soulfire72

Lol, I almost wish I could say the generic "I'm a nice guy, I don't want reward" more. I don't remember that happening much, maybe once or twice. After finishing the game I only noticed more and more side quests missing the actual outcome that I would have gone for. And being able to defeat the final boss through speaking would have been GREATLY appreciated. Damn statues. NWN was not a perfect game or series by any means. In fact, many things PoE did far better. Eg. the ending, item management, combat, companions... etc. However most side quests in PoE boiled down to side A or B and picking one after some vague context. Cinders of Faith barely had even that. I remember a side quest for NWN that involved solving a crime for some ghosts and a spirit arbiter in an enchanted forest somewhere; in which diving into it more and exploring every nook and cranny allowed you to find out the whole context and make the proper judgement by finding the demon that tricked one of the parties, and make the judgement based on the whole context. And yet in PoE, even when you're a Watcher who can literally read SOULS and FEELINGS and MEMORIES you can rarely ever delve into a side quest more than what is told to you at face value. I never felt like I had uncovered everything there was to know, leaving the outcome feeling empty and unsatisfying; many times.You have to choose a side, never convince either side to compromise for an objectively better outcome, nor can you really get into how things went down with a middle ground. I could go into a list of examples but I think I'll stop here. From what I've seen, Baldur's gate and NWN are examples that Obsidian should study if they plan to make any more games in the PoE universe.

@Yonjuro I assume SoA and ToB are to do with Baldur's Gate? Number 2? Not sure what you're talking about there. Sounds like SoA got it right. That's kinda how Neverwinter Nights operated in general. Can't really judge ToB without knowing the plot. It would be acceptable if the plot meant you have a good reason to kill those 2 dragons. If there isn't due to poor plot, then I probably won't bother with ToB; whatever that is.

Now that you mention it, yeah, that looter thing was another problem that didn't have a third option; namely telling the truth and letting the two parties compromise (which wouldn't be that hard to do honestly). I just ended up lying to the first woman. As I've already explained as well, assuming the dragon is crazy/mad without any evidence prior to the encounter is lazy writing and not good enough. And that doesn't explain why you can't just refuse to take the thing for the sake of that priestess. It forces you to kill him without any chance to reconsider what you're doing. At least with the kith two party problem you are given time to decide which option to take.

Mm, yeah, I didn't really mean take notes on EVERYTHING. Just the feeling of freedom, really, and in this specific example (a benevolent paladin) it was destroyed pretty badly, even for just one quest. I do presume that with all the different checks in the game including intellect and perception (which my paladin didn't have) a mage and thief character, along with all the different dispositions, it would have a good amount of freedom with what you could do with these things. Okay, Obsidian, don't take notes on everything. Actually it would be a better idea to take some notes on roleplaying and freedom from Neverwinter Nights; it's a more relevant example. Put your character's roleplaying capabilities literally EVERYWHERE where it would help or be plausible. It's a shame, because most of PoE had quite a lot of effort and thought put into it, but some of these throw-away side quests weren't handled with the same attention. I'm not exactly sure why, either. Did they run out of development time or something? Budget? Who knows...

@tinysalamander: It's Obsidian's catering to that kind thought (or lack of) process that led to this limiting of RP in the first place, where previous games did far better. Something being dangerous was never a good justification for choosing a violent option, given you can spare a gangly Vithrack and some undead warlord. Even the Witcher series, in which you roleplay Geralt, with a set amount of plausible actions for everything, has more freedom in roleplaying decisions than in Pillars of Eternity. Or at least it feels like it. A bit glaring considering how it would be easier to add some dialogue options in PoE without needing additional voice-acting, while the Witcher developers went the extra mile. Take notes, Obsidian.

@Rosbjerg: Yeah that was my idea going in, seeing that the achievements were there, kinda reminds me of some of the Skyrim achievements. But like I said, my completionist drive was just gone for this game, especially when I hit the level cap with so many side quests left that I kinda gave up. @Fenixp: I did notice the "super murderer" and another opposite achievement that I can't remember the name of. But these two were a different kind of thing; From the Clouds to the Depths should have a counter achievement similar to the "super murderer" achievement, and probably make it a bit more difficult to spare the two dragons. I never even found the Adra dragon, though I assume there's sufficient dialogue with it anyway.

Yes, true, PoE did redeem itself a little after my encounter with the Sky Dragon. However, this is slightly alleviated anyway due to the presence of an achievement to murder the dragon and wurm with no counter-achievement for the sake of balance. It goes without saying that I will likely never get 100% of achievements in this, so my normal completionist drive is just gone for this game. It's like the developers are saying "to complete this game completely, you have to compromise any morals you may have, regardless of what they are, or how prevalent they may be". I would have been fine with Cail being mad and attacking you regardless if you had some sort of evidence or warning that he was actually mad and fully beyond reason. AKA context. That definitely applies to the drake in the Endless Paths, as it was likely driven mad with both power and sickness from the Master Below and eating diseased Xaurips. The only impression I got for Cail was that he was stupid - up until you see him, you know nothing about him. Maybe having an unfortunate adventurer's journal, detailing him trying to reason with the drake, and then getting a ridiculously mad response and getting attacked through no real fault of the adventurer's. Or, maybe a bit more creative, have another drake in the area that you can actually talk to, ask you to kill Cail because he's too destructive for the Searing Falls to last long, and then once you kill Cail, this (not) mad drake takes his place (because that would actually fit into the lore) and not backstab you for no reason when you talk to him again.

Hmm... I have heard of the Dungeon Master, actually. Sounds like a neat idea, but yes, computers are limited in that field. Strangely enough, though, Neverwinter Nights didn't really have this problem with roleplaying possibilities, at least for me. The problem with Neverwinter Nights was the endings. First Neverwinter game, though? I honestly liked it quite a bit more than PoE. Writers seem to consistently assume that all players will kill all dragons they find regardless of the context. I think focusing on that a bit more would help alleviate this problem in the future.

@Infinitron: Never, I haven't played Baldur's Gate. Though I do want to at some point... but if there's the same thing there, it shows that Obsidian haven't really improved anything about it.

@Faerunner: I just found it annoying that if those drakes can't be reasoned with at all, why have dialogue with them in the first place? It's like dangling a thread in front of a cat; teasing them with something they want but don't ever give it to them. Not to mention that having the ability to retreat from the area during combat would have solved the problem too, so long as you can go back to the quest giver and fail it without resorting to tricks. I eventually said to myself "screw it" and flat out murdered the priest that gave me the quest instead. My benevolent paladin chose cold-blooded murder instead of completing the quest. In this situation, I couldn't talk to the priestess any further about the quest, so the only way to finish the quest for me was to murder her. It goes without saying that this breaks immersion hard. But yeah, I agree. Too many quests involving kith were missing a third option. Raedric vs. Kolsc, The leader of the Fang tribe especially come to mind. Especially as a Watcher; you'd think you'd be able to get more context and find a third option that doesn't involve flat out attacking one of the opposing parties by examining their souls, but this ability doesn't extend much into side quests for some reason. By the way Fenixp; what's DM stand for?

I agree with the sentiment on sparing the dragon. You don't know enough about the sky dragon species to make this kind of judgement... despite what those priests want. It's rather telling that they're response to you asking about the dragon just leads to 'it attacked us and is dangerous; you don't need to know anything else'. Well, if you don't want context, then I don't care about yours either. Killing a lone male is one thing, but a female that reaches that age, along with her only surviving wurm, shouldn't be discarded so carelessly. Nice to know that superb items are available without killing her. I don't think any of my characters will ever kill her, no matter how evil they are. It did feel too easy to spare her, though. I'd think she'd be a lot more distrustful of a heavily-armed paladin barging in there with a team of six armed to the teeth. I was at least expecting a resolve check somewhere.

Expansions... I'm guessing you mean White March? Maybe. But I've already seen an achievement to kill ANOTHER dragon without any counter achievement for the same task, so my expectations aren't very high for that sort of thing. It's just very aggravating to have dialogue that is pointless. You can interact with a brick wall more than you can this idiot dragon.

Let me say first off; I really like this game so far. 45 hours in, tank paladin, with a pretty good party with Durance, Aloth, Hiravias, Sagani and Kana. I really like how the lore is set up and pulls me into some of the descriptions and interactions with the world. It was pretty easy for me to get into all the mechanics, having played the Neverwinter Nights games, so I felt pretty at home and nostalgic. I had to find out a few things for myself: like activating fast mode (D) for faster travelling, assigning hotkeys to abilities by pressing the key while hovering your cursor over it in the character pane, etc. Most of the quests have been interesting (haven't gotten into the main quest enough to comment on that) with most parties having a lot of lore and history and well fleshed out. However, Cinders of Faith was the first time I really felt pulled out of the game. It started off well enough, talking to a lowly priestess who's faith has been shaken. At Durance's chastising of her, I was wondering why I couldn't take her with me to go along with Durance's point: it's not really worth the faith if she's not being tested. But whatever, I went off and snuck around to find a map to the searing falls. Eventually at around Lvl 8 I got around to it. Right out of the gate, just going into this area breaks the immersion. Drakes are described as being hostile to each other without exception, as they can't develop near others. And yet, here are dozens of drakes of different ages ganging up on me like they're all best buddies. What? Why? This makes no sense. I was pretty annoyed at this glaring hole in the lore being unacknowledged nor explained. Then we see a cave. Oh great, Xaurip everywhere, fire spirits, lava everywhere. Kana making a remark about being cooked by whatever beast lives here. I wonder what that would be. Surprise surprise, a big red dragon shows up. (SPOILERS FOR CAED NUA) Though just like that drake in Caed Nua, this one can talk... OK. Let me see if I can avoid fighting it. It can talk, right? It's not too much of a stretch... WRONG. None of the dialogue options make any difference to the outcome, and none of the dialogue feels like stuff my paladin would actually say. I can't give an intelligent response about what the Spark is. The best I can do is give a feeble excuse as to why I (suspiciously) don't want that exact shiny rock you're holding. And once you're here, the only outcome is his death. I hate killing dragons on its own, and getting a shiny rock isn't a good enough reason to do this. And since the bestiary doesn't touch on the state of the drake population, I have no idea if going in and slaughtering 20+ drakes for a stupid rock is actually a very cruel act (in my opinion, it should be). There are a few glaring dialogue options that should have been here for any role player, especially a benevolent paladin like myself. The most obvious and realistic choice would be a might or resolve check to intimidate Cail long enough to get the hell out of there. I tried running through de-aggroing, but that doesn't work, he follows you wherever you go. And then I should be able to return to that priestess and either honestly say why you couldn't retrieve the rock (a huge dragon for Magran's sake), or trick her into getting herself eaten by Cail by telling her exactly where the rock is. I'm sure Durance would approve of that choice. Obviously a desirable choice for me should be to use perception to see Cail's giant pile of treasure in the background, then offer him some treasure to placate him. If you ask him for the shiny rock in the wrong way, obviously he'll attack you. But if you have enough skill with words there should be some way to get the rock without killing him. Or he might want some other BIGGER shiny rock that he'll trade for, since he seems to be such an idiot for loving this stupid rock so much. It goes without saying that I'll be skipping this quest if I ever play PoE again, since this quest suddenly forces me to be a ruthless murderer who barges into a sentient beast's lair and kills if for a stupid rock. I'm actually really surprised Hiravias didn't chew me out in any way for it, being a druid and all. In fact, I felt like this quest had no consequences at all, and left me fuming at having to kill a named drake for apparently nothing. Exp and fame aren't worth this. Anyway, anyone else felt they could improve this quest too? And how many more of these kinds of quests do I have to put up with without knowing about them in advance?