Stun
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Posts posted by Stun
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Why do people keep bringing up the fact that it's an Engwithan ruin? (as if monsters lurking inside Engwithan ruins are somehow sacred, innocent little kittens). Ok, So you're not supposed to be in there. Fine. Vithrack aren't supposed to be in there either. And as a general rule of thumb, Tribe leaders who don't wish you harm probably shouldn't send the colony out to attack you on sight, no-questions-asked, simply because you decided to enter a ruin, that doesn't belong to them either, to explore it.
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Yeah, assuming they take the modern Bioware/CDProjekt route with the save imports.One thing to remember is that PoE is the first game in a series, so things like this can - and, I hope, will - come back if you carry over your save. Perhaps that NPC will one day return and give you something better. Or help with a quest. Or betray you for some really interesting reasons.
But if they take the Baldurs Gate route, It'll be more like this:
Vithrack: Grrr!
You: Oh Hi! I remember You. Aren't you supposed to be dead?
Vithrack: Grrr. The past hardly matters. Grrr. Do a quest for me, will you?
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Oh! It's the weapon from the Stormwall Gorge dungeon from the beta.
And here I thought there was some quest I missed that forces you to make some tough moral decision. Yeah, no. Unless by "benevolent" you mean "I'm a member of the Ethical Treatment of Giant Insect Monsters", this one is a no brainer. You're in a dungeon. You find a den of spiders. They attack you. You kill them, then you go after their leader. You kill It. You get a spear. And then you get to customize that spear. You win. Loot.
The alternative is, you spare the leader, you don't get the spear but you leave that dungeon with that rosy, satisfied feeling that you did your part in making the world a better place....for monsters.
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No, that would be a statistic. A fact is simply any statement that can be demonstrated as trueNo. There's quite a lot of locks in the game requiring keys that can't be picked. Fact.
This makes me wonder if you know what a fact is. I could just as easily say "There are a few locks that can't be picked." See the problem? A FACTUAL statement would be along the lines of 5/48 locks in the game cannot be picked.
He did not claim otherwise. His statement deals specifically with locks in this game that have Keys.Also you are wrong, the vast majority of locks can be picked.
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Indeed, lets ask them to divert their time and funds away from actually fixing those bugs in order to design, create and implement a respec feature that will let us work around them. Then lets pray that the respec feature itself comes to us bug-free and doesn't make the situation worse.
Gloriously short-sighted. I like it! lol
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^Yep, Tall Grass Kicks ass.
I'd be interested to see if there's any meaningful changes in the damage totals if, instead of a hearth orlan, you went with a Living Lands Coastal Aumaua, since they can start the game with 21 might, 24 when they get the +3 might gloves.
(although, on my current rogue run, I found the Rabbit Fur Gloves, which give a +10% crit multiplier bonus. That'd probably be a better choice for the glove slot on a rogue.)
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Not following. A double standard would be if Both games had the same broken system, and I responded by only coming down hard on one of them. But it is not my stance that BG2's XP system is broken, so why would I complain about it? (and for that matter, the only thing about PoE's XP system that I find broken is that the XP cap can be reached, with a party of 6, halfway through the game. See, unlike you, I'm not butthurt about lock and trap XP in PoE. I like being rewarded for using my skills)Also funny that BG2 is given this leniency, but you immediately come down with force if there's a system in PoE which is less broken than that is in PoE.
Double standards? I'm not surprised.
BioWare themselves had to ragtag stuff like Quest Awards for all people rather than regular XP bonusses to compete with the mess they made of stuff in BG2.
Wait....they did what? Individual quest XP was the plan all along because BG2 was designed from the ground up to be massive in level scope, massive in area scope and massive in diverse playability. Not sure how one can conclude that this was "rag tag". had they just stuck with a lump sum quest reward system, they'd have ended up with the same problem that currently Plagues PoE, with quest XP being so massive that people are reaching the cap halfway through the game. Only in BG2's case it would have been worse since those quest XP rewards would have been 6x more massive for a soloer, thus ruining that super awesome early game solo play that BG2 has.
Little known fact: Irenicus is actually a level capped Wizard. He's 29th level (the highest a Mage can get, with Throne of Bhaal installed). Therefore, the "problem" you're describing has NOTHING to do with the XP system and everything to do with his AI (he literally possesses Mage HLAs himself but does not use them)And funnilly enough with ToB I could kill Irenicus with 5 levels of my extremely overpowered ToB abilities.
One saves you time, and the other makes you more powerful.
Not really. I don't recall a single game changing magic item to be had from any secret stash, and contrary to the fanfare, traps in this game aren't game changing either, I've never died from one that I've set off (have you?), and the XP rewards for locks and traps are not significant enough to make you hit the XP cap sooner than halfway through the game.
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Yeah, neither was ChernobylDragon Age isn't perfect,
No. God no. PoE didn't strip naked its gameplay in order to spend its small budget on voiced protagonists and cutscenes. PoE didn't skimp on its level design work in order to give us a cinematic experience on a shoestring budget. PoE didn't look at its small budget and say: "Ok, we're going to have to make due with 4 maps, no race choices, no choice and consequence, and an unfinished storyline."but it's the AAA attempt to do the same thing PoE tries to do on an indie level.
But that all being said, I'm not ready to blame DA2's crappiness on Low budgets and time restrictions. Instead I'll blame it on mis-management of time and money. If they were looking at such a low budget, then why did they Overhaul the combat system, overhaul the art design, overhaul the UI, and overhaul just about everything else from DA:O? Wouldn't logic (and plain old good business sense) dictate that if they were pressed for time, and short on cash, that they'd leave everything as it is and just plug a new story into the game? After all, DA:O was no failure. It was their biggest selling game.
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I'm sorry, I NEVER did that. Nor did any good player. Of course, I can't speak for any little kiddies who might have snuck into their big brother's room to play BG2. Well...? Did you?Yeah the great game that gave us...
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
*learn spell*
*forget spell*
And BG2 IS a great Game. By any definition of what a great game is.
Let's not kid ourselves, BG's leveling system had more holes than cheese.
It was about perfect, actually. And it wasn't "BG's Leveling system". It was AD&D's. But again, I can't speak for misconceptions that any of the kiddies might have.
You're simply lying here.Lets not go overboard with the exaggeration here. The majority of doors/locks that have keys in this game cannot be picked.
Oh? By all means then. Tell us how many there are.
As stated, mechanics is already leagues ahead of the others skills without XP (lol). Atlethics only use is less combat-fatigue
On Path of the Damned, that "Only Use" is about as important as breathing is in real life. Considering how low the XP cap is in this game, I'd argue that Athletics is of equal importance as Mechanics. High athletics means you can survive longer in dungeons and out in the wilds without having to trudge back to town to rest or buy camping supplies, while mechanics gives you the hidden stashes. That's about Equal.
Seriously....
Oh man.... I was gonna just blow your post off as silly. But now that you said "Seriously...." That changes everything.
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...a turd.You have to take it for what it is
No, I take that back. That's too generous. Unlike Dragon Age 2, turds are actually diverse by nature. There are different colors and textures to turds. And sometimes it feels good to sit at the toilet and let one out. And turds are free. Dragon Age 2 offers no such qualities.
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Really, It's better to be forever curious about it, then to play it and end up replacing that curiosity with bottomless disgust.I'm actually getting curious about DA2. Never played it, as I didn't particularly care for DA:O and heard it was even worse...
Dragon Age 2 is so unusually terrible that it almost made me quit gaming forever. At the time, people were reminding us of the reality that this is the new 'era' of RPGs....and that DA2 is, for the most part, typical of...how things just are. Well? That, plus my experience of the game, left me in a state of Jaded. If this is what the RPG genre is, then...cya later, RPG genre. I'll take up another hobby. Thankfully, Witcher 2 came out a couple months later and restored some of my lost hope. And while it wasn't that great either, it was still about about 300000000000000000 times better than DA2.
So exactly how bad IS DA2? That's a hard question to answer. How do you describe the sound of finger nails running down a chalkboard to someone who was born deaf? OK, I'll try anyway. Imagine if PoE was only Guilded Vale and one small wilderness map, but that it was still 80 hours long. Now take away all of PoE's class choices except for Fighter, Rogue and Wizard. Take away all its Races, except Human. Now, start imposing customization limits. As many as you can. Big stuff, like Rogues can only use Daggers or Bows. Fighters can only use 2-h weapons or sword & shield. Wizards can only use staves. Then make a mockery of the Party based system (can't choose armor for your companions. Can't talk to them unless they're in their home or your home. etc)
Then speed up the combat. I mean, really speed it up so that it plays like a Roadrunner cartoon. Make a mockery of the entire concept of Encounters by making everything wave based. Literally Everything. And make the second or 3rd wave fall from the sky. Literally......parachute down from the sky. Make ALL boss fights exactly the same. Replace PoE's artstyle with low texture cartoon-art.
Then top it all off with a form of Bioware writing that even the Bioware fans didn't particularly enjoy. Add romances, and lack of attention to detail.... from the tutorial to the credits
And then subtract about 1000 from this description because I've failed to describe the situation as badly as it truly is.
Now pay $60, and try to enjoy it. I challenge you.
Edit: This Guy's describes it a little better than I do.
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Actually, he gave DA2 a 7/10, and he admitted that he didn't have the heart to rate it lower because... it was Dragon Age.
Still, good point. If he was a *truly* excellent reviewer, he would have given DA2 a 0/10, because that's what it's really worth on a 10 scale.
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And after 15 years of game mastery, you don't need prebuffing to acquire "godmode" in the IE games anyway. A solo Sorcerer with 9th level spells and the Staff of the Magi is "godmode" already. No pre-buffing needed.
But the fact of the matter is that "prebuffs done correctly" is something that takes a fair deal of experience and metagaming. In my first playthrough of Bg2 (which came after about 20 playthroughs of BG1), I wasn't able to 'trivialize combat" with pre-buffs. That kind of total expertise came *much* later for me. The stuff that Alesia_BH, Frabjous and the other hangers-on of our generation do is the same. It's the combined result of an entire community collectively mastering a game they spent last decade and a half of their lives playing, testing, mechanics-throttling, engine-dissecting, tactics-debating, and even modding.
Lets employ a little more perspective here.
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That's a very good question.The summons figurines already break the game beyond all repair. Just give them to your Chanter, or Ranger, and summon away! A total of 6! creatures (are there more?) before the Chanter summons become active...fun, fun, fun!
This is allowed, but not pre-buffing?
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Sequencers and Contingencies are freaking great. But it won't change the debate here because the people who dislike pre-buffing will simply put forth the same argument. You DO, after all, still have to cast those spells before the fight (TEDIOUS!), And in the case of contingencies, you aren't forced to make that awesome-sauce decision in combat as to whether you should attack or buff (TACTICS!).
So we're back to square one, even though Sequencers and Contingencies are the very definition of tactical, and even though they were what made mages and mage multi-classes so friggin fun to play in BG2.
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Oh, I wouldn't say that.No, the purpose of pre-buffing in IE games was to make you stronger so you can win. That's it
Pre-buffing can be a LOT more meaningful than simply "making you stronger". And I'll give you a very common example. Invisibility. Invisibility is an IE game pre-buff. But it doesn't make you stronger. Instead, it simply opens up new tactical avenues. It allows for optimal positioning. It sets up your Thief. It places your Fighter in front of the Enemy's mage so that when the fight begins, that mage is instantly put into a melee situation. And no, PoE's pathetic excuse for Stealth is not a valid substitute, because it doesn't work that way at all.
And then there's Protection from Evil. In BG2, Protection from evil is more than a buff that makes you stronger. It's a buff that nullifies an enemy's demon summoning spells. it forces that demon to ignore you, allowing you to focus your efforts on the enemy itself, instead of the enemy's summon.
We are denied these tactical options in PoE, NOT because of "balance" (or whatever the preferred argument on this thread currently is) but because Josh Sawyer thinks that pre-buffing is Rote, and that Combat should be more quick and 'actiony'. <gag>
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Good Review. Yeah, AJ is....not funny. He always begins his reviews with a skit. But he's not a comedian so it comes across as fake and contrived. So the solution, whenever you see an Angry Joe review, is to simply skip to the game review itself.
Because he's an excellent reviewer. And in this one, I applaud him specifically for his accurate criticism of PoE's story (which no other big time reviewer that I've seen seemed to have the guts to do) In fact, he nails everything pretty much precisely as it is. And his final score of the game (8/10) is spot on. It's what I give it.
I do find the frequent Divinity Original Sin call outs odd, though. An attempt at history revision, there, Joe? You didn't give that game the time of day last year when it was released, but now that Pillars of Eternity is out and you have the Grognards' attention, you're trying to "prove" your old schooler image. But that's cool. You did a great job with this review.
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I comprehend that each and every one of your poll options is absurd. And consequently, the results are meaningless. But since you're still defending it here on page 7, lets address them all.Reading comprehension; do you have it?
Lets start with the Poll question: Do you feel like you got hosed by buying this game?
Well, first off, 77,000 of us did not "buy" this game, anyway. We funded it. And then we were given a copy as a result.. Second, It's one thing to feel "hosed", and quite another feel that the game wasn't good. Hosed is what I felt after playing dragon Age 2, because very specific promises were made to us and each and every one of those promises were broken in spectacular fashion. But this is not what happened with PoE. With Poe, we got an objectively solid game - An authentic developer effort. Whether or not we still disliked the game, or whether we thought "the game was good" (ie. your thread's title) is a completely different subject.
Poll Option #1: Yes I did and I'll tell you why!
Interestingly, because this game was kickstarted, one can very logically choose this option while still acknowledging that the game was pretty good. I mean, I personally think the game was excellent. My first Playthrough gave me 75 hours of very good game time, and, I'm enjoying myself on my second playthrough. But there are people who have given Obsidian $5000+ to make this particular IE spiritual successor, and I can totally understand if one of them came here and voiced vehement buyers remorse at doing so because of the few HUGE departures from the IE games that PoE takes in many, many instances.
Poll Option #2: Yes I did and I'm too scared/confused/angry to tell you why!
Herp-derp poll option. Doesn't deserve a response. It also omits the most relevant and obvious reason why one who didn't like this game wouldn't bother to tell us why: Apathy. Because the game was so bland, and the experience so forgettable, that the whole thing isn't worth talking about, or thinking about.
Poll option #3: No! I feel I paid about what the game is worth!
This is a completely inconclusive poll option who's results say exactly nothing. One can utterly hate this game but feel that $44.99 (or $20, for the early bird backers) was exactly what the game is worth, since an average new game typically costs more than that.
Poll option #4: No! I feel I didn't pay enough for such a fine game!
Not much different from poll option #3. Video games are a bargain already. 50-100 hours of entertainment with anything else typically costs astronomically more than $45-$60. You could easily spend twice that much taking a girl you don't particularly like to dinner and not think twice about whether you were "hosed". Compared to that, a video game with 100 hours of even halfway decent content feels like a steal at $44.99...or an underpayment.
Just curious, what stopped you from just keeping the whole thing simple. like this:
Poll question: "How would you rate this game?"
1) Poor
2) Below Average
3) Average
4) Above average
5) Great
Hmm? Were you afraid of what the results might be?
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The argument he's putting forth is the same one that Josh puts forth when you grill him on this topic.[...]
Although pre-buffing does make games tedious, the reason for that is that it removes tactical choices from the heat of combat. That is the issue.
[...]
How? Why? I can see no reason as to why that statement would be true.
The idea is that by eliminating pre-buffing, you force the player, during combat, to make a choice between spending his turn buffing, or spending his turn attacking. Thus TACTICAL! And sure, I suppose that makes sense...in a game where 1) You're controlling only one character; 2) those are the only two options you have; 3) combat itself is so banally simplistic that there isn't anything more to it than Attacking or Defending anyway.
But for those of us who have actually played the IE games, the Purpose of pre-buffing is to give your party that extra head start so you can spend your time in combat doing more meaningful, tactical things. Like dividing the mobs, summoning and trapping, corralling, healing, debuffing the enemy, recovering from an enemy's debuff, counter-spelling, back stabbing, disappearing, raising dead party members, teamwork and oh yeah.... Buffing and Attacking.
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Except the pages aren't blank. And there's exactly nothing in the game's lore to suggest that a wizard Grimoire itself is magical.That actually sounds like exactly how a magical book might work. Pages appear blank until the hour of need, when your enemies name appearsw in letters of fire....
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Are you mad that you can't cast mind control spells out of combat for the same reason? "Logical" is a bad reason to do anything in a game where souls are literally things that literally exist. The tension and adrenaline of combat are what allow the priest/paladin/whatever to focus enough on their faith/zeal/whatever to draw forth their mystical power. Alternatively, the god/whoever won't respond to your prayers against harm because there's no imminent harm because you're not actually in combat yet. The reason you can open with attack spells is that you're already amping yourself up and so you've got that focus. See? Logical.
True, that.
I mean, just yesterday I was pondering on how remarkably believable it is that a Wizard is unable to read the buffing spells in his Grimoire unless there's enemies in front of him. I thought to myself, "wow! that makes sense!"
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This (falsely) assumes the need to prebuff before every encounter. Which would indeed be a stupid and tedious design. Thankfully, no one is asking for this. Nor did you need to do such a thing in the IE games (or any other RPG that lets you pre-buff.), Instead, you had situations. The good games gave you hints that an unusually difficult encounter was pending. For example, the final seal fights in BG2's Watcher's Keep. They were the level's Guardians. And you knew (because the game told you) that if you clicked on the seal, they would appear and then you'd be put to the test.I am talking about an argument pro-pre-buffer sympathist made to prove that no-pre-buffs in PoE are wrong: because in PnP (in DnD setting) the GM couldn't forbid players to pre-buff themselves. Truth is, you don't pre-buff yourself prior to each encounter - or prior opening every single door - because you can't predict or spot all encounters before they happen and if you do pre-buff youselves like that you're going to run out of pre-buffs and end up being in a worse situation overall, because the GM won't allow you to sleep that often. That's the point I am making.
So *good* Players prepared, while the lazy (or clueless) demographic didn't. Consequently, the former were rewarded for their vigilance and planning with a satisfying, competitive, winnable fight. While the latter were handed their asses on a plate, then subjected to the reload screen.
And again, the difference here is planning vs. reacting. Any good rpg that claims to offer true tactical combat depth should give you that choice. Why doesn't PoE?
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What? Sure it is. If your Priest can only cast his Third level spells 4 times a day, and you expend 2 of those instances on pre-buffs, then when the fight starts he will only be able to cast two 3rd level spells. And If your wizard buffs himself with Protection from Magic weapons before a fight, then that Protection will expire sooner than if he cast it after the fight started. This is no Brainer stuff. Have you ever played the IE games?That doesn't change the fact that pre-combat buffing is never a negative.
But the real problem with PoE's ridiculous NO-PREBUFFING! rule is that it totally removes preparation from the equation. Once upon a time, pre-fight planning was something that a good General does. Now we're reduced to just reacting...like in any mundane action RPG. <gag>
And the "but fights would need to be balanced around it!" is about the dumbest retort ever. Especially considering what we ended up getting in PoE. 99% of the Fights are brainlessly easy already. If they upped the difficulty about 4 notches then gave us the ability to pre-buff, nothing would change. Except maybe people would suddenly realize that the encounter in front of them is actually a *fight*, instead of just another speedbump on the road.
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That makes no sense at all.This game got a better score than Inquisition & Dragon Age 2. That means something. This game deserves to have every single word voice acted.
PoE beat out Dragon Age 2 and DA:I, so lets improve it by....Copying Dragon Age 2 and DA:I?
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No immunities
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I thought the whole point of an RPG being party based is to allow for those special moments when, for example, your party comes upon a giant iron construct and your Fighter's knockdown and sword of slashing have no effect, but that's ok, because your wizard has a whole spell book filled with Iron-construct-killing spells, thus making him the party's hero for once. Or when you stumble upon a cemetary filled with undead, so your rogue won't shine, but your Priest will.
In fact, weren't we promised such a thing?