Great balanced review

[Farsha]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmoh7erndsE
 

[tsundere1ftw]

Yeah that's really the best review out there yet. It highlights all the weaknesses I noticed while playing aswell. It's really a shame that PoE2 looks technically so much more polished than PoE1 but still ended up an inferior game. Some things will get fixed in the long run (bugs and difficulty), some might get fixed with DLCs (dungeons, ship battles). Others like the overall weak story, the ending, rest mechanics and dialogue will probably be out of scope for post-production fix.

[Mikeymoonshine]

Watched the whole video, too harsh on some aspects of the game especially odd when he is criticising story issues in deadfire and praising the story in POE even though both games have plots that don't allow much player agency or meaningful choice. I simply disagree with him about VO I think it was the best choice they could have made, what they need to do next is remove most of the descriptive writing in conversations and cut scenes, a lot of it simply isn't needed at all or it at least doesn't need to go into as much detail as it did. Like this guy just seems to think there shouldn't be much VO in this kind of game, that's a fine opinion to have but I don't think it's a majority opinion. Also implying that somehow the VO budget could have been spent on more QA testing is silly and not how budgeting works at all. More VO was even a stretch goal, it was something a lot of people wanted. 

 

Or saying it's full of bugs and by that he means that he's going to call the fact that the game isn't difficult enough a bug and bring up a handful of other bugs in the game and suggest a second delay which I doubt would have been possible. 

 

Still he makes a lot of good points and basically goes over every issue. 

[Farsha]

. I simply disagree with him about VO I think it was the best choice they could have made

I would disagree with him, if it wasn't confirmed by Josh himself that they cut Dialogue casue they went for full VO. Specially Stuff with Eothas and main quest.

[Thetis]

I skipped PoE I and DD:OS 2 why? because it doesn't have voice acting. Its 2018 and while it might sound entitled, I will not play a modern RPG without voice acting. And i haven't encountered any game breaking bugs after the 2nd playthrough, so I dunno. But yeah, the game is too easy, but thats not a bug...

[Farsha]

I skipped PoE I and DD:OS 2 why? because it doesn't have voice acting. Its 2018 and while it might sound entitled, I will not play a modern RPG without voice acting. And i haven't encountered any game breaking bugs after the 2nd playthrough, so I dunno. But yeah, the game is too easy, but thats not a bug...

VO is great, but if you have to cut content to put it in, then I'm not sure it's worth it in the long run though.

Game-breaking not that many, serious ones there is a lot.

Faction and companion relationships mechanic not working properly? that's a big issue.

Ending not reflecting on your actual choises corretly? Really an immersion breaker. ( I chose pirates and Pellagina in last dialogue was so happy I helped Valians, then Pellagina was missing compeltely in game end screens, Never romanced Xoti still I had screens saying I did and that I broke up with her....)

Difficulty not balanced at all?

Quests get broken a lot, they let you to start quests from differnt sides which is great, but consequences then really feel akward for other quest givers who have to react you already did the stuff they ask.

 

And some writing specially the romance one and companion relationships is terrible and bugged as hell. Had Xoti saying she will not spend another moment with Pellagina 1 min after I got Pellagina. Also Serafen, Tekahu & Maya wanted to **** me second they joined party. Something is not working there.

 

Game feels pretty unfinished and rushed in it's second half.

I do hope they'll fix it and add some meaingfull new stories in expansions casue main quest is both short and pretty weak.

 

Best thing in teh game is pilished combat and multiclasssing that was tested heavily in backer beta.

Seems their internal testers did not have time or resources to test the game as whole properly

Edited May 22, 2018 by Farsha

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

. I simply disagree with him about VO I think it was the best choice they could have made

I would disagree with him, if it wasn't confirmed by Josh himself that they cut Dialogue casue they went for full VO. Specially Stuff with Eothas and main quest.

 

 

Yes but that was a bad descision plus I am pretty sure Josh said something along the lines of it being due to the flow of the conversation not that there was some budget choice between the full ending and full VO but I can't find the quote so feel free to correct me. There was plenty of fluff in the voiced sections of the game that just didn't need to be there and could have been cut instead of the ending.