Baldur's Gate 2 > PoE 2 Deadfire

[Multihog]

 

 

 

And dont tell me about nostalgia becouse its not the case.

I'm gonna tell you about it anyways, because it is in parts about nostalgia. If you replay Baldurs Gate II now, the dialog is often really cringe worthy. And descriptions and mechanics aren't up to par for this age. 

I disagree on all counts. BG2's writing is solid and entertaining—very often funny—as are its mechanics. Not sure what you mean by "descriptions", but if you mean that grey descriptive text in PoE, then I'm glad for its absence in BG2 as it's all just redundant text. I'd turn it off in PoE if I could. Less is more. I don't care about the wrinkles some character has on their face. BG2 also has amazing companions and companion interactions.

 

By the way, no nostalgia: I played for the first time in 2012. 

 

What a wonderful world we got, where we are allowed to disagree. ^_^

 

Oh yeah, definitely. Few parts of art lend themselves to objective analysis, where a definite conclusion can be made. Something like "better writing" is quite subjective. 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Multihog

[knownastherat]

 

Well, while you are certainly entitled to the opinion that good balance (we could spend years trying to define it) is a fundamental property of any game, I would argue, just like some before me, that fundamental property of a game is fun. While these two are not mutually exclusive, if a game is not fun, it does not matter if its balanced or not because who would play a game which is not fun? It's like with art. It can be the most artistic ever made but if nobody will see it and enjoy it, what is the point? 

 

I'd say the fun isn't so much a property of the game itself, but rather people's experience of it. What someone considers to be fun of course ties directly to their individual preferences, and how well a particular game (or anything else) caters to those. Though I'm certainly not denying the fundamental importance of having fun when playing a game, because indeed why play it if not to have fun?

 

For me a game feeling unbalanced would detract from my enjoyment of it, in part because it tends to rather constrain viable playing styles and options and such. How a game being/feeling too balanced would for others reduce their enjoyment though, I don't quite see; hence my curiosity (complaints about insufficient energy having been spent on other things or post-release rebalancing I get, but then it's not really about being 'over-balanced' as such). 

 

 

Thanks for the correction. Let me rephrase it then. Regardless of what is and what is not a fundamental property of a game, it ought to be fun to play. Glad to see that despite my poor wording you were willing and able to see my point. 

[Barleypaper]

 

This. For numerous, subtle reasons. The whole design focus of the game is balance-oriented. I think that many people, ostensibly including Obsidian and/or Josh Sawyer, don't understand how this can be a bad thing. I'm not sure I do, either, fully. But I know a bad smell when I smell it and I wish developers could figure it out.

 

There's nothing for them to figure out if they don't agree it smells bad in the first place, though. So you'd have to be rather more explicit on why balance-oriented design is a bad thing to convince them. Although I must say I don't see it as anything other than positive, good balance is of rather fundamental importance to the quality of (almost) any game as far as I'm concerned. 

 

I think it's less the application of balance where it's needed (if such need can be identified), something I'd agree is a positive thing, and more the abstract "balance-above-all" paradigm.

 

The most obvious and egregious (for me) example being the notion that all classes should be equally powerful, equally viable and without any bad builds. I don't need to explain the advantages of this kind of system, they are obvious. But the problem should be equally obvious; if you don't let people build bad characters or parties, if you don't allow them to fail, then what was the point of giving them a choice at all? I don't think this kind of "player experience tempering"  has any place in a singleplayer party-based RPG inspired by the IE games. Which is not to say that it doesn't work well in many other contexts, i.e. multiplayer games (he says condescendingly).

 

Another example: encounter balancing. PoE1 tried a tentative per-encounter approach to combat, Deadfire fully embraced it. The reasoning, I'm told, behind the abandonment of the health/stamina system and the all-but-meaningless rest-system in Deadfire was to allow developers to more easily balance encounters. i.e. if you know exactly how many resources the player has at their disposal for a fight (all of them) then you know exactly how hard to make the encounter. Whether this worked out or not is irrelevant, the point I will make here is simply that, for the sake of the holy grail of balance, they threw out almost the entirety of the game's strategic layer. This, undeniably, had a big impact on the feel of the game and the experience of combat. Some might say it was worth it. Some might say they took the crawl out of dungeon-crawl and made their game an ARPG (nothing wrong with ARPGs, mind, but this is a discussion about BG2 > Jesus).

 

Also, combat is a toggle because the game is scared to let you break it. Let me break you, game.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Barleypaper

[Multihog]

 

Well, while you are certainly entitled to the opinion that good balance (we could spend years trying to define it) is a fundamental property of any game, I would argue, just like some before me, that fundamental property of a game is fun. While these two are not mutually exclusive, if a game is not fun, it does not matter if its balanced or not because who would play a game which is not fun? It's like with art. It can be the most artistic ever made but if nobody will see it and enjoy it, what is the point? 

 

I'd say the fun isn't so much a property of the game itself, but rather people's experience of it. What someone considers to be fun of course ties directly to their individual preferences, and how well a particular game (or anything else) caters to those. Though I'm certainly not denying the fundamental importance of having fun when playing a game, because indeed why play it if not to have fun?

 

For me a game feeling unbalanced would detract from my enjoyment of it, in part because it tends to rather constrain viable playing styles and options and such. How a game being/feeling too balanced would for others reduce their enjoyment though, I don't quite see; hence my curiosity (complaints about insufficient energy having been spent on other things or post-release rebalancing I get, but then it's not really about being 'over-balanced' as such). 

 

This is all anecdotal, but what I've heard people say is that they want to feel powerful, and to them, that feeling of being powerful comes from having some overpowered spells in their arsenal. In other words, those people like to blow **** up. They tend to argue that when the game is balanced, they never feel like a badass. 

 

I don't enjoy killing stuff effortlessly either, but some people apparently do. 

[majestic]

I'd say the fun isn't so much a property of the game itself, but rather people's experience of it. What someone considers to be fun of course ties directly to their individual preferences, and how well a particular game (or anything else) caters to those. Though I'm certainly not denying the fundamental importance of having fun when playing a game, because indeed why play it if not to have fun?

 

For me a game feeling unbalanced would detract from my enjoyment of it, in part because it tends to rather constrain viable playing styles and options and such. How a game being/feeling too balanced would for others reduce their enjoyment though, I don't quite see; hence my curiosity (complaints about insufficient energy having been spent on other things or post-release rebalancing I get, but then it's not really about being 'over-balanced' as such).

 

It's difficult because it has a major psychological component and a "time" component. I spent my first PoE run with a character that got worse with every patch through no fault of my own. If I had picked a rogue my experience would have been different - they just got better with patches because they were in a really rough place to begin with.

 

Even if it was objectively the right thing to somewhat equalize power levels between classes it certainly didn't feel good, and as far as the timing component goes none of that would have happened if I had picked the game up a couple of months after the launch. Playing a balanced game doesn't reduce enjoyment - getting the nerfhammer every time for your choice of character does.

[Jbtheg]

Being a younger person who hasn't played BG 1&2 in his youth, imo the quests in BG 2 are more enjoyable and it feels to me that there is a lot more flavor in the world.

The combat and walking around feels like a chore.

[cokane]

I think it's obvious that BG2 is the better game, taking a step back and recognizing the quality of life improvements and other enhancements made since then. It's extremely doubtful Deadfire will be a memorable game five years from now, much less fifteen. Of course, for some, encountering BG2 isn't going to be as fun today, because tastes are different and because technology and design iteration have made games different today. But it's really no contest if we take into account the time these games came out, which game will be more impactful.

 

I think the BG games did benefit from some enormous good fortune though. Having a ruleset, bestiary, and entire world meant that the designers only had to create characters, a plot, and pick their setting. Not to mention dozens of DnD titles had paved the way for how to transmit the pen and paper ruleset to a video game -- it's nice to have a classic like Pool of Radiance as a template. Obsidian set up a much taller task, creating a ruleset and world from scratch. I suspect if they keep at it, a classic could emerge out of the Eora world and Pillars ruleset, it just isn't going to be Deadfire. The BG games were also lucky to come out when they did, the RPG genre was at quite a lowpoint prior to the original's release.

[PizzaSHARK]

 

 

Keldorn being racist against Drow is about the only non-standard paladin thing he does, but the whole "evil races" thing complicates it.

 

As far as Durance vs. Eder goes, Durance was a religious fundy that burned men, women, and children of Eder's faith alive under shady pretext. He fully admits and boasts about it to anyone that will listen. In cut content, GM was one of Durance's victims, though he doesn't remember her.

 

I agree that the Devil was wasted. Took forever to get a second evil team member, and she had one crappy sidequest and that was it. I had expected her to be like Bishop from NWN2.

 

GM did leave some interesting stuff on the cutting room floor, but I really liked her. Her, Durance, and Zauha were the three best characters IMO. A shame that we got stuck with Pallagina over any of them.

 

 

Keldorn being a racist piece of crap was just one more jibe at the cliche Lawful Stupid paladin.  I don't remember him ever truly articulating why he hated the Drow, other than "Drow are evil and I'm a paladin so I have to hate them because I'm Good and they're not."  I feel like the hate for Mazzy, Keldorn, Cernd (who is a jab at Stupid Neutral druids), etc probably falls flat on people without a tabletop D&D background.  If you have that background, they're ****ing brilliant.

 

Durance and Grieving Mother as originally written were much more interesting and deeper.  I don't know why they were changed; I know there was some guff about inter-office politics involving Avellone, but I don't know if that's the reason.  They were definitely a LOT more dark and unpleasant than anything else in Pillars.  Pillars had some dark stuff but the original Durance and GM were pitch black ugly.  But I think that's part of what made them interesting.

 

 

 

 

I liked her romance well enough, but it needed a time skip to not be some damn cringy.

The only romance I can think of that isn't awful in an RPG is maybe male Warden and Leliana in DAO. But, if you carry it over for the rest of the series, it is super depressing. Not to mention, if the Warden dies in DAO, she commits suicide years later.

 

 

That's the hell of it.  If you ignore the whole "she's kinda your stepmom" angle and the fridge logic with how quickly she goes from leaning on a trusted friend to eye-****ing that trusted friend (remembering that she just saw her husband's gruesomely defiled corpse only days ago, most likely), her romance was actually very well-written and planned out.  Viconia is likely the best next to Anomen, simply because of how much she grows as a character (and you even have the bittersweet epilogue, unlike Aerie's disgustingly saccharine epilogue) but I thought Jaheira was actually well done if  you just pretend Khalid never existed.

 

I mean, that's what we did in BG1 isn't it?  Jaheira talks about not going on without Khalid so you conveniently get him stuck in a closet so she'll stop whining.  "Khalid who?"

 

I never said Deadfire was perfect and I do agree that fun should override balance even though I do hold it in a higher regard. I'm saying that Baldur's Gate Isn't perfect with glaring problems and people tend to be really bias towards it. The Baldur's Gate series is in like my top five favorite by the way.

 

As far as late game goes I rather enjoy not making nearly every fight irrelevant cannon fodder when (for whatever reason) a thief has the ability to make traps that stop time (somehow).

 

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

 

I actually agree with both of your strange thoughts completely. A perfectly balanced single player game (especially one where you build your own character) is boring. When everything is equal, nothing is special.

 

 

Something something "perfect imbalance."  My problem is that Obsidian went WAY too far with "we're going to do away with d20 cliches!" with their systems design.  They wanted to get rid of god stats, but we still have god stats.  They wanted to get rid of "automatic stats," but we still have automatic stats... arguably worse than anything in d20 since 3.5E.  Having to memorize a glossary to fight Mages was too annoying/too much to ask of newbies, so they got rid of buffs as more than just passive stat boosts entirely and mostly removed dispels as well.  Pre-buffing could be problematic, so they just remove it entirely.  Vancian magic is bad because it requires players to think and make judgement calls, so they remove it entirely (except for when they added it back in and gave it to every class with the ****ing Empower mechanic...) which makes balancing encounters and entire dungeons ten times more difficult.

 

See, I don't even think they're right when they claim that stats are boring in d20 games.  They aren't, especially if you consider more than just the CRB and APG for the given edition.

 

Oh, sure, your basic CRB+APG Fighter has Strength as their core stat, and will probably have some Dexterity and Constitution because they're PROBABLY a melee combatant... but Fighters get a smattering of non-combat skills which variously scale off Charisma, Intelligence, or even Wisdom - meaning you can easily justify getting at least a +1 in those stats to make your skill checks better.

 

Rogues want Dexterity, and they probably want a little Strength too if they're melee, but because they get so many skills they need Intelligence nearly as much as a Wizard, or maybe they want Charisma to be the party face.

 

The system, to me, wasn't in need of fixing.  The six stats all had clearly defined and easily understood fluff and crunch applications and the way skills tied into stats ensured that making a "dumb but strong" Fighter or Barbarian was extremely limiting - good luck playing a Barbarian with 7 Charisma, 7 Intelligence, and 7 Wisdom with a competent DM around.

 

By comparison, Pillars makes me feel like I'm playing ****ing World of Warcraft or Diablo 3 - the stats don't matter, skills barely matter.  One Fighter is pretty similar to any other Fighter.  It's a lot more accessible but I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

[misterjimmy]

 

 

 

Keldorn being racist against Drow is about the only non-standard paladin thing he does, but the whole "evil races" thing complicates it.

 

As far as Durance vs. Eder goes, Durance was a religious fundy that burned men, women, and children of Eder's faith alive under shady pretext. He fully admits and boasts about it to anyone that will listen. In cut content, GM was one of Durance's victims, though he doesn't remember her.

 

I agree that the Devil was wasted. Took forever to get a second evil team member, and she had one crappy sidequest and that was it. I had expected her to be like Bishop from NWN2.

 

GM did leave some interesting stuff on the cutting room floor, but I really liked her. Her, Durance, and Zauha were the three best characters IMO. A shame that we got stuck with Pallagina over any of them.

 

 

Keldorn being a racist piece of crap was just one more jibe at the cliche Lawful Stupid paladin.  I don't remember him ever truly articulating why he hated the Drow, other than "Drow are evil and I'm a paladin so I have to hate them because I'm Good and they're not."  I feel like the hate for Mazzy, Keldorn, Cernd (who is a jab at Stupid Neutral druids), etc probably falls flat on people without a tabletop D&D background.  If you have that background, they're ****ing brilliant.

 

Durance and Grieving Mother as originally written were much more interesting and deeper.  I don't know why they were changed; I know there was some guff about inter-office politics involving Avellone, but I don't know if that's the reason.  They were definitely a LOT more dark and unpleasant than anything else in Pillars.  Pillars had some dark stuff but the original Durance and GM were pitch black ugly.  But I think that's part of what made them interesting.

 

 

 

 

I liked her romance well enough, but it needed a time skip to not be some damn cringy.

The only romance I can think of that isn't awful in an RPG is maybe male Warden and Leliana in DAO. But, if you carry it over for the rest of the series, it is super depressing. Not to mention, if the Warden dies in DAO, she commits suicide years later.

 

 

That's the hell of it.  If you ignore the whole "she's kinda your stepmom" angle and the fridge logic with how quickly she goes from leaning on a trusted friend to eye-****ing that trusted friend (remembering that she just saw her husband's gruesomely defiled corpse only days ago, most likely), her romance was actually very well-written and planned out.  Viconia is likely the best next to Anomen, simply because of how much she grows as a character (and you even have the bittersweet epilogue, unlike Aerie's disgustingly saccharine epilogue) but I thought Jaheira was actually well done if  you just pretend Khalid never existed.

 

I mean, that's what we did in BG1 isn't it?  Jaheira talks about not going on without Khalid so you conveniently get him stuck in a closet so she'll stop whining.  "Khalid who?"

 

I never said Deadfire was perfect and I do agree that fun should override balance even though I do hold it in a higher regard. I'm saying that Baldur's Gate Isn't perfect with glaring problems and people tend to be really bias towards it. The Baldur's Gate series is in like my top five favorite by the way.

 

As far as late game goes I rather enjoy not making nearly every fight irrelevant cannon fodder when (for whatever reason) a thief has the ability to make traps that stop time (somehow).

 

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

 

I actually agree with both of your strange thoughts completely. A perfectly balanced single player game (especially one where you build your own character) is boring. When everything is equal, nothing is special.

 

 

Something something "perfect imbalance."  My problem is that Obsidian went WAY too far with "we're going to do away with d20 cliches!" with their systems design.  They wanted to get rid of god stats, but we still have god stats.  They wanted to get rid of "automatic stats," but we still have automatic stats... arguably worse than anything in d20 since 3.5E.  Having to memorize a glossary to fight Mages was too annoying/too much to ask of newbies, so they got rid of buffs as more than just passive stat boosts entirely and mostly removed dispels as well.  Pre-buffing could be problematic, so they just remove it entirely.  Vancian magic is bad because it requires players to think and make judgement calls, so they remove it entirely (except for when they added it back in and gave it to every class with the ****ing Empower mechanic...) which makes balancing encounters and entire dungeons ten times more difficult.

 

See, I don't even think they're right when they claim that stats are boring in d20 games.  They aren't, especially if you consider more than just the CRB and APG for the given edition.

 

Oh, sure, your basic CRB+APG Fighter has Strength as their core stat, and will probably have some Dexterity and Constitution because they're PROBABLY a melee combatant... but Fighters get a smattering of non-combat skills which variously scale off Charisma, Intelligence, or even Wisdom - meaning you can easily justify getting at least a +1 in those stats to make your skill checks better.

 

Rogues want Dexterity, and they probably want a little Strength too if they're melee, but because they get so many skills they need Intelligence nearly as much as a Wizard, or maybe they want Charisma to be the party face.

 

The system, to me, wasn't in need of fixing.  The six stats all had clearly defined and easily understood fluff and crunch applications and the way skills tied into stats ensured that making a "dumb but strong" Fighter or Barbarian was extremely limiting - good luck playing a Barbarian with 7 Charisma, 7 Intelligence, and 7 Wisdom with a competent DM around.

 

By comparison, Pillars makes me feel like I'm playing ****ing World of Warcraft or Diablo 3 - the stats don't matter, skills barely matter.  One Fighter is pretty similar to any other Fighter.  It's a lot more accessible but I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

It's seem Josh very care about "balance"(blizzard games way or riot games way).I guess he doesn’t try to make the games boring but maybe in his view he is trying to make them equality, if each character class is equally viable to be useful maybe then they all are fun to play?

[gloomseeker]

BG was never about balance, that's for sure.

 

Some may not like that and it's finr but the truth is it kept things interesting. 

 

Playing a Beastmaster Ranger could still be done but you couldn't expect to hold a candle to a multiclass Ranger/Cleric.

 

Other kits like the Jester were deceptively weak and had some truly great potential if you care to make use of their abilities.

 

Pillars is all about balance and it shows. I personally can't say I approve of that game design philosophy as it tends to even things out.

 

BG and Pillars are on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to balance and how much it matters to you is certainly going to inform your gaming experience.

[Murp]

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you.

[Fenixp]

But the problem should be equally obvious; if you don't let people build bad characters or parties, if you don't allow them to fail, then what was the point of giving them a choice at all?

That's a terrible point; When one choice leads to success and the other one dooms you to fail, then there's no point in giving you a choice at all. When all available long-term choices are more or less equally valid then you get a system in which the game won't punish you for playing the way you want to - and isn't that the whole point of offering any sort of character customization in the first place?

[Barleypaper]

 

But the problem should be equally obvious; if you don't let people build bad characters or parties, if you don't allow them to fail, then what was the point of giving them a choice at all?

That's a terrible point; When one choice leads to success and the other one dooms you to fail, then there's no point in giving you a choice at all. When all available long-term choices are more or less equally valid then you get a system in which the game won't punish you for playing the way you want to - and isn't that the whole point of offering any sort of character customization in the first place?

 

It's also a system that wont punish you, full stop. That's the problem. I'd rather be constrained by a system that punishes thoughtless action than let loose in a bubble-wrapped sandbox.

[Manveru123]

It is literally impossible to create a system where are choices are equally valid. No matter what, something will always be stronger. You would have to make every class identical to have true balance.

[knownastherat]

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you.

 

 

Deadfire combat is more simplistic. 

[Skazz]

Can samoene explains me what's going on?

20 years after BG 2 and no one can make gamę simmilar or EVEN GREATER! than BG 2?

 

But they have already made a better game than BG2.

 

It's called Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

[Julymio]

Agree with OP.

 

For me.

Character build system: POE2 >> BG2

Romance: BG2 >> POE2

Story: BG2 > POE2 (since POE2 got good Vocal for atmosphere building and attractive cultural shock between countries, but just lack of story length.)

[Manveru123]

Lol. Bloodlines is a completely different game. It's like comparing Counter-Strike and GTA.

[Manveru123]

 

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you.

 

 

Deadfire combat is more simplistic. 

 

How can it be more simplistic when in BG2 most classes rarely did anything other than auto-attack?

[Murp]

 

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you.

 

 

Deadfire combat is more simplistic. 

 

 

How. Unless you consider kiting a "tactical strategy"

[Fenixp]

It's also a system that wont punish you, full stop. That's the problem. I'd rather be constrained by a system that punishes thoughtless action than let loose in a bubble-wrapped sandbox.

Create a front-line meele fighter that'll only wear light armor with constitution and might dropped to minimum and tell me how the game doesn't punish you.

1. Game that lets you do whatever with no consequences would be a poorly designed game.

2. Game that lets you get away with stat combinations that actually make sense without any meta-knowledge is a well designed one.

3. Game that requires you to have meta-gaming knowledge in order to get a decent character is too a poorly designed game.

 

As simple as that, pretty much. Pillars of Eternity sits firmly in the 2nd territory, whereas Baldur's Gate is much closer to the 3rd. Punishing player for something as elementary as picking a class without him having any in-game means of knowing said class is sub-par is extremely poor design.

[Manveru123]

 

It's also a system that wont punish you, full stop. That's the problem. I'd rather be constrained by a system that punishes thoughtless action than let loose in a bubble-wrapped sandbox.

Create a front-line meele fighter that'll only wear light armor with constitution and might dropped to minimum and tell me how the game doesn't punish you.

1. Game that lets you do whatever with no consequences would be a poorly designed game.

2. Game that lets you get away with stat combinations that actually make sense without any meta-knowledge is a well designed one.

3. Game that requires you to have meta-gaming knowledge in order to get a decent character is too a poorly designed game.

 

As simple as that, pretty much. Pillars of Eternity sits firmly in the 2nd territory, whereas Baldur's Gate is much closer to the 3rd. Punishing player for something as elementary as picking a class without him having any in-game means of knowing said class is sub-par is extremely poor design.

 

If you play a game, any game, where you want to be a front-line melee fighter, and you think "hey, I guess Intelligence is the most important for this kind of gameplay!", then you're punishing yourself. It's not the game's fault if the player is unable to use common sense.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Manveru123

[Fenixp]

If you play a game, any game, where you want to be a front-line melee fighter, and you think "hey, I guess Intelligence is the most important for this kind of gameplay!", then you're punishing yourself. It's not the game's fault if the player is unable to use common sense.

Precisely my point. And when a game does punish you in spite of using common sense and doing in-game research, it's not particularly well designed (common sense: When the game allows me to pick any class without warming me off, that means they're all equal, right?) Edited July 4, 2018 by Fenixp

[Manveru123]

I don't think there is an RPG game in existence that tells you "hey, this class is bad, be careful" during character creation.

[juanval]

BG1 and 2 were incredible and unique, and PoE 2 is the spiritual sucesor. I've played PoE2 for 40 hours and I love the setting, music, the lovely crafted areas, dialogues, freedom of movement, etc.

 

I hope to play some day PoE 3, in Aedyr maybe?