[Why is everything in this game so bland?]

 

 

The thing is, it's not a disease. Everything at Maerwald, everything about the situation, suggested to me that his circumstance was at the very least somewhat unique. He had been reborn at least three times into closely inter-related personas, of which at least two of them were incredibly close to eachother's horrific personal tragedies.

There is, as far as I know, nothing to suggest something similar is happening to the Watcher, especially not around that point. Yes, he sees dead people, yes he sees previous lives, but that's what watchers do, it's their thing. You can even express doubts yourself as to whether this will even befall you at all.

my impression is that maerwald is supposed to be a terrifying vision of your future, and spur you on to find the lead key so that you can be cured. thats why companions keep saying you look like **** because you're not sleeping, and eder has to wake you up from horrible nightmares. the implication is that you're gonna end up like him. You can say your not going to fall but they make like youre just giving it a stiff upper lip, hiding the trouble your going through

 

if you go to dunryd row and happen to shoot lady webb in the dome this is pretty much spelled out: the game ends and epilogue says "without lady webb's help you can't find the leaden key. soon, as with maerwald, your nightmares enter your waking thoughts and you spend the rest of your days as a crazy hobo in defiance bay"

 

the problem for me is that the turmoil that the pc is supposedly going through isn't convey to the player very well. So i'm having nightmares. ok...what are they?? what about my past lives are freaking me out so much?

 

 

About the woedica temple i agree with you. I talked to the cultist lady and actually thought i could help them out...turns out you cant even though the whole point of going there was to ask them about my awakening

 

 

You know what? The note on the nightmares is good. They should've conveyed that better by having interactive nightmares that occur both randomly and at specific places in the game, that all universally result in some form of temporary (random dream) or permanent (specific dream) penalties, primarily to your mental attributes but also to your physical ones (due to shaky hands, a state of constant nausea, or a feeling of fatigue).

 

Some of the dreams could be vaguely prophetic about what's going on, some could deal with companions and their problems or even previous lives (Edér's brother comes to mind) without explicitly explaining it to you at all, and some really could just be completely alien to you and not meant to make sense.

 

A bit like the slider dreams in Baldur's Gate, except interactive, some of them simply ending with a note of how you feel, at least one of them being the realization that you need help. Fast.

 

that would have been great... now i'm mad that they didn't do this

[Why is everything in this game so bland?]

The thing is, it's not a disease. Everything at Maerwald, everything about the situation, suggested to me that his circumstance was at the very least somewhat unique. He had been reborn at least three times into closely inter-related personas, of which at least two of them were incredibly close to eachother's horrific personal tragedies.

There is, as far as I know, nothing to suggest something similar is happening to the Watcher, especially not around that point. Yes, he sees dead people, yes he sees previous lives, but that's what watchers do, it's their thing. You can even express doubts yourself as to whether this will even befall you at all.

my impression is that maerwald is supposed to be a terrifying vision of your future, and spur you on to find the lead key so that you can be cured. thats why companions keep saying you look like **** because you're not sleeping, and eder has to wake you up from horrible nightmares. the implication is that you're gonna end up like him. You can say your not going to fall but they make like youre just giving it a stiff upper lip, hiding the trouble your going through

 

if you go to dunryd row and happen to shoot lady webb in the dome this is pretty much spelled out: the game ends and epilogue says "without lady webb's help you can't find the leaden key. soon, as with maerwald, your nightmares enter your waking thoughts and you spend the rest of your days as a crazy hobo in defiance bay"

 

the problem for me is that the turmoil that the pc is supposedly going through isn't convey to the player very well. So i'm having nightmares. ok...what are they?? what about my past lives are freaking me out so much?

 

 

About the woedica temple i agree with you. I talked to the cultist lady and actually thought i could help them out...turns out you cant even though the whole point of going there was to ask them about my awakening

[Tyrgir (sp) the Tanner in Dyrwood Village]

lol yeah you kind of have to go out of your way not to kill him

cool that he gets all pissy when an orlan questions him though. i was an elf so he basically just said "shut it" but didn't try to kill me

[How did you end the 'Blood Legacy' quest?]

I rescued her with GM and told her to wander off into the woods or whatever. let her uncle go with passive aggressive disapproval 

 

I was very disappointed with this quest because i could not rp my character the way i wanted...

 

my character is not very empathetic and is aedyran royalty so bloodline is very important to her... she actually sympathies with the nobeman's problem more than his niece. In her view it sucks to be the girl but sacrifices have to be made for pedigree

but in the quest there are no options except to be outraged at his actions

so i stopped caring and just pick some random options

[Why is everything in this game so bland?]

 

 

The problem for me is that in Pillars you just don't care about the world and the main quest.

 

I've read everything in game and I still don't know much about the world, and the things I do know I don't really like. It is all pretty basic. Few historical figures, few events, few nations, few gods.

 

Then, there is the story. Good idea about souls and hollowborn...but game never lets you feel it. It is just something talked about. No emotions involved.

 

Watcher (witcher, warden) is going mad, but again you do not feel it. few short dialogs and that's it.

 

And in the end you finish with some quick "twist" having little in common with the rest of the game.

 

It all feels terribly rushed and half-done. Devs were just following the formula, had a deadline, some general idea, and this is the result. Not good, not smart, not involving, not epic...just ok.

I can agree that it doesn't exactly FEEL like the Watcher (i.e. the PC) is going mad. But then again, how does one do that without making the character useless? [...]

 

If you truly feel that you have to make the character useless in order to convey the increasing sense of unhingement (yes, I made that word up), then do so. Punish me. Make me feel the pain.

 

agreed i kept forgetting that i'm supposed to going nuts, which killed one of the main reasons to chase the bad guy in the first place

i apparently have the same disease a maerwald where his past lives come back to haunt him and drive him crazy, but i only see one past life and very little of it so theres no urgency to find a cure. in fact i thought being awakened was a good thing

[Lack of Choice Regarding Bitter Squash]

 

Similarly, if you rescue the the girl in the missing noblewoman quest, there not opion to give her back to her uncle, and when you talk to him you have either act all pissy and passive aggressive or just flat out kill him.

The quest imposes the morality of a decent 21st century person on my character's morality, which really made the whole quest lame

Yeah, I really hate these things. It also feels incredibly inconsistent in regards to some other parts of the game, like the kid you can beat up, or give a knife, no questions asked. Yes, it turns out bad "of course" if you give him a knife (sigh.. how nice it would be if things were more realistic), but that's beside the point. My point being that because of that, these times when 21st-century morality is forced upon you comes across as preachy and jarring.

 

It's actually way worse than in D&D, where the 21st-century morality is expressly an objective part of the setting and if you don't adhere to it, you're a chaotic evil psycho that will go to literal hell. Not much better, but at least it's consistent.

 

i agree, constancy is the key. having the freedom to choose my morality 9 out of ten times makes the one time i can't extremely frustrating and throws me out of the narrative i build around my character. 

 

 

Similarly, if you rescue the the girl in the missing noblewoman quest, there not opion to give her back to her uncle, and when you talk to him you have either act all pissy and passive aggressive or just flat out kill him.

The quest imposes the morality of a decent 21st century person on my character's morality, which really made the whole quest lame

On RPG Codex forums there are many accusations about 21st century mentality in Renaissance/Middle-Age setting. For example having reincarnation themes and Western mentality instead Eastern. But I think that Dragon Age setting made it much worse than Eora of POE.

 

One good setting with reincarnation theme and more Eastern mentality/culture was Bioware forgotten child - Jade Empire.

 

i only played dragon age 1 but the morality of the characters fit the setting pretty well i thought , it's been a long time since i played though

 

gonna have to check jade empire out

[Lack of Choice Regarding Bitter Squash]

Similarly, if you rescue the the girl in the missing noblewoman quest, there not opion to give her back to her uncle, and when you talk to him you have either act all pissy and passive aggressive or just flat out kill him.

The quest imposes the morality of a decent 21st century person on my character's morality, which really made the whole quest lame

[Lack of evil companions (potential spoilers)]

maybe not evil but more characters with "alternative morals"?

this would only be important if characters have stronger reactions to your actions though

as it is Eder has no problem following my cruel 2 deceptive 4 character around so it doen't matter if he's good or not

[How do you guys bring yourself to read?]

If the game was moddable, I'd write a quick app that lets you highlight over words and give you the definition.

like "palimpsest"...had to look that one up

[Travels of a Priestess of Eothas]

i agree, to add to it reactions of party members to the things you do are lacking as well.

 

for example in heritage hill you can feed a bunch of people to the crazy gul on the tower in exchange for some power

so i go down to the 3 guys locked in the fampyr's closet and say "hey i'm rescuing you, the top of the tower is totally safe go there"

Nobody says ****

you'd think a certain follower of the god of benevolance would have something to say...like "this bitch is lying go to the gates instead!" Then i'd have to deal with the fallout which would be interesting. Would also make Eder seem to have a lot more personality than he does now.

 

also the fampyr doesn't care that i just stole her food 0_o

[Wizard suggestion]

For example fireball. The damage at endgame for me was 30 damage. I mean come on, thats the same damage as my 2 hander does in an autoattack even though fireball is an AOE. I just think Wizard is missing that limited but powerful feel somehow. Then again maybe I'm wrong or the devs wanted another direction with Wizard.

the damage is low but it's pracically instant cast and recovery time is low, you're supposed to spam it

kill the enemy's reflexes, cast 3 fireballs, fight over

my wizard seems plenty powerfull

[How to dispel domination?]

The issue seems to be related with the hit system. Since they are attacking your Will stat, even if they get a Graze hit, your character is still dominated/charmed for less time.

charm and confuse attack deflection

[Teen Modification - Swearing Discussion]

I gotta chime in here.

 

Cause really, f-bombs are awful, but the fact you kill dozens of other human(oids) in the game is perfectly ok?

 

This bugs me in many other games as well. Take Mass Effect 3: you kill stuff by the boatloads, on screen head explosions included. But for some obscure reason Samantha wears a bra in the shower.

 

I'll tell you guys and gals something: teens have sex, teens swear. But the average teen will never, not even in adulthood, kill someone, or even something aside from the occasional insect.

 

The message here is completely off. If anything in games should be censored to protect your kids, it's the killing, not the sex and the swearing.

bioware seems to agree because there are nipples in dragon age 3

[Hard mode is too easy.]

have aloth cast protection from elements on himself too

[Sick Goblin in Endless Paths]

i cut his throat because i thought id be able to throw him in the pit and summon a dragon or something but no he just dies thats it

[Hard mode is too easy.]

In reply to atheo...

 

I assume you haven't read the earlier discussions then. My issue was reaching the last boss on path at level 9 with very few memorable fights, over experience just compounds the difficulty problems, there are several others which have been well documented. People are suggesting ways to overcome the game getting too easy too quickly and increase the number of tactically fun fights (there are already some really good ones when done at the correct level), and experience tweaking is one of those suggestions, but a random mod to reduce experience is a decent idea but would be a pretty crude way to do it and theres more to look at in my opinion.

 

Path was sold as a nod to people who like things brutal, so I hardly think expectations for it to actually BE brutal are ' silly'. Anyway no point derailing the topic further.

whats a good place to stop leveling? im currently level 5... do u think the end boss would be doable?