VioNectro

On "dump stats" in dnd, you guys really need to think over the concept of multiclassing. In dnd pure classes have "preferred" stats, but if you were going to take a particular prestige class or were planning on multiclassing in a particular way things got more tricky in terms of which stats to drop vs keep. Remember it is the concept of specialists and jack of all trades, adaptability vs. maxing that one thing the class can do.

*rolls eyes* Roll your eyes all day, doesn't make it any less true.

DA:O and BG1 "feels" about the same to me in terms of "rating" if I was to subjectively plonk a number on it. BG1 "feels" better than POE to me. However when I compare how DA:O "feels" to me vs. how POE "feels" to me my mind says they are about the same. So my only conclusion is that POE is a whisker worse than DA:O, but only cause I liked BG1 more than POE. Of course this is all the madness in my head etc.

Role playing to me quite simply is this: how close to the pen and paper RPG feel can it get and still be a computer game. In that sense Bioware's post DA:O games are vastly inferior to those preceding it. You won't understand unless you've ever played pen and paper.

No dump = no pump; and then in the end there will be no differentiation between players picking the same class.

PoE fails at its combat/rule-set. BG 1 is vastly more enjoyable in my opinion when it comes to encounters and combat.

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip. Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions. Agreed AoO's would have been better where you still have the 5 feet of movement you can use. I don't know if tank and spank was a intended design choice, but it appears that most engagements boil down to this because of the engagement glue system.

There is one thing I will absolutely disagree with in the review, and that is that Dungeon Siege 3 was better.

LOL are you trolling?

Bioware has been going downhill after DAO which is what I consider the last real rpg they produced(didn't play DA2 so can't comment on that one). It is not that they are bad games, but they are bad RPGs. They are more akin to action games than RPGs these days.

Lack of immunities is a dumbing down of combat tactics. Now you have no situations where archers vs magic vs melee is useless and you have to change tactics. Indeed as others have said already it does feel like the game at the moment is block the AI with your tanks somehow if you can with terrain and have whatever is left pound them with range, and when your chanter is ready plop some extra skellies behind them if they are still alive.

I have been playing BG1 EE in parallel and I can say with certainty that BG1 EE does it better.

In a sense this is bringing some of the level advancement feel of dnd in. Wizards tend to be useless at low levels much weaker than fighters etc., but at high levels they are to be one step away from becoming demi gods. At least I think this is the reasoning behind it.

I don't buy this. Strategy games units have far better path finding that what we are seeing in pillars. I think the space calculated to move past another character in tight spaces right now is more than it should be causing the stuff to go crazy. Baldur's Gate 1 right now has superior path finding... which is kinda sad.

They are quite meh until you get the talents to raise accuracy and convert grazes into hits etc. then they become OK.