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How does PoE II Compare to PoE?


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https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyers-post-nv-approach-to-narrative-design-made-poe-games-fail-in-that-regard.124371/

 

My short answer is: Defining the said "range of expressions(10 different dispositions in PoE)" and not being able to fully support them.
 
So the range of expressions/dispositions is everywhere in the PoE games, we keep getting points towards one of the dispositions in nearly all conversations but reactivity for them are spread far too thin. To me there is no difference between aligning towards dispositions in PoE games and choosing "how you say the same things in different manners" in Mass Effect Andromeda. Player expression is far too overrated by Sawyer and whoever's responsible for MEA. At least in MEA we know that we won't make a difference by using different manners to accomplish the same goal, but in PoE we're led to believe we'll get consequences for behaving in certain ways, and the consequences are, again, spread too thin, ultimately aren't compelling, makes the expressions/dispositions COSMETİC which is the very thing he didn't want them to be.
 
So how FNV was much more successful narratively with the Speech/Win button? Because the player expression is what's in our heads; it isn't what is written on our character sheets. Because Choice & Consequence is far more important than HOW we make that CHOICE. If we make a choice in FNV we're getting the consequence more often than not; little or big, sooner or later but in PoE, it feels like/we're led to believe that we're making choices in every conversation and when we see the - spread too thin consequence - of our many, many "choices", guess what, its just how an NPC responds to us; won't lock us out of anything, won't give us anything special, ultimately flavor, cosmetic, whatever... If an NPC won't favor me initially cos I wasn't "honest" enough, I almost always have another stat check to accomplish the same thing anyway. Players are not allowed to fail narratively (too) I guess :D

 

The problem with POE narrative. I kindly agree this.

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Giving a 10 to Deadfire is not a realistic score. Assuming everything is perfect in regards to roleplaying games, you're left with the performance issues. That alone must bring the score down.

 

Performance issues aren't universal though. I have like a 6 year old processor but an nvidia 1060 (though apparently people are struggling with nvidias) and I have 0 performance issues.

 

What Sorcery is this ;D?

 

I honestly want to see the hanging sepulchers with all those skeletons with a firewall or two on top of that. Not being an **** here, but I'm really, really skeptical about that. :(

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Giving a 10 to Deadfire is not a realistic score. Assuming everything is perfect in regards to roleplaying games, you're left with the performance issues. That alone must bring the score down.

 

Performance issues aren't universal though. I have like a 6 year old processor but an nvidia 1060 (though apparently people are struggling with nvidias) and I have 0 performance issues.

 

What Sorcery is this ;D?

 

I honestly want to see the hanging sepulchers with all those skeletons with a firewall or two on top of that. Not being an **** here, but I'm really, really skeptical about that. :(

 

 

stuff like that is why i downgraded from running from 1440p to 1080p. but otherwise i still get smooth play experience with 1080p with all high settings. well, ok, one exception is anytime anyone casts mirror image. that spell, since 1.0, always causes dropped frames for me, no matter what my settings are--I suspect it's CPU-bound, not GPU-bound. but i wouldn't call my experience as being plagued with performance issues just because of that.

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I've got close to 40 hours clocked in now, and am definitely enjoying PoE II. It's so nice not having to obsess about bugs like I was doing with Pathfinder:Kingmaker.

 

It's definitely a good game. I haven't done much sailing yet. Once I landed in Neketaka I pretty much planted myself there and have been exploring the city. I think it's one of the best large cities I've ever encountered in a CRPG. I just now went ahead and purchased the season pass.

 

Question: is it worth it to invest in a more expensive ship? I currently have just over 30k in the bank, but there are ships that cost over 100k. Should I make getting the best ship a long term goal? Is it really worth the cost?

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You don't need the most expensive ships to take out all the bounties, and apparently the only way you'll make enough money to make back the cost of the most expensive ship is to close to board every battle which gives better rewards, and you can just close to board in the starting ship

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I am now at level 10, and I find that I have only had one naval battle. I thought there would be more of it and it would actually be a feature in the game, but apparently not. Of course it's possible that there'll be a lot later on.

 

I'm not saying this is a bad thing or a good thing, but it's been a bit of a surprise.

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Question: is it worth it to invest in a more expensive ship? 

 

Not much. If you keep your eyes open while sailing you can avoid everyone. Your speed exceeds everyone else's speed by default. If you absolutely have to go into naval combat you can just berserk and board the ship immediately at the expense of ship damage and crew injuries.

 

It seems Obsidian were not sure of their own mechanic, and were afraid to force any ship features on the player and they are all optional.

 

The only exception is doing the final quest alone. If you don't want to ally with any major faction, you need a pro ship to reach the last destination. But you can buy it at the last moment.

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I am now at level 10, and I find that I have only had one naval battle. I thought there would be more of it and it would actually be a feature in the game, but apparently not. Of course it's possible that there'll be a lot later on.

 

I'm not saying this is a bad thing or a good thing, but it's been a bit of a surprise.

 

 

 

 

 

Question: is it worth it to invest in a more expensive ship? 

 

Not much. If you keep your eyes open while sailing you can avoid everyone. Your speed exceeds everyone else's speed by default. If you absolutely have to go into naval combat you can just berserk and board the ship immediately at the expense of ship damage and crew injuries.

 

It seems Obsidian were not sure of their own mechanic, and were afraid to force any ship features on the player and they are all optional.

 

The only exception is doing the final quest alone. If you don't want to ally with any major faction, you need a pro ship to reach the last destination. But you can buy it at the last moment.

 

 

 

You don't need the most expensive ships to take out all the bounties, and apparently the only way you'll make enough money to make back the cost of the most expensive ship is to close to board every battle which gives better rewards, and you can just close to board in the starting ship

 

Thank you for these replies. As much as I don't want to spoil my game, I also don't want to waste 100k making a purchase for a supposedly foundational game feature only to find I didn't actually need to do so. From what I've read, the ship combat (i.e. the turn based, story book style part of it) isn't all that engaging or exciting. If I can just close in and take care of things with RTwP battles, than I'll probably just rely on that. Maybe just fix up the sloop with some upgrades when I'm nice and rich.

"Now to find a home for my other staff."
My Project Eternity Interview with Adam Brennecke

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I managed to get an upgraded sail and hull from completing quests. So hopefully I will have no problem outrunning ships when I want to, and catching up when I want to.

 

I'm very curious as to whether I can repossess ships of those that I board. Now that would be something! :p

"Now to find a home for my other staff."
My Project Eternity Interview with Adam Brennecke

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I also don't want to waste 100k making a purchase for a supposedly foundational game feature only to find I didn't actually need to do so.

Well, you can buy it for cosmetic purposes when you get rich (interiors and exteriors are different for different ships). And for achievements too.

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I also don't want to waste 100k making a purchase for a supposedly foundational game feature only to find I didn't actually need to do so.

Well, you can buy it for cosmetic purposes when you get rich (interiors and exteriors are different for different ships). And for achievements too.

 

I may do this if I get filthy rich in the game. I'm definitely not there yet though.

"Now to find a home for my other staff."
My Project Eternity Interview with Adam Brennecke

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I managed to get an upgraded sail and hull from completing quests. So hopefully I will have no problem outrunning ships when I want to, and catching up when I want to.

 

I'm very curious as to whether I can repossess ships of those that I board. Now that would be something! :p

 

I just had my first ship to ship battle (other than the opening of the game). It was a Principi Dhow, and it seemed to catch up to me quite easily. It had slightly stronger sails and hull but 10 crew to my 11. I got a bit battered closing the distance, but otherwise was able to win the manual ship combat with no issues. Not sure if I could have run away if I wanted to. I'll try that next, but felt I should give a battle a try first, to see what it's all about. I also need to try ship to ship combat at some point, but I'm just in such a wimpy ship!

"Now to find a home for my other staff."
My Project Eternity Interview with Adam Brennecke

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- there's no equivalent to the 15-level dungeon (closest is probably Old City or Oathkeeper's Sanctum, and both are just 3 maps each), but SSS DLC helps scratch my itch for grindy-combat.

 

 

You forgot the Drowned Barrows, that's a pretty good and large one.

 

However, it seems like the last DLC will be based on a giant dungeon, so it may fix this.

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For some bizarre reason, they removed the autosave function that POE 1 had, so if the game crashes, you lose everything you did that day. I guess to make the game harder? It seems like a really bad decision that just leads to frustration.

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For some bizarre reason, they removed the autosave function that POE 1 had, so if the game crashes, you lose everything you did that day. I guess to make the game harder? It seems like a really bad decision that just leads to frustration.

The game is autosaving for me. I'm not playing on ironman, nor do I ever because I hate being one crash away from losing all my progress.

"Now to find a home for my other staff."
My Project Eternity Interview with Adam Brennecke

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For some bizarre reason, they removed the autosave function that POE 1 had, so if the game crashes, you lose everything you did that day. I guess to make the game harder? It seems like a really bad decision that just leads to frustration.

You're either on iron Man mode or you have a mod. Autosave is table stakes in any game these days.

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I've seen recent PoE 2 crashes... that's quite lame considering there is a Trial of Iron in the game. 

 

Pillars of Eternity 1 also crashed and worse, had bugs that could result you in dying (infamous one: trying to drink a potion and then your character becomes completely unresponsive to anything... even if you somehow won the fight (possible with paladin's healing/fire aura) the combat wouldn't end). I ultimately had to save scum my The Ultimate run because I had literally a handful of runs fail because of these bugs. (Objectively, they are a far far worse outcome than any crash PoE2 has or had.) With all due respect to Obsidian, no one should do a trial of iron type run in any of their games without keeping backups of your saves. If the rumors are true and Microsoft does buy Obsidian I hope that means they can throw a lot of money at Q&A.

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