I have played almost every cRPG there is (from BG, PS:T, through games like Avernum, to Witcher, Numenera, PoE 1 and now 2). I have over 200 hours in PoE 1 and consider it one of the best new RPGs.
That said, as some of the other posters have mentioned, PoE 1 items were rather bland and looked all like the same thing. In PoE 2 one of the great things that has changed was, that items were finally different and did some sort of a really interesting and probable effect that had impact on the game. Also, the game introduced the multiclass system which made for some really interesting and "broken" combinations, that made it fun to play around with and create new builds. It almost felt like Din's Curse or Titan Quest, or some kind of aRPG with a great skill tree system that made for interesting combinations on top of a great narrative. Something I was looking forward to try.
Sadly, the initial release was plagued by numerous game-breaking bugs (missing characters, missing lines of dialogue, inability to continue quests without them being marked as failed...). Also, there were three things, that made the game's aRPG element dysfunctional:
1) The inability to skip intro - yes it seems a minor issue, but if you want to look at tens of different builds to see how they play out, it gets old pretty quick.
2) No skill tree view comparison - both in the game to see things to look forward to and in the game start - to be able to effectively compare stuff. Even more awesome if there was the possibility to pick a second class later in the game - think Titan Quest, where you can easily browse through multiple skill trees without having to google them on some wiki.
3) Difficulty - the game really gets cheesily easy past level 6-7 or so, even on PotD somewhat diminishing the effect of the work one puts into optimizing the builds.
Now when I saw the patch I was hopeful. Skip intro was finally added along with some other QoL stuff, so hopefully some skill tree view would be added somewhere along the way.
However, as many have noted before, the way of addressing the difficulty leaves a lot to be desired. Balance fixes are obviously not geared towards casual gamers or story-oriented gamers (who don't really care about number-wise fixes anyway).
So they target the power gamer/achiever archetype - people at least somewhat like me (and some of my friends). People like this obsess about numbers and creating the best possible build, being able to suffer and inferior build just to make things click at one point, where it all comes together with a single item or skill combination and producing the best damage output or the coolest idea/skill combination.
Most of the awesome builds, which I was looking forward to try are now nerfed to the point of being absolutely uninteresting to try (take the reduction of deflection on llengrath for instance, hugely nerfing a riposte wizard). Most of the weapons or armours to make builds around suffered from the same fate (take the metaphysics based weapon that now doesnt do anything meaningful at all even with max metaphysics). Weapons and class builds are now almost all the same. The staple things that made them different and made me want to play this or that combination are now almost all gone.
This is the fate that often meets multiplayer games - like starcraft 2 - where the game becomes too balanced for the people to be fun. Hence, Blizzard has created a coop mode, where they can go rampant with absolutely broken stuff to make the game fun for people to play. Or take the Titan Quest/Grim Dawn aRPGs with zillions of interesting "broken" combinations. This works, because it is in a single player game - where you don't have to obsess that much about balance, but rather have elements, which make the game more interesting, varied and fun. That make the classes/items fit some specific niche.
Balancing is hard, but I think anything (even leaving the game as it was, and just fixing the bugs and adding QoL) would be better. Think doubling the enemy HP or Damage (which is a rather sad standard on numerous DnD based games) or something as simple. That would make the game more challenging without taking out most of the flavour and fun from classes and items.
So c'mon? Why do this to a single player game?
I was waiting for this patch, to fix the bugs and add QoL. It did, but it removed a large part of the fun from the game. Hence, from my perspective, the game is worse off after the patch, than it was before. So, I'll keep an eye out on further patches, but won't play it until something significant happens. If it does not... well, too bad.
TLDR: Nice bug fixes, appreciate all the work, but... really bad balancing changes from fun/power-building perspective. Not playing again or recommending, unless things change.
Patch Notes for 1.1.0.0035
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Announcements & News
Posted
My two cents on the changes.
I have played almost every cRPG there is (from BG, PS:T, through games like Avernum, to Witcher, Numenera, PoE 1 and now 2). I have over 200 hours in PoE 1 and consider it one of the best new RPGs.
That said, as some of the other posters have mentioned, PoE 1 items were rather bland and looked all like the same thing. In PoE 2 one of the great things that has changed was, that items were finally different and did some sort of a really interesting and probable effect that had impact on the game. Also, the game introduced the multiclass system which made for some really interesting and "broken" combinations, that made it fun to play around with and create new builds. It almost felt like Din's Curse or Titan Quest, or some kind of aRPG with a great skill tree system that made for interesting combinations on top of a great narrative. Something I was looking forward to try.
Sadly, the initial release was plagued by numerous game-breaking bugs (missing characters, missing lines of dialogue, inability to continue quests without them being marked as failed...). Also, there were three things, that made the game's aRPG element dysfunctional:
1) The inability to skip intro - yes it seems a minor issue, but if you want to look at tens of different builds to see how they play out, it gets old pretty quick.
2) No skill tree view comparison - both in the game to see things to look forward to and in the game start - to be able to effectively compare stuff. Even more awesome if there was the possibility to pick a second class later in the game - think Titan Quest, where you can easily browse through multiple skill trees without having to google them on some wiki.
3) Difficulty - the game really gets cheesily easy past level 6-7 or so, even on PotD somewhat diminishing the effect of the work one puts into optimizing the builds.
Now when I saw the patch I was hopeful. Skip intro was finally added along with some other QoL stuff, so hopefully some skill tree view would be added somewhere along the way.
However, as many have noted before, the way of addressing the difficulty leaves a lot to be desired. Balance fixes are obviously not geared towards casual gamers or story-oriented gamers (who don't really care about number-wise fixes anyway).
So they target the power gamer/achiever archetype - people at least somewhat like me (and some of my friends). People like this obsess about numbers and creating the best possible build, being able to suffer and inferior build just to make things click at one point, where it all comes together with a single item or skill combination and producing the best damage output or the coolest idea/skill combination.
Most of the awesome builds, which I was looking forward to try are now nerfed to the point of being absolutely uninteresting to try (take the reduction of deflection on llengrath for instance, hugely nerfing a riposte wizard). Most of the weapons or armours to make builds around suffered from the same fate (take the metaphysics based weapon that now doesnt do anything meaningful at all even with max metaphysics). Weapons and class builds are now almost all the same. The staple things that made them different and made me want to play this or that combination are now almost all gone.
This is the fate that often meets multiplayer games - like starcraft 2 - where the game becomes too balanced for the people to be fun. Hence, Blizzard has created a coop mode, where they can go rampant with absolutely broken stuff to make the game fun for people to play. Or take the Titan Quest/Grim Dawn aRPGs with zillions of interesting "broken" combinations. This works, because it is in a single player game - where you don't have to obsess that much about balance, but rather have elements, which make the game more interesting, varied and fun. That make the classes/items fit some specific niche.
Balancing is hard, but I think anything (even leaving the game as it was, and just fixing the bugs and adding QoL) would be better. Think doubling the enemy HP or Damage (which is a rather sad standard on numerous DnD based games) or something as simple. That would make the game more challenging without taking out most of the flavour and fun from classes and items.
So c'mon? Why do this to a single player game?
I was waiting for this patch, to fix the bugs and add QoL. It did, but it removed a large part of the fun from the game. Hence, from my perspective, the game is worse off after the patch, than it was before. So, I'll keep an eye out on further patches, but won't play it until something significant happens. If it does not... well, too bad.
TLDR: Nice bug fixes, appreciate all the work, but... really bad balancing changes from fun/power-building perspective. Not playing again or recommending, unless things change.