Jasta11
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Posts posted by Jasta11
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First floor can be cleared with 3 party members at level 2.
Don't even bother with the second floor before you have 4 party members, preferably level 3. If you want in early, create an adventurer, 250 cp is nothing in the long run.
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I actually like this aspect. I was annoyed at how D&D mages were forced to have robes and slings/staves. In PoE, your mages can rock full plate armor and an arquebus. Sure, it's not a great idea because of the recovery time, but it is still pretty viable, and it makes mages different than the ''OP if spells are cast, waste of space if not'' affair that Baldur's Gate 2 had. The casters can actually pull their weight all the time in this game.
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Basically, beating him the ''normal'' way (by walking among his goons and engaging via dialog options) isn't really possible at level 4.
It's possible on normal difficulty, seeing as I did it just an hour ago. Well, if you leave your team down the stairs and send only one person to talk to Raedric. I tried to keep everyone dazed or blinded as long as I could, I used up most of my scrolls (Rolling Flames ftw), but really it was just a matter of luck because I haven't quite got the hang of aggro yet. When I didn't manage to grab enemies with Eder, I promptly got slaughtered.
It's still similar to my tactic, just with one character baiting the goon squad into your battle line. I also play on Hard, there are probably 1-2 less enemies on Normal.
And yeah, the armored guys do little damage. The Lord himself and his mages do most of the hurt. Paralyze him, and focus fire on the ranged one at a time. Level 6 now, and I haven't encountered anything as hard as this fight yet. If you can beat him, you can confidently beat anything in Defiance Bay.
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The only thing I kinda agree with is that the combat is a smidge too fast, but I don't really see how they could solve that without either increasing HP totals, increasing defenses (which just means more RNG) or slowing down animations.
Everything else just screams, sorry to say, learn to play. Yes, on Hard+ sneaking to get the initiative is normal. You're always going to be more effective if you plan ahead and use formations and sneak attacks than if you charge heedlessly into the fray or stumble into a pack of Ogres like a clumsy fool.
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It does get slightly too flowery at times, and some characters (Edér in particular) have not much more than a decent backstory going for them. The writing isn't as good as Planescape, for sure. The only character that really oozes personality, so far, is Durance (who, surprise surprise, was written by ChrisA and shares his fetish for short, abrupt sentences followed by monologues).
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The only stun-locking I've experienced so far is packs of wolves knocking down a target again and again. Which becomes less of an issue when you start gathering party members to spread out the pain. In my experience (level 5 so far) the first 2-3 levels, where you have a small party and spells that are barely better than auto-attack, are definitely harder than when you arrive in Defiance Bay with a full party and you start getting solid CC and damage spells.
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Not impossible, just really tough. You might want to hire a few adventurers to max out party limit (don't worry about the cost, the game starts showering you with loot and gold as soon as levels 4-5). Definitely get Durance.
How I did it was placing my party (level 4, 5 men, Cipher PC) at the steps in front of the throne. Two tanks in front, squishies behind. I set a fireball trap, and had Durance use two Repelling Seal spells behind it. I then ordered my ranged to attack and kill the archer first, then focus on priests then mages while Edér and Kana held the line. It was a chaotic mess, I was saved by two well-placed Rolling Flames from Aloth's part, and in the end only Éder and Aloth were left standing.
I have no idea how you're supposed to beat him the ''normal'' way at level 4, IE by talking to him and coming to blows via conversation. His goons just mob the hell out of you if you don't semi cheese the fight like I did.
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This has nothing to do with the bug reported here, but I don't wanna make a new thread, so... please, someone tell me how you killed that godawful paladin of a Lord. :-/ The game has been pleasantly challenging for me up to this point (even though I snuck my way through the castle, mostly), but this particular fight is impossible - my entire party is down by the time I take out the supports, and I've barely made a dent in the paladins' armors.
Is my level too low, perhaps? I have a four-man party, all at level 4. What level/party size are you supposed to have when you go in there? :-/
I had a 5 man party, with a ranged Cipher PC.
Basically, beating him the ''normal'' way (by walking among his goons and engaging via dialog options) isn't really possible at level 4. You will get mobbed and torn to pieces in a hurry. I set up traps and trap spells (Durance the priest has some, did you get him?) at the stair in front of the throne room, got my two tanks in front, 3 ranged in the back, and attacked the archer from sneak to dispatch it right away. The fight was still hard as hell, and a chaotic mess. I basically won thanks to Aloth, who cast two Rolling Flame spells into the enemy priests and mages, enabling my PC to kill them. At the end, it ended with Edér tanking the lord and his paladins while Aloth slowly chipped away at their health with his crossbow. Definitely the hardest fight in the game so far. You might want to grab the 5th or even 6th companions and come back.
It is a rather jarring difficulty jump from the rest of the place. I went in by the dungeons, which mostly had easily killed level 1-3 skeletons. Then the game smacks you with this **** and his posee.
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Partial voice acting, like is done in the game, can be a bit jarring. Why is X line voice acted, but Y one isn't?
There are also parts where a character says something, and the narration puts emphasis on an emotion but the voice acting, well, doesn't.
But, quality VA work like you see CD Projeckt and Bioware doing is very expensive and not within the budget of a Kickstarter title unless it gets Star Citizen levels of backing or something. So I fully understand why Obsidian did it. At least Kana, Sagani and Durance are well voice acted, even if Edér and Aloth are a bit less so. The voice actors for random NPCs are usually passable, they still stick out after playing Inquisition and its well voiced cast but nothing to worry about.
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Chanters are indeed pretty boss. Even Kana, the companion one, offers great permanent buffs, Invocations that are at least as powerful as Wizard spells and his combat performance does not leave much to be desired. Spoony bards the Chanters definitely aren't.
Priests are also pretty good with tons of utility spells, but have the disadvantage of no pre-buffs. A Chanter sings as soon as battle is joined.
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I have 4 hours in, and I must say, while I had good expectations so far I'm impressed even then. Runs flawlessly, plays very well, loads of text and descriptions, great writing as usual, no bugs or crashes at all so far, combat and exploration is fun without sinking into the tediousness sometimes present in IE games, good NPCs too. So far Durance seems the most interesting companion.
Yeah, I'm having a blast. Some of the optional fights have been kicking my ass on Hard, especially those damnable teleporting shadows in the second floor of the Temple of whatshisnameagain. No biggie, I'll just come back with more party members and kick their arse.
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Think my second playthrough is going to be the Stark family. The first will be with premade NPCs, I live for party banter.
PC: Ned Stark, human Paladin, support with a greatsword.
Robb Stark, human Fighter, tank with sword + shield.
Jon Snow, human Ranger using both bow and sword. Wolf companion, obviously.
Sansa Stark, human Chanter (she does sing). Maybe I'll just go for Catelyn, she's more interesting.
Bran Stark, human (maybe Nature Godlike?) Druid.
Arya Stark, human (maybe Orlan? she's small) Rogue, damage dealer with a rapier.
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I don't see why not.
It's a way for two characters to develop a relationship.
Sure. But they actually have to develop a relationship. And this is where the whole thing usually falls apart.
Take DA:I. It takes a great deal of pain developing the idea that your relationship with these various crazy people is as the second coming of their personal savior, their boss, leader and the key to saving the world. But on the side you can repeatedly sexually harass them until they give in and have sex. And this is the pinnacle of CRPG romance.
Or take BG2. You can either get a whining crying teenage ex-slave pregnant, or randomly marry a horrible woman seeking to replace her recently mutilated dead husband after a matter of days. Or be 'edgy' with the S&M dark elf stereotype.
Yeah. Pass.
Great thing romances are optional, then.
If you don't like them, pass. I don't like the concept of Orlans, I'm not going to play as one. I don't like the concept of permadeath, I'm not going to enable it. I dislike maces as a weapon, I'm not going to use one unless absolutely required. So on and so forth. All of these things are content that the devs put in the game and that cost time and money to implement, yet that I don't like and won't use. That does not mean it was wasted at all. Simply that it's not for me.
Not liking romance in games is one thing, that's perfectly fine. But saying that it shouldn't be in the game, or should absolutely have to justify its existence by being great, because you don't like it is a bit of a silly, dead-end argument, to me at least.
I mean, of course romances should be well written. Everything in the game should be well written. it's why many of us have backed or bought an Obsidian game before it's even released, because as writers they are heads and shoulders above the rest of the industry, no?. But I don't understand this need for romances to be either the Best Romance Ever or a complete waste of space. Badly written fantasy is dime a dozen these days, doesn't mean Obsidian require stellar writing to justify regarding elves or dragons to put them in the game.
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Apologies for snippage:
And yes, sorry, but there is going to be a degree of high horsing here and there. And yes, I am going to high horse on this subject matter. Not in some elitist belief I'm a better, more educated person and all my opinions are solid gold material mind you, but because I've given all the romance media a shot, and it's all the ****ing same. If you have seen one, you've seen them all. I skimmed, but above there's a comment by a guy saying he's gonna have to give romance with X character from X game a shot, though it sounds as though it's still the story and character that are more compelling, not the romance aspects. This is the exact train of thought that rings true with me. Romance is just a cliche that's used over and over and over to hook people in, but when it comes to actually being original or thought-provoking in any way? It's not. How can it be? What's thought provoking about two people loving each other? Nothing unless something about one of the characters is thought-provoking, in which case the romance is something entirely different and not neccesary to the quality of that character.And to re-iterate: Again these guys made New Vegas. Excellent game, excellent story, and my money hands down for best written game of this millenia thusfar. It did not have romance. It didn't need it. The "survival of the fittest"-meets-philosophy story it had going for it was something very original and by no means overdone in media, and I loved every second of it. Had that been traded for "FIND CASS BOOZE SO SHE CAN BECOME YOUR WAIFU" then I think the game would've drastically suffered for it. I would argue that even IF you have absolutely no interest in New Vegas' plot, an original idea holds far more worth and weight than a "good" idea (by your standards or rather the standards of an example person) just regurgitated back at us again. If Obsidian were to come on these forums right now and say'll make a new Fallout and they can either play it safe and revamp New Vegas' story elements and kinda repeat them in new ways or try a new style with new elements of war entirely, I would opt for the latter.
And that's why yes, people are going to get a little high-horse about romance: it's not some belief that omg my opinion is gold so worship it, it's a desire to see new ideas and a disgust when people are begging and insisting to see the same old elements again and again and again, to the point where it drowns out any new potential stories or ideas.
Okay, if the thrust of your argument against romances is that they're all the same and there's no original concept left to explore, you shouldn't be consuming any media at all, because all stories have already been told countless times over. There is no such thing as a new or original story. What there are, are new and original settings and characters. The stories have all been told already, but the people they happen to and the how and why of them happening is what makes them interesting. And this applies to romance as much as it does any other aspect of any other story.
And frankly, your self-admitted "high-horsing" is coming across as condescending and, for some people I'm sure, almost offensive, with your implication that anyone who enjoys a romance in a game (which is not terribly different than a romance in any other media) is some kind of emotionally stunted social reject who can only experience intimacy through a virtual "waifu". Just because you can't think of a good, interesting way to do romance doesn't mean it's not there.
I'm extremely tired cause my dumbass neighbor conveniently seems to use power tools whenever I'm sleeping and my lack of sleep this morning is suddenly hitting me (and lo and behold he has them back out now and it's 10pm wtf?), so I'm gonna simplify my response down quite a bit, but I might post some more later.
1) Arguing a hyperbole has never been a productive or objective argument. Saying "WE SHOULD NEVER CONSUME ANY MEDIA EVER THEN CAUSE IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE" is just ridiculous. It's akin to if I say "Hitler has done some terrible things so we probably shouldn't put too much value into claims he made" and the response is "EVERYONE HAS DONE TERRIBLE THINGS AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIVES SO WE SHOULD NEVER PUT VALUE IN ANYTHING ANYONE SAYS EVER." There IS a degree of truth to it, but it also blatantly fails to see the rather obvious point being made. Yes you are correct, but my intention with my statement cannot be more obvious, and instead you've chosen to look over it and make a meaningless blanket statement that does nothing to further the conversation by either addressing or challenging the claim I've made.
2) Let me spin it around to really sum this point up: How would you propose doing romance in PoE that would be universally well-received?
Just like you're annoyed with what you perceive as elitism or something, I get annoyed with the constant "THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT CAN'T BE DONE." I could go to the President right now and say we should go land on one of Jupiter's moons and he might say it's not really conceivable, to which I could correctly respond "JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T IMAGINE IT DOESN'T MEAN IT CAN'T BE DONE."
That's great and all, but if YOU want it done, YOU are expected to help explain how it's plausible and a good idea. You're essentially expecting Obsidian - a team that has expressed disinterest in doing romantic subplots - to wave their magic wands and somehow do romance correctly.
This is also part of the reason I'm not afraid to come across as so bold and offensive on this topic: because I firmly believe that if an idea is this simple to criticize (see my posts above about how it's not truly feasible to please everyone with romance) and so difficult to defend (all of your defenses have been inobjective broad statements that could be applied to literally anything), then yes, it is a ****ty idea. Maybe this is my law studies talking, but where I come from, debate is a matter of "put up or shutup." I don't agree with this "that's just like ur opinion man" view of things. Of course these are opinions, but if you've got a popular opinion, then I believe you should be able to defend it. Thusfar, I've yet to see a good defense as to how and why romance should, could and would be included. The answers are all "just do it" or "hire someone that can."
So yeah, let's switch it around: how would YOU make it happen? What video game do you know of that provides a romantic interest that's universally praised by everyone and does not hit-and-miss with a lot of people showing complete disinterest in the feature? Remember I'm not saying it's not doable to make one some people will like, I'm saying it's not doable to make one that appeases to enough people that it warrants the time and effort spent designing it. Name examples of extremely popular romantic interests that did not have mixed reviews, and explain to me what kind of romantic interests you had in mind that you think everyone would be happy to see.
And again that's essentially my problem with the whole pro-romance crowd. A lot of meaningless "IT COULD WORK" statements with absolute ****-all to actually reinforce those claims or shoot down any counter-claims I'm presenting.
Why should a romance have to be universally praised to justify its existence?
If we've established one thing in recent years, it's that people who play video games are a wildly diverse crowd with loads and loads of divergent interests. Making anything that is universally praised is impossible.
Your argument could be used to suit basically any aspect of game design. Hobbit-like creatures aren't liked enough, cut the Orlans. Nature-loving types aren't liked enough, cut Druids. Spears aren't popular enough, cut spears. Magical catastrophes aren't liked enough, cut that stuff out. Why should romances need to be superbly written to justify their existence over anything else? Beyond you not liking them?
To see such an opinion on the forum of a Kickstarter backed title is utterly baffling to me. ''Infinity Engine RPGs aren't universally praised enough and not worth the ressources, don't make them''. This seems suspiciously similar to the logic you advocate, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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I don't see why not.
It's a way for two characters to develop a relationship. They can be friends, rivals, simply coworkers, family, etc. Or sometimes they can fall for each other. Or just be in for the sex too, that happens. It can be interesting to explore. Romances aren't a crucial reason why I play RPGs (indeed half my saves in Bioware games don't romance anyone or do it as an afterthought), but if the writing team can pull off, go for it.
As for the argument that good writers don't do romance, qué? Plenty of great writers through history have explored that, in a wide variety of genres. Or are we going to pretend that writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas and George R.R. Martin aren't good writers because some of their works have romantic content?, Sure, to be enjoyable, romances need to be well written, but isn't that the case for everything? Why single our romances as That Thing that takes up ressources and could be badly written? Every single word present in the game takes up ressources and could be badly written. I don't see why romances are singled out for that.
Now, if ChrisA/Obsidian don't want to do romance, that's entirely within their prerogative. They certainly aren't required to do so, and their reasons are their own, whenever it's a question of ressources, practicality, not feeling they can pull it off, or just plain not being interested. But we cannot really speak for them and say ''ChrisA doesn't want romances, end of discussion, deal with it creeps''.
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Yes I understand this is a controversial question...
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
Dragon Age: Origins had a nice Tactics system. It didn't do everything for you, but if you dug into it a little you could create some useful setups such as making a warrior/rogue knockdown an enemy who attacked your mages or control when your party healed themselves.
That being said, the Engagement mechanic would make that hard. I'm not sure how the AI would react to having a script demande it to protect X character when its already engaged to 2 monsters. It would probably just eat 2 disengagement strikes.