RPGCodex Review #1 - Hŵrpa Dwrp

[Nonek]

Trifle harsh review, Poe has its faults but is all in all is a good game.

[gunman78]

Baldur's Gate or Arcanum are a totally different league. Even the world map in these games is twice as large. I have quickly counted locations on the world map and there are (I may have missed a few):

 

30 in PoE

50(55) in BG(expansion)

64 in Arcanum

Edited April 23, 2015 by gunman78

[Amentep]

So not liking Imoens voice is a factual error?

Imoen's voice is done by a voice actress

→ Voice actresses are hired due to availability, cost and talent

→ → A Voice actress of no talent is not worth the cost, even if available

Therefore Imoen's Voice Actress must be talented

 

People with talent are good at what they do

→ People who are good at what they do cannot, by definition, be bad at what they do

→ → Imoen's voice actress is therefore good at doing voice actressing

→ → → A good voice actress will have a good voice, or not be a good voice actress

Therefore, Imoen's voice is good

 

People like things that are good

→ People don't like things that are bad

Therefore people must like Imoen's voice because it is good.

 

QED¹

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

¹For sufficiently forgiving versions of logic

Edited April 23, 2015 by Amentep

[Sacred_Path]

The conclusion is pretty silly for anyone with any history of playing PC RPG's - and the author fails to make fitting comparisons, apart from praising the obligatory MotB and, for whatever reason, Icewind Dale. Apart from that, I agree with some points.

[archangel979]

 

 

I hate to be this blunt, but...

 

That review is ****. It is. Obsidian's "worst game of all time"? Really???

 

There are plenty of problems with PoE. Plenty. I'm not denying that. But it is a very good game nonetheless. This isn't a review, it's a rant. It's rife with misunderstandings of basic game mechanics, which makes all his criticisms of the mechanics suspect at best.. and the fact that he couldn't think of a single thing to praise other than the aesthetics and the music is silly. This is a troll review at best. It's very clear that the reviewer went into it looking to take every single complaint he had about the game and magnify it to the point of ridiculousness.

 

Sorry, Sensuki... I've gotta disagree with you 100% here. This review is the Codex at its worst. And I say that not in a "the Codex is terrible" sense, but in a "this is the kind of thing that gives the Codex a bad name" sense.

 

Got to go with Matt on this one Sens. Pillars of Eternity, for all it's flaws, is still 100x times more entertaining than BG1 and BG2 for me.

I think you need to finally leave the prologue of PoE.

[WebShaman]

To be blunt - I can compare BG:EE to PoE.

 

Let that sink in.

 

They are both made recently.

 

Fact is, nobody forced Obs to create their own IP, Mechanics, yadda yadda yadda.  They did it willingly, without being forced to.

 

So yes, any game that was created recently is in the running for comparison.

[WebShaman]

 

 

I hate to be this blunt, but...

 

That review is ****. It is. Obsidian's "worst game of all time"? Really???

 

There are plenty of problems with PoE. Plenty. I'm not denying that. But it is a very good game nonetheless. This isn't a review, it's a rant. It's rife with misunderstandings of basic game mechanics, which makes all his criticisms of the mechanics suspect at best.. and the fact that he couldn't think of a single thing to praise other than the aesthetics and the music is silly. This is a troll review at best. It's very clear that the reviewer went into it looking to take every single complaint he had about the game and magnify it to the point of ridiculousness.

 

Sorry, Sensuki... I've gotta disagree with you 100% here. This review is the Codex at its worst. And I say that not in a "the Codex is terrible" sense, but in a "this is the kind of thing that gives the Codex a bad name" sense.

 

Got to go with Matt on this one Sens. Pillars of Eternity, for all it's flaws, is still 100x times more entertaining than BG1 and BG2 for me.

I think you need to finally leave the prologue of PoE.

 

Single most hilarious post on these forums!

 

My hat to you, good sir!  You have missed your calling as a comedian!

[Amentep]

To be blunt - I can compare BG:EE to PoE.

 

Let that sink in.

Okay. Not sure what it means, but its sunk as far as it'll go.

 

You could, legitimately, compare PoE with any game (BG:EE too).  Regardless of age.  Its all fair as long as you can reason well and get across your meaning and intent.

 

They are both made recently.

I'll conceed both were published recently.

 

I'd argue that a remake of a decades old game being published now and a newly created game aren't entirely the same thing despite publishing dates, but it doesn't change the basic truth to what you say.  They were both "made" recently.

 

Fact is, nobody forced Obs to create their own IP, Mechanics, yadda yadda yadda.  They did it willingly, without being forced to.

 

Well yeah no one forced Obs to create their own IP. Its just they didn't have anyone else's IP loitering in their offices when the whole "a project was cancelled, we need money, how do we get it, how about kickstarter" thing happened.

[Stun]

Fact is, nobody forced Obs to create their own IP, Mechanics, yadda yadda yadda.  They did it willingly, without being forced to.

Part 1 of the Making-of-PoE documentary suggests otherwise.

[Stun]

Saying that you can get big game advantages by rerolling random numbers over and over and over is a factual error?

Yes. If you wish, We can run down the classes and all possible implemented advantages of each of the stats if you wish. And we can do so under the context of extreme powergaming. But as long as you willfully ignore the fact that the game lets you freely add and subtract from those Dice rolls, your claim will Always be false, both mechanically and statistically.

 

The opinion that the class system is complex and opaque is a factual error?

You didn't claim that the class system was complex and opaque. You claimed it was byzantine and cumbersome and that it had feats.

 

 

The opinion about the story line?

You claimed there was no in game motivation to deal with the iron crisis. And while one can conceivably not be motivated to roleplay their own character's chosen class in a role playing game, it doesn't change the fact that the developers placed real, in game, mechanical consequences to the crisis, *forcing* a motivation from a gameplay standpoint. (some companions desert you if you choose not to pursue it. Your weapons break. bandits ambush you on the roads....etc.)

 

 

Not liking the inventory management?

You claimed it was inventory tetris. This is literally a false claim as it necessitates a grid system. Which BG1 does not use. 

 

Not liking the early story?

I did not respond to your opinions about the early story, as they were exactly that: opinions.

 

The (fact) that casters at low levels in D&D are underpowered

You did not claim they were underpowered. You claimed they could only do exactly 2 things once their spells ran out. This is a false claim. I cited 4 things they could do before even getting to level 2. Edited April 23, 2015 by Stun

[Nonek]

If I remember correctly when the Kickstarter was first announced a lot of us on the forums argued for a brand new system to be pioneered, and even if the results were not particularly attractive, there were equal problems and even more financials downsides to licensed systems.

[Ineth]

Baldur's Gate or Arcanum are a totally different league. Even the world map in these games is twice as large. I have quickly counted locations on the world map and there are (I may have missed a few):

 

30 in PoE

50(55) in BG(expansion)

64 in Arcanum

 

And BG2:SoA has just 23 world map locations.

 

So what? It's not a very good measure of a game's scope, let alone quality.

[Volourn]

"Plus, some of the complaints are just mind-boggling. The writing is bad? Compared to what, Baldur's Gate or freaking Icewind Dale, to say nothing of D:OS's borefest? The oh so clever ''not-D&D'' tripe that could easily be leveled at any fantasy game on the market? Obsidian's worst game to date? This is clear attention whoring."

 

\Thew riting is bland and unspriring most of the time. (sometimes it hits the mark). BG's writing was not espcially deep but it was effective. I mean your adoptive father played sucha  small role yet he's memorable. Do you think people are gonna remember the early characters in PE? NO. IWD's story while not deep as well is wellw ritten. DOS', I agree, is worse. No doubt abotu it. In fact, I'd say PE is a better written version of the DOS story. L0L Worst game to dat? I wouldn't go there but that's his opinion so why whine about it?

 

 

 

"Plus, BG1 has Durlag's tower, the single greatest dungeon experience of all the IE games."

 

Nah. Watcher's keep is superior.

 

 

"EDIT: So lets see 20 years in future when PoE: EE comes out if it can compare with BG: EE"

 

I'd be surprised if that happens. It shouldn't have happened with BG either.

 

 

"I suppose the secondary motivation is you can't get into Baldur's Gate to track who killed Gorian without solving the iron problem. (You could argue that some evil and neutral types wouldn't care who killed Gorian or about the iron shortage either one,"

 

But you would care that are assassins are trying to murder you.. and maybe solvinmg the iron crisis may help solve your problem. A lot of quests leads you to deal with the iron crisis.  Of coruse, like any game, you can say 'I don't care' but then just stop playing. There you completed the game.

 

 

"Why would a neutral Druid care about the situation unless it was threatening the wildlife (which it doesn't seem to be)? "

 

If iron/metal is ebcoming worthless on the Sword Coast people are gonna turn to trees for their needs. So, druids need to THINK OF THE TREES. :D

[Amentep]

"I suppose the secondary motivation is you can't get into Baldur's Gate to track who killed Gorian without solving the iron problem. (You could argue that some evil and neutral types wouldn't care who killed Gorian or about the iron shortage either one,"

 

But you would care that are assassins are trying to murder you.. and maybe solvinmg the iron crisis may help solve your problem. A lot of quests leads you to deal with the iron crisis.  Of coruse, like any game, you can say 'I don't care' but then just stop playing. There you completed the game.

Or you could learn to accept railroading and not care that your initial mental character might not have chosen to follow that particular path and enjoy the game for what it is!

 

"Why would a neutral Druid care about the situation unless it was threatening the wildlife (which it doesn't seem to be)? "

 

If iron/metal is ebcoming worthless on the Sword Coast people are gonna turn to trees for their needs. So, druids need to THINK OF THE TREES. :D

Nah, its a chance to to spread the word - "Here, accept this flower and have you heard the good works of the Grand Druid?"

 

Besides, you could be playing a 2e Arctic Druid and not give a **** abou the trees...

Edited April 23, 2015 by Amentep

[Voss]

A fair and reasonable review of PoE, I feel. 

 

I think the biggest issue it doesn't mention is that many of the problems were raised during the beta period... and never addressed.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

For the record I'm not comparing PoE to other games, I'm criticizing the game purely on its own merits.

 

Engagement is probably one of the worst systems in the game and should be gutted.

[Monte Carlo]

Engagement is probably one of the worst systems in the game and should be gutted.

 

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip.

 

Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions.

[Longknife]

If I remember correctly when the Kickstarter was first announced a lot of us on the forums argued for a brand new system to be pioneered, and even if the results were not particularly attractive, there were equal problems and even more financials downsides to licensed systems.

 

 

Honestly the only real large-scale problems Pillars has in my opinion are:

 

 

-Stat deviation is too controlled. In Sawyer's attempt to make every build viable, the result was very little deviation in general for stats. If you try to make an expert gunslinger or something for example and you take talents to increase accuracy with guns? I think you'd get 11 more accuracy than a non-gunslinger. That's pathetic. It would be nice to have some sort of alternate path. For example, Kana just chills in the back with his gun, so why not offer me standard Chanter talents and then as an alternative, I can maybe get a talent that adds 5 accuracy, and simultaneously unlocks a second talent for my next level up that I can take that gives 15 accuracy. This would demand two talents of the 6 talents I'll have, but 20 accuracy (plus the 6 or whatever for the weapon-based accuracy talent for 26) is respectable and noticeable. You could even expand upon it further and make it three talents ranks 1, 2 and 3, all offering 5, 10 and 15 accuracy respectively. Such talents would provide alternatives to class talents, but would by no means make them obsolete. A Cipher for example has very nice class talents, so does a Priest. More accuracy is always nice and you could make a case a blunderbuss cipher would benefit from the accuracy increases, but you would be forced to take those over the cipher perks that increase the rate at which you build focus or even how much damage you deal per shot, if I'm understanding the mechanics of Soul Whip correctly. The accuracy focus would mean you burn half as long (less focus talents) but burn twice as bright (more likely to crit).

    I'm not the guy being paid to conduct such a system here, so mind you the above is just an example, but the main issue is that it often feels the degree to which you can impact your characters is +/- 10% of a stat. 10 more accuracy, 10 more will defense, 10 more crit, etc. Class talents deviate from this, but do so in ways that are still very controlled. For example a Rogue can exceed the +10 amount for critical hits, but can he do as Fighter does and exceed that 10 amount for defenses? Absolutely not.

   Overall, in Sawyer's desire to make no stats inferior and offer no bad builds, we have limited build options in general, out of a fear that, for example, an accuracy stacked cipher or a defense stacked Fighter would become the meta and outperform all alternatives....so instead we got no alternatives.

 

 

-Choice and Consequence is largely an illusion. I can encounter a quest where a guy expresses his dying wishes to me in which he must entrust me with a valuable item. If I have an honest reputation, he'll comment and thank the gods for his fortune of me having been the one to find him. If I'm deceptive, he'll comment on how horrible this situation is, but how he has no choice but to entrust the item with me. My reputations are effectively worthless and do absolutely nothing to change the game in any unique way.

   Speech reputations tend to provide only an illusion of choice and consequence, but very rarely change anything. The only change off the top of my head is benevolent people get offered quests one step faster (aka one less box of dialog to click through....yay?) and aggressive people can sometimes psyche people out and cause them to surrender rather than attempt to fight you. (<----hands down the winner for most impactful speech reputation, and still pretty small and insignificant) Town reputations and reputations with groups do what? Get you a discount on store prices. That's typically it. There's one quest that unlocks via good reputation, but it's practically impossible to actually **** up your reputation in that community unless you mindlessly slaughter people. Another quest requires good reputation with a town to be continued, but that community hands you a large amount of positive reputation regardless of who you are or how you play.

  I seem to recall one part where you can actually lift up a child, threaten him, and then violently throw the child on the ground. Your companions will protest this, but does anything come of it? No.

  Of the times where you do need to make a choice, the consequences can be both significant and brief. For example one part of the game has you choosing one of three factions. The difference this makes? Changes your ending a tad and provides - you guessed it - a merchant offering different things from the other group. There IS also a passive talent you gain for helping that group out, and that's nice. It's a weird combination of providing choice and consequence, but the consequence is STILL rather small and forgettable. It would've been nice to see each of those three for example offering candidates for best weapon/armor in the game, but you have to choose one. The talent effects are also, like always, very controlled.

  Strangely? You carry more weight and impact simply for being a cipher than you do for any of the reputations. Why on earth is one specific class getting more recognition and unique interactions than anything else in the game, including reputations whose sole purpose it is to get such meaningful recognition for the player...? I'm sorry, but somewhere in production, that class clearly became someone's baby and got special treatment to the detriment of other classes (Paladin) and features. (reputations)

  Overall it's sad to say, but most choice and consequence is largely an illusion, nothing more. This is apparent in the fact that some groups like Bleak Walkers and Eothas priests get little to no reaction despite being characters that should get tons of reactions. You get flavor dialog pertaining to your reputations, but it's either meaningless OR it's a case where obtaining negative reputation would need some pretty dedicated roleplay (aka good luck concocting many character types that would realistically fall into that category) or purposeful sabotage.

 

 

-Fights could use a bit more variety. When you fight fampyr enemies, they're plagued with charm effects, and they very wisely seem to charm all of your heavy hitters as though it were a rule of thumb for them. Charm and domination actually get their own special little problem-child category in that the player is provided absolutely zero way to counter these effects, (I think the priest EVENTUALLY gets a spell to provide resistance vs these very late game) but aside from that...?

   Aside from that, I think Obsidian missed an opportunity here, because having that enemy type provide a more thought-out and effective way of attacking your squad does a lot to provide you with more challenge. You know what archers who tended to target the wizard first might do for the game? It would provide stats like resolve and perception more utility for wizards. It would make it so that a wizard with less intelligence but more resolve suddenly had noticeable upsides, thereby buying into the "no build is bad" idea. This, in and of itself, affords the game more diversity because it means that there WOULD be battles where your party that believes "just stack accuracy and GG" (assuming my three accuracy talent suggestion above were used) would inevitably encounter a battle that punished this trend of min-maxing and rewarded the more well-balanced squads that focused a bit on everything. Don't govern characters, govern battles. Give us more tools to play with to make our characters stand out, feel unique and feel powerful, and counter those efforts by making more battles stand out more, feel unique and feel challenging.

  Just as a comparison, if I play New Vegas and min-max my character to be an absolute master of melee and unarmed? I am absolutely allowed to do this, and I will feel like an absolute badass and absolutely love every minute of playing that character. Will I completely wreck the game and win every battle easily...? Well the base game's difficulty is admittedly not so high, but if you attempt all the DLCs? Each of those DLCs gives preference to a different weapon type, and you will be torn apart if you show no ability to adapt. Dead Money is harder on gun users but extremely loving towards melee and Unarmed, Lonesome Road is the exact opposite. Explosives experience will serve you well in Lonesome Road or Old World Blues, but it'll probably not work out so well for you if you try to do Honest Hearts with just explosives.

  Each of those DLCs was like a "battle," and while the specialist characters were fun as hell, they would eventually fall flat in one of these "battles" and the more well-rounded characters would prevail because they showed an ability to adapt. This did not mean the specialists were completely ineffective: hell no, they were fun as hell and could make quick work of battles that others would struggle with.

   Pillars largely doesn't have this and the specialist characters are reigning supreme. More combat diversity would both challenge the player in new and interesting ways, AND simultaneously, it would passively support more character diversity. (and would do so far better if character deviation weren't so painfully small and controlled)

 

 

 

While all three of those are very disappointing, I also don't see any reason to rag on Pillars like it's some pinnacle of incompetence or something, because let's be real here: not MANY games achieve excellent balance, sadly. There's a reason we all long for such games, but it's also not exactly a crime if Obsidian failed, so long as they're willing to listen and reflect on what was done wrong.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Longknife

[Amentep]

 

Engagement is probably one of the worst systems in the game and should be gutted.

 

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip.

 

Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions.

 

 

I actually like the concept of engagement.  The problem - to my mind¹ - is that engagement is such a static event (the tank becomes a doorway, blocking off opponents from entering) and carries so many terrible penalties to it.

 

Imagine a swashbuckling film with people dueling back and forth and moving everywhere.  They're engaged but they're not immobile. What should happen is that once engaged the engaged parties can

1. Party A and Party B stop and fight; minimal back and forth movement between pair (typically this would be the result of Party A and Party B having targeted each other)
2. Party A continues for destination; Party B maintains engagement and therefore they fight while moving towards Party A's destination. Movement is slowed. (typically this would be the result of Party A having targeted an opponent other than Party B while Party B targeted Party A).  Party A could will turn their attention to the third party (assuming they were moving to attack a third party) but get a penalty to defense from Party B's attacks (essentially, they've flanked themselves in the hope to take out a deadly or easily killable opponent).
3. Party A and Party B take attacks of opportunities against themselves as they pass each other to their (both parties targeted other opponents and strike at each other in passing towards their respective destinations) only slowing during their AoOs.
4. Breaking engagement would be possible but would make the disengager go defensive as they extract themselves from combat (and hits against the disengager might be more damaging - if the non-disengager can get past the disengagement defense). Talents/skills could eliminate any penalty.

This would allow for an engagement system that restricts dog piling the mage or other range attackers provided someone tried to engage those parties directly before they completed the dog pile.  I'd add penalties for casting/ranged attacks while moving (as this engagement system would have to allow attacks and movement at the same time), thus kiting could be possible, but with severe penalties if the distance attacker has to become mobile.

 

¹Not the mind of a programmer, designer or otherwise talented gaming individual

Edited April 23, 2015 by Amentep

[VioNectro]

There is one thing I will absolutely disagree with in the review, and that is that Dungeon Siege 3 was better.

[scrotiemcb]

Regarding the Codex claim that writing is bad: It isn't. However, I feel I can make a strong case that it isn't good enough.

 

I agree with pretty much everything the Codex review has to say about gameplay and character customization and sameness and AI. After discussing all these things, Roxor writes

let’s finally focus on the stuff that Obsidian has always excelled at – the writing and quest design – and see if at least here we can find a saving grace.

If you take a moment to consider Roxor's psychology during gameplay, you would imagine someone (rightfully) frustrated with the game's combat and progression mechanics, gritting their teeth as they grind for story. After all, the promise of good writing is basically the sole motive for playing at this point.

 

The result of this is a form of overhyping. Regardless of what one is playing for, when the gameplay itself feels like unenjoyable work, the fruits of one's labor have their taste soured. Knowingly placing yourself in a Skinner box inevitably leads to saltiness.

 

Lacking this self-awareness, I believe Roxor trashed the game's writing far worse than it deserved. It was almost definitely good enough to propel him forward through hours of self-torture to hopefully get some tasty morsels of delicious story. It's why he played the whole game instead of part. It was the single best part of the game for him.

 

Well, that's a little speculative. But it was the best part of the game for me.

 

But the key point here is this: it isn't enough. You might string along players with the story, compelling them to trudge through the game, but except for a few diehards you're going to end with a lot of salty dudes asking "wait, this is it?" The writing may be good, even the strongest part of Pillars, but it is NOT a saving grace. I doubt know if any writing could possibly be good enough to be one.

 

Everything before that in Roxor's review is basically spot on. This is supposed to be a CRPG, not a fantasy novel. The game rises or falls not on its story, but on its gameplay. Gameplay which has been neglected so the Eternity team could focus on creating obscure languages. It seems Obsidian's penchant for writing has gone completely unrestrained in an indie-dev environment, causing a disastrous misalignment of priorities.

Edited April 23, 2015 by scrotiemcb

[Elerond]

 

 

Engagement is probably one of the worst systems in the game and should be gutted.

 

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip.

 

Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions.

 

 

I actually like the concept of engagement.  The problem - to my mind¹ - is that engagement is such a static event (the tank becomes a doorway, blocking off opponents from entering) and carries so many terrible penalties to it.

 

Imagine a swashbuckling film with people dueling back and forth and moving everywhere.  They're engaged but they're not immobile. What should happen is that once engaged the engaged parties can

1. Party A and Party B stop and fight; minimal back and forth movement between pair (typically this would be the result of Party A and Party B having targeted each other)
2. Party A continues for destination; Party B maintains engagement and therefore they fight while moving towards Party A's destination. Movement is slowed. (typically this would be the result of Party A having targeted an opponent other than Party B while Party B targeted Party A)
3. Party A and Party B take attacks of opportunities against themselves as they pass each other to their (both parties targeted other opponents and strike at each other in passing towards their respective destinations) only slowing during their AoOs.
4. Breaking engagement would be possible but would make the disengager go defensive as they extract themselves from combat (and hits against the disengager might be more damaging - if the non-disengager can get past the disengagement defense).

This would allow for an engagement system that restricts dog piling the mage or other range attackers provided someone tried to engage those parties directly before they completed the dog pile.  I'd add penalties for casting/ranged attacks while moving (as this engagement system would have to allow attacks and movement at the same time), thus kiting could be possible, but with severe penalties if the distance attacker has to become mobile.

 

¹Not the mind of a programmer, designer or otherwise talented gaming individual

 

 

One problem that I currently saw in combat is how AI keeps to hitting tank character even when they aren't engaged with them. This makes it possible often block enemies to attack your ranged characters even with characters that are prone. This makes tank characters often much more effective than they should be in the fights. Although tank fighters that can engage 5 enemies would still be bit absurd, as they don't even suffer flank status before there is sixth enemy engaging them. But that isn't systematic problem.

[VioNectro]

 

Engagement is probably one of the worst systems in the game and should be gutted.

 

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip.

 

Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions.

 

Agreed AoO's would have been better where you still have the 5 feet of movement you can use.

 

I don't know if tank and spank was a intended design choice, but it appears that most engagements boil down to this because of the engagement glue system.

Edited April 23, 2015 by VioNectro

[Stun]

-Fights could use a bit more variety. When you fight fampyr enemies, they're plagued with charm effects, and they very wisely seem to charm all of your heavy hitters as though it were a rule of thumb for them. Charm and domination actually get their own special little problem-child category in that the player is provided absolutely zero way to counter these effects, (I think the priest EVENTUALLY gets a spell to provide resistance vs these very late game) but aside from that...?

You are under-stating the absurdity and hilarious irony of this.

 

There are 2 major gameplay philosophies that Josh Sawyer voiced and made crystal clear to everyone before developing PoE's combat systems:

 

1) Save or else - will not be in the game because it is a dreadfully Non-fun, non-tactical, binary gameplay hangover from the IE games and should die by fire.

2) Hard counters and pre-buffs - will not be in the game because they are apocalyptic designs that promote metagaming, instead of reaction based tactical gameplay

 

Now Fast forward to the finished product of PoE. What did we end up getting? Yeah, Rule #1.... violated right off the bat. We have Whole races of monsters spamming the exact same Save-or else effects from BG1 against your party. But unlike BG1, we're not given any tools to tactically counter such attacks because they decided to hold fast to rule #2....for no reason. Because they ended up giving us spells that still require metagaming in order to be even marginally useful against these Save Or else attacks. (the entire line of "Prayer against ____" spells that priests get. They all have two effects: 1. to increase your saves against the Save or else" effects, and, 2. to reduce the duration of those afflictions if you fail your saves.

 

But how are you going to benefit from the save bonus of those effects without metagaming and casting that spell before you get hit by the effect? Answer: You don't. Because you can't. (no pre-buffing). So basically the only legit function of those spells is to reduce the duration of the "Save-or-Else" effects after they've already afflicted your party. This, of course, assumes you got lucky and it wasn't your priest who got nailed with those effects, because if he has, then you can't cast that spell. Not until the effect wears off, at least... But by then, casting it will be pointless since the fight will either be over, or the enemy will have already exhausted its per encounter instances of those Save or Else attacks.

 

Absurd.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Stun

[Monte Carlo]

This is supposed to be a CRPG, not a fantasy novel. The game rises or falls not on its story, but on its gameplay. Gameplay which has been neglected so the Eternity team could focus on creating obscure languages.

 

 

This.

 

Bravo. It's always refreshing to see someone write precisely what you were thinking.