AFA

Though PoE2's ain't great, BG2's weakest aspect was the main story. That was pretty much kept afloat by the charisma of David Warner. The pacing is awful, with no sense of urgency. **** around raising money for in-game months, finally start the main quest, but then get diverted to the Underdark for a goddamn eternity. Yes that happens in PoE2, but the distraction is optional, while you are forced to the Underdark for hours of padding. I loved the atmosphere of the sidequests, like the Shadow Lord, the Cult of the Eyeless, and the dragon dungeon, but there was no meat on the story whatsoever when it came to the main quest.

I don't remember anything significant that carried over to DA2 and DA:I. Pretty much just a few dialogues and cutscenes as extra. "Oh, you put a dead god's/archdemon's soul into a newborn child? Here, you can speak 2 sentences with him! Pretty neat, huh?" All of the big choices end up like that. The King of Fereldin, the King of the Dwarves, who killed the AD, all those carry over, which are all the big choices. I gave freedom to the mages, which carried over, but kind of became moot after DA2. How you ended Nature of the Beast had consequences as well. Not much to complain about beyond that, as whatever story they were doing with the God baby got scrapped. Honestly, read the ending slides of DAO from two different playthroughs and try to figure out how you could make a narrative out of the vast differences. Broad strokes is the best you can hope for in carry over between games. Even ME3 had to wheel out crappy replacement characters if Wrex or Mordin had died, since the storyline was screwed without them.

I know it must be a difficult thing to pull off, but it's just so gratifying. To me, at least. And I'm not talking about all the tiny random NPCs and whatnot. I'm talking about big things, like the steps you have to take in ME1, ME2 and then ME3 to be able to unite the Geth with the Quarrians. That isn't a small consequence lore-wise, it's huge. And while the ending had failed bad, that doesn't diminish the overall experience for me. I still remember ME fondly and sometimes whip them out to play them yet again with mods. It just feels bad that my big decisions in PoE basically had no impact whatsoever. Makes them feel...pointless. edit: Dragon Age had a bigger funding, yet they failed hard with this. Even the biggest decisions end up being just a few extra dialogue and cutscenes in DA:I. The more world-changing branches you have in a previous story, the harder it is make a coherent narrative in the next game. Yeah, ME3's endings weren't great, but getting the super special snowflake endings for every choice that fans demanded was impossible. While I liked DAI, it pissed all over official canon, not just that of individual players. Tevinter and the Qunari pretty much get a crap ton of retcons that fly in the face of characterization from the previous two games, for instance. You big choices do carry over from DAO, but all of the little ones don't since it is 10 years later. I don't have a problem with that. One thing I liked about DA2 was that Hawke was not the Bioware Mary Sue protagonist that can change the civics of a nation by saving a cat from a tree. Cas discovering that he is just a regular, badass dude, not someone with plot armor and plot magic, is one of the key narrative points of the game.

There was way too much fighting in PoE1, so I like PoE2 in that regards.

Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2, Nier, Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon's Dogma, Witcher 1&3, Fallout 1-2 & New Vegas, Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong, to name a few.

Yep. As butthurt as people get over the EE games, I really liked Dorn as well. Certainly the best evil party member in BG. M'Khin was solid and I liked her class.

I'd say she is well-written, in that, like real life zealots, you aren't going to change her mind. The ultimate RPG cliche is changing someone's lifelong beliefs thanks to the application of approval scores and possible sexual organs. The evil person turned good is always annoying, be it Viconia, Jack, or Zevran. Eder changing his faith was easy, since he was barely hanging on to it. Durance didn't really have any, but kept preaching like he did. Xoti being a perfectly dedicated fundie makes sense. I think she is both a deconstruction and a cliche. The writer of Drakengard and Nier hates this type of godly waifu, and made the ultimate deconstruction in the original Drakengard with Furiae. But, then again, in that game, your paladin was a child molester, your elf was a baby-eating serial killer, and the world is destroyed by angel babies, so it doesn't stand out that much.

Eder - Street Fighter, kind of natural fit. Aloth - Replace Spellblade with Arcane Knight, since he trained to be one in his backstory. His new duty-driven personality fits Paladin as well Serafen - Replace pure Barbarian with Cipher/Fighter or Cipher/Rogue, since it doesn't make sense for him to lack Cipher

Cipher (Ascendant)+Wizard is fun, though you could do it with Beguiler and pair Cipher skills with things like Chill Fog.

Aw, man, it's Laura Bailey? See this is why I try not to learn these things: now I'm going to mentally add "-senpai!" to the end of everything Xoti says. ... actually, why am I complaining about that? Being a huge fan of Nier, I always have her and Serafin around, then I have both Kaine and Grimoire Weiss in the same party. Sadly, they never make a Nier reference

Here is what happened with DoA: 1. Outstanding story, solid combat for its time. 2. Big step forward in the combat gameplay (less passives, more actives, cross class combos) but moderate fail on story and HUGE fail on character design in particular (basically foreshadowing Mass Effect 3). Literally the entire cast of companions is fairly unlikeable (except Varric, guess who got to come back in the sequel.. exactly). Lots of very valid complaints about reuse of the same assets over and over (dungeons) and a fairly bland city. 3. Extremely butthurt developers went full ape**** on world building while neglecting pretty much everything else. Full open world MMO disaster. Companion AI was supposed to be replaced to be easier to use by stupid people but unfortunately, not only did they remove the custom AI sets but they also forgot to replace the companion AI entirely (because as mentioned above the only people working on DA3 were doing only world building all the time because of how butthurt they were), instead they coded 3 lines for it and created the stupidest, lowest IQ companions in the history of video games. I love DA2, and I think it is getting recognized as a flawed gem as time passes. Was a very ballsy move by Bioware. Great narrative deconstruction of the typical Bioware hero and plot. It being rushed (and therefore the repeating environments, etc) is what screwed it. Could have been better than DAO with another year of development. IMO it had the best story and characters. Butthurt fans is what gave us DAI. They wanted their world-shattering choices (that devs have to retcon in the future because you can't design a sequel around all possibilities), their perfect Mary Sue protagonist that never got defeated, their super epic battles, etc. DAI was a giant reaction to DA2, and they swung way too far the other way. My biggest complaint about DAi was the shift in tone. Whatever you thought of the originals, they felt like they were in the same universe. DAI was too light-hearted and black-and-white. The retcons to Tevinter and the Qunari were also pretty damn poor. DA2 did foreshadow the ME3 fan outrage, but to the credit of Mass Effect fans, they didn't threaten to rape a dev's kids like DA fans did.

Probably an open-world Witcher 3 knockoff is more likely, as devs always follow trends. Any game that is worth anything is going to come out on both PC and consoles, a dev isn't going to cut their potential audience in half because of the PC Master Race. Now, a D&D flavored Dragon's Dogma would be freaking awesome

IMO, Ascendant is the funnest caster class in the game, may not be the most powerful, but highly enjoyable. As someone who has been a wizard guy in RPGs for almost 25 years, I find PoE2 pure wizard to be powerful... but incredibly boring. No idea why, but even with the huge versatility, it is just a snoozer. Maybe the high level spells just don't have much flavor.

Durance was the best character in PoE, so it would be cool to have him back, and yes, I think a few visions mention him. I understand people killing him though. I always gave Aloth to Skaen, but didn't on my final play-through since I saw he was coming back. After seeing him in Deadfire, I should have just tossed him in the blood pool.

People are fans because they still managed to make the two best Western RPG series of the past decade, despite being owned by Big Bad Evil EA. Without the success of DAO, the current crop of BG Spiritual Successors would never have existed. Which two? DAO and? PoE, as well as Deadfire, were financed by backers. The niche market has always been there, and Obsidian recognized it, just perhaps investors felt their money would better be spent elsewhere. The fact remains that to say: I am a Bioware fan, is pretty much meaningless, or ignorant, for the reasons I stated. What Bioware? Today's Bioware, Bioware in 90's, Bioware 2000, or Bioware post Muzyka and Zeschuk? It's obviously not brand what makes games great but people behind it and Bioware people, as well as philosophy, changed over the years. The Dragon Age Series and the Mass Effect Series. PoE was only partially funded by backers, same with Deadfire. Investors covered the rest. PoE would have probably never gotten off the ground without DAO showing that this style of RPG could be a critical and financial success, regardless of what the niche market was. I am a fan of Bioware from the 90s up until today, even if Andromeda was crap. Of course devs and writers have left over the years, but they generally produce similar games of high quality.

Yep. DAI was an obvious course correction that was trying to distance itself from DA2. That and chasing Skyrim money. DAI's tone is so different from everything DA before it that it could be distracting at times. As rushed as it was, DA2 had a lot of testicular fortitude in challenging years of cliches. Would have been brilliant with another year in development.

People are fans because they still managed to make the two best Western RPG series of the past decade, despite being owned by Big Bad Evil EA. Without the success of DAO, the current crop of BG Spiritual Successors would never have existed.

That is Bioware fans in general it seems, and I am a Bioware fan myself. I always loved the flawed gem that is Dragon Age 2, because it deconstructed all the narrative and character cliches of BW since BG1. Of course, the raging butthurt over it led to the Mary Sue filled retcon extravaganza known as Dragon Age Inquisition. And I'm a Bioware fan who thinks DA:I is the best in the series. Where do we go from here? I also loved ME3 btw, including the ending which I found poetically beautiful, so I might just be weird I loved ME3 too. I'm in the same boat as you, as not many fans like DA2, while I think it had the best story in the series. DAI wasn't a bad game, it was just way too much fan service, while kind of pissing on the lore of the Qunari and Tevinter. It was fun to RP a rebel mage, and have people like Cassandra hate me for it.

Fishboy and Aloth don't get along, so somebody will probably start going red in your reputation graph. I think Tekehu is a much better character, both mechanically and when it comes to writing. As far as I've seen, Aloth doesn't really get along with anybody, as his disposition is kind of all over the place. He hates Serafin and Tekehu, kind of hates Xoti. Honestly, he and Pallagina should just have been replaced with original characters, rather than bringing them to Deadfire.

If they wanted full ham, the guy from Darkest Dungeon would have been good

If they wanted a legendary video game voice actor to do the narrations, then they should have written a check to David Warner. Or, since they had to give every damn job to somebody from Critical Role, at least let Liam O'Brien do it with his full Grimoire Weiss voice. Being from Texas, Xoti (and the other Readceras characters) sound like Foghorn Leghorn, but Bailey adds just enough sexy charm that I find it cute.

That is Bioware fans in general it seems, and I am a Bioware fan myself. I always loved the flawed gem that is Dragon Age 2, because it deconstructed all the narrative and character cliches of BW since BG1. Of course, the raging butthurt over it led to the Mary Sue filled retcon extravaganza known as Dragon Age Inquisition.

Since Wizards are basically their D&D5E counterparts, a 5E style sorcerer would be cool. No Grimoires, but they come with metamagic that allows them to manipulate the spells they have in a variety of ways. Maybe sorcery points so you can trade them for more spell slots, or to empower your spells. No real lore justification for it, maybe it could be exclusive to Godlike. Wild Mage, one of my all-time favorites. Add some randomness to your spell casts. Eldritch Knight. Pure fighter that uses the Trickster's spell system, so you get some magic buffs, but still get the fighter goodies

I like the Deadfire system better, since my wizard is doing more than wand blasts and the arcane burst attack twice a battle. The spells themselves being nerfed as they are helps balance things out. I thought it would be like the original spell mastery in PoE, where each level became per-encounter use. Good Lord was that broken.

Minsc - He's mentally handicapped and has a hamster. That is his entire characterization, the sole extent of his dialog, and his connection to the story Korgon - Chaotic Evil, likes murder. That's it Aerie - Complains about wings. If romanced, she complains about it more Keldorn - Cliched Lawful Good Paladin. That's it Mazzy - Same as above, but a hobbit Cernd - Damn dirty hippie (on the rare chance someone actually uses him) Jan - Grobnar 1.0 I actually like BG2's characters, and they do sometimes get a little development in personal quests, but they are usually one-note and static. IMO, even poor characters in PoE, like Sagani, are better developed. To say nothing of great ones like Durance. Honestly, NWN2's cast are all better than those in BG2, except for Grobnar. All of the character romances are cringeworthy as such things nearly always are, but all of the characters show substantial character growth - Anomen perhaps more than anyone else. Jaheira's is the only one that doesn't make much sense to me, and that's only because I feel like it'd take a long time to get over seeing your husband having been flayed alive and tortured to death (well past the point that Raise Dead could help, although I'm pretty sure Resurrection would've worked fine, or maybe Wish) and while I don't see anything wrong with her relying on Gorion's ward for emotional support, the fact that she's rather receptive to CHARNAME blatantly hitting on her (by buying a necklace for her, for example) in a matter of in-universe days is kind of disturbing, especially when Jaheira and Khalid were kind of like adoptive parents to CHARNAME. Yeah, this is the suspicious part. There should have been a timer of let's say at least a week on the Jaheira romance. It's not realistic the way it appears now. It doesn't even work as a rebound kind of thing. And if it was a question "oh god I'm bereaved and I can't stand my loneliness I've got to find someone instantly", then Jaheira's dialogues should look much more desperate, which they don't. I agree the romances are cringeworthy, but the fact is, much of lovetalk is cringeworthy to someone who isn't emotionally involved (i.e. all outsiders), and I seriously hope no gamer is seriously involved in the lovetalk of a game. Anomen is a very good character in the end, really well written. The way he comes across as a complete oaf that really gets on your nerves is great, especially when you consider how things change. I must also give special mention to the Aerie -- CHARNAME -- Haer'dalis love triangle, which is really nice. There's the cynical Haer'dalis, then there's the overtly naive and traumatized Aerie, and then there's you, what are you going to do? I liked her romance well enough, but it needed a time skip to not be some damn cringy. The only romance I can think of that isn't awful in an RPG is maybe male Warden and Leliana in DAO. But, if you carry it over for the rest of the series, it is super depressing. Not to mention, if the Warden dies in DAO, she commits suicide years later.