Teioh_White
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Posts posted by Teioh_White
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I guess the one difference here is, there actually are beings that do everything they say they say gods do.They just don't have the correct creation myth.
Like if we had proof that heaven and hell and all that jazz was mostly true, just that Atlantis made God or something,he's not a natural occurring thing. Dunno how people react to knowing there god is basically real as advertised except for its creation. Might get more converts.
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Err....the writer stated she wanted to push an agenda. And the game does so throughout the entire thing. Which could still be fine if the writing wasn't god awful. I mean, I like Bioshock even
with its contant whinging on Objectivism.
But its got many more issues than just Beamdogs political leanings, those just make it hard to overlook the flaws and try and just enjoy some below average IE gameplay.
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That's a good point; off the top my head, I don't know if we're told exactly what she preaches beyond 'those gods over there aren't like, real creator gods. They're just man-made things that have power like we think real gods would.' Dunno if we have insight on what she stood for beyond that, or where she wanted the world to go. I mean, I'm not sure we even know she didn't want people following the gods, so long as they knew the weren't 'god' gods.
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It was a really on point review based on my own experience running through the game. There were a lot of issues in the game other than just the shore-horn'd in politics. And the worst part of that wasn't so much in game, but how Beamdog reacted to it out of game. But, plenty of media I enjoy even though the people who made it are tossers, it's a silly thing to let get in the way if the product is good. Luckily, in this game, they're tossers -and- the product is horrible, so don't have to worry about that,
Though, it does seem as people who support SoD keep trying to push that the issue lies squarely with some pointless npc who I ignore just as I do the terrible backers in PoE, and ignore the systematic fail that is the rest of the game.
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Well, I guess in a 'meta' sense that's an argument. Pretty much any RPG protag, and by extension, their companions, are mass murderers. Its unclear how much of that gameplay is meant to actually carry over into the story.
In a more 'acceptable reality breaks', often PC's have murderous companions, who if we want to justify their spot in the party tends either be A.) I'm evil too! Lets go kill kittens B.) More Belkar in OotS; PC is essentially a walking Warden, pointing them at bad guys or more often, C.) I think it falls under the 'meta' above, and the story isn't really considering it.
But, as for Devil in a 'realistic' view, I touched on her situation in my first post in the topic. It's not just 'he is a murderer' (which has been gone over many times), but leaving his town with a mob of people, with the intent upon leaving and joining the mob, to go march and murder an entire other town. It's textbook. As I mentioned for Devil, it depends on who she killed. Based on the fact she says she burned people in their homes, and didn't check to see if it they were alone, its likely she burned some innocents, making her just as bad. Which I said. It's weird the game doesn't confirm that for us, as it's not like it'd be some hidden information only she'd know, but it's safe to think that's the case.
The next is I guess how we consider the whole, getting turned into a copper bot thing on the punishment scale. If we think it is a harsh punishment, then a B arrangement in the above can be applicable. If we think there's no real punishment to thing other than her short sighted whining, go for it.
For the record, I always sacrifice Durance to the pool, as he's no better than Harmke. I mean, maybe we could argue insanity in his case, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I did attempt to get some use out of Devil in the Eyeless, but she was more waterproof than I anticipated.
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Yeah, as we get enough points to max two stats and leave the other 4 at 10, I just choose two to focus on, and leave the rest at base 10. I just think of it as choosing two 'favored' stats. I tend to play under self imposed limitations, as otherwise the games too easy.
Also just want to re-iterate the endurance penalty isn't really a big deal. DR early game is so massive compared to incoming damage, endurance rarely comes up. And past Act 3 we get so many cool tools, it's very rare to ever drop below 50% endurance, short of tanking a Dragon Breath or something. The lack of health is annoying if you're limiting your rests though, which is why I tend to favor con on my house rules of 3 rests per Act.
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Hire a random at bar when quest comes up, send them on it, murder them when they get back, and have Party menu remain empty?
In general though, the game doesn't seemed designed with solo on mind, so doubt they go outta the way to accommodate the quirks of solo play.
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Yes....for all the reasons I just stated. There is more, of course, but that felt like enough to show the point. And as you don't have any reasoning of your own, I think we can close the case on this.
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People seem to be drawing the lumber jack crowd into this, as if the sentence is being passed on them as well. First, their 'existence' isn't very concrete, just being nameless NPCs. They whole, 'lets murder Hamke' thing never brings them up, and their random death charge on the team isn't even commented on by...anybody. Could very well just RPG convention (like the PC passing various judgments, or random strangers asking them to very personal crap all the dang time). You think if that was supposed to weigh in on it somehow, the writer would've given some weight to that. Or they just messed it up, as Devil's quest was easily the most rushed of them all.
Secondly, if we want to consider them as actually there, from what little refers to them in game, they were part of the murder death squad as well. You know, who willingly joined a murder death squad. And had murder deathed who knows how many people till we hit Devil's house memory. Who then murder deathe'd there some more. Seriously, even in our waaay more progressive justice system, that's a hilarious inept defense. That wouldn't fly as Duress, and Duress won't save you from killing an innocent who isn't even threatening you. Combined with some mitigating personal factors and a sympathetic jury, it might save you the needle, but that's it. But this is fantasy land with no real long term prison system that we see, so sword to the head would likely be a sentence.
And getting away with crimes because you're...useful? I'm not sure that's a working system of justice. Or at least, it'd be a really warped version of it. Man who owns the factory and keeps a town afloat basically gets free reign to do whatever the hell he wants because otherwise the town would fade away without him? It's that the sort of justice that's supposed to be talking place in Eora? Nevermind that the town becomes so flush with people after the Forge, they've got too many people. No one's going to miss some mass murderers, even for hilarious utility reasons.
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By mostly doing the things you were doing anyways, really. It's just 35% Endurance and Health penalty, 7 deflection, and 21 Concentration penalty, it's not like it makes a character explode because someone looked at them wrong. You seem to have some idea it turns you into a glass cannon. It's really not that big a deal, not all of those penalties even matter. The deflection is basically pointless, as deflection in small amounts barely moves the needle. The Endurance doesn't matter, as the game gives you plentiful ways to reduce incoming damage to levels healing effects can keep up with it. The concentration can be a real pain though. A priest or the Celebrant gloves fixes that issue though. And health only matters on self imposed challenges.
But those things you'd be doing, a Caster by mid game will keep most the enemy on CC lock without even using cheap tactics like stealth opens or dragging mobs from spawn or kiting or whatever. (If you don't mind doing those, even better!). Or a Priest can just buff the team to make those stats not matter. A chanter with Ancestor's Memory, team taking Fighter class feat, and Consicrated Ground will largely make bleeding out to health loss a more likely case than ever actually hitting 0 endurance. Roll over the mobs with weapons that Stun/Prone on crit, use interrupt builds; defenses don't matter when the enemy isn't hitting back.
It's only ever an issue in Act 1, when you don't have many tricks, and have to fight all fair and other nonsense. Luckily, none of these stats affect DR, so you can still have sky high DR even if dumping the two defensive stats. Even better, DR scales for crap in the game, so your DR in Act 1 is way closer to max power than say, your CC skills. Or the mobs damage. Just take the three fanfic dorks Plate Mail in Gilded vale, enchant it to Fine, slap on some Blunting Belts, and wee, everything's doing min damage.
And that's just early game. After Act 1, you get to power up with random minimal combat sidequests in Defiance Bay, letting you jump right to level 8 with exceptional gear and shiny accessories. And pretty soon, the unfair powers start rolling in, and the enemy ceases to ever actually be a threat.
This is all assuming you're trying to make a good party and play style, of course. If you've some self-imposed limitations, it could def introduce some issues, but no one really knows about that by ones self, as it's not the norm.
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Yeah, I'm hoping PoE is to PoE 2 what SRR was to DF, NWN OC was to HotU, or NWN 2 OC was to MotB. Maybe BG to BG2, but I'm the weird guy who prefers BG1. The game did a lot of stuff in the right direction, just seems some hiccups in the development cycle messed it up a bit.
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Finished this and overall quite disappointing.
The writing ranges from fan fiction to eye rolling to diabolical.
It's very linear, railroad-y and hand holding. It's a cross between IWD and ToB. I would say it's worse as you often can't go back to previous maps on the World Map. You see the areas but if the story has moved on, then areas become un-clickable. If you put a side-quest on hold or are doing other things and the story progresses, sometimes you can't go back. That happened to me a couple of times. You have to reload a previous save to finish the side-quest.
Some quests may be bugged and you may have to reload as well. There may also be quests that have to be solved in a particular order otherwise the quest won't resolve. The Drow runaways is one example. If you meet the runaways first you won't know they are running away, and the quest will be bugged because they walk off. You have to meet the other drow party first who are looking for the runaways and then meet the runaways after who will have additional dialogue options. I had to reload for this one.
I felt the story was just plain weird. You have this 'Shining Lady' recruiting people for an army up and down the Sword Coast to eventually storm Hell to selfishly rescue her Uncle which she hasn't told anyone about - as she's telling her followers it's all about their loved ones that will be rescued as well as her loved ones. But really, it's all about her Uncle which he doesn't want to be rescued. And she needs your Blood to open this portal. That's pretty much what her objective is. However, there is someone helping the Shining Lady to open the portal and his objective is to let out the minions of Hell as well as Belhifet himself.
Also, feel there's too much Irenicus. He appears everywhere. At the start of the game in the Ducal Palace, at the Shining Lady's camp. In your dreams. Opposite side of a river in an underground cavern. At Dragonspear Castle. At the end of the game in the Flaming Fist headquarters.
The story has some politicking in it. Such as you lose ALL your money at the start. It's been stolen from the Ducal Palace Treasury where you've been staying and you find out that it's been distributed to the refugees that are flooding into Baldur's Gate. Funnily enough, there is a huge line of refugees at the Sorcerous Sundries buying stuff - obviously with your money. There was one quest in Baldur's Gate where someone wanted to charge refugees for staying at their place as they aren't a charity and it costs money to cook and clean. The dialogue options were diabolical. Something like, How dare you charge money to refugees! In fact, a lot of the dialogue options throughout the game was just plain bad.
You also lose all your original NPCs from the base game with some exceptions. You can only recruit Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana, Viconia, Jaheira, Khalid and Edwin. Safana becomes the new Thief replacement for Imoen as Imoen is not recruitable. Safana's new personality and dialogue is terrible and I eventually dropped her. No other original NPCs can be recruited and a lot don't make an appearance at all. Although, Beamdog made sure all they're NPCs they created for the EE were in as well as creating new NPCs for this expansion.
There are 8 romances in the game. Double what's in BG2.
The power curve of the monsters are all over the place. You could be fighting a Lich, Dragon, Mind Flayer (optional) and the next map could be orcs and goblins. There's a lot of designs including monsters taken from IWD and it comes across as a mish-mash adventure of BG/IWD. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.
End boss is Belhifet from IWD1. When you arrive in Hell, there's hardly any monsters. You would think if his plan was to come through the portal, he would have an army with him already. Nope, it's quite the barren wasteland. It's no problem with your party as you can despatch him easily, even though your party is much lower in level than your IWD party.
There are two different endings (C&C) when you leave Baldur's Gate but it doesn't matter which path you choose, because you meet up with the canon party at the end for BG2 anyway.
Overall, disappointing.
Great review, sums up my feelings as well. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a game I've played that has more atrocious writing than what Beamdog put on display here. Every aspect is dreadful; characters, plot, dialogue, lore, it's all awful. Having to wade through all of that is not offset by IWD2 style corridor killing with worse combat.
On more subjective critiques, the new UI drives me batty. But it likely is actually fine, and just me loving the UI I've played a dozen times already, so I won't hold that against the game.
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Yeah, none of those moments are anything I'd ever reflect on with my friends 5+ years down the line. They weren't bad or anything in-game, just not amazing due to the writing style, which seemed very workman-like. Not pretentious or fanfic at all, with no cringe, facepalm, or eye-rolls, which in this new age of Indie and Kickstarter RPGS, is an accomplishment in itself.
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I mean, the initial post was pretty much just a 'Hey, just letting you all know, put me on Ignore, kay?' Waaay too obvious in the troll attempt.
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^ One of the nice things about PoE is even the weaker classes are still perfectly viable.
Downside is, if everything is viable, but classes aren't balanced, some classes will have hilariously easy times in the game. Which we got.
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10 resolve and 10 con in POTD for a melee character equals you die
Huh weird, cause my current PotD character has 10 Resolve and 10 Constitution and he does fine.
Heck, I've done 3 Resolve and 3 Con (on a Barb, even) and it goes just fine. I'm sure I could also do 3 Dex and 3 Might or something instead and it'd also be fine, just slightly less so. The games not overly rough if you know what you're doing, or aren't trying to do a self-imposed challenge. Especially if you use a Priest, they pretty much make Resolve a near-pointless stat from the start of the game.
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I guess Barbarian. It kills trash with best effort/results ratio, which is which I spend most of the game doing. Makes it the MVP for me. For more personal reasons, I tend to like the Berserker/Reaver gameplay aesthetic, and while it doesn't super factor into what Barb is in this game, it's at least kinda in the ballpark.
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I can understand many foolish things as well. Doesn't really change the nature of her decision though.
But that whole discussion is pretty lacking in general, so I don't hold it against her.
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I didn't find anything memorable about the story (maybe some of Durance and GM's bits were good?), though I at least saw a few bits where it could've gone in a good way. If the writing as whole hadn't ended up being, well, what it was.
Glad to put PoE behind us though, and look forward to PoE 2. There were a lot of good parts in PoE, just the...delivery? made the sum less than it's parts.I will say though that there were very few cringe or eye-roll moments (outside the atrocious backer crap, of course). Such moments tend to infest most video games, so while it never hit any highs for me, it at least avoided any real lows.
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Oh, I know you can get them right after WM1, but still have to do WM1. After Act 1-> Defiance Bay is really the reasonable point to decide what to do next, and it's not so much different doing the second half of Act 2 up to the Sky Dragon than it is knock out WM1. In 3.0 we have an option at least, as in 2.0 we'd have to save WM1 for after Act 3 as it wouldn't scale, but have that choice.
I guess the point is, after leaving the side-quest-power-leveling hell of Defiance Bay, it's not really that much different time wise if one wants to go for finishing WM1 or knocking out the Sky Dragon + Bounties. At least not use in their defense 'Superb comes late game'. They roughly come at the same time, depending on what order you choose to do the game.
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One should note all the good SoulBound weapons people refer too are from WM2 (sans Stormcaller, of course). It seems the Devs realized the bunch from WM1 were largely pointless, and gave us a set that almost all have some use in WM2.
As for claiming you get Superb weapons late....I think anything gotten in WM2 has to be called late game. At best, it'd be a push, more likely, WM2 will be done after the Sky Dragon or the various ways one gets Superb Weapons in the base game. (Normally Bounty fights, though Tidefall makes a 'best of it's type' showing mid Act 2).
I'm not sure you can get 0 recovery either with Soulbound weapons, even using haste pots (which can't be an every-down thing, either. Or at least, not without essentially embracing the same principles behind rest spamming). The only gear one can wear is +15%, and the pots is +50%, for 72%. Dual Wield brings that up to 92%, but still nekkid/ Robe(Durgan)/ Scale (fighter).
I guess we're assuming the Unlabored Blade is one, which brings it to 120%, but I don't think many folks would argue that the Blade isn't a top tier weapon. It's more the exception, than the rule, for Soul Bound weapons. Which tend to either be worthless (WM1) or have specific uses, but not a general 'best' weapon (WM2).
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Yeah, like almost every game I can think of that allows for haste-stacking, stacking said haste is overpowered. And that's the real killer, missing out on that 15% speed boost from no Durgan steel. It's doubly bad in Pillars, as reducing attack delay already gets increasing returns for every point, this game doubles down on that by making speed boosts multiply. So, not only is +15% a bigger boost the more speed a char has, it also gives more than +15% the more speed you have, making the One Stat to rule them all. BIt of a huge oversight in a game that wanted to be balance-minded.
That said, the second wave of Soul Bound weapons are better than the first. Those just had Redeemer vs. Vessel and Stormcaller as useful, with the rest bleh. New ones mostly all have some point, at least, and generally can at least find their way to a sub weapon slot.
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It also depends on what you'll be doing with the rest of the team. If you plan on stunning/blinding/stucking/para'n the mobs, it'll be largely pointless, as deflection will still be lower. If you don't have someone to weaker, it'll also be largely pointless, as Sicken alone won't make it worth a dang, it has to have that Weakness added on top.
So, if you've a team plan that won't be using any of the Def lowering debuffs, but will be applying Weakness, it's a solid late addition, as Barbs largely get trash for new talents. Otherwise, it'll just by and large not do anything. Though, as mentioned, Barb's don't really have 8 good talents to choose, so even if you take it, and it does nothing, it won't greatly impact what the Barb's doing.
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Aggressive AI indeed goes a long way. Whenever I'm taking on heavily outleveled opponents I just turn on AI for 5 party members (2 fighters, barbarian, paladin, cipher), turn off autopause (which is usually on for finishing spells and killing opponents) and manually control my priest to buff them. They are still quite stupid but so powerful they don't need to be smart. Cipher AI in particular is a bit meh, as she's only using level 1-2 spells. I wish I could tell her to save for and use Amplifying Wave.
Ahh, how it solved most of my "combat chore" issues.
Yeah, if I'm using a Priest, that's my general plan for anything about the most basic trash. Funny how just turning off auto attack AI, casting a few buffs, lets you just turn the AI back on and watch the idiots steamroll over everything. Even Dragons, as this super basic plan rolls over even them. Just one of the reasons Priests are up there with Wizard for Most OP Class.
want dialog option for Iovara: "Are you retarded?" = main story doesn't make sense.
in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
Yeah...I know? It was in response to how people in Earth do things based on religion, and possible reactions to man-made proof. So, like you said, a straight up comp doesn't work. Which was the point of the post.