DaveDanger

That's a good idea.

I'm sure it mostly comes down to expense. There must have been big cost savings with all the text description instead of needing an army of animators to put together cinematics. Plus only having to show art from one angle means you don't have to do as much detail work. In a world where Obs has a much larger budget, would people here want to play a more fancy cinematic game a la Mass Effect set in the Pillars world? They've gone so far down the isometric/text-heavy route that it would be a big departure from the original. Like the difference between DA:O and DA:I, but even more pronounced. I would guess that would be a controversial choice. Maybe there's room for both?

I just read through all of these. Brought back, in the best way, memories of reading TSR D&D books when I was younger. Except that those books are just about unreadable for an adult. The Pillars ones thankfully don't have that problem. I'm excited for the last one.

Sounds good to me. How about making camping supplies finite in potd - they never restock. And all inns are closed for renovation. That would sure shake things up OR! You can camp a much as you want but there is a small chance each time that you will be killed by one of those ax murderers that always seems to target campers.

I'm not inside the main dungeon yet but my party is Eder, Devil, Kana, Zahua, Aloth. Every few area transitions they talk to each other. New companions talk to each other and to old companions. Old companions have new things to say as you walk through expansion levels, too, and as you talk to NPCs. Of those, only the dialogue when speaking to other NPCs doesn't seem to be voiced, which would've been nice, but at least there are new lines there. Pillars seems to use a limited number of voice actors, which makes sense on a small budget. You'd have to expect that cost was a limiting factor here. Expansions only sell a fraction of what the original game sells, and Obsidian did this one without asking for more money for it.

Cool idea.

I agree. You have to have it in your inventory (your main character). When you try to open door you will have dialogue option Yep this works.

I went to a cipher in Defiance Bay. The object doesn't have enough info to satisfy Eder's needs, and that is just part of the story.

Yeah that thing is like teenage Firkraag at best. The actual dragons are more comparable.

Spent more time that I care to admit on that one.

The player doesn't choose to be related to sarevok, to kill Irenicus' sister, or to be a bhaalspawn. Those are all equivalent to past life stories since they happen before the game's events. Sure, they happened in the same lifetime, but in terms of player agency there is no meaningful distinction. Also true of TNO in Torment - all backstory told through past lives that define a relationship with the final boss. (You also don't get much face time with TTO in Torment, either, come to think of it...) Not that I wouldn't have loved me some more Thaos, but I thought it was nice that for once the plot wasn't "bad guy wants to hunt down and kill the player because he's special." In fact in your early run ins with him, he seems to recognize you and maybe show mercy? That was my read, anyway. The real antagonist for most of the game is the player's own awakened soul. So it's more hero vs. self if anything. So.... why do we need to kill Thaos? Theoretically you don't. You're chasing him to get him to tell you what he knows about your past. The problem is that 1, he refuses to tell you and you can't find out what you need to know without killing him and getting the answers directly from his soul, and 2, by the time you get to him, you've learned too much and now he's decided to kill you. You can approach him with peaceful intentions if you want. He's just such a jerk that he won't accept that or help you out.

The player doesn't choose to be related to sarevok, to kill Irenicus' sister, or to be a bhaalspawn. Those are all equivalent to past life stories since they happen before the game's events. Sure, they happened in the same lifetime, but in terms of player agency there is no meaningful distinction. Also true of TNO in Torment - all backstory told through past lives that define a relationship with the final boss. (You also don't get much face time with TTO in Torment, either, come to think of it...) Not that I wouldn't have loved me some more Thaos, but I thought it was nice that for once the plot wasn't "bad guy wants to hunt down and kill the player because he's special." In fact in your early run ins with him, he seems to recognize you and maybe show mercy? That was my read, anyway. The real antagonist for most of the game is the player's own awakened soul. So it's more hero vs. self if anything.

I figured out a fix to this! When I see a tombstone, I don't click it.

I think dated art style to them isn't really a complaint about the art style at all. It's more like they want everything to be in a modern day 3d engine where they can zoom in and look at their characters' pretty faces. In their dear, misguided heads, a pretty, open world engine like the one for DA:I equates to a current "art style." But guess what, you can't make a game like that for 4 million dollars, and even if you could, you would probably be missing the point of what made IE great.

I'm learning to ignore it but it wouldn't be bad if they did something to make it less noticeable.

They don't do level scaling, so as a general rule, if something is too hard, it's not a bad idea to go do some other quests and return later. The other thing that can help in the early game is hiring extra adventurers from the inn. Full party makes things more manageable. Engagement is the big thing I've had to get used to. You want to send a tank or two into the fray first to keep the enemy front lines occupied. Then once they've engaged the enemies, you can sneak your damage dealers forward and either take out the support enemies or flank the front line guys to give them and yourself a bonus. I also recommend using pikes or other long range weapons with your damage dealers - you can keep them out of trouble that way and worry less about giving them heavy armor.

I don't mean this in a condescending way, but have you tried lowering the difficulty? In most games, Normal really means Easy and Easy means Stupid Easy. In Pillars, Normal means normal - if you take the time to learn the system and pause regularly during combat - and if you don't, Normal is pretty hard. I haven't had a party wipe yet on normal, but I had some difficulties until I spent some time reading up on how tho play.