Pillars of Eternity 2 Wish List and Suggestions

[Kanes_Inferno]

 

3. Romance options.

 

5. Multiplayer/Co-op

 

7. Multiple storylines, diverging paths. For example choosing to be a conqueror in Act I will put you on storyline A but locks you out from B and C including the playable areas in them, maybe you could visit the minor areas.

 

 Those three, for sure. Those three had already came to my mind, before.

[Quillon]

Watch, PoE 2 will have a classless skill-based leveling system.

 

I personally wouldn't mind such a drastic change but it would be a drastic change for a sequel so its very unlikely even with Sawyer's despising the system with classes.

[Sedrefilos]

All in for classes in party-based rpg. Makes more sense and limits the frustration of advancing each companion in "class" anyway since you need to have different fanctions with each companion in a party-based game, don't you? Classless is great for single-player rpg but in party-based, imo, classes are a better choice. Also, Pillars' classes fit well in its lore and aesthetics.

Edited November 10, 2016 by Sedrefilos

[Lythe Vodaine]

There's really only one thing I miss in "Pillars of Eternity" and "Tyranny", and that is a walk toggle. I really hope they'll have one in "Pillars of Eternity 2"...

 

P.S.: Yes, I know about IEmod, but I find it way too bloated for my taste when all I need is a simple walk toggle. Sadly, so far I haven't found a simple mod with only a walk toggle...

[Ulicus]

A single attribute like Resolve should not dominate when it comes to dialog options. A resolve of 18 in PoE was enough to get the PC through most of the dialog options. Dialog options should be distributed better among the attributes.

I agree. Though I'd probably go so far as to say that base attributes really shouldn't be the be-all-and-end all when it comes to dialog checks, anyway.

 

If a character is engaging in a drinking contest, for instance, then shouldn't their present fortitude matter at least just as much as their base constitution?

 

[Sven_]

3. More spells :D . Wizards, for example, have very few spells which can decrease fortitude.

 

4. More "secret" places. Personally, quests such as the "Rogue Stone" and "Restore Kangaxx's Body" from BG2 were some of my favorites.

 

5. Even longer quests and more twists. Like you could make me go around 4-5 maps to complete one :D I thought the quest about Raedric was something in that direction.

 

6. More consequences of your actions.

 

7. More origin / background / class-specific conversations. And maybe you could separate the background from your faction.

The "more and more and more" kind of links to what I was hinting at in my personal post. Recently found this interview with PoE's Eric Fenstermaker who has left Obsidian. But whilst it isn't rocket science to imagine that there's always times and budget constraints, those bits where he went into some details of development here were interesting regardless. It also involves your Raedric quest, which I agree with too. More Raedrics, less of the "more generic" questlines.

 

Raedric questline:

 

 

 

The thing to know about a quest like this is that it is expensive. Introducing layers of complexity like multiple start and end points inherently takes much longer to implement, and generates far more bugs (geometrically, I'd say) than a simpler, more linear quest. There is a quest in Defiance Bay with a wizard masquerading as a drug dealer, and one in Dyrford about someone hiding from the local crime family, and those quests both had those types of complexities about them, and both required substantial iteration to make serviceable, and had to essentially be scrapped and redone multiple times. Those quests then start to eat into time that could be spent polishing other content, and it's not always clear-cut whether the quest will be worth the trouble.

I think it's madness that sheer volume of content is seen as a yard stick of quality, and this isn't only for open world games, but it's creeping into other games as well. You can do a lot of stuff in your typical Elder Scrolls open world game, but really, the most of it is generic cardboard-cutout filler [and I like TES!] New Vegas struck that balance in terms of open world design pretty neatly, with lots hand-crafted quests. But with games of the scope we're talking about here, a tighter focus sounds of benefit all around, whatever that focus of that current game is. Be it exploration, be it combat, be it choices (Tyranny), maybe there is also an RPG that has that entire fortress/stronghold job Tyranny spend additional ressources too on as its main course rather than a side-distraction. Say one that puts you into the shoes of a faction ruler who competes for the crown of the lands without doing the typically RPG errant quests for others. This may make for a fairly unique RPG as is too, and secondly it would avoid trying the impossible: to do a contemporary BG2 with all its impossible amounts of stuff crammed into it on tighter budgets.

 

Obsidian too have a history of looking to hire writers, which makes more intricate personal quests rather than world conquering epics become viable too. Just because a game has a tighter scope beneath all-conquering fantasy epic doesn't mean it needs to be less interesting. Actually it may become even more interesting, as everybody appears to do their fantasy epic anyhow, no matter the size of the team and budgets. Fairly small German-based Piranha Bytes (Gothic and Risen series) too are already going on record of promoting how their new 3d action RPG Elex would actually be bigger and badder and meaner than Gothic 3, x times the size of all of it, which by general consensus was their most troubled project to date. Wonder how that will pan out. As for Obsidian, I hope they can keep this financially viable for some time to come. The first Fallout, for all its shining quality, is by "modern" standards a fairly "short" game too, by the way and can be easily completed in far less than 20 hours. A lot of that is quality 20 hours though, due to the reactivity and quests rather than trash mobs stretching play-time and fetch quests adding filler.

 

 

Personally, I would like to see us make shorter games (e.g. 30-40 hours instead of 60-80) where we cut the worst of our content and spend time iterating on the best. But there is pressure from the market itself (or at least perceived pressure) to make longer games so as to justify the game's sticker price with its "value" as measured in dollars spent per hour of gameplay. And I'm not sure if people understand that when you're on a budget, there's a zero-sum tradeoff between gameplay length and gameplay polish. There was some backlash for Stick of Truth, for example, for being "too short" at 12-20 hours. But that was a game where we cut the bad stuff and spent extra time on the good stuff, and I prefer that model. As a gamer, I'm getting old. I'm short on time. I'd rather spend $60 on a 12-hour experience that makes me laugh my ass off than on a 100-hour experience that routinely wastes my time. If any of you are in agreement, be vocal about it, because I think the dollars/hour guys are usually louder. Come to our forums and ask for a shorter, more polished game.

 

Hear, hear. http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10231

Edited November 26, 2016 by Sven_

[JerekKruger]

I've just remembered another wish: 24 hour days, or at least an even number of hours in a day. Yes, it will involve a retcon, I don't care, 27 hours is a stupid number to divide up a day into and no intelligent species ever would.

 

And yes, this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but this does annoy me far more than it should.

[GordonHalfman]

Random nit picky stuff:

 

-Add a toggle to the combat log that allows it to show entries relevant to the currently selected character only, i.e damage taken and damage dealt. This will make it easier to get an overview of a characters performance or figure out why they died etc

 

-For AoE damage spells show some damage numbers in the summary, just use a comma separated list or something, I don't like having to expand entries just to get a rough idea of the damage

 

-If elemental lashes make a return consider showing the damage in a separate log entry, having to mouse over to see lash damage is annoying and it actually makes them feel less impactful than elemental damage bonuses in the IE games for example (even though it's very much the opposite.)

 

-In the stats page consider breaking down damage dealt by type, so players could look at things like the raw damage dealt as a proxy for the effectiveness of your wounding weapon. As well as damage consider showing the total inflicted duration of common status effects, so you could look at the effectiveness of stunning weapons among other things.

 

-This is a lot to ask, but with the disposition system I think it would be nice if there just a few checks that require combinations of dispositions. So for example someone would trust you with something if you are both Diplomatic and Rational, or an npc could recognize that you are both Cruel and Honest. Or if you are both Cruel and Benevolent or Deceptive and Honest someone should point out that you're a bit of a weirdo. 

 

-Pistol should be a noble weapon! I want to use a Rapier and Pistol dammit 

[Jarmo]

Personally, I would like to see us make shorter games (e.g. 30-40 hours instead of 60-80) where we cut the worst of our content and spend time iterating on the best. But there is pressure from the market itself (or at least perceived pressure) to make longer games so as to justify the game's sticker price with its "value" as measured in dollars spent per hour of gameplay. And I'm not sure if people understand that when you're on a budget, there's a zero-sum tradeoff between gameplay length and gameplay polish. There was some backlash for Stick of Truth, for example, for being "too short" at 12-20 hours. But that was a game where we cut the bad stuff and spent extra time on the good stuff, and I prefer that model. As a gamer, I'm getting old. I'm short on time. I'd rather spend $60 on a 12-hour experience that makes me laugh my ass off than on a 100-hour experience that routinely wastes my time. If any of you are in agreement, be vocal about it, because I think the dollars/hour guys are usually louder. Come to our forums and ask for a shorter, more polished game.

 

Hear, hear. http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10231

 

 

Yea. I've never played an rpg that was too short (Phantasie III was a few hours and I must have played it 10 times, while I never finished Ultima IV or V)

Or where I'd have been left wanting for a little more padding in form of fetch&carry missions, or a few more "kill 20 bugbears" tasks.

[iryoku]

Better AI (clarification below)

 

I don't know what other players would think of this, but there were some parts, especially in White March, where kobolds, for example, would try to kill you with bows from really, really far away and somebody else would be blocking your part, or the kobolds would be unreachable, unless you cross quite the space to get to them.

 

My point is, I really liked this real monster-like behavior. Kobolds should be dumb, but they should probably be smart enough to try to do hit-and-run attacks, for example. So, I really realize it's going to be a lot of work, and the game would become a lot harder than it is now, but if Obsidian could maybe implement this kind of AI behavior, it would be awesome.

 

Another example would be when enemies would charge you, and you would position your tank around a door, blocking their path, while killing them with your range heroes or mages. This always kind of felt like I was kind of exploiting a weak part of the system... If my tank were to block the door and the enemy was smart enough, of course they would try to remove the tank, but maybe they will also switch to bows / crossbows and target more range heroes / mages instead...? I don't know. There could be a lot of options here... But that would also kind of justify why I would want a plate mail on my mage, for instance. 

 

Also, maybe the enemies' casters could use more spells? I think they threw a pretty good amount of spells in PoE but I haven't really seen an enemy caster use slicken, for example. Many people here share the opinion that it's an awesome spell. Why would the enemy casters not use it then?

 

 

More terrain obstacles (clarification below)

 

I kind of touched on the topic above but having more obstacles (again, some places had this is White March. I don't know whether it was intentional or not) would be great and would make you use a lot more tactics, in my opinion. Trying to gain higher ground, so that you can further attack the enemy with your archers, for example, would be so epic. I don't really remember a game where this properly implemented.

 

Ice that melts or snow which slows you down and you can't quite go throw it very fast.

 

 

Whether / Terrain effects (clarification below)

 

One of the things which really bugged me about the end of White March 1 (no spoilers) was when you stood on top of something which should be very, very hot, but nobody of the group really reacted to it. Maybe that kind of behavior could at least fry your legs and that could slow your speed? The rain could maybe make you miss more with ranged weapons or maybe even melee weapons. I could totally see myself having a harder time to aim if my hands are slippery. This, for example, could be combined with the 2 suggestions above which would make for quite the epic battle, even if its a fight against weaker enemies. EX) Kobolds in watch towers with roofs or under rock which protect from the rain and who shoot at your party, while you're out and it's raining heavily.

 

The cold could also maybe reduce your reflexes (saving throws) or do other nasty stuff. Just some random ideas.

 

 

Armor / Weapon management  (clarification below)

 

I remember my weapon in BG1 breaking quite a lot and it was quite annoying... but it was somewhat realistic, if I have to be fair. I can totally see armor and weapons break or wear off. Like armor could maybe become rusty if you wear it for too long and you always go cross rivers, go down the sewers or it rains on them. Or maybe you could reforge a weapon into another stronger version? Like they did with Andúril (the sword) from Lord of the Rings.

 

 

Poison / sicknesses / etc  (clarification below)

 

One of the things which I really didn't like about IE games in general was poison... but it was kind of cool at the same time. I don't really think it would work with the current vitality / endurance system, but maybe it could at least 

 

 

(Option to) turn off the combat log and turn on a descriptive log  (clarification below)

 

The combat log is really very convenient. I completely agree... I sometimes check it when I'm unsure of something, and it was of great help but... I don't know about the others... but it would be so darn cool if I couldn't tell how much damage I was dealing and whether it was immune to something, unless I fight the same monster numerous time. That would make the bestiary, checking books on monsters ingame or asking NPC about a particular monster ingame a lot more meaningful, in my opinion. For example, a simple message like "your weapons don't seem to have an effect" instead of "the monster is immune to normal weapons" could either mean that my current normal weapons or not doing any damage or that my slashing weapon isn't doing any damage. If it's the first time I'm facing that particular monster, I would have to switch between weapons and actually see what really is working and what is not. Etc...

 

 

Looking forward to PoE2! I'll certainly play it, however you make it

Edited December 25, 2016 by iryoku

[Shadenuat]

- AI customisation from Dragon Age Origins

 

- Engagement and AOO's only for specific classes like Fighters

 

- Allow non-casters to pick a few or even just one spell as per-encounter ability respectable to their class (paladins pick from priest's spellbook, rangers from druids, etc.)

 

- Give classes specific paths or roles to follow. Instead of forcing Ranger to have companion, let him choose between a companion, dual wielding, stealth in combat, some sort of frenzy, master archery or summon elementals in combat. Kinda like kits in BG2.

 

- Cut on the amount of levels, but make getting level and new talent more exciting. BG1 did with just 8-9, 12 with expansion, PoE has 16 already.

 

- Play through Durlag's Tower & Watcher's Keep for inspiration how to make good IE-like dungeons, with traps and puzzles and characters inhabiting them. Get inspiration for dungeon life from games like Arx Fatalis.

 

- Get Sawyer or someone who played D&D to go through combat encounters in the game and retouche them if necessary. They seem to lack that right touch of someone with experience in pnp.

 

- Expand on giving player equipment that can change the way classes play early, that can be upgraded later (it's a pain to respec 3-5 times per game after finding new item); balance artifacts through different ways how you aquire them (do not put 3-4-5 uber items into one location like in WM) - some could be upgraded, some reforged from parts, some soulbound, etc. Make equipment matter more, 80% of it is still **** in PoE.

 

- Do something with magic in game, both in terms of gameplay (less brainless nuking, more "wizard duels") and writing. It's poorly designed and explained ("because Souls", "Souls did it"), do it right, i.e. put a stronger emphasis on what magic can't do instead of what it can do. If there are animancers, allow player to dabble into animacy; not just for a +1 bonus to Might, but for roleplaying purposes. Add non-combat rituals or something.

 

- Make companions less of passive observers. They had conflicts, friends, and rivals and left you and fought each other in game from 1998. Obsidian is a studio that made bloody Mask of Betrayer, after all.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Shadenuat

[JerekKruger]

Another, rather specific, change I'd like to see is to change the Druid's Spiritshift from a limited duration spell, to a modal ability, but remove (or at least restrict) their access to spell casting whilst spiritshifted. On top of this, include talents/abilities that allow a Druid to improve their spellcasting or their spiritshifting so that, a bit like the Ranger is currently, Druids have two obvious paths available to them.

[JerekKruger]

- Cut on the amount of levels, but make getting level and new talent more exciting. BG1 did with just 8-9, 12 with expansion, you have 16 already in first game.

 

I could get behind this idea if it's done well. It's very similar to the idea of making games shorter but making sure the content is all top notch, rather than including lots of filler.

 

- Play through Durlag's Tower & Watcher's Keep to remember how to make actual good IE-like dungeons, with traps and puzzles and characters inhabiting them. Get inspiration for dungeon life from games like Arx Fatalis.

 

 

I assume this is in reference to the Endless Paths. If so, I think Obsidian kinda shot themselves in their collective feet with their stretch goals and I'd like to imagine they would have done a better job if they had capped it at, say, five floors. By the end of the Endless Paths you can see it: I think it's floor 11 or 12 which is literally just a room with a single encounter, no lore, no dialogue, no interesting puzzles, just a single room with a fight. Luckily Josh has acknowledged this so fingers crossed for the sequel.

 

Also worth noting is that Durgan's Battery is, I'd say, pretty damn good. So hopefully Obsidian will take their cue on any larger dungeons in the sequel from that.

 

But yeah, I agree. Durlag's Tower is a severly underrated dungeon that I actually think is better than Watcher's Keep, but both were excellent.

 

- Make companions less of passive observers. They had conflicts, friends, and rivals and left you and fought each other in game from 1998. Obsidian is a studio that made bloody Mask of Betrayer, after all.

 

 

I agree in general, though I'd rather not see Baldur's Gate style character leaving your party or fighting each other because they don't get on, and I believe Obsidian have also stated that they wanted to avoid that. That said, more actually interaction bith with each other and in conversations would be very welcome, and I'd love to see a return of banters that occur in proper dialogue windows and pause the game as I miss almost all the current banters due to looking at some other point on the map.

[Shadenuat]

 

I'd rather not see Baldur's Gate style character leaving your party or fighting each other because they don't get on

 Why? Because feelings? It made no sense that everyone in party was OK with Durance and what he said in PoE, for example. And character who could throw tantrums like that wouldn't fit into every party either.

[JerekKruger]

 Why? Because feelings? It made no sense that everyone in party was OK with Durance and what he said in PoE, for example. And character who could throw tantrums like that wouldn't fit into every party either.

 

Fair point, although I think that the vast majority of what Durance says is said to the Watcher alone and he makes it clear when you meet him that he has little to no interest in your companions, so it's quite possible that the other companions only interaction with Durance is his occasional lewd outbursts and insults (which most companions happily brush off).

 

Of course you're correct that in real life people do fail to get on, and there's no reason for this not to be present in a CRPG. My main objection is simply that it's frustrating to play a game with such restrictions, particularly a game with eleven classes and precisely one NPC for each class. Given the existence of mods that removed these restrictions from BG2 (as well as reputation restrictions) and the number of tricks to split the various companion pairs in BG1, I suspect a lot of people feel the same way, which is likely why Obsidian decided to do this in PoE.

 

Now of course this breaks the immersion a little, but I've always found I role-play CRPGs quite differently to tabletop RPGs, since I already lack proper control of my character, I tend to design my "headstory" to fit the game story rather than getting frustrated when the game story doesn't fit my "headstory". In the case of Durance for example, I might assume that the other companions see him is a bit of a crazy old man, and tolerate him out of pity*, or they hate him but tolerate him because the Watcher does.

 

*If you follow his personal story to the end, pity isn't an unreasonable response to it, though it's one he'd hate.

[evilcat]

I dont mind rebelious companions if the reason is good. If our companion is Mr Goody and we just slaughter village or sell bunch of peasants as slaves he can stand on their side. Or we just piss him off constantly with witty comments. Or he is member of some race/organisation and we use him to assault stronghold of said entity... that would be annoying, but if we pick someone else...

 

As for party member disliking each other, i could see option that it will lead to break up, but that means risk of party alone which is not good (everybody leaves ;-) ). There is also a cool option of party members dislking on verbal level, (trashtalking each other) unless we told them to stop it and behave (but why we should do that?).

Edited January 2, 2017 by evilcat

[Shadenuat]

Replacing companion with Adventurer is always an option. Can give PoE1 a pass for a chance to slay everyone in Vailian embassy with Pallegina in party since Obsidian didn't have enough time to work on reactivity on systemic level, like in New Vegas. But wouldn't want to see PoE2 go yesmen route that Tyranny did. It turned out completely unbelievable.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Shadenuat

[JerekKruger]

Yeah, I can see that sort of thing being a good reason for a character to leave your party (or even try to kill you). It's unlikely it would ever affect me anyway since I tend to play CRPGs as a fairly good/nice person.

 

I guess probably what I'd like is a set of companions whose personalities and beliefs are all such that they will at least tolerate each other. By all means have banter between them where they argue, but I'd prefer they not actually leave the party or start fighting each other. But that's just my preference and I'll find a way to cope if PoE2 does have Baldur's Gate style party conflict.

[Bill Gates' Son]

I'm ok with companions leaving your company or turning against you IF they give your an advance warning like Arcade did in FO:NV.  Leaving or turning against you out of the blue because you picked the wrong dialogue options is something I do not like in BG2.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Bill Gates' Son

[Shadenuat]

A few minor things I thought about when playing last patch:

 

- Enough with swords maybe? It's not great that you get high quality Pollaxes at the end of the game and only by making specific choices, but it's so easy to make party stronger by using estocs/greatswords/sabres.

 

- Add DR3 armor that is not robes. Like jackets, gambesons, buffcoats.

 

- Just from design perspective, isn't it weird that debuffs to lower enemy defences may not work because enemy defences are not low enough? That makes buffs stronger than debuffs since they work all the time. In comparison, in IE games some debuffs and most spell breakers just did't allow saving throw at all.

 

Speaking of which adding talents to spellcasters for extra accuracy for specific spells like Spell Specialization would be nice.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Shadenuat

[hilfazer]

- Add DR3 armor that is not robes. Like jackets, gambesons, buffcoats.

 

- Just from design perspective, isn't it weird that debuffs to lower enemy defences may not work because enemy defences are not low enough? That makes buffs stronger than debuffs since they work all the time. In comparison, in IE games some debuffs and most spell breakers just did't allow saving throw at all.

 

 

DR3 gambeson?

BTW there's already a gambeson in the game and you probably missed it because ... it's weaker than leather armor and it's not called a gambeson.

https://youtu.be/ODS7ksbBRuE?t=56

 

Making attacks that debuff defenses having exceptional accuracy is just good design.

[JerekKruger]

- Enough with swords maybe? It's not great that you get high quality Pollaxes at the end of the game and only by making specific choices, but it's so easy to make party stronger by using estocs/greatswords/sabres.

 

I'd agree with one caveat: give us more just-swords. In PoE there are several really good Greatswords, a couple of really good Estocs, three or four really good Sabres and very few good just-swords. Actually there are a couple of pretty good just-swords, but they are available so late in the game that it's basically over and you hardly get to use them.

 

Speaking of which adding talents to spellcasters for extra accuracy for specific spells like Spell Specialization would be nice.

 

 

 

I'd love to see a "spell schools" system added along with specializations.

[Shadenuat]

 

I'd agree with one caveat: give us more just-swords. In PoE there are several really good Greatswords, a couple of really good Estocs, three or four really good Sabres and very few good just-swords. Actually there are a couple of pretty good just-swords, but they are available so late in the game that it's basically over and you hardly get to use them.

I think most one-handed weapons just don't get enough attention from people. Partially because with DR system players naturally gravitate towards things with higher damage per hit, partially because many of them are weak and uninteresting anyway - nothing like Celestial Fury/Daystar/Mace of Disruption/Crom Fayer. There's custom made spear, two sabres and firebug-proccing dagger which was already nerfed from what I remember of any worth. And aside from spear with tongue twisting name and Resolution, else is WM content.

[JFutral]

I haven't read all the comments, so if I am needlessly repeating something, my apologies. I am fairly new to this game and only have a few thoughts. I appreciate that this is not a BG or NWN clone per se and that they are presenting some new perspectives to the game. I keep that in mind as I play.

 

After two runs through (twice with different sets of jNPCs, and this third time with my own NPCs) I am still trying to get the hang of the whole damage and damage reduction mechanics and how that affects weapon or spell choice. It is not very intuitive, but it is unique for me. Health vs Endurance is still confusing, but I am getting it in terms of how to play it. I am still baffled why a priest can't heal health. In terms of weapons it is never really clear if I have a found good weapon, especially if it is a unique. Do other players just keep a battery of weapons handy and change out as appropriate? Heck, I feel the same about the armor, too. I just don't know how to build an effective tank or cannon in this game.

 

All the variations of debilitating conditions (stun, fazed, prone, stuck, confused, etc.) and all the differing counter spells are quite a challenge to keep track of. And sometimes useless. I gave up choosing any of the skills or abilities that supposedly increase my defense against such conditions because as soon as I leveled up that defense, it seemed my character became even more susceptible. At the very least it did not help. So I don't know if the buff is bugged or just nerfed beyond usefulness.

 

I wish the Watcher abilities were more compelling. Most of the time I forget I have them. Sometimes I don't see how they would be beneficial. I certaily don't see the effect they have on enemies. What is the point of messing with someone's mind if they are dead or a bug? Does a spider really feel dread?

 

I wish my NPCs could contribute to skill/talent based conversation options. I may not have high Intelligence, Lore, or Perception, but I have an NPC who does. Surely, if he is my colleague he or she would pipe up and offer advice.

 

And while I get the idea of balance, not being able to buff up with _something_ when 'Enemy Spotted' before going into combat makes no sense whatsoever. Surely I would quickly quaff one potion or cast one protection spell. The modality restrictions don't always make sense.

 

So while I get and can appreciate the principal of game play balance, we are still supposed to be epic heroes of a sort. If I've taken the time and skill/ability/talent slot to give my character some defense against Prone, for example, it would be great if he was actually more defended against Prone.

 

I feel like the drive to provide a more "balanced" game also flattens out the character and interest potential of a character driven games somewhat. Well, it definitely makes it more complex.

 

I am sure some of this will make more sense and I'll  better understand some of the mechanics as I play more. It was enjoyable enough that I am playing again, so there's that.

 

I mean, sometimes it works out great. As I said in another thread, I feel like my spell casters have a chance for high level spells to make a difference. In BG it always seemed like by the time my spell casters cast a high level spell, one side or the other was already dead, so I wasted a spell. Or by the time my spell caster could get off a high level spell, like Time Stop, the enemy was immune. WTF? Or it was otherwise too easy to get one-shotted. Balance does have its benefits.

 

Just some thoughts,

Joe

[rjshae]

I'd like to see more distinctiveness between the races. For example, unique, race-specific talents, spells, deities, gear, languages, &c. Draakensang, for example, has spells that are only available for elves and others that are human only.

 

The game as a whole seemed fine to me and doesn't need a major overhaul.