help me figure out how to enjoy this game

[bradu]

 I really liked this game at the start, but I quickly found that I had a hard time getting into it. I played for like an hour 2 or 3 times, never really got sucked in to where I wnted to keep playing and playing.

Anyway, I think I finally figured out what it is that's keeping me from getting into it. I almost feel like it's too complicated for me, like I'm missing out on really basic stuff about combat that's making the game difficult for me.

I rolled up a Druid. Thought it would be cool to be able to change into an animal. But I start out the game with like 10 different AoE spells, and they all seem essentially the same with slight differences. I never know when to use which spell. It reminds me a little bit of when I first got BG2 and hadn't played BG1 in a long time. I open up the game and I have this party of 6 and the spellcasters have like 30 spells, and everyone's got tons of different abilities, and it was all too much! I was like "whatever happened to the days of just doing Magic Missile if you need to hit 1 target, sleep if you need to hit a group?"

The other thing that's getting me is that I seem to waste 1-2 spells at the start of every battle. I sneak around, come across a mob, and I've got the jump on them! I set off a couple of spells....and then the bad guys come running up and engage me and my spells miss them! What am I supposed to do, just wait til they engage before I set up my spells, giving them the initiative?

And last, and this one is all my own fault and just personal preference....I'm not a huge fan of too much dialogue/story in games. I realize that's what most people love about this game. But I find myself just trying to click through the dialogue so I can get on to fighting. My favorite part about RPG games is always the loot, that chance that the next mob or treasure chest has a cool magic item or a weapon/armor upgrade for me.

Anyway, I want to give it a real go. Maybe I need to start over with a more straightforward fighter. Or, my personal favorite, a rogue. I thought I'd try a non-Rogue for once but maybe that was my mistake. I'll end up with spellcasters in the party anyway.

[luzarius]

1. allocate 45 minutes to playing.

2. start a new game

3. set the difficulty to normal and turn on trial of iron.

4. listen to the introduction and every line of dialogue.

5. make your character

6. turn on all the helpers in the options menu

7. listen to every single line of dialogue and roleplay

8. during combat go slow and think about your choices

9. once you reach gilded vale, take a break.

[Tigranes]

Of course enemies will start running at you, instead of standing still watching you kill them. Cast your spell estimating where they will be. Same principle as, say, throwing a grenade at a moving enemy in a FPS.

 

If you don't like having to choose between more than a couple of spells and if you don't like reading dialogue, this game may not be for you. But if you do want to give it another try, yes, playing a fighter, ranger, or paladin would be the most straightforward. You can also hire custom adventurers at the inn. You can go entirely without a wizard, or at least carry only one.

[PrimeJunta]

AoE spell techniques:

 

Technique 1: Start out with your caster up front. Open with a cone-shaped spell directed at the enemy. They'll start running at you, and the spell will hit them in the face. Then pull back and close the gap with melee fighters. Works great as an opening, especially with druids and wizards.

 

Technique 2: Start out with your melee duded in front, caster(s) behind and to the side. Engage. Then flank with your caster(s), targeting carefully that you'll burn the enemy but not the friendlies.

 

Or you could just use the circular AoE spells like Chill Fog -- wait until everyone's engaged, then drop the spell where it's useful for maximum effect. 

 

Also, don't forget debuffs -- many of the harder enemies will barely get a scratch from the direct damage spells unless debuffed first.

[Eggnog]

If you find yourself clicking through dialogue so you can get on to the fighting, this may not be the game for you.  If you are wanting to get on to the fighting so you can get at the awesome loot, this may not be the game for you.  Pillars is an old-school CRPG, not a Diablo-esque action looter game.  It's driven by dialogue and story.  You will have to alter your mindset a bit to enjoy it. 

[anameforobsidian]

Three things:

1.  If you want a more passive party with less active abilities, try buying a fighter or two barbarian mercenaries.  That way your party will be durable, and you'll have that IE feel of sending most of your party members off and focusing on the mage and cleric.

2.  It's frequently better to wait until they engage to AoE.  This is especially true of druids with their storm powers.

3.  Once you're past Gilded Vale, try doing the Endless Dungeons in Caed Nua.  15 levels of monster bashing, with some dialogue, but less than the rest of the game.  It's almost like a separate dungeon runner hidden inside an exploration / story based RPG.

[Psychevore]

Hit s at start of combat.

[ioci]

if you already dont like this game, why force yourself to find a way to enjoy it?

dont waste any more time. this is what i would say to myself when i bought a game finally turns out that i dont like it. some games appear to have figures which you r interested in, but after playing them, u found yourself not quite agree with the idea that the devs are trying to show you. its a kind of frustrated cause you probably spented money on it, o even waited for its release, but when you realize this game is not for you. just leave it, its the only way to help you from losing more things valuable. and its even worse to change yourself just for a game, its just a game after all, not some kind of food that can keep you healthy.

[Zahar]

Frankly, I think the game is good enough for you to try and understand the combat system. My first character was also a Druid, so I think I understand your confusion.

At first I also felt movement was too fast to allow proper usage of tactics, specially with ranged characters. So here are my 2 cents:

Combat is not too movement oriented. You just position your team in a way yor tanks engage enemy runners and then DPS things to death. In case the fight is harder, you also crowd control and debuff, using your precious per rest abilities. Crowd control is specially powerful, remember to grab those abilities when leveling up if you have the chance.

At the very start (solo part), you'll need to either avoid fighting or sneak to nuke or disable (with a fast spell, spell speed is listed on the top of the spell description) and proceed to a fast kill in animal form. Don't worry, you'll only be alone for the first minutes into the game and your animal form will destroy low level enemies, so your should be fine. If some enemy is too hard, it's not the time to fight them, you can come back later.

Once you reach the first inn, hire 2 characters. I recomend a priest and a tank, warriors are the most straightforward tanks, but a paladin, monk or barbarian can work too. Without spoilers, you'll start gathering story NPCs soon too, so you'll have  (at least) a 5 person group in no time.

Use the formation button to make sure your team always move with the tanks in the front. Also, every character must be given some points in Stealth - 1 is enough at start, try to have at least 3 by lv 5. That way your group can reach a place where you can cast without breaking stealth or at least being detected fairly slow. Also, remember to enter the options and choose the auto-pause for end of ability cast and everything else you feel like you're missing in the first fights. You can change that later if you thing the game becomes too slow.

After you have this setup, this is the modus operandi:

1 - go to the distance you already know you can reach without being detected. Move with right mouse (hold and drag) to adjust your formation orientation;
2 - with the game paused, use casters and ranged DPS to nuke or disable the enemies from stealth with fast or normal speed spells (at druid's first level I'd use Talon's Reach and wizard's slicken);

3 - using the pause (if you enabled it, auto-pause exactly when the spells are cast), order your tanks to engage the melee enemies that started to run toward your team (they will not allow enemies to leave melee, there's a system in the game making leaving melee complicated, and usually the AI will not try it - for more info, there's a link: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Melee_Engagement).

4 - DPS stuff to death - try to focus fire so you'll kill faster;

5 - profit.

If you're into a harder fight or against enemies that reach your glass cannons, crowd control them (anything works, their spells, warrior takedowns, etc) so they no longer have a melee engagement zone and then run away from them with the fragile characters. Fast as hell movement means you'll be far in a second anyway, and by that time a melee character must be close to the enemy so he can't follow. Also, remember to use your priest to buff at the start of the fight, specially against spells - with time you'll know wich spell is resisted by wich defense and automatically decide the buff priorities. If you don't need defenses but it's a fight you're expending per rest abilities, buff attacks instead so you can kill faster.
 

Also, as you level up and learn more stealth levels, you'll be able to cast slower spells from stealth (stealth is only broken when the spell is cast, not during the cast time), so you can use more devastating openers against hard mobs. Calling the World's Maw, for instance, is simply amazing, high AoE DPS and crowd control.

Hope that helps. PoE is an amazing game even if you're not fond of the combat system. And after learning it I really like that system.

Cheers.

[sim-h]

The 1st level priest Stop spell and 2nd level Cipher paralyze effect, plus the wizard 2nd level Fetid Caress spell are all awesome low risk openers. You can pick single targets off from range and get at least one kill before any mobs reach you - or concentrate on other enemies and leave the paralyzed guy. Coupled with Charm effects, these are the best ways to win harder fights imo. Also get your fighter in Defender mode so he ties up three attackers. I ruined the integrity of my Trial of Iron game by forgetting to set Defender mode on .

[Emptiness]

help me figure out how to enjoy this game

 

No.

 

To elaborate, based on what you are saying in your OP, this just isn't the game for you.  You're looking for something more along the lines of Diablo, where the combat is in the forefront and the story is an afterthought.

[Faerunner]

As others have said, it sounds like you just jumped into this game expecting it to be like other games you've played, rather than slowing down, taking your time, assessing what combat entails, and seeing what this game has to offer. Also that at the beginning of every combat encounter you just charge at enemies or throw random spells at them, expecting combat mechanics to be like in other games you've played and then being surprised that combat works differently here.

 

All I can really say is slow down. Take your time. During combat, pause frequently, read the spell descriptions, assess the situation, use spells and moves based on what seems appropriate for the situation, and watch to see how it affects the enemy. If it has the desired result, keep doing it. If it has an undesired result (like missing the target because they moved or causing friendly fire to your allies), then figure out why it didn't work and try to avoid that next time.

 

However, there is one thing:

 

And last, and this one is all my own fault and just personal preference....I'm not a huge fan of too much dialogue/story in games. I realize that's what most people love about this game. But I find myself just trying to click through the dialogue so I can get on to fighting. My favorite part about RPG games is always the loot, that chance that the next mob or treasure chest has a cool magic item or a weapon/armor upgrade for me.

 

You'll probably need to change that outlook then, or else this game is not for you.

 

First off, this game has a fairly significant emphasis on dialogue and story. And reading. Lots and lots of reading. If you skip all the reading, you're skipping a lot of what this game has to offer. The dungeon crawling and combat, while enjoyable in its own right once you get used to it, is not the central focus of the game. The combat is a means to advance the story and explore the world, not a flimsy, skippable pretext to throw lots of mobs, loot, dungeons, and treasure chests at you.

 

Secondly, in fact, this game doesn't place a huge emphasis on loot, cool magic items, or weapon/armor upgrades. Anyone here can tell you. Most of the stuff you find is rather plain and average, and not significantly stronger than that average sword or crossbow you picked up at the start of the game. Not that cool loot or magical items don't exist, but it's also not as common as you think.

 

So, yeah. I'd adjust this mindset, or else accept that Pillars of Eternity is probably not for you.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Faerunner

[Atheosis]

 

help me figure out how to enjoy this game

 

No.

 

To elaborate, based on what you are saying in your OP, this just isn't the game for you.  You're looking for something more along the lines of Diablo, where the combat is in the forefront and the story is an afterthought.

 

 

And really, it's not even a "no", it's an "I can't".  A person's enjoyment of lack thereof is entirely their thing, and no one can "help" either way.

[76prophet]

PoE is a wonderful game. However, it may just not be the game you want it to be, which is a drag...but that's happens. God I had such high hopes for Dragon Age 2 (what a massive massive let down)!

 

Anywho. A couple people in this thread have offered some solid advice. Maybe once you get a firmer idea of the mechanics and flow of combat, you'll find better enjoyment. I'd go through what has been suggested. If, after you've got a decent handle on the mechanics and whatnot, you're still not into it, then you're just not into it.  That's cool. I don't like soft cheese but other people do.

[bradu]

Thanks a lot guys. I'm gonna give it a go here in a few and wind down for the night.

 

I'm gonna take a couple notes on the combat advice a couple of you gave in particular.

 

As for the 'just give up, this isn't the game for you, go play diablo' type of responses, you guys 'might' be right, but I came here because I didn't want to give up yet.

 

For what it's worth, I never played Diablo. And while I  like the combat and especially the loot in RPGs, it's not that I want TONS of loot...what usually ruins a game for me is TOO much loot. My favorite games of all-time are the Elder Scrolls series and BG1/ID1. Also going way back to NES, the original Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, and Ultima Exodus.

 

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback.