Opinion on the game from an old BG2 fan

[xzar_monty]

You have just described why pledging on a project of this scale -- with this amount of variables and possible pledgers, and in a wildly fluctuating industry -- is not a good idea. I understand the willingness to do so and the desire to be able to play more games in this genre, but still, it just isn't a good idea. (Please do not mistake this for an opinion against generosity. Generosity is not the question here, this is strictly business.)

Edited February 21, 2019 by xzar_monty

[Verde]

Re: Diadre

 

Agreed, but to be fair you skip it pretty quickly.

 

Also maybe it's a dev team learning the ropes. I don't know if the same team did BoW and FS but the writing is outstanding there. There is more patience in BoW, characters willing to converse more and ofcourse Rym being an ass. FS had so many eery and darkly funny parts. Can't wait to jump back in.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Verde

[Daidre]

Afaik Deadfire DLCs was made secondary (I do not want to offend anyone here) writing team. And I am kinda hopeful for FS because my experience with BoW was more favorable comparing to original game - my last run was at beginning of September (and final boss hadn't spawned that soured me a lot). It looked like writers of BoW spent more effort on telling a good story than trying to look smart with all pseudo-philosophy and long words they found in the dictionary.

 

It was similar with White March - my personal favorite in all POE. Writing there is very concise, lore-rich and, most important, never overstayed its welcome between adventuring.

 

Before P:K it was closest thing to BG and Icewind Dale I have seen in years.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Daidre

[xzar_monty]

I would have to agree that both in PoE and Deadfire, the DLCs appear to be written better than the main campaign. Which is a bit strange.

[Boeroer]

It's not really. Because in both games they had to develop a new engine including rules/mechanics, a critical path, companion relationships, dialogie system, banter trigger mechanics and so on and so forth. All that stuff makes it difficult for the designers/directors/producers to pay that much attention to the writing itself. And also the main game usually is a lot longer so you have to fill it with a longer/bigger story. You also have to explain a lot more since there are a lot of players who might not be familiar with PoE and/or the lore of Eora.

 

With DLCs most of that whole smear has been done and all attention can be spend on the cool stuff, what we would call "content". And since you have to have the main game in oder to play the DLC the writers don't need to explain so many basics but can dive deep into the interesting stuff.

 

Knowing this from my own experience (I mean redoing systems which takes away a lot of resources) I found it remarkable that Obsidian decided to completely revamp the systems instead of using most of PoEs basic framework and concentrating on "content".  

Edited February 21, 2019 by Boeroer

[Daidre]

I do not understand why they remade the system so much in Deadfire, because I liked it a lot more at the last iteration in White March 2. But in Deadfire they took all my favorite classes: Cipher, Priest, Berserker, Druid, Wizard - and systematically destroyed everything that was fun about them. 

Encounter design and difficulty took a huge drop after WM 2 too. My AI scripts, written in May 2018, was murdering they way through upscaled PoTD in BoW with barely any input from me. 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Daidre

[Verde]

They listened to fan feedback way too much about the main and companion quests, ironically two major weak spots in PoE2. I find the combat and pacing between fights to be tremendously better, tho, making PoE2 more playable.

 

And ofcourse we have Nemnok. Currently doing his quest and his dialogue and voice are hilarious.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Verde

[daven]

Havent read any of this topic.

 

I love BG2, classic... HOWEVER! After having the autofollow camera in Deadfire... I am desperate for that improvement.

[bringingyouthefuture]

Comparing P:K and Deadfire in terms of companion quests just ridiculuous. P:K has 11 companions with 2-4 quest long lines and easily x5 content. Not all of it perfect or even good, with noticable outliners like Jubilost and Nok-Nok who is amazing and Octavia & Regongar on mediocre-to-fanfiction level.

 

And Deadfire has 7 companions with quests that are... beyond dissapointing. It is only one for every character without any unique locations. Outliners are:

- Tekehu, no personal quest but ton of plot/faction involvement.

- Aloth, close to nonexistent.

- Maya/Xoti quests with glorious "do not care what you telling me I am right and you are wrong" finales.

 

Only thing I could see playing them was image of Obsidian team over spreadsheet with "How much to cut to diminish our losses" header.

 

Oh, there is also a sidekicks but whoever came up with idea should be fired. 

 

I disagree, the companion quests in PK are basically go to one area, kill something complete the quest ... yawn - with dialogue that is something between a grunt and a moan depending if you are romancing the character.  There is a few exceptions - Harim for one and the other I can think of is Tristan, maybe Nok-Nok  - their quests are embedded into the main story which is great.  Deadfire is just as much a culprit, but hands down the writing for the characters is better in Deadfire - and plainly I felt more stakes for say the companion stories they did okay with say like Eder or Serefan, I like Xoti (I may be the only one lol), Beast of Winter one is great.

 

I will say both have there good points, but I somewhat feel like PK put too much in with very little payoff, where the payoff in Deadfire is more colorful and not as simplistic in its execution.  Enough said - I will compliment PK on one character quest - if you can convince Jeathel not to kill for her final quest - that was a happy surprise

Edited February 21, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture