Your PoE Pros and Cons: 5 and 5

[Gfted1]

^I am under the impression that the "deep stash" inventory is unlimited regardless of party size or strength / might. Can you point me to the relevant link?

[Mannock]

 

 

This is my last post on the topic. You can have the last word Mannock.

 

 

Nah, I hijacked the thread so I am to blame. I'll give my pro's and con's instead.

 

Pro

 

• Focus on story and interaction with NPCs.

   

• The story book sequences.

   

• No (or very little) VO. Saves a lot of resources that can go into more important parts of the game.

   

• I like what they have done with the classes. No dump stats and such. It sounds good in theory at the very least. Will be interesting to try it out.

   

• The character portraits. A small detail but adds a lot of IE-feeling.

 

 

Con

 

• No romance.

   

• Bottomless stash. It would have been okay if it was only accessible at the stronghold, but having access to it when camping out in the woods is just wrong. Part of the IE-games fun was making hard decisions of what to keep and what to toss away.

   

• No modding tools. It's not a super big deal, but I think it would have increased chances for someone creating romances for the game.

   

• Biting off a bit more than they can chew. I'm a bit worried they have promised too much. So much that the game won't live up to a lot of people's expectations, including my own. There is also a lot of nostalgia involved when it comes to the IE-games and it's hard to trump that.

   

• 6 more months (or so).

[Sensuki]

^I am under the impression that the "deep stash" inventory is unlimited regardless of party size or strength / might. Can you point me to the relevant link?

 

I thought that was cut. I hope it was anyway.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Sensuki

[Mor]

^I am under the impression that the "deep stash" inventory is unlimited regardless of party size or strength / might. Can you point me to the relevant link?

Stash is unlimited, but not accessible during combat or your adventures for withdrawal, unless you rest (which is also a limited resource, based on your supplies). Packs is what counts when outfiting your party for upcoming challenges, and is both limited and effected by party size and strength/might. While stash is mostly where you throw all the meaningless loot spam which will be traded once you come back to civilization. Edited June 26, 2014 by Mor

[Labadal]

Forgot to mention the most obvious pro: No publisher involvement.

[Zombra]

It's interesting to see so many arguing against romance, and all apparently with the same reason: they don't like bad writing.  Nobody seems to be against the subject matter itself, as long as it's written well.  Maybe we should be looking for authors in other mediums (particularly those in which romance is secondary) who actually do write it well, and apply those lessons to romance in games.

[Amentep]

• Made by Obsidian
• Isometric, RTwP, party based game
• unique setting
• Loads of class/race combinations
• potential for non-combat skills to really be useful through the whole game

 

• Have to wait until December
• So many Class/Race combinations will mean I'll restart a lot
• potential for increased utility of non-combat skills to make combat undesirable
• deep stash sounds like a potential solution to packratitis but could also be a mess but this is more "wary" than true negative
• I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell

[LordCrash]

 

 

Unfortunately though, the underlying flaw in every single one of the BG2 romances is that mature or not, they're simply mediocre writing on display. As much as people praise David Gaider as some industry Poet Laureate, he's nothing of the sort. All his material is cringingly cliché. I don't think I've ever read a single unique idea from him.

 

 

Did David Gaider write any of the romances in BG2? I know Luke Kristjansen was the main writer of the Jaheira romance.

 

 

Maybe that's the reason why the Jaheira romance actually was quite good.... 

[Elerond]

Pros:

Isometric party based gameplay that mimics tabletop rpgs.

Setting that with current information seems to broke free from many fantasy clichés, but still offering familiarity and seems to be build in way I prefer fantasy world to be build

Scripted event screens

High variety in classes

Objective based experience

 

Cons:

I would like to see bit more simulation in mechanics than what they seems to have

Two year wait build lots of expectations 

No romances

Waiting don't stop in release of PoE as there is also expansion coming after it

I may lose my reason to come here constantly, when game is released

Edited June 26, 2014 by Elerond

[Yonjuro]

It's interesting to see so many arguing against romance, and all apparently with the same reason: they don't like bad writing.  

 

 The other issue (I suppose you could include this as bad writing) was that in BG2 there wasn't a polite way to shut down the romance plots - you had to choose the rude dialog options which often seemed out of character. 

 

Nobody seems to be against the subject matter itself, as long as it's written well. 

 

 I'm not against it, but I'm also not interested. It will be game content that I never see if it is included. I would prefer to be able to do any companion related quest material without following a romance plot.

[eLeF]

Pros:

No romance

New world with unique races

Cipher class

Great story, characters and dialoge

New rules system, less difficult and more approachable than dnd

 

Cons:

Strong possibility that the game will feel tired and dated

Very little voice acting

So much text that my eyes will bleed

I will probably get my ass kicked a lot even on easy difficulty

There is still a long time to wait

[aluminiumtrioxid]

It would be an RPG aspect if the option to kill everything yielded the same (or relatively similar) XP rewards as "pacifying" everything. Because therein lies meaningful choice. But as it stands, this will only be the case when an enemy(s) is part of a quest objective. And even THAT would be fine with me, if it wasn't for the fact that this game is also exploration heavy. You have a world to explore. And lets say you're role playing a wandering, individualistic-minded Barbarian who enjoys killing things. So here's your "choice":

 

1) Go off and explore the wilderness before anyone gives you a quest objective to do so. Result: you miss out on tons of XP because you end up killing things without an in game quest objective to do so

2) Break character and become a patient and obedient mercenary who only kills when asked, and only explores when he's given a reason to by someone else

 

 

Lets see....I'm a role player, but I'm no LARP'er. I'll be doing #2. It'd be a stupid waste of time to do #1, since there's no XP for kills.

 

 

Or 3) they could give out xp for exploring areas, or 4) let exploration in itself lead to quests without forcing you to engage with quest giver NPCs?

[LordCrash]

I think we should stop thinking about romances as some part of "special feature". Clever writing should include romantic moments in the regular storyline and dialogues. Bioware came up with this "press X to start romance Y" crap but it's no natural law that you have to follow that route. Also "romance" is a quite big word. There can and should be romance which doesn't involve a serious relationship or sex or whatever. The human palette of love, romance, flirting and stuff is way bigger and more complex than that "either you date that girl or you give her a rude answer".

I agree that this was also apparent in BG2. But let's be honest: that was 14 years ago and time, money, experience and tech was limited. There is just no excuse to follow exact the same route again today and making the same mistake. I think romance (or all the variations of human love and affection) as a general human motive should be of course in the game but not necessarily as a predefined "outcome" of choosing a "predefined" set of answers in dialogue. This is too obvious, too limited in both writing, effort and effect. I hope Obisidian won't do it that way. The whole palette of love and hate should be apparent in every dialogue and every interaction with NPCs and companions in various degrees. That's how we humans act: we cannot interact without emotions involved. It's just that our real motivations and emotions are complex and often not that obvious.

[bonarbill]

 

 

To be fair, in Bioware games, a romance doesn't have to be forced upon you to be overly intrusive and thus constitute a game flaw. How many times have we all played those games and simply been nice to our squadmates/party members, because we don't wish to be total douchebags.... only to have one of those party members 'misinterpret' the situation, start flirting with you, and the next thing you know, you're stuck in a Rut: You either have to Let them down (ie. be a douchebag), or go along with it (oh hey, you're now in a Romance that you didn't want)

 

Is that really true? I remember in DA2 I told Anders I just wanted to be friends and I don't remember any issues, he may have sulked ...but he was still in my party and played an active role in combat. I don't think he asked again, so in 50 hours of gameplay I didn't consider a 3 minute dialogue with him as intrusive or a game flaw....what am I missing?

 

For the most part it's not true at all. However in DA:O it's very easy to trigger a romance with Leliana after doing her companion quest with fairly innocuous dialogue choices. /end off topic

 

 

As someone who played a lot of DA:O, I can assure you that can only romance her if you pick any dialogs that show romantice interest.  IIRC, you only get 2 chances to do this.

 

And I see no problem with locking content to romances as long as it makes sense.  It was a bit of bummer that you couldn't do the rest of Anomen's quest without the romance.  Logically, the later part of his quest would have worked fine without romancing him.

Edited June 26, 2014 by bonarbill

[Gromnir]

Cons

 

1) class-based system

 

why? Why? if greater customization is indeed a goal, why limit particular abilities to a specific class? other than meeting expectations o' those who played the ie games, we cannot see value in a game that is aiming for great individual character customization, while locking a player into a class.

 

2) classes can fulfill any/most roles

 

flip side of first con is that if you is gonna indeed have classes in the game, then what is the point o' making them so malleable? 

 

3) animancy

 

something is missing. developers analogizing to stem cell research makes us think either we don't know enough 'bout the setting, or that this unique aspect o' the setting were not as well considered as the developers were thinking. the whole scenario in which nobles and rich folks voluntarily make selves guinea pigs is acceptable in extreme rare cases, but not such as would result in plentiful undead. something strikes us as being... off.

 

4) godlike

 

yeah, am knowing assimar and tiefling and gensai were popular in d&d, but "godlike"? even if this race ends up being better than it sounds, how drunk did you need be to come up with "godlike"? how many at obsidian needed to be drunk to agree that "godlike" were a good choice.

 

5) monks

 

no, poe monks need not be unarmed and unarmoured fighters, but that is what they are. cain mentioned that there will be situations in which a monk will benefit from donning armour or using a sword, but if such examples is situational, then why bother mentioning. if poe developers really wanted to make the bruce lee and chuck norris fans happy, they should just have made unarmed and unarmoured combat viable... period. monks as a class is a waste.

 

Pros

 

1) obsidian

 

we typical like obsidian games, but we haven't bothered to purchase ap, ds 3 or south park. am hoping that this title represents a needed sea change.

 

2) quest based xp

 

xp for specific actions is making balancing unnecessarily complex.  am knowing that folks get a little thrill when they see that they got 23 xp for unlocking a door and 5 xp for each goblin killed, but it makes so much more sense to reward xp for successful completion of quests and let players decide what is best way to accomplish their goal. yeah, am suspecting that developers could spend loads o' time figuring out how to balance various xp awards so that different play styles gets same pay-out, but why bother? quest rewards is simple and elegant alternative to such balancing alternatives.

 

3) customization

 

there would appear to be a great deal o' customization options. this is an assumption based on fact that we has been told there will be many opportunities to customize, so we is taking claims at face value.

 

4) no romances

 

to waste effort on what needs be a largely insular and tangential companion side quest that will necessarily be seeming rushed or juvenile 'cause o' limited opportunities to engage in love-talk would be near criminal in a game development with limited resources. 

 

5) not a licensed setting (coulda' been a con btw)

 

the game mechanics should fit the world and vice-versa as the developers is building from scratch. is no need for developers to ask license holder for permission to add a class or kill an npc. is no canon for fans to rail 'bout. etc. am optimistic 'cause this is all obsidian's game.

 

'course, is no safety the license provides. obsidian developers, many o' whom brought up their work on the ie games in various interviews, has made many wonderful games that were sequels and or having a license for the obsidians to build 'pon. ps:t, iwd, how, totl, iwd2, kotor2, nwn2, motb, soz, fo:nv, ds3, and south park were all games in which the developers working with the benefit and curse o' license. ap is only recent game that obsidian has built setting and mechanics and, well, it were not exact a commercial success.

 

am recognizing that many o' our pros and cons could be going the opposite way, but til we at least see beta, we can't commit more than we has.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Messier-31]

This game is just too awesome. I have things to do. I can't be spending 100s of hours on this. Damn you Obsidian!!!!!

 

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Cons

 

1) class-based system

 

why? Why? if greater customization is indeed a goal, why limit particular abilities to a specific class? other than meeting expectations o' those who played the ie games, we cannot see value in a game that is aiming for great individual character customization, while locking a player into a class.

 

2) classes can fulfill any/most roles

 

flip side of first con is that if you is gonna indeed have classes in the game, then what is the point o' making them so malleable? 

 

 

4) godlike

 

yeah, am knowing assimar and tiefling and gensai were popular in d&d, but "godlike"? even if this race ends up being better than it sounds, how drunk did you need be to come up with "godlike"? how many at obsidian needed to be drunk to agree that "godlike" were a good choice.

 

The answer to 1-2 is, I guess, partially "it's supposed to be an IE successor game" and partially "thematic coherence". I think there is value in differentiating between characters who draw their special powers from their connection with nature / personal faith / study / martial practice, even if they all fuel this with the power of their souls. Also, you can have fun class-based reactivity you couldn't otherwise.

 

 

Also, godlike (especially death godlike) are awesome. As someone has so eloquently put it, "(they have) bony scabs that have grown over the void that exists on the Death Godlike's face, the hole from which all that darkness leaks out. I think if you removed the bony growth all you'd see is darkness tingled with the essence of death leaking out from a hole in thier face." 

 

You could totally write at least half a black metal album's worth of lyrics around that

Edited June 26, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Gromnir]

am recognizing that class were part o' ie traditions. that is the reason we mentioned 'bout "meeting expectations" o' the fans. that being said, we see no value at all in the thematic stuff. is no reason why any character in game should be prevented from choosing to identify as a priest o' _________ or thief from ________ or whatever. could very easily add a list o' professions and/or backgrounds that the game would be equal reactive to w/o having special powers attaching to them. such a method would be far easier for developers to add such, and would allow more freedom for players-- same reactivity.

 

as for godlike... am as much disturbed by the name as anything else. godlike? seriously? get a room full o' 8-year-olds with a box o' nilla wafers and some milk and we bet they come up with a better name before nap time.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Lephys]

----------- PROSE (little joke there):

 

 

1) The fact that Obsidian has full control/free creative license over this entire thing. I expect to see the goodness of their previous games, but on steroids this time.

 

2) Combat's tactical nougat-y center! I love that many abilities have multiple uses (like that Druid [i think?] boulder spell that crushes stuff, OR explodes into piercing shrapnel if it strikes a solid surface instead of a target first.) And a lot of them play with a lot more combat factors than just "where am I hitting, and how much/what kind of damage am I doing and/or am I applying some effect?", not to mention that a lot of other abilities actually play with the various effects. Engagement... the list goes on.

 

3) All new ruleset from the ground up. It's reminiscent of what we've known for a while now, but it's hand-crafted specifically for a cRPG, instead of just adapted from a not-quite-cRPG-friendly tabletop ruleset meant for a GM with free reign, etc.

 

4) Scripted interactions and the reputation system -- Extra choices and consequences/significance. 8D!

 

5) Wizards! Because sorcery.

 

 

----------- KHANS (now with 50% more pun!):

 

1) The amount of Debbie Downer negativity I have to wade through on a weekly basis in order to follow and discuss this game project.

 

2)... No Lightning Whip? *shrug*

 

3) ... ... Ehhh... the fact that there's probly lots of stuff they'd love to put in that lies beyond the scope of their budget, so it won't be in the game?

 

4) ... ... ... ... ... I got nothin'. o_o

[Shevek]

Pro

1. No romances - YAY!

2. Stronghold - What Cain has cooked up here looks awesome.

3. Camping/Resource Management - Awesome, I was hoping for something like this.

4. "Mundane Fantasy" aesthetic - way better than all the anime fantasy outfits in games nowadays

5. Adventure hall - I was thrilled when this was put in

 

Con

1. No xp for battles - Disappointing... This is a combat heavy game right?

2. No multiclassing - M/C was one of the best bits of the old IE games

3. Animations still rumored to be stiff by gaming media

4. Godlike traits overwrite racial traits; I would like Godlike traits to vary a bit by race

5. Weapon balance with DT system they have sounds tricky

[Gromnir]

 

Cons

 

1) class-based system

 

why? Why? if greater customization is indeed a goal, why limit particular abilities to a specific class? other than meeting expectations o' those who played the ie games, we cannot see value in a game that is aiming for great individual character customization, while locking a player into a class.

 

2) classes can fulfill any/most roles

 

flip side of first con is that if you is gonna indeed have classes in the game, then what is the point o' making them so malleable? 

 

 

4) godlike

 

yeah, am knowing assimar and tiefling and gensai were popular in d&d, but "godlike"? even if this race ends up being better than it sounds, how drunk did you need be to come up with "godlike"? how many at obsidian needed to be drunk to agree that "godlike" were a good choice.

 

The answer to 1-2 is, I guess, partially "it's supposed to be an IE successor game" and partially "thematic coherence". I think there is value in differentiating between characters who draw their special powers from their connection with nature / personal faith / study / martial practice, even if they all fuel this with the power of their souls. Also, you can have fun class-based reactivity you couldn't otherwise.

 

 

Also, godlike (especially death godlike) are awesome. As someone has so eloquently put it, "(they have) bony scabs that have grown over the void that exists on the Death Godlike's face, the hole from which all that darkness leaks out. I think if you removed the bony growth all you'd see is darkness tingled with the essence of death leaking out from a hole in thier face." 

 

You could totally write at least half a black metal album's worth of lyrics around that

 

side note:

 

one practical advantage o' classes we failed to recognize is that frequent the developers o' classless systems is not always doing a particular good job. fallout gets held up as kinda a great example o' a classless system, but obsidian developers has noted in the past that there were a bare handful o' common builds that were actual played by the overwhelming majority o' purchasers o' fallout.  am not certain o' how they came up with such conclusions, but am not seeing any advantage they woulda' gotten from misleading us. thus, a poor balanced classless system may only provide an illusion o' unlimited customization when in fact it is providing fewer practical options than a similar class-based system.  if you gots a class-based system with 10+ classes that is all genuine appealing, then perhaps you end up with greater replayability than at least some classless systems.  'course, such a situation presupposes that the developers could not develop a more... egalitarian (?) classless system. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Stun]

 

Unfortunately though, the underlying flaw in every single one of the BG2 romances is that mature or not, they're simply mediocre writing on display. As much as people praise David Gaider as some industry Poet Laureate, he's nothing of the sort. All his material is cringingly cliché. I don't think I've ever read a single unique idea from him.

 

Did David Gaider write any of the romances in BG2? I know Luke Kristjansen was the main writer of the Jaheira romance.

 

He wrote Anomen and Viconia

[Zombra]

Nobody seems to be against [romantic] subject matter itself, as long as it's written well. 

 

 I'm not against it, but I'm also not interested. It will be game content that I never see if it is included. I would prefer to be able to do any companion related quest material without following a romance plot.

 

Again, chalk this up to writing quality.  I never finished BG2, so I can't comment directly on how it was handled, but from what I'm seeing here, several characters were written only as romance-fodder; you could either be enemies (but still hang out) or lovers, but nothing else.  I don't think anyone wants to see that in future games.  You should be able to romantically reject someone without destroying the entire relationship (even if this is not always true in real life ).

 

It's OK with me if occasional quest material is "for lovers only", and then only if the writing makes sense that it wouldn't come up among "just good friends".  I don't need to see every quest on every playthrough; just like there can be assassin quests that my paladin will never do.  But yeah, at least 9 times out of 10, if a character has something they need help with, they'll want help from a strong leader even if they're not screwing them, and it won't make sense to gate that content.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Zombra

[Sarex]

----------- KHANS (now with 50% more pun!):

 

1) The amount of Debbie Downer negativity I have to wade through on a weekly basis in order to follow and discuss this game project.

 

On the flip side, the amount of Obsidian white-knighting I have to wade trough to get to any meaningful discussion.

[Lephys]

On the flip side, the amount of Obsidian white-knighting I have to wade trough to get to any meaningful discussion.

Fair enough. The two are not mutually exclusive.