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Idleray

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Posts posted by Idleray

  1. I very much hope that story and lore will be much more delivered through quests and "stuff visibly happening in the game world", rather than what you called "lore dumps". If references to dreams, visions, or past events need to me made, let us participate, similar to the way BG2 handled dreams. But please no more endless walls of flavoured text. (I don't mind reading at all, but the content matters)

     

    Exactly. This is what the writer's adage "show not tell" is all about.

  2. I went and ordered 3 copies of POE2 the moment it was announced on fig. I am excited for the sequel, having completed the original twice in short succession, however I must say that the reason I did so was because of the game's excellent combat and class design.

     

    I am confident that POE2 will make improvements on combat mechanics compared to POE.

     

    However I am not so confident about the narrative design.

     

     

    Let me elaborate:

     

    The plot of POE was not necessarily bad, but I did not like the way it was delivered - through massive lore-dumps, continuous and incessant name-dropping of terms like Waidwen's Legacy, War of the Black Trees, Godhammer Bomb etc and obtuse/uninteresting characters.

     

    Take Durance for example. The events he partakes in and his potential change of world-view regarding his God make for some very interesting thematic material. However, none of these events made any impressions on me because I didn't care for him as a character.

     

    I didn't care for the cryptic way he spoke, and the fact that he was basically deranged. I appreciated the originality of it - here's a character you have to dig deeper to figure out what he's saying!  - but it didn't work. During key moments of character development I had trouble figuring out what he was even trying to say. Any potential emotional impact = lost.

     

     

    Then there are characters like Kana and Sagani.

     

    All I can tell you about them is that one is some kind of Scholar and the other is a snow dwarf with a husband and 5(?) kids at home.

     

    What were they doing in the game? How did their stories bear any significance to the Watcher? Err... Who knows?

     

    It's a big shame because the VO was consistently excellent throughout the game, but the material they had to work with was soooooo... uninteresting.

     

    Eder is the only one who left an impression on me personally, and interestingly enough his background lore is the most simple - He's a good-natured Farmer having a crisis of faith, desperately clinging on in the face of adversity. He's a simple character with simple emotional notes in his character arc - but it works - I really want to see what happens to him in POE2.

     

    On the other hand - there was Grieving Mother. To this day I don't remember what exactly she's about. I remember that the writing for her described imaginative and lush scenes, but as a character she was dead. She was basically a vehicle for an idea. There was no personality. Her guilt towards the end of her arc came out of nowhere and felt forced precisely BECAUSE prior to this there was little hint of any personality in her.

     

     

    I appreciate the writing team's attempt to create original/realistic characters, and a detailed backstory for their world filled with lore.

     

    However, I feel that one game is enough world-building, and I'd like to see something emotionally compelling in POE2. The personal connection should be established before you can get people interested in your characters and your setting.

     

    Towards that end I'd love to see some assurance from the writing team that they've absorbed player feedback on the story for the first game and will try to make the journey more satisfying in the sequel.

     

     

     

     

    • Like 3
  3. I don't know if someone has mentioned this, but Pillars 1 had one romanceable character, namely Iovara. It is quite touching. You can even decide if it is a happy or unrequited romance. 

     

    And it is completely un-noteworthy because the manner it was done was as a ret-connable choose-your-own-adventure backstory for a long-dead ghost which lasts for 5 minutes during the last legs of the game. She could be your sister, your lover, your senior that you looked up to, someone you betrayed etc.

     

    This for me had no emotional impact.

  4.  

    Romance could also be used as tool without love:

    • Player Character could optionally seduce bored noble to gain information or benefits which otherwise would take much longer
    • NPC could seduce player promising unspoken pleasures, but it will be just to push player to do some dirty job.

     

     

    That would just be sex/using sex appeal, which is rather mundane and not what makes romances compelling.

    • Like 4
  5. I'd just like to jump in and say I enjoy romances, and I definitely think including it will help Obsidian sell more copies. Obsidian as far as I can tell is not really in healthy financial straits right now so they pretty much need all the help they can get.

     

    People seem to have this wrong-headed idea that including romance = fan service. It doesn't even need to be a romance between the player and an NPC. It could be cross-NPC romance. It could be a romance that never gets consummated. It could be a series-spanning relationship that gradually evolves with romantic overtures. GET CREATIVE!

     

    Basically speaking; romance sells. Sex sells. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on how you do it.

     

    For the record I thought the story in POE was incredibly dull until the last part where you got to speak with the Gods.

    So was BG & BG 2 for that matter had there not been romances in them.

     

    The things that always attracted me to the DND universe were its Gods and larger-than-life characters, like Drizzt. These things are themselves arguably "romantic" aspects that lend interest to a world and allow someone to immerse themselves and become attached to the fantasy setting.

     

    Histories and customs of fantasy nations do not interest me personally, and so no amount of exposition on what kind of pantaloons the nobles in Old Vailia wear will interest me. Give me a Hero(a named one), a God, an epic adventure with all the adjunct emotional colours which necessarily include love/bonding.

     

    POE fell short on this regard. I was really interested in Eder's story and the story of the dead God who we will see in POE2, while all the other characters felt flat (Kana and dwarf chick were the worst offenders).

     

    The 'oddball' characters like Grieving Mother and Durance had promise but got weighed down with cryptic and often wanky blathering that tried it's hardest to showcase originality instead of compelling character development.

     

    I want Obsidian to give us a character we can really bond with, and I consider Dakkon from PS:T the absolute pinnacle of character writing in a Bioware/Black Isle RPG. Dakkon wasn't even a romance option and yet I would consider his story "romantic". The bond you developed with him and his growth under your tutelage was profound and moving (and moved me to tears).

     

    edit: TL;DR, I guess what I'm saying is that I want a story to MOVE me, and romance is one of the most straightforward options to make this happen. If a story doesn't emotionally affect me, then there's literally nothing to care about and so you are much less likely follow up on it/buy the next installment. 

     

    There doesn't NEED to be a boy/girl romance in POE2, but there NEEDS to be deep and meaningful character INTERACTION in POE2 for me to give a **** about the character and remember their names.

    Like I literally cannot remember Dwarf Chicks name right now but I remember her fox is itumaak

    • Like 5
  6. I'm just wondering here with many of the posts complaining about the quality of the physical goods, is this something we really should care about that much?

     

    I mean sure it was promised during the KS, but I think it was naive of OS and naive of the backers to think that this kind of thing could be done on budget and on time in high quality. It would have cost a fortune and detracted from resources that could go into the game... and all for a bunch of quaint trinkets that wouldn't count for much anyway if the game hadn't been good.

     

    The game's good enough, so what's a few pieces of cloth and cardboard boxes really matter other than clogging up your bookshelf?

  7. I said it before and I'll say it again: I do not expect to be loading this much in an isometric rpg when I load other first person 3d games much faster.

     

    If they can make things load faster with conventional 3d environments rather than the hand-drawn ones then I say toss out the hand drawn environments. No matter how pretty they are it's not worth the loading time hassle. Or maybe a compromise if there exists some way to turn down graphics settings.

  8. Well I am playing the game and I can tell you right now that people who are not playing at the highest difficulty should not make suggestions unless they play at potd. Sorry but if its too easy then you should bump up to potd then make suggestions. Here is my experience:

     

    I finished the game triple crown on less than 10 rests with a party that included a cipher. Why don't you get back to me when you've done the same?

     

    Ciphers dominate on potd and you can pretty much fight on critical fatigue because the accuracy penalties count for nothing when you land mental binding.

     

    Please finish the game first before you make laughable assumptions on what difficulty other people play on.

  9. I had similar mis-forgivings about how vague Durance's (and Grieving Mother's) writing was.

     

    I'd chalk the inconsistencies about souls to the writers not thinking about the whole thing through, especially the ending. It sounds like "souls" is just a magical stop-gap that creates and solves plot problems. It probably doesn't help to think about it too much.

     

    Adra is material that holds souls... that much I gathered.

    • Like 1
  10. 1 per encounter. If you proc it on a bunch of debuffed enemies it's gonna crit all of them and insta-gib.

     

    Cloudpiercer is also awesome for this reason.

     

    bonus: I have heard about, but not tried the bugged way in which this proc apparently interacts with the Barbarian's carnage passive, allowing each of the 3 procs of Jolt to trigger Carnage.

     

    P.S. CONFIRMED Azurewith's Stiletto and Carnage probably not interacting as intended. Interacts in the same way that Kakaloth's minor blights and Blast does (i.e. each instance of an aoe attack triggers its own aoe attack)

    • Like 1
  11. The short answer is there is none. They're all good, and it's best to have each of your party members have a different one (there are 6 weapon specs, conveniently).

     

    There is at least one extremely powerful weapon for every single weapon type to be found somewhere in the game.

     

    Weapon specialisation is good. +6 Accuracy is effectively like +20% damage for your average starting level character with 30 Accuracy. 

    Accuracy is also a very hard thing to buff. No stats affect it directly, and you only get it from leveling up and a handful of buffs which don't necessarily stack with one another.

     

     

    A hunting bow you can find on level 4 from the Endless Paths of Od Nua (Persistence) has extremely good stats for how early you get it.

    Put it on a rogue with sneak attacks since Rogues get a damage bonus most of the time with their Sneak Attack and you've got a ranged killing machine.

     

    A stiletto that you can get from the weapons merchant in the starting Village (Azurewiths Stiletto) casts Jolting Touch whenever you crit with it, which effectively does about 150-250 damage spread across 3 enemies. Think about that.

    • Like 3
  12. Well, we're not talking base durations since let's be honest here we're all going to be playing with a Maxed Int Cipher so add ~50% to all those base durations.

     

    The problem with Mental Binding (or more to the point, Paralyze and Stuck) it that it applies massive deflection penalties and so serves both an offensive and defensive function. 

     

    The main target that eats the paralyze portion may as well be dead for all the Crits that you're about to score on it. The stuck portion is still extremely powerful for anyone that can take advantage of it ( i.e. Barbarians).

     

    FV isn't better because that extra duration isn't needed and because it doesn't serve to also completely shut down the enemy's offense. If I see a Caster about to let loose something that's bad news, BOOM paralyze shuts it down. If I see a pack of mobs that might overwhelm my tank if they surround him BOOM they're all stuck. The only situation Fractured Volition could possibly be better is if you want to immediately activate Death Blows....which is kinda pointless since you can easily flank paralyzed targets for the same effect, or you want to soften up something to land a strong spell vs Fortitude or Will..... something like Mental Binding.

     

    So the bottom line here is that the paralyze duration from binding is more than enough for you to kill a target dead.

     

     

     

    Tenuous Grasp base duration is 6s. With typical maxed int it's 9 seconds. Against single targets it effectively kills because nothing can stand getting hit for 9 straight seconds.

     

    I am also just reminded of something about it that DEFINITELY OBJECTIVELY needs nerfing/fixing: it can be cast to initiate combat.

    This is huge because Confuse can sometimes act the same way as Charm (Confused target will sometimes attack former allies) and this leads to big shenanigans where you cast TG from stealth and the target sometimes starts immediately beating on its friends, get attacked in turn and most of the time killed: You've just killed one mob in a pack and successfully disengaged for free.

     

    I've just tested Eye Strike. You're right the acc penalty from blind and dazed don't stack. It's a very strong spell below POTD, and I would just like to see that it's more consistently useful on PoTD. Perhaps if Binding is fixed it will be automatically better.

     

    The thing with Mind Wave is that it's really hard to set up the prone, which is why I thought it needed a buff.

  13. (WALL OF TEXT INC)

     

     

    Nerfs are lame, but I assume that Obsidian doesn't want to go the route of buffing all the other Cipher abilities (which is what I'd wish), so I don't see any choice but to nerf certain Cipher powers.

     

    1. Mental binding is the biggest culprit here. This is effectively a level 5 spell masquerading as a level 2 spell with level 2 focus costs. This spell is in many situations even better than Amplified Wave, which is supposed to be THE best Cipher spell.

     

    I would just remove the paralyze effect on the main target all-together and have the spell just apply Stuck for HALF it's current duration on the target and surrounding enemies. This preserves the functionality of the spell being a clutch CC without it going way way over into a "I win & take no damage" button.

     

    I mean, for comparison, Fetid Caress is a spell of the same level from Wizard and it's PER REST, and also has an AOE(rather than FOE-AOE) effect that does not apply CC or deflection penalty effects. It also casts slower.

     

    Fractured Volition, a spell that is one level higher than Binding, costs more focus and takes longer to cast, applies an effect only to ONE target, and the effect(-20 to everything EXCEPT deflection, slower move speed,  is basically STRICTLY WORSE than paralyzing ( -40 Deflection, Reflex SET TO -20, CANNOT DO ANYTHING) in 99.9% of situations, and it applies an effect (stuck) that is arguably almost as good as FV on all surrounding enemies.

    FV looks like a joke compared to MB.

     

     

    2. Very Slight nerf required to Tenuous Grasp. Reason being that it effectively acts completely disabling a target for the duration EVEN when you're hitting it. That's a lot like paralyze. I would change it to something like Confused for the first 4.5 seconds then Frightened for the next 4.5 seconds. It also doesn't really make sense for it to be both Confused (not really attacking anything) and Frightened (effectively a penalty to attacking) at the same time.

     

    3. Buff all the janky spells.

     

    Man this is a long list, but it includes:

     

    A. Soul Shock: I have no idea what the guy was on who nerfed the range on this. This was already doing negligible damage at best. Now it barely reaches anything. I'd change it back to original range AND add short debuff like dazed to it, since the intention seems to be using this spell on tanks that are surrounded.

     

    B. Mind Wave: Since it's already pretty hard to line up enemies to achieve the prone effect, players should be rewarded with more than a measly 3 sec prone. It should be something like 5 seconds, with the range drastically increased to make the prone effect easier to land

     

    C. Eye Strike: This spell is too good on difficulties below PoTD because no-one has exceptional Fort, and it's kinda crap on PoTD because everyone has good Fort. The core effect though, is actually probably too strong since it applies a whopping -35 accuracy (blind,dazed) to the target and -25 Acc to surrounding enemies.

    I'd raise the chance to hit(somehow) to make it viable on PoTD, and lower the effect duration to make it less dominating for a level 1 spell on lower difficulties. 

    Alternatively, the smarter thing to do (which would require more work) would be to rebalance the base Fortitude values for many of the enemies in the game - especially kith enemies.

     

    D. Psycho-vampiric Shield: First of all I've never played a melee Cipher, to which I imagine this spell is intended for, but if I were I'd definitely want to cast a key defensive buff faster and minimize getting interrupted. I would simply increase the Range of this spell and make casting time Fast to make it a consistently effective tool for Melee Ciphers.

     

    E. Recall Agony: There are very few enemies (i.e. bosses) on which you'd want to apply this debuff. Since Bosses already have high resists I don't understand why this only hits with +5 accuracy rather than +10.

     

    Making this a Foe AOE would go a long way towards making it resemble a useful spell.

     

    Alternatively I'd just have this make the enemy roll a will check each time they get hit by anything and if they fail they get hit again for 100% of the damage. So almost like double damage but not quite. This would honestly still be so-so.

     

    F. Fractured Volition: As I explained this is a strictly worse spell than MB.

     

    G. Pain Link: After testing I've figured this spell is actually pretty good at doing what it's supposed to. However what it's supposed to do is basically do half-decent Foe AOE damage IF you let one of your party members (hopefully your ranger pet) get pounded TO DEATH. The damage needs serious tuning.

     

    H. Silent Scream: There is very little point making a spell focused on Interrupting the enemy when it has an AVERAGE cast time. This spell has major overlapping role issues with Mind Lance and Mind Lance trumps this every time due to having a FAST cast time. 

     

    I'd suggest something exactly like the Cean Gwlas ability with the same icon: a short (4 meter) point blank AOE effect. It could be made weaker, so it could just be an auto-interrupt with a 4 second stun vs Will.

     

    I. Soul Ignition: Fortitude checks make no sense with this spell. Anyone worth doing a big DoT to will have high hp. Ergo High constitution and a high Fortitude. Also this spell still suffers from doing too little damage to be worthwhile.

     

    I'd suggest something cool like "If an enemy affected by this spell is killed, they explode dealing damage equal to a % of their max hp to nearby foes". The name actually hints at something like this... since I expect Ignition to lead to Explosion.. or at least Conflagration.

     

    J. Body Attunement: For the effect you're getting could seriously take Mental Binding's place for Mental Binding's focus cost and cast time. It's a good effect, just not something you'd expect from a Lvl 4 spell.

     

    K. Detonate: Feels underwhelming for its casting time and range. Buffing both of these would begin to make it usable. Would be nice if it also did something else like synergize with soul ignition in some cool way(because their names suggest this), or applied a strong DOT on surrounding enemies if the target exploded.

     

    L. Disintegrate: I had to do a double-take when I first saw this spell. 30 damage... over 15 seconds? So 2 damage per second?

    On testing it turned out it dealt that damage on each of its ticks, which still makes it terrible for its massive casting time.

    So I thought to myself: "maybe this is supposed to be a fun spell because it makes the enemy melt?", and then I saw the Disintegration animation from this spell scoring a kill... or rather the lack of it. The target just disappears. So no graphical touch that gives any sense of satisfaction. Just... a filler spell because there's only two other Lvl 6 cipher spells.

     

    I'd revamp the tool-tip, and just plain make it last a long time (40 seconds?) since you're disintegrating something.

  14. This is how I built my ass-kicking Barbarian.

     

    1. Get Weapon Focus Soldier for my Barb. Now I can use pikes and stand behind my tank and not risk getting hit at all!

    2. Do the Cinders of Faith quest. Bring someone with 10 mechanics (or 10 after inn buffs) Take Tidefall.

    3. Put Tidefall on my Barb.

    4. Put Plate-mail on my barb after testing the difference in attack speed and finding it basically not much of a sacrifice at all.

     

    5. Initiate combat. Cast Frenzy immediately. Run into enemies. Cast Darcozi Paladini Liberating exhortation (has +10 accuracy with talent) on Barb. Cast deflection debuffs on enemies like blind/paralyze.

    6. Enemies explode. All of them.

    7. Barb is healed to full endurance from Tidefall drain.

  15. I skipped Temple of Eothas and Raedrics Hold initially to get to the Defiance Bay earlier than usual. Those 2 places take too many rests to beat early on, and I wanted to do them on my way back doing bounties.

     

    I ended up finishing the game and doing all of the tier 1 and tier 2 bounties. Out of the tier 3 bounties I only did Captain Muarumi.

     

    I reached about level 12 in Caed Nua over 2 runs.

     

    The Wizard pick was there to provide slicken and sometimes chill fog. Very clutch spells against enemy casters/ranged which may make you take a lot more damage than necessary.

     

    The Bear was essentially my main tank and my Chanter my off-tank. With lay on hands the Bear can actually tank very well, and if it dies my Chanter with tankier stats took over.

     

    Even though my Chanter had better tanking stats than the Bear, the Bear had infinite Health and no Fatigue so I always tried to have Bear soak damage first.

     

    I don't find talents like Wound Binding necessary. Many of the encounters were done with 0 life lost because they can all be "tank and spanked". The only exceptions are battles against fampyrs/Cean Gwlas who don't follow normal rules of engagement, so I had specially prepared weapons to focus them down fast.

     

    Also the bounty battles were tough, especially since I did almost all of them on major/critical fatigue. Lots of Kiting and summoning Ogres to do my tanking for me.

    • Like 1
  16. 1. Enemies will target the enemy with lowest DR. (but that's not a reason to make your rogue wear heavier armor)

    2. Dead enemies can't fight back.

     

     

    Solution: Make your rogue so deadly that any enemy he touches dies before it can fight back.

     

     

    How: Focus all of your damage capacity on one enemy at a time. Max Rogue Might and Dex. Equip with swingy weapons like Sabres/Axes. Throw one disable on Rogue target like blind to keep it from damage your rogue and also provide Sneak Attacks. Be ready to use Escape/Shadowing Beyond on Rogue. In situations where you can block passage-ways just use ranged and don't worry about getting your rogue in.

    • Like 1
  17.  

     

    Yea this directly renders my current new playthrough unplayable since I play on POTD. I want to hire a custom party but CAN'T SELL STUFF.

     

    It absolutely doesn't render your playthrough unplayable. As has been said at least a couple of times, buying one junk item from the vendor fixes the situation. Not the perfect solution, but a solution anyway.

     

    didn't work for me .. But resting ( -1 camping supply ) worked

     

     

    Yea. No. I'm not gonna waste 75 gold at the start of the game that can go towards hiring party members :p

  18. I recently just completed a POTD playthough with less than 10 rests using the idea of an all-ranged party that can keep fighting in even critical fatigue. Here is my party build:

     

    PC: Chanter - Early-to mid game Tank. Boost everyone with runspeed to kite, summon up a phantom that's extremely good early-game and unaffected by fatigue, late game boost everyone with Ranged speed buff and Fire dmg buff, or Ogres to tank for the party.

     

    Ranged Rogue: with WF:Peasant and Persistence (Hunter Bow from Od Nua Lvl4) for high ranged dps. Enchanted vs spirits to take out Shades/Cean Gwlas.

     

    Ranger: With bear companion for tank that's unaffected by Health or Fatigue. Critical component for reaching <10 rests. Equipped with vs Spirit Arquebus to eventually one-shot Cean Gwlas.

     

    Cipher: The super-cheese. Unlimited mental bindings (even if accuracy is affected by fatigue) is enough to make everything breezy in the early-mid game. You also get other nice tools like Ignore Pain which you can use to boost your Bear tank.

    Tenuous Grasp + Whispers of Treason can also help a lot against things like ogres, often goading them into fighting each other while your party takes pot-shots.

     

    Wizard: For the unlimited Slicken after Level 9, allowing you to completely control encounters with many ranged enemies, and make fights against Spores trivial.

     

    Paladin: Lay on hands on your bear. Zealous focus aura for party. Equipped it with anti-vessel Blunderbuss to wtfpwn Darguls/Fampyrs with one Flames of Devotion & anti-Beast Pistols against Dragons.

     

    Of note are the 2 occasions in the game where you can effectively rest "for free": Once when waiting at the sun-dial to get into Lle e Rhemen and during the Ducal Palace hearing. I can confirm at least one of these not counting towards the 10 rest limit. I suspect neither of them count.

     

    I always rested AFTER completing the more difficult fights and AFTER long travelling to hand in all the quests. Maxed Athletics for entire party except Chanter (my mechanics guy). The remaining points I put into lore.

     

    After about level 8 you can start fighting in even a critical fatigue state since your party's defensive tools will have taken shape (Bear + Lay on Hands + Ignore Pain + Chanter Summons) and those are unaffected by fatigue.

    • Like 2
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