White March Part 2 Reviews

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3033465/software/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-two-review-an-incredible-apocalyptic-finish.html

http://www.pcinvasion.com/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-2-review

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1029/view/reviews/load/428/page/1

[Infinitron]

Non-English reviews:

 

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-two/test/pillars_of_eternity_the_white_march,53577,3268053.html

http://www.gry-online.pl/S020.asp?ID=11043

http://multiplayer.it/recensioni/163578-pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-ii-cartoline-dalla-bianca-marca.html

[ruzen]

good good

[Cyseal]

Looking good. So good that maybe there will be The White March Part Three.

[Killyox]

I will be making my own review ~20-21 of February. English/Polish. Why? Because I love to get into itty gritty details and do an in-depth review.

[Eisenheinrich]

The german review is strange. I found WM I to be superior to main game content in almost every way.

[morhilane]

The german review is strange. I found WM I to be superior to main game content in almost every way.

 

The PCWorld reviewer wasn't a fan of WM part 1 either, he found it tedious. He loves part 2 though.

[Tanred]

Weird, I also found WM part 1 much better than anything in vanilla. Particulary, encounter and area/level design are great.

[Ineth]

Weird, I also found WM part 1 much better than anything in vanilla. Particulary, encounter and area/level design are great.

 

The wilderness areas (east and west of Stalwart) were kinda overstuffed with unrelated encounters though.

 

I liked it better in Baldur's Gate where you could explore wilderness without running into a battle every two steps.

Wilderness should feel like wilderness, not like you've walked into a Woodstock for beasts and monsters.

[anameforobsidian]

I think there's a golden mean.  I personally found the area Stalwart pretty enjoyable, but that was because you could go around encounters.  I don't have a ton of fun running uphill into an encampment of Lagufeth on PotD.

Edited February 17, 2016 by anameforobsidian

[majestic]

The german review is strange. I found WM I to be superior to main game content in almost every way.

 

Gamestar stopped being good 16 years ago when the went from sticking it to the man to being the man. *sigh*

[Tanred]

 

Weird, I also found WM part 1 much better than anything in vanilla. Particulary, encounter and area/level design are great.

 

The wilderness areas (east and west of Stalwart) were kinda overstuffed with unrelated encounters though.

 

I liked it better in Baldur's Gate where you could explore wilderness without running into a battle every two steps.

Wilderness should feel like wilderness, not like you've walked into a Woodstock for beasts and monsters.

 

Yeah it was kinda overstuffed as you say, but I didn't mind. I liked the encounters were varied enough and some of them were even challenging. They also included more dialogues with background checks and CYOAs. I just had tons of fun there, definitely more than in most parts of the main game.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Tanred

[Eisenheinrich]

 

 

Weird, I also found WM part 1 much better than anything in vanilla. Particulary, encounter and area/level design are great.

 

The wilderness areas (east and west of Stalwart) were kinda overstuffed with unrelated encounters though.

 

I liked it better in Baldur's Gate where you could explore wilderness without running into a battle every two steps.

Wilderness should feel like wilderness, not like you've walked into a Woodstock for beasts and monsters.

 

Yeah it was kinda overstuffed as you say, but I didn't mind. I liked the encounters were varied enough and some of them were even challenging. They also included more dialogues with background checks and CYOAs. I just had tons of fun there, definitely more than in most parts of the main game.

 

 

After all, it's a game and not a wilderness-simulator. What's fun about a wilderness area you can cross with only two encounters on the whole map?  I mean, come on, this is not Diablo.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Eisenheinrich

[Excalibur_2102]

 

Weird, I also found WM part 1 much better than anything in vanilla. Particulary, encounter and area/level design are great.

 

The wilderness areas (east and west of Stalwart) were kinda overstuffed with unrelated encounters though.

 

I liked it better in Baldur's Gate where you could explore wilderness without running into a battle every two steps.

Wilderness should feel like wilderness, not like you've walked into a Woodstock for beasts and monsters.

 

 

I might be wrong since its a long time since I played baldurs gate, but I remember several wilderness areas where id destroy a band of hobgoblins, walk away, realise I forgot to loot something, then when I go back another group had spawned literally seconds later.  It was a giant pain in the ass.  Granted this was not in every wilderness area though.

[DreamWayfarer]

After all, it's a game and not a wilderness-simulator. What's fun about a wilderness area you can cross with only two encounters on the whole map? I mean, come on, this is not Diablo.

What is fun about filler battles while traveling between two places were things you actualy care about will happen?

[Eisenheinrich]

 

After all, it's a game and not a wilderness-simulator. What's fun about a wilderness area you can cross with only two encounters on the whole map? I mean, come on, this is not Diablo.

What is fun about filler battles while traveling between two places were things you actualy care about will happen?

 

 

I didn't get that feel in WM I.

[DreamWayfarer]

I didn't get that feel in WM I.

I didn't say I did. It is just that I don't really like encounters on wilderness areas on general, since they feel like filler to me. But I admit sometimes filler content can be fun.

[Infinitron]

More reviews:

 

http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/ga...ty-the-white-march-part-2-review-500483.shtml
http://invisioncommunity.co.uk/2016/02/16/pillars-eternity-white-march-part-2-review/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...ars-of-Eternity-The-White-March-Part-2-Review
http://www.gamewatcher.com/reviews/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-2-review/12472

[anameforobsidian]

Hmmm at that escapist review:

Combat remains a weak point of the Pillars formula, and it's abundantly apparent in this expansion. On the default difficulty, without allowing the game to scale up the challenge to my party (which was recommended), I still struggled immensely with average enemy groups of lowly cultists, wiping multiple times in some cases. The new monk-class enemies could dodge right past my tanky melee line and go after my squishy damage dealers with seeming impunity, for instance, and had far too much health for me to be able to focus fire them down before they turned the entire encounter into a rout. Conversely, the enemies who were supposed to be big and scary (including the towering Eyeless war constructs central to the story, and the colossal, set piece final boss) were felled with ease, leaving hardly a lasting scratch on my party.

 

Simply put, Pillars still does a poor job of giving you the tools you need to manage basic party tasks like tanking and crowd control in chaotic situations with lots of weaker enemies.

 

So they turned level scaling off, and then were surprised that they outleveled bosses.  Have they heard of crowd control or you know, running away kiting?  It's weird that they mention MMO stuff without using common MMO tactics.  A ton of the bosses in WoW are not actually tank and spank.

[morhilane]

Hmmm at that escapist review:

Combat remains a weak point of the Pillars formula, and it's abundantly apparent in this expansion. On the default difficulty, without allowing the game to scale up the challenge to my party (which was recommended), I still struggled immensely with average enemy groups of lowly cultists, wiping multiple times in some cases. The new monk-class enemies could dodge right past my tanky melee line and go after my squishy damage dealers with seeming impunity, for instance, and had far too much health for me to be able to focus fire them down before they turned the entire encounter into a rout. Conversely, the enemies who were supposed to be big and scary (including the towering Eyeless war constructs central to the story, and the colossal, set piece final boss) were felled with ease, leaving hardly a lasting scratch on my party.

 

Simply put, Pillars still does a poor job of giving you the tools you need to manage basic party tasks like tanking and crowd control in chaotic situations with lots of weaker enemies.

 

So they turned level scaling off, and then were surprised that they outleveled bosses.  Have they heard of crowd control or you know, running away kiting?  It's weird that they mention MMO stuff without using common MMO tactics.  A ton of the bosses in WoW are not actually tank and spank.

 

The reviewer mention crowd-control in the paragraph just after that one:

Simply put, Pillars still does a poor job of giving you the tools you need to manage basic party tasks like tanking and crowd control in chaotic situations with lots of weaker enemies. Where these options do exist, they're often buried so deep in the corner of one of its far too exhaustive spell lists, forcing you to do huge amounts of pausing, reading,

 

What I gather from that is that he doesn't like to read and was too lazy to learn about his party's abilities before entering fights so anything outside of "damage focus" strategy was way over his head. In other word, he should have played in story mode instead of normal.

[Joculari]

He should play diablo 3 instead if he doesnt like reading. 

[Verenti]

As someone who thought the main-game was brilliant and WM1 was ... lacking in worthwhile content, I quite enjoyed WM2. I felt WM1 forgot the story, opting instead for a couple of sparse dungeons. WM2 has a lot more talking to it and there are a number of ways to accomplish the story missions, which themselves feel significant.

 

I feel as if WM1 was made for people looking for more tactical gaming and by WM2, they quickly started to backpeddle. I am thankful for that.

[the_dog_days]

Hmmm at that escapist review:

Combat remains a weak point of the Pillars formula, and it's abundantly apparent in this expansion. On the default difficulty, without allowing the game to scale up the challenge to my party (which was recommended), I still struggled immensely with average enemy groups of lowly cultists, wiping multiple times in some cases. The new monk-class enemies could dodge right past my tanky melee line and go after my squishy damage dealers with seeming impunity, for instance, and had far too much health for me to be able to focus fire them down before they turned the entire encounter into a rout. Conversely, the enemies who were supposed to be big and scary (including the towering Eyeless war constructs central to the story, and the colossal, set piece final boss) were felled with ease, leaving hardly a lasting scratch on my party.

 

Simply put, Pillars still does a poor job of giving you the tools you need to manage basic party tasks like tanking and crowd control in chaotic situations with lots of weaker enemies.

 

So they turned level scaling off, and then were surprised that they outleveled bosses. Have they heard of crowd control or you know, running away kiting? It's weird that they mention MMO stuff without using common MMO tactics. A ton of the bosses in WoW are not actually tank and spank.

I get the feeling the reviewer just kinda sucks at the game (which isn't a dig even if it sounds like one; I admit that I suck at action rpgs).

[Rooksx]

I think that Escapist reviewer must be deliberately playing the game wrong. This reminds me of people complaining about Dragon Age: Origins being too difficult initally; a lot of those people simply weren't used to party-based, pause and play combat and were trying to play the game as if it was an MMO or Diablo. 

 

It's totally understandable that someone with no cRPG experience would struggle with PoE at first but by the time you get to WM2, you really should have grasped the nature of the combat well enough to handle Normal difficulty encounters without too much trouble. But if you insist on playing the game like an aRPG or Dragon Age: Inquisition, you probably will struggle. 

[Teucer]

WM as a whole is quality content. I am extremely happy with it. I don't know how someone who liked the original game could dislike the expansions.