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Everything posted by abaris
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Insane attack on stronghold loop
abaris replied to abaris's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
I got the feeling of the game liking to repeat the same randon events over and over. Such as having the same item of loot in random locations in one playthrough or Azuro showing or not showing. Soemtimes he comes to visit more often than I can count, at other times he's an absolute no show. Sometimes I haven't got a single prison escape, at other times my cells are empty in not time at all. Prestigious visitors showing up in a row or not showing at all. All with the same amount or prestige and security. -
PoE review at RPG Codex by Decado
abaris replied to Drath's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Great idea from a narrative perspective. But from a gameplay perspective next to impossible to pull off. Losing ones mind means losing ones grip on reality, getting a different insance perspective. That would mean to constrain the player character with certain dialogue and gameplay options no longer being available and being replaced by others. More passionate maybe, maybe more cruel and certainly more aggressive. Every other approach would just be another half baked attempt. I would role with that, if there's a chance to redeem the character, but many others wouldn't. -
PoE review at RPG Codex by Decado
abaris replied to Drath's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Do you know of any (recent) game where the story was not average off the stock material? Games are not the next great novel and I've got no real problem if the story feels rather seen before. The question for me is rather, how deeply you as the player, are immersed in any given story. I didn't have access to the old games of the genre, since I was on a mac back then and companies didn't port their games to mac systems in the days, but of all the games I played, I never found a story that awed me for it's originality. -
So I've been playing for about 30 hours without any attack on the stronghold happening. Then all over sudden, one attack after the other. I leave the stronghold, which is now almost finished and manned with the best henchmen I could hire, and upon arriving at my chosen destination, I got the message of another attack on the horizon. This is getting really tiresome, since I get nothing done besides fending off attacks at the stronghold with just enough time to travel back to take care of the attackers. It's now four in a row so far. Did anyone else have the game throw such an insane attack loop on them?
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Deeply disappointed with Obsidian
abaris replied to Thortxu's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
I don't know anything about the mechanics involved when it comes to compare FNV to POE. My personal impression, and I've played FNV to death, is that the outcome and effects were not that different. If you didn't go out of your way to kill legionaires wherever you found them, they stayed neutral right to the very end. Same goes for the other factions involved. Just the same as with Defiance Bay you could do their quests without comitting yourself. In fact, I'm pretty comfortable with how reputation works. Especially when it comes to the smaller villages where grapevines of your actions make the rounds. I also find the personal reputations to be working quite well. If you're known to be deceptive, at certain encounters people just won't believe you. Or you can talk your way out of a fight if you're known to be cruel. The only gripe I have with this game is the non existent reactiveness to outside events of the game world. You can fight right under the noses of justicars and they don't give a damn in most instances. If you're attacked, you're game. Only if you do the attacking, they do react if they're close enough and I only encountered that once when I decided to put my observations to the test. That is in fact one of my most hated aspects of any game. If the NPCs don't react to violence under their noses it's a major immersion breaker for me, since it shows them to be just extras idling around and not being part of a living breathing world. There are games that have that aspect under control. Most so called AAA titles don't as Bioware shows in their impressive negligence of gameplay. Skyrim was the only AAA title where it happens to a certain extent, but D:OS was the title where it was implemented in the most impressive way of any game I played within the last five or six years. -
Random loot generation
abaris replied to dukefx's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Well, tough is all I can say to that. In about ten started games I found the mechanics gloves once. A couple of hours ago. Planning a character based on what's in the game is usually a bad idea. I for one am curious of what I might find, though I admit that I can't see boots of speed or rings of minor deflection anymore. Random loot is fine by me. It would be nice if there was a little more variety though. It's often as if the game decides it's boots of speed day or boots of sturdyness season. And most of all, the reward should fit the location. If there's a stew tugged away in a secret spot, I feel kind of led on. -
Unless you have a totally different perception of what an RPG should offer, name one AAA title that lived up to RPG standards. They're expensive, they're shiny and that's about the size of it. The rest is compiled of FedEx quests and hack and slash action, with shiny beacons, so you can find your next delivery on the schedule.
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You win some and you lose some. I didn't buy a Bioware game since DA:O for the abysmal route they've taken. So count me out as a potential audience for any of these games. I did buy Skyrim and in hindsight I don't exactly regret the decision, but I won't buy another Elder Scroll game either as long as there isn't solid evidence that they did their homework and stopped catering to the lowest common denominator. So there's a market for deeper role playing games. The sales figures point in that direction and I would regret it, if your appeal to a larger audience approach would feature in their decision making. Why water down a concept that has found it's audience. And probably won't lose it either, since people interested in that kind of game are usually older and not that driven by the next shiny sensation on the horizon as the console generation. To tell the truth, the only company that didn't utterly dissapoint me at some point in their existence is Obsidian. All the others have been either eaten alive by EA or taken the first exit to mainstream like Bethesda. Funny thing is, while looking at DA:I, to see if there's still some signs of intelligent life in Bioware, I stumbled over D:OS and gave them my money instead. And when playing D:OS, I stumbled over POE and preordered. And now I'm looking at Legends of the Sword Coast, which also looks pretty promising. So there are still games that don't try to appeal to everyone. And that's a good thing I'm willing to support with my money.
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There's a middle ground, you know. I never did play the old IE games, since I was on a Mac back then and they didn't port them to Macs. I come from a generation that played the old pen and paper games in our 20ies. And I came to expect something similar on the computer when I started playing them there. So customization is very important for me, player development and story driven quests. I hated the console turnaround the industry made about 5 or 6 years ago with a vengeance. The hack and slash combat as well as the FedEx sidequests and the so called streamlining. The last year brought two lights at the end of the tunnel. One was D:OS and the second one POE. Both games delivered and were the first ones since NWNII and Dragon Age Origins to keep me up at night. I really hope, this new trend continues, regardless if it's nostalgia or continuing a genre.
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Update #98: The Bard's Tale IV and Update 1.06
abaris replied to BAdler's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
As far as patch 1.06 is concerned - can anyone confirm that the one ending on 91 is the latest? Steam didn't update when the patch was released to the general public and I got my version on may 30th, as it looks.- 23 replies
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PoE review at RPG Codex by Decado
abaris replied to Drath's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
The examples you're giving are too huge for my liking. They're gamechangers and that's not something I desire in that kind of game. I'm pretty comfortable with the loot as it is. I wasn't when I started playing the game, but then I realized, you can be pretty well equipped by the end of the game. There are quite a number of very useful unique items that can be further enchanted to something really special. And I don't have a problem with enchanting either, since even if I have money to burn I have to hunt for the right ingrendients to get to the powerful enchantments. Fine and first level atribute buffs are pretty easy, but they just eat up slots. OK, you can replace fine with something more meaningful, but once you've burned an attribute buff, it sticks on the item. -
MOB lure ****
abaris replied to PaleElfDrifter's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
In your game, you are the only person in the world. That means, you can play as you like with every exploit you like. Or you can leave them out, if you don't like them. Your decision. And that's the crucial point. Asking for the developers to take something out, based on personal opinion, is asking to ruin the game for others, who don't feel that way. You, the player can take it or leave it. But if a feature isn't there to begin with, the player can't add it. As has been said, a better AI is something to ask for. I for example, am deeply bothered by justicars just continuing on their merry way, whilst walking through the midst of a major fight in the streets of Defiance Bay. That's really something killing immersion and D:OS proved that it can be done differently. -
There are what I would call Bethesda bugs. They're virtually in every game they release. From Morrowind up to Skyrim. So, for example, the flying dead creature. Or the falling through the floor, or the NPC being stuck in some wall or furniture. There are people who compiled fun videos of all the bugs Skyrim contained on release. Watching them makes you rolling on the floor laughing. Didn't play neither the Witcher nor the Gothic series because I don't like fixed player characters. For me that takes the R out of RPG.
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cannot free Giacco (Raedricks Keep)
abaris replied to MikeExp's question in Pillars of Eternity: Technical Support (Spoiler Warning!)
One general thing about this. You won't be very happy as the game progresses if noone in your party has mechanics. That lock isn't even hard to pick. -
Two things about this. The reason why steam tells you how many hours you put in tells me, you don't play POE as it's meant to be played: Started as admin from the folder and not using the steam client. A lot of bugs or pseudo bugs result in the steam client interfering. If you start as admin, steam isn't able to keep count on your play time and doesn't award you achievements, which are unnecessary in my book anyway. Second, GTA V or the whole GTA series are entirely different puppies. That's not meant to sound judgmental, since I have nothing aagainst a good action game off and on, but it's not an RPG, although it has it's role playing elements. So your playstyle and preferences may be different from the intended audience. Also, GTA is produced with the console as it's primary medium. If it's ported well, more power to them, but again, different audiences.
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For me this game is worth every penny they ask for it. But it obviously depends on your personal preferences. If you don't like written dialogue and stories, it's probably not your cup of tea. But if that's not your major concern, you get a game with a rather rich storyline and an endless stream of sidequests that are real quests and not the usual FedEx simulators of fetch and carry you find in so many games these days.
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They usually are, if they're shoddily ported to PC - which is the usual procedure. These days you have to be glad that a game doesn't constantly CTD on you. And by these days I mean the last decade or so. As I said in a previous post. Skyrim at release reintroduced the blue screen of death for quite a number of users. So calling this game unfinished is missing the mark by a mile.
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Deeply disappointed with Obsidian
abaris replied to Thortxu's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
No spoilers, so I can only say that Durance's tale gets even darker than that when moving on with his story. And I would say, POE has the right amount of humor. It's mostly in the banter and in my opinion it should stay there, given the overall story. -
MOB lure ****
abaris replied to PaleElfDrifter's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
You know, I've had maybe one or two instances where one guy was lured without his whole crew following. As Nakia observed, it even happens occasionally that further away enemies are alerted too and come for you from behind your back. That doesn't mean the AI doesn't have plenty of room for improvement. The wayfinding, friend and foe, is abysmal in places. They use spells, ill suited for the situation at hand and the list could be continued. -
MOB lure ****
abaris replied to PaleElfDrifter's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
It's also more realistic to have a strategy instead of just jumping in all guns blazing. I guess there's no real life warrior past and present, who wouldn't look to use terrain and surprise to their advantage. It's also pretty simple. If someone doesn't like luring, they just can skip the luring part entirely. But if the game weren't designed that way, the ones of us, who actually do like it, couldn't use it, since it wouldn't be there in the first place. A valid point of criticism might be the fact that most mobs just stand around statically. Making them mobile would have added to the game, but I guess that's down to budget restrictions. -
Does he have anything interesting to say? I stumbled upon the shack in my first playthrough and wondered why there was nobody inside. Seems like this is the answer to my question. If you decide to killl Kolsc instead of Raedric, the whole gang is holed up in the shack, including Giacco. If you leave him to rot in the dungeon, he's not there in any case.
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And if you send him on a wild goose chase first time round, he's lurking in Woodend Plaines for a little revenge.
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