idea of how many fights are going to happen in between rests, like in 4th edition D&D. How they did it in PoE1 was not ideal it felt like you were supposed to rest before or after every "big" encounter but what those were wasnt always apparent. In JRPGs they just give you mana bars and ask you to manage until you can get back to town, like in basic D&D, cant? go get more items/strategize/avoid/grind until you can. PoE1 did not want random encounters but did want resource management which is a bit counter intuitive. You either make every encounter count or you get rid of resource management.

dbzfandiego fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Oct 19, 2018

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 16:05

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Ginette Reno posted:

Even on Potd you could usually find 1-2 rest supplies in a dungeon so you could actually afford to be fairly liberal with your ability usage.

There are a few dungeons where that isn't the case though. Iirc the Vithrack nest in Stalwart has no rest supplies and that area is pretty grindy with lots of fights so resource management there is tricky.

Thats the other problem if theres no point to the resource management then get rid of it which is what they seemed to do in the sequel.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 16:11

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

I was almost pushed away by PoE's faults and I got the game for free, if I hadnt read the thread I wouldnt have made the decision to get PoE2 some day because at the end of it I liked the first but did not love it. Overall I would say the game was OK, and unless you really like cRPGs I would not recommend it to any of my friends. Its a niche game and while I do like these sorts of games maybe you cant run a mid size studio off of them.

dbzfandiego fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Nov 8, 2018

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 07:37

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Furism posted:

The thing is, for a huge majority of the people who play any given game, it's not "easy to break." Most people don't really spend time analyzing the game systems to understand how to "break" them, nor even spend time on forums to find what other figured out. Who cares if a minority find the Ultimate Power Build That Breaks everything - good for them. Some people will only use that build, some won't because they'll still like the game to be challenging (e.g.: some people play PoE1 PotD with a 3 powerful characters party).

I feel that BG did it wrong because while it allowed for crazy power builds for people who knew how to make them, it also allowed people to screw their character up right at character creation (low CHA Paladin or not-high-enough INT for Wizards - rope kid's talk about this is great) and that's wrong. PoE1 had a smaller range between "useless" and "too powerful" builds but at least you couldn't really screw you character up even without any prescience. I feel that Deadfire narrowed that range even more, and it seems to be a side-effect of a very, very well tuned game. Maybe too tuned?

I dont really think that a game can be overtuned, but when one of your design goals is to "rein things in" it can feel that way. Personally I'd prefer if they let loose a little and gave the players more flashy looking moves. A lot of "feel" is aesthetics and sound design and Pillars of Eternity never really gave me the feeling that any of my moves were powerful, all the sword swings looked piddly none of the martial moves looked any different form a regular swing and magic feels anemic. In DOS the moves have an impact that PoE lacks. But Pillars wants to be restrained so...

dbzfandiego fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jan 29, 2019

# ¿ Jan 29, 2019 05:56

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Nasgate posted:

In combat you can hit things, maybe grapple if you want to use that garbage action. Out of combat your options are limited to your imagination and DM discretion. poo poo charisma? Instead of intimidating, put that shady shopkeep in an arm bar. Instead of charming them, use your swoleness to help them for good will. Use your characters background connections to help in a myriad of ways. I could go on, but given your snide remark I doubt you understand.

None of that is supported by the rules. Also DM discretion is the key phrase there if the DM dose not allow it then it cant be done. Spells are so powerful because they are built in rules exceptions that allow the player to declare something happened and guess who dose not get those.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2019 04:33

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

RFC2324 posted:

If your DM has no discretion to override the rules, or doesn't use it, then yes your game will be poo poo no matter what rules you use

A good rules set works out of the box and only needs house rules to better fit a group's style. 5th ed needs the DM to play game designer and fill in half the rules.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2019 04:46

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Ok I finally got Deadfire are there any must have or nice to have mods that will make my time a bit smoother?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 18:22

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Quote is not Edit

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 18:30

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

If I liked setting up gambits in Final Fantasy 12 would the More Custom AI conditions mod be worth it. If it even still works.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 18:35

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

2house2fly posted:

A couple of mods I like:

Level Cap 33 - tooting my own horn, but... this stops you hitting the level cap so you get xp all through the game. This may overpower you late in the game, but some of the DLC encounters and megabosses will be tough as hell no matter what

So ill be able to get PL 9 with muti-classes?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 22:37

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:20

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

2house2fly posted:

technically- with the amount of xp in the game you'd reach power level 9 right at the end of the game+DLC, just in time to fight the end boss

Better than nothing!

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 23:08

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