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Sensuki

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Posts posted by Sensuki

    Hard mode is too easy.

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    3.3% finished the game!

    Or maybe people just didn't think it was worth finishing, like me. I assure you I have zero problem with the difficulty.

     

    Here is a nice summary from felipepepe

     

    However, for hardcore fans that replayed the IE games multiple times, that enjoy the depth, replayability and freedom of those games, Pillars is lacking. Severely so. You'll notice it the more you play - the completely wasted Keep, the lack of race-specific interactions, the linear storyline, the lack of C&C, boring itemization, battles playing all very similarly, the lack of crazy character builds, etc...

     

    But, to me, the most worrisome aspect is the contrast between these two perceptions of the game, because they appear to be almost impossible to reconcile. Reviewers considered PoE a title with "countless strategies" (PC Gamer), full of "interesting puzzles and traps, and surprising encounters" (GameInformer), and even "intensely difficult and tactical" (IGN), but here I am, complaining it's too shallow.

    The actual reason why I haven't finished it is I just don't care about the story. I'm not interested in finishing it because I just couldn't care less. Couldn't give a damn about the antagonist either. Probably the worst Obsidian story in the department of the player actually caring about finishing the game IMO, even NWN2 was slightly better in this regard even though it was way, way simpler. A serious disappointment.

     

    I was hoping at least because it was an Obsidian game, that even if I didn't like the gameplay, that the story would be good.

     

    I also think the combat is boring, exploration sucks and itemization sucks, so if I'm not enjoying the story or the gameplay, why bother?

    EI Mod and my opinions

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    There was a joke running around in D&D circles: A DM intones "you see a party of click-clacks coming around the corner; the players huddle in a corner, look at a book, and yell "November".  The DM sighs and says "the click-clacks fall dead..."

     

    The IE games were basically like that - if you had memorized exactly what everything did and what hurt it the game was straightforward; but you had no way of knowing, really, outside of meta-gaming.  Similarly, a lot of the big fights relied on people standing outside of anonymous doors, buffing like the dickens, and running in casting very specific sequences of spells and actions.  Again, this is meta-gaming run rampant.  I find this aspect far, far less prevalent here than in the D&D games.

    You can use a Thief to scout while Hiding in Shadows. In Pillars of Eternity you *always* know exactly what you're up against because of the Stealth system, you can always see pretty much every enemy before they see you and set up perfectly on them.

     

    Rarely ever is the player 'surprised'.

     

    IE games also permitted absurd gaming of the AI through things like kiting; which at least the PoE system discourages.

    You can kite almost as easily in Pillars of Eternity. The biggest difference is that ranged weapons attack slower.

    Hard mode is too easy.

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Why are are certain people like Luckmann and Sensuki fanboying over a system like DnD that's not even made for computers and its not even good. you shouldn't even be able to criticize game systems if you think Baldurs gate system are good. You're just nostalgic.

    You ever see me say anything about D&D ever? The only person who brings up D&D when talking about Pillars of Eternity is Josh Sawyer.

    • Like 2

    EI Mod and my opinions

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    Fallout Tactics and XCOM are turn-based games. It would not surprise me that people who prefer turn based might enjoy Pillars of Eternity more because of the Engagement system and the auto-pause features. I don't use any auto-pause and I hate Engagement, I prefer fluid movement and positioning in combat, like RTS games and the Infinity Engine games.

     

    Most of the devs want to make a turn-based game or prefer turn-based so it's unsurprising that they took this approach, I guess. TBH if the game was turn-based, it would probably be a lot better.

    • Like 8

    EI Mod and my opinions

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    We both gave up because we don't find the game very fun to play.

     

    I enjoy the Infinity Engine games (other than PST) for the tactical rts-style combat. Combat in Pillars of Eternity isn't very tactical at all, it's like 50% positioning, 45% strategy, 5% tactics and after level 4 you can rinse and repeat the same strategy almost every single encounter without having to even react to enemy actions, because there's nothing that forces you to change what you're doing.

     

    Even with Engagement and movement recovery slow fixed, it's still not that fun. Encounter design is very copy paste, itemization/loot is poor to abysmal and while the environment art is for the most part pretty great, areas aren't really that fun to explore.

     

    Poor combat is however, par for the course for an Obsidian game and I would have continued playing had I enjoyed the writing/story but quite frankly I didn't really, I liked the prologue reveal but I found that the pacing and player motivation to be very disjointed, Act 2 was a huuuge letdown and I got sick of all the forced lore dumps and dry as a desert writing style. The companions were also quite disappointing for the most part - I liked Chris Avellone's characters though, they at least actually had a personality. Can't even think of a memorable secondary character either.

     

    I did like some of the story stuff, like the soul detective type stuff - that was pretty cool, although I think more could have been done with it.

     

    I stopped during Act 3, and from what I've read the game goes downhill from here, and the antagonist isn't very compelling and the final battle isn't even as good as the BG1 battle vs Sarevok sad.png

     

    I like a few things about the game - the art is good, some of the new ui features are nice and the character system has lots of custimization/choice.

     

    Might give it another go somewhere down the line, but yeah, I'd rather just leave it and accept that the game was not made for people like me, but more for people who may have liked the Infinity Engine games, but disliked the combat.

    • Like 21

    POSSIBLE SPOILERS Modding thread: A simple mod and Console commands

    in Backer Beta Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    What I don't understand though is, with all the testing/hacking that you've done, you must have known all of this even before playing the full game, right?

     

    You knew about combat, you'd seen the encounter design in the BB, the small maps... I mean, besides the story/writing, all the rest should not have come as a big surprise to you, am I wrong?

     

    PS: this is not meant as a personal attack or anything, I'm just a bit surprised is all.

    http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/quickfire-systemic-criticism-that-contributes-to-banality-of-gameplay.98429/page-2#post-3854378

     

    http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/quickfire-systemic-criticism-that-contributes-to-banality-of-gameplay.98429/

    Honestly, putting POE on hold until Obsidian figures out what they want to do isn't a bad idea. A lot of good ideas, but the implementation hasn't been great based on what I've played.

    The casuals liked it.

    • Like 4

    That disengauge.....

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted · Edited by Sensuki

    No, you can kite enemies with engagement, I have several videos on my youtube channel demonstrating this. It doesn't stop kiting at all.

     

    The only real-time games that have AoOs or similar in them are NWN1, NWN2, Pillars of Eternity and Blood Bowl RTwP mode, to my knowledge. They're badly implemented in NWN1 but at least they have a walk mode that doesn't proc them. They're horribly implemented in NWN2 and Pillars of Eternity (of which, they are buggy) and no one plays Blood Bowl RTwP mode.

    • Like 1
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