mc_kracken

Nope, I never owned a cell phone. Never was on twitter or facebook. Don't really know what reddit is. (some sort of message board I think?) And my favorite book ever (by a lightyear) is the Illiad. And i must stress again: It's not about the word count.

Thing is Icewind Dale had a nice story (from what i remember) and excellent combat. So it was the best of both worlds. There were hardly any side quests - which in the case of Pillar's are mostly bland. It was linear (which i find good, because it doesnt screw up the level cap and therefore difficulty see Pillar's HUGE balancing issues)

"Because however nice PoE is (and I do enjoy it greatly), combat in PoE is largely the same thing over and over and over and over again. Party walks up to enemy B. B sees A. Battle starts (sometimes with a little bit of pre-battle dialog). Rinse and repeat. " this is very true. Also the exploration maps are small and encounters are sort of I dunno how to put it. But the wilderness areas in Baldurs Gate 1, did the exploring much better. (i think, its been years) Im beginning to think all those shortcomings in Pillars are the result of kickstarter development time of what? Only 2 years? Or should that have been enough time?

A playable (in it's current state it's useless for regular people..) Ironman would save the camping issue AND the fact that the game is too easy on HARD. see my suggestions for Ironman 2.0

I dont think Torment's writting was more than good. (i,e. less is more and not getting drowned in text) Main story? Amnesia? Like *really* original. And a ho-hum plot twist worthy of a Shymalan movie? If you take in mind the limitation's with text Ultima 6 but especially 7 are shining examples of story and dialog. but maybe you guys are to young to have played that. What I wanted to say was that Torment's combat (you know the thing why we call RPGs usually RPGs and not Adventure game) was AWFUL.

The thing is tough it's a game, a visual medium so "show, dont tell" applies. And for an isometric perspective it applies even more so. Also im not against complex dialog (dont equal complex with meaingful, well written) or want to thumb down anything. Some of those descriptions of how "the leftside forehead vein crinkles when she smirks" (that's from me) etc. for instance would even be too much (i.e. not good writting) in a novel, way i see it.

i stopped long ago reading them..but consider if youd take out all those gold NPCs eora would be rather empty. Also im not using TAB (i like to discover things) so these guys are extra annoying.

It's a rather jarring gameplay experience when you have for instance such (over) detailed descriptions of facial features accompanied with only the tiny puppet theather top down view. The writting in general is too purple or simply filler (backer npc) Storywise the soul aspect is kind of interesting but there is too much mumbo jumbo essence, memory out of body esoteric experience and so forth. All in all i still enjoy the game but hope for a more straight forward, down to earth world in Pillars 2. (Im that guy who prefers Icewind Dale's combat over Torment's story)

Ever since I've played the X-Com remake, I'm completely sold on Ironman or any other type of savegame restriction. (not the least that reloading breaks immersiveness) Every semi difficult fight (which there are none until Elmshore, but thats another topic...level 8 on hard) you feel kind of unattached really. But for the obvious reasons (job etc.) i will never try the default ironman of Pillars. Thus i propose the following: Make it so that main char cannot perma die (because of his soul condition or what have you) but your companions CAN. So that ironman save will never be game over after 80 hours gameplay! so party wipe looks like this: Penalties for dying yourself: stat reduction or lost x level (maybe) all gear GONE (definitely) Penalties for dead companions: hire new ones! (gear lost too of course) new hirelings will NOT be at your level! (so you have to rebuild their exp)