Jump to content

Jasta11

Members
  • Posts

    141
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Jasta11

  1. Plenty of low level spells are still very powerful later on; hell, Fan of Flames, a level 1 spell, remains very useful all the way up to the endgame. 50ish damage AoE is nothing to sneeze at even then. Slicken remains as OP as ever all game long. Thrust of Tattered Veils interrupts anything regardless of level. Half of the Cipher's level 1-2 spells are still plenty good later on.

  2. True, there's no immediate reward, but I think it's possible we'll meet the dragon again in an expansion/sequel, which will be reward enough for me even without material profits (but we might get those too).

     

    I freed her because it fit my character. Like someone said above, it's killing two brids with one stone: solving Caed Nua problem and potentially gaining a powerful ally. I'm not entirely comfortable with destroying the dragon hunter, but oh well, I had to kill someone either way and I have more respect for dragons. I mean, I know she's responsible for many deaths, but don't you feel a tinge of regret at killing such an ancient, majestic creature?

     

    Oh don't worry, I also felt regret when I used its scales to upgrade my armor and its accumulated loot to pimp my party up  :devil: . 

     

    It's the same with the dragons in Inquisition. Such beautifully animated creatures, such ancient majesty... such phat lewt. And in that game, you actually wear the dragon's hides and fashion its bones into the best weapons in the game. Sorry not sorry.

    • Like 2
  3. Enhanced Editions don't add quite enough for what they ask. if you can get them with Steam sales, however, they are well worth it. Otherwise, stick to GoG normal editions if you aren,t afraid of tinkering with mods a bit.

     

    BG1: quirky humor, more exploration, low-level D&D combat (far more fun than high-level one IMO), but probably the least amount of fun content overall. Difficulty curve is pretty good.

     

    BG2: better writing than BG1 overall, more demanding (and sometimes tedious) combat, great main quest and villain, Athkatla is a nice city, tons and tons of content and mods. Mages are OP and some fights are infuriatingly stupidly designed (Kangaxxx!).

     

    PoE: Best combat of the bunch by a fair margin, best writing, less exploration, less quirky/memorable companions, less tedious gameplay overall, more modern UI. Overall probably the easiest of the 3 on normal difficulty too, but has a few really hard bosses.

     

    Overall, I prefer PoE. It has the right dose of ye olde school feeling while having enough modern conviences so that it doesn't become tedious to play, and has loads of good design decisions and better writing as well.

     

    The thing is, now that I've played PoE I can't go back to BG. It just plays less well. Can't explain it in much detail, but it does.

    • Like 1
  4. I thought Death Godlikes were Berath, myself.

     

    Anyway;

     

    Abydon: No idea. Part machines perhaps? Medieval Adam Jensen?

    Rymrgand: Entropy Godlikes, with frost features and such. That one's easy.

    Skaen: He seems to like blood a lot. So Bloody Godlikes, similar to smaller effigies perhaps. Maybe harder to spot because it's the Quiet Slave.

    Wael: No idea. Invisible Godlikes? Godlikes with loads of eyes? Perhaps in the wrong places because Wael is secretly a troll?

    Woedica: I can only imagine something really hardcore. Vengeance Godlikes with big horns and claws and such. 

  5.  

    Seriously, this "censorship" (non) issue and the insanity it's set off make me sad for the internet, many people on these boards, and society in general (exaggeration intended).  Reminds me of riots where people are so easily whipped into a frenzy.
     
    It's backer content, it's irrelevant to the game, and it's potentially offensive to some people.  The author opted to change it to avoid issues for Obsidian (yeah, that worked).  It's a non-issue.  Let's all move on.
     
    The amount of people on here carrying on is astounding...with their "I'll never give them another dollar", "I won't ever support anything else they ever do ever in my whole life", "So disappointed, they caved, let's all band together and (try to) ruin this company that just spent years making an amazing game that we've all been asking for, which they actually delivered on, but that's all beside the point because they edited some irrelevant text which most people don't even bother reading anyway because before this issue exploded we were all complaining about how 'immersion-breaking' the backer-created content was, but that doesn't matter now because we have something to get excited about and pretend we're all in 'V for Vendetta'...Fight the power!"  
     
    Wow.  
     
    Yes, I know not everyone is that 'frothy', and some people are attempting to raise calm, rational arguments relating to censorship (which this issue is not)...but it all just seems...misguided.
     
    I applaud Obsidian's phenomenal game.  I'm fine with how they handled the situation.  I like Firedorn's re-write better than the original...more well written and clever anyway.
     
    There is plenty of material in this game which speaks to Obsidian's willingness to tackle sensitive topics in their own way (ie. not pandering to get a PG rating).  Their communication with the backer, and the backer's decision to edit their submission, is a sensible solution to theoretically avoid unnecessary drama over an irrelevant blip in the game.  Problem solved...except for their vocal slice of backers and supporters who are now the ones creating all the drama.  Sheesh.
     
    I've been a backer since day one of the Kickstarter, and am overjoyed at what they've delivered.
     
    To Obsidian: I suspect, as is usually the case, that the forums are full of a vocal minority.  I suspect that many people like myself who are fine with what's occurred have not taken the time to post on here because, as mentioned, it's a non-issue.  I finally stopped to add my 2 cents because the exaggeration, vitriol, and drama in the past couple weeks honestly left me feeling astounded.
     
    Now, that that's sorted...please get back to working on future patches and the expansion!   :-)

     

     

    Quoted for great justice.

     

    It is simply astounding that we got delivered a great game, yet all some people can focus on is an incredibly irrelevant limerick buried somewhere in the game. Obsidian and Firedorn have handled this with much more maturity than a lot of people have and elsewhere. A pity that, in this day of constant outrage by people with an agenda, being reasonable only fan the flames further.

    • Like 2
  6.  

    I think racism is a prominent enough topic in video game fantasy (most notably The Witcher and Dragon Age) that PoE doesn't really have to embrace that topic. There is more than enough resentment between cultures and religions to have believable tensions. That is not an aspect they really need to put emphasis on.

     

    Obsidian just needs to make races more reactive next time.

    Why? Race isn't a big deal in Eora. I like that people in Eora aren't obsessed with race. Making it more reactive to race would be a kill joy.

     

     

    It's not that big a deal, but people not reacting to Pale Elves or Godlikes when they are explicitely very rare (and the latter look quite freaky) is a bit much. Same with everyone defering to Orlans when lore says that they are not held in high standards by most in the Dyrwood.

     

    There were also a few situations where people (mostly in Twin Elms) refered to ''those pale elves'' or words long those lines, to my Pale Elf PC's face. An ackowledgement that he was the same race would be welcome.

  7. Galawain. My character was swayed by his argument that using that power to strengthen the living was best. Still felt like a bit of a bastard because, does it mean that already pregnant women will give birth to hollowborn?

     

    One thing I'd like to know is how Hylea's ending works. Do all the hollowborn children get souls back ASAP? So, those Wichts that have been feral beasts suddenly become normal teenagers again, naked and wandering the wilderness alone? 

  8. I have a lot to say about SJWs and not much of it is nice, but honestly I think this topic is done and dusted in terms of discussion. We already have a decent timeline of it all and beyond rehashing the same points, I'm not sure what else is there to be said. IMO, once Firedorn started posting and clarified things, that's really where discussion should end, at least in the PoE section.

     

    I still find it amusingly ironic that some people complain about SJWs who stir up controversy for no reason... and then make posts stirring up controversy after Firedorn himself has shown that this story is behind him. No one looks better than the other here I find.

    • Like 3
  9. Yeah, race doesn't play a factor. No one in the entire game remarked that I was a Pale Elf, even if the description says that most Dyrwoodans never see one in their life. My second playthrough is a Fire Godlike, and no one said anything so far.

     

    I mean, I don't expect every single interaction to be influenced by that. But even Bioware managed to integrate race into dialog better, albeit PoE does a better job at making classes feel relevant. My Cipher at least had some dialog options.

  10. I think the game should've pushed the whole "you're gonna go insane" angle even more. I mean, you see the visions and stuff near the start... But I think the game kinda fails to *really* make it feel relevant. I think an issue is that, while if you actually *were* the Watcher for real it'd be scary as hell, in game the whole Watcher/awakened thing basically only amounts to positive things for the player. You see useful things, relive interesting things that reveal stuff, etc... There should've been some moments where you fall into these visions and maybe the game screws with you somehow, tricks you, I dunno. There is no real pressure to it.

     

    I know many people didn't like the spirit-meter in Mask of the Betrayer (I thought it was a great thing for that game) but I think even without it, they still manage to sell the fact that... you're in a bad situation right from the start. PoE doesn't quite manage that in the same way and I can't quite put the finger on why.

     

    I also would've loved more backstory from the "old life". I really enjoyed those sequences and wish there were more of them.

     

    I agree. You get the meeting with Maerwald and then a few comments from Éder or Kana about your situation, but beyond that being a Watcher seems pretty awesome, and in fact directly allows you to foil Thao's plans at little to no cost for the player. I think the player should have had more visions of really horryfying things, constant whispers taking their toll on them, short but acute Awakenings, that sort of thing. Not too many, so as not to hinder gameplay, but having a chance to occur each time you sleep for example.

     

    By contrast, I thought Dragon Age: Origins did a decent job showing the consequences of being a Warden. Sure, you're a darkspawn-killing badass, but they can hear you, whisper to you, and in 20-30 years? You're going to become a horrifying half-zombie if you don't get yourself killed first. No matter what. That's assuming you even survive the Joining in the first place.

    • Like 1
  11. -Use their poor Will saves against them. A Cipher especially can keep them CCed for a long time

     

    -If there are no druids, you can kite them. Ogres are slower than player characters.

     

    -If there IS an ogre druid, kill or CC it first. Always. They are exceptionally deadly. At worst, try to tie it up in melee with a tank or summons, better it hit you with its club than unleash its deadly spells.

     

    -Charm is your friend. Ciphers and Chanters have charm spells, even one ogre wailing on his friends instead of you is a huge boon.

     

    -Scrolls are always useful. Scrolls of paralysis especially are quite common and very effective vs them.

     

    -If you can get past the Ogres, you basically have a smooth sail until evel 7 at least. I truly have no idea why they put the Ogres so early, they are one of the hardest floors by far. Don't be afraid to leave and go back, I myself managed to clear the floor at level 6 but I retried the boss a good 6 times., and only won because I critically charmed Zolla who spent a good half of the fight hitting her comrades in the face.

    • Like 1
  12.  

     

    Yes, but the fact remains that your character needs the blessing of a god to beat his foe, which also has the blessing of a god. If this really was some sort of heavy-handed allegory ala Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis, the PC would have punched Thaos in the face without the use of any gods while proclaiming how HE's free to forge his own destiny or somesuch. Instead, the gods are central to solving the final conflict, and whatever you do with the souls advances the cause of one or several god(s), which is not really portrayed as a bad thing unless you support Woedica, and even that ending isn't the end of the world either.

     

    I agree that the game does have themes that tie into disbelief and atheism, and Iovara is too much of a saint to be a great character, but that's a far cry from being as anvilicious as some here are portraying it, I think. 

     

    No, you don't need the blessing of a god anyway, but that's beside the point.  The forays into contemporary, earth-realm ideas about religion and social issues are obstructive and out of place in the setting.

     

     

    You don't? Try jumping into the pit without having any of them aid you. Unless there's a special option I missed, you need to have at least one of them support you or you die impaled on a spike.

     

    And I disagree that it's contemporary ideas. Theological reflections most definitely aren't anything new. Hell, many of the earliest philosophers, such as the Greeks as frobisher rightly points out, have asked themselves the same sort of questions as the Engwithans. The latter just happened to be better equipped to find the answers, and then act on them. Asking yourself what are the gods or if they exist is nothing out of the ordinary for that kind of setting.

     

    Besides, the Engwithans not finding gods doesn't mean there were none beforehand. Perhaps Pillars has an Ao-like figure, who watches over the world somehow but doesn't interact with mortals in any way. They certainly seem to have been arrogant enough to believe that gods didn't exist if they didn't answer to them. The setting is young, we don't know everything.

  13. That, and the various bonuses not stacking, which is silly. Paying a pittance to sleep in Dyrford or Twin Elms gets me +6 stats for all my party, why in the blazes would I want to trek 2-4 days to and back from Caed Nua for only +1 stat?

     

    The stronghold overall just isn't very well thought out, I found. It lacks the homebase feel that Bioware managed to create with the Normandy or Skyhold, or the variety of the player strongholds in BG2. Fortunately it's also completely optional.

    • Like 2
  14.  

     

    The allegory and contemporary ideas go beyond just religion.  There are some rather obvious dialogues regarding persecution of lifestyles that read like any sophomore's blog.

     

    Get the socio-political commentary out of future games, please.  If you want to learn how to do allegory in a fantasy setting, read Spenser.  Right now it's more Ayn Rand.

     

    Watch out guys, we got a philosophy major in this bitch.  He gonna learn everyone how they 'posed to be thinkin'.

     

    Engineering and neither of those are philosophers.

     

     

    Given that you need to ask for a god's blessing to proceed in the game, I think the atheist Ayn Rand comparisons are a bit reductive, to say the least.

     

    I was speaking about the way it's done rather than what it is.

     

     

    Yes, but the fact remains that your character needs the blessing of a god to beat his foe, which also has the blessing of a god. If this really was some sort of heavy-handed allegory ala Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis, the PC would have punched Thaos in the face without the use of any gods while proclaiming how HE's free to forge his own destiny or somesuch. Instead, the gods are central to solving the final conflict, and whatever you do with the souls advances the cause of one or several god(s), which is not really portrayed as a bad thing unless you support Woedica, and even that ending isn't the end of the world either.

     

    I agree that the game does have themes that tie into disbelief and atheism, and Iovara is too much of a saint to be a great character, but that's a far cry from being as anvilicious as some here are portraying it, I think. 

  15. I was also unimpressed by the Glanfathan. They never seem to evolve beyond the ''forest-dwelling savages who kill people trespassing on their lands'' sterotypes. There are a few nicer ones, but then it's counterbalanced by the **** who wants to kidnap and sacrifice a child, the lying and/or supremely arrogant hunters and cultural posturing across the board that makes the Na'Vi from Avatar envious. Hiravias seemed to be the only one who didn't have his head completely up his own ass.

  16. Given that you need to ask for a god's blessing to proceed in the game, I think the atheist Ayn Rand comparisons are a bit reductive, to say the least.

     

    The gods exist, that's proven fact in the setting. They are beings of immense power, knowledge and influence far surpassing any mortal, as befit gods in a fantasy setting. Does the information that they were created rather than popped into existence at some indeterminate time by some indeterminate reason make them any less gods? I think not. The game answers the question of how the gods were created, so it certainly removes some of the mystery surrounding them, but it doesn't strip them of their power, indeed one of your options is to make one god surpass all the others and become supreme. All your ending choices are basically dictated by the gods, too. And betraying god(s) that you pledged yourself to ends up biting the Dyrwood in the ass hard in the epilogue.

     

    Of course, within the setting this information would have a tremendous effect (ableit probably not the apocalyptic chaos Thaos foresees) but to say that it makes the game an atheist power fantasy just because of that is stretching it. A lot.

     

    I mean, cripes, D&D allows powerful enough characters to punch gods in the face. Next to that, PoE is downright reverent towards its deities.

  17.  

     

    Oh come on. Any score from 7-10 would be fair for P:E. So much depends on your preferences, your tolerance for bugs, your willingness to learn systems, your experience with similar games and so on and so forth. 

     

    Below 7 I would question the fairness though as it's more likely the reviewer just fails to get what the game is supposed to be.

     

    Yeah but again I relate his 9/10 scores for other same-genre games (DA:I and D:OS) to PoE and find it odd that he considers PoE a full 'point' on whatever his scale is,  worse.

     

    I can list a dozen things that DA:I does better than P:E off the top of my head. The fact that I feel that all of them are meaningless fluff simply means I have different preferences. 

     

     

    But that would make you a reasonable person with a sense of perspective. And we can't have that in a gaming forum these days, can we?

     

    Seriously, review scores are close to worthless. It's an approximation of one person's opinion on a game. The text of the review is far more valuable, if it's minimally well-written at least.

     

    And if someone thinks Gamespot's 8 is going to harm PoE's sales, I very much doubt it. Not only does it still have a very high Metacritic aggregate score, but the people who only read Gamespot very probably aren't interested in kickstarted, isometric RPGs in the first place, if they know of any RPGs at all beyond Skyrim and Bioware games.

  18. I'm pretty sure Thaos was just that far gone. You won't have to go very far to find humans in real history who were willing to commit horrific atrocities in the perpetuation of a lie. When you go that far down the rabbit hole, and pursue something so single-mindedly for at least 2,000 years, your psychology literally does not have any room for doubt, self-reflection, or logical consistency. I'm sure watching/helping his fellow Engwithans commit mass-suicide to create the gods they so desperately wanted really screwed him up psychologically, too.

     

    In that regard, Thaos is well-written as a supremely broken man. Very much a "Utopia Justifies The Means" villain.

     

    The thing is, he seemed aware of how horrible his actions were, even as he lists them for you. ''For perspective'', says he. He just didn't seem to care. And it was kinda at odds with his stated intention to prevent widespread chaos by hiding the truth about the gods. It's less ''end justifies the means'' and more ''meh, screw you guys, Secret Conspiracytm says you gotta die''. As I see it.

     

    I believe he'd have been more believable had he more vehemently defended his atrocities as necessary. Shown the sort of zeal and wilful blindness you expect from a man who is so single-minded as Thaos is. Instead he just seem to not give a **** about whenever people lived or died, but backtracked when it came to his own purpose. I don't know, even accounting for his single-mindedness it's the kind of dissonance I don't really expect in someone who is seemingly as intelligent as him.

     

    In the end, I don't feel Thaos lived up to his potential as a villain. There's not many villains in games that convingly pull off the end justifies the means zealotry. Kerghan in Arcanum does, and the Arishok in Dragon Age 2 too.

  19. Whenever you supported animancy or not in the hearing influences the epilogue. In fact, said epilogue is where the majority of your choices are reflected. Most quests also net you different results and/or rewards depending in what manner you solved the problem, which is pretty nice.

     

    Besides, I feel that people often have silly standards for consequences in an RPG. This isn't tabletop, you can't decide to murder the entire assembly and have the GM cobble together the pieces so the story can proceed (and even then, most GMs will at least prevent you from going completely off the rails). There are a finite number of outcomes the designers can plan for and correctly implement, especially in a 4M$ dollar kickstarter title. 

     

    The Duc's assassination did annoy me because it was cutscene incompetence at its finest; your 6 man party stands there for a good minute while Thaos possesses the animancer, delcares that he wants to kill him, then does the deed. My PC is a Cipher, I felt that I should have been able to try to save the Duc even if it was plot-required for him to die.

  20. The base concept of a pet class isn't bad, but the pet in PoE is just... there. It has almost no abilities, and becomes a liability if it dies so you will only use it in battles where it doesn't have a chance of dying, which are battles that are so easy you probably don't need your pet in the first place.

     

    First thing they should do is remove the debuff Ranger gets when a pet goes down. The pet going down and shutting off many class specific talents (including that juicy +20 accuracy) is enough of a consequence, no need to give the Ranger penalties on top of it. Second is give pets more abilities, not really damaging ones but for crowd control and escapes, it's an animal, it should be more mobile and cunning than a kith IMO. Third is making them less vulnerable to AoE attacks, either with a flat damage resistance to them (a talent?) or just increasing their Reflex so they don't instantly get gibbed by bosses such as dragons.

     

    Increasing the Ranger class's damage output could probably help. Or maybe make it a more effective debuff class or something. In terms of damage, rogues seem to be much better than them even counting the pet.

  21. PoE has lots of mechanics, some of them old and rooted in the IE days of yore while others are either influenced by more recent titles or just made up by Obsidian. My question is, if Pillars gets a sequel, which mechanic would you really want them to keep? Or that you would perhaps wish more games used?

     

    Personally, I really like the Endurance/Health system. Several studios have tried to change the formula used in BG2 and others, where characters going down meant they died and it was a tedious (if you ask me) affair of lugging back them to a temple or casting a rez spell. Bioware for example tried with the Injury system in Dragon Age Origins, and then in Inquisition with non-regenerative health limited by potions, but I never felt this quite worked even if I liked the potion limit in the latter overall.

     

    The Endurance system is far more elegant IMO. Taking damage is a bad thing in that it drains your health ressources, but it doesn't go to the extreme that half the party biting the dust in one fight means you either reload or deal with having to drag everyone to a church. it pusnishes you for letting your characters take too much damage, not for them taking damage in and of itself.

     

    I also like the concept of Engagement. It's better than the usually unpredictable aggro and taunt system (and is less ''gamey'') and allows you to establish a frontline in combat which I find really cool. It could probably be refined in a few ways, but I don,t want Obsidian to drop it.

     

    Thoughts?

    • Like 1
  22. Essentially nobody cares about the limerick, I suspect. Both sides are just looking for every tiny chance they get to call someone else terrible people.

     

    Summed up the entire GG vs anti-GG movement very well.

     

    I'm happy that the game is, apparently, doing well. As much as I also like Bioware games, I want titles like Pillars to exist too. The game was great, it deserves recognition and the devs deserve return on their great work. 

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...