Starting back at level 1?

[rheingold]

 

 

 

Got to say it's a deal breaker for me. Really bad story telling, they have pretty much made the first game pointless. It's really unnecessary, they should have just had a new character, instead of waving a giant eothas shaped magic schtick. Really tacky. So disappointed. I'll still get the game but certainly not going to pay extra for it this time. And its nothing to do with power or lack thereoff or even an emotional bond with the watcher, it's purely narrative driven, as in, if I want to play a game without consequences or silly plotting, well there are no lack of those games.

 

Yea, I don't get how stealing part of your soul suddenly makes you forget how to swing a sword or sing a song.

Lorewise, your character's powers are soul based. That means getting soul drained is the equivalent of level drain in D&D, except Eora is piss poor in term of soul restoration magic as the first POE game showed (aka it has none and everyone screw things up the moment they start to play with souls).

 

Also, remember that a bîaŵac kill most people and that steal souls from a bodies...except the Watchers, they still end up on their asses and get weird visions because of it though.

Indeed. They have set-up an entirely in-universe plausible reason for this, it fits in with the given lore easily.

Actually they do have a legitimate reason for it plotwise, it's called bad writing. If a kid writing an essay at school had written a story about a big bad giant climbing out of a hole and hitting a character with a nerf bat while devouring his soul he'd probably fail. I certainly don't expect this level of writing from Obs. I am really not opposed to starting with a new character at level one who has to deal with Eothas, but really this is just silly. At any rate I'm not going to keep harping on by it, it's a done deal. As said, I will still play the game, I've just dropped the pledge by about 2/3rds because this childish writing does not bode well. That's it. The game still will get funded and do well I'm sure. Just not off me. Edited January 28, 2017 by rheingold

[Archaven]

@rheingold.. not to mention from 6 party characters to 5... indeed they are not making any sense.

[rheingold]

Yup there are some questionable decisions being made, the whole class revamp thing is also really worrying. The classes and stats where in a really good place, now they want a massive revamp? It's not just a level one watcher that's worrying.

If I made a list of things that concern me, in no particular order:

 

Major class revamp (and stats?)

Major story and plot retcon, at least that's the practical effect their changes would have, including nullifying everything you have accomplished in the first game.

Giant soul eating god snacking on previous character- 1st level watcher. Bad writing.

Wouldn't have brought this up as previously wouldn't have been relevant but now is worrying:

Losing CA and lead narrative designer from POE, frankly in light of some of their decisions is concerning.

6-5 characters in a party, again not a problem in itself, but when placed with other issues starts to hint at simplifying the game. (Dumbing down)

Investors having way to much feedback?

 

Not much info, but all together more than enough to be concerned about the direction they are going.

I for one, signed on for more Pillars, not less.

[Eumaios]

Losing Mr. Avellone doesn't  bother me so much.  Frankly, he left and I've heard that he kind of bad-mouthed the project afterwards.  I kind of think personal integrity matter and it's a real turn-off that he aired his dirty laundry in public.  On the other hand, this is the internet and maybe I'm taking his comments out of context.

 

I do agree about suddenly taking the PC down to first level by having 'memory' or even more sadly 'soul' loss.  It's just... stultifying.  How ridiculous can you get.

 

Still, I'm almost certain I'll 'back' the game and even more certain I'll enjoy it.  I don't want to be entirely negative, but I share some of these concerns.  ...But whatever weird thing they do with 2 won't detract from my experience with 1.

[kirottu]

 

 

 

 

Got to say it's a deal breaker for me. Really bad story telling, they have pretty much made the first game pointless. It's really unnecessary, they should have just had a new character, instead of waving a giant eothas shaped magic schtick. Really tacky. So disappointed. I'll still get the game but certainly not going to pay extra for it this time. And its nothing to do with power or lack thereoff or even an emotional bond with the watcher, it's purely narrative driven, as in, if I want to play a game without consequences or silly plotting, well there are no lack of those games.

Yea, I don't get how stealing part of your soul suddenly makes you forget how to swing a sword or sing a song.

 

Lorewise, your character's powers are soul based. That means getting soul drained is the equivalent of level drain in D&D, except Eora is piss poor in term of soul restoration magic as the first POE game showed (aka it has none and everyone screw things up the moment they start to play with souls).

 

Also, remember that a bîaŵac kill most people and that steal souls from a bodies...except the Watchers, they still end up on their asses and get weird visions because of it though.

 

Indeed. They have set-up an entirely in-universe plausible reason for this, it fits in with the given lore easily.

 

Actually they do have a legitimate reason for it plotwise, it's called bad writing. If a kid writing an essay at school had written a story about a big bad giant climbing out of a hole and hitting a character with a nerf bat while devouring his soul he'd probably fail. I certainly don't expect this level of writing from Obs. I am really not opposed to starting with a new character at level one who has to deal with Eothas, but really this is just silly. At any rate I'm not going to keep harping on by it, it's a done deal. As said, I will still play the game, I've just dropped the pledge by about 2/3rds because this childish writing does not bode well. That's it. The game still will get funded and do well I'm sure. Just not off me.

 

It's not called bad writing, it's called bad premise. Even then how good or bad it is is matter of taste.

 

I have no problem with it.

Edited January 28, 2017 by kirottu

[Boeroer]

I don't care about lvl 1 at all. Explanations aside: I play the game to develop and enchance my chars while doing an adventure. It's good to start at lvl 1.

 

But what I would really like to do is to keep some items - at least the ones you have with you when Eothas strikes. Some builds don't work properly without the right items... They could even be "dechanted" in quality in some way so that they are not too powerful at the start of the game. As long as they keep their special enchantments (like draining, wounding or rending or whatever) it's all good.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Boeroer

[Flouride]

Yup there are some questionable decisions being made, the whole class revamp thing is also really worrying. The classes and stats where in a really good place, now they want a massive revamp? It's not just a level one watcher that's worrying.

If I made a list of things that concern me, in no particular order:

 

Major class revamp (and stats?)

Major story and plot retcon, at least that's the practical effect their changes would have, including nullifying everything you have accomplished in the first game.

Giant soul eating god snacking on previous character- 1st level watcher. Bad writing.

Wouldn't have brought this up as previously wouldn't have been relevant but now is worrying:

Losing CA and lead narrative designer from POE, frankly in light of some of their decisions is concerning.

6-5 characters in a party, again not a problem in itself, but when placed with other issues starts to hint at simplifying the game. (Dumbing down)

Investors having way to much feedback?

 

Not much info, but all together more than enough to be concerned about the direction they are going.

I for one, signed on for more Pillars, not less.

 

Since they aren't using an existing IP and ruleset class balancing is a work in progress. Just as it has been in AD&D and other rulesets. You wanted more Pillars, not less, now you are getting more with multiclasses and kits, yet this is a bad thing all of a sudden?

 

How exactly are they nullifying everything? Dyrwood, Defiance Bay etc. have been altered by what you did, your choices in the first game will matter in the 2nd one as well. Or did you just want more of the same Dyrwood locale? Just because you start at level 1 doesn't mean everything you did didn't matter at all.

 

Giant soul eating god fits the setting, at least they didn't kill off the main character in the 1st promo video and then later on admit that he/she will be resurrected/built back to pieces.

Would you really rather fight against lvl 25 bandits who could if they just bothered to move their lazy butts conquer Defiance Bay like it was nothing. Pretty soon there's no where to go with the story if everything you face is the ultimate bad monster that could conquer the whole known world. And before you whine&bitch&moan about bad planning... they were doubtful that they were going to get to make the 1st game. Do you cripple your 1st game in the series by making progression in it a drag just in case you might get to make 2nd one later on?

 

MCA was a disgruntled employee and an owner. Do you really want someone who doesn't enjoy what he is doing to work on the game? Really? I'd rather have passionate people working on the game than someone who feels like every day within the company is slowly killing him. Fenstermaker split his time between PoE and South Park, he has even himself admitted that PoE suffered somewhat due to that split. While he is a talented writer, I don't think him leaving is a death blow or anything. Not to mention, there are hints that he might be a stretch goal later on.

 

5 or 6 characters, it really doesn't matter since you are still left with plenty of tactical options. It comes down to encounter design. Even if you have 6 characters it really doesn't matter if the encounters aren't enjoyable, challenging and fun. It's not dumbing it down, just because you have one less character to worry about.

 

Oh, and I wouldn't worry about investors having too much say, Obsidian has used more than enough of their own capital to make the game. Any drastic changes at this point would hurt investors investment as it would delay the project. Not to mention I don't think they have much say or enough say when the amount of money they are bringing is less than pledgers and Obsidian.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Flouride

[hilfazer]

Just wondering how levels are going to be handled given Pallegina, Eder, and Aloth (and even CHARNAME) are confirmed coming back.

 

BG2 was able to handle this because BG1/ToTSC left off at a modest power level (level 7-8ish for BG, level 10-11ish for ToTSC). By contrast, I feel like the power level at the end of White March part II (level 16) is almost akin to the end of BG2.

 

Come on, in PoE you are dealing with gods, all of them, and you can decide their fate (to give Woedica power or not) while in BG2:ToB you are merely sparring with god wannabe demigods. 

 

I'd prefer new, lvl 1 protagonist that starts by fighting xaurips and wolves (models are already there so why waste them?) and helping peasants but it's Obsidian's game.

[kirottu]

I do think there needs to be something for our Watchers to show what they went through in POE. Like "You're the Hero of Dyrwood. You get +2 resolve."

[Aotrs Commander]

Apologises to the thread at large for a brief (for me!) tangent, but after being accused of "lying spam" ("boring" I'll let pass on subjective), I felt I needed to at least address this comment.

 

"BG2 'ported you in from a lower level - everybody but mages, rogues and bards were level 8, (9 for the wizards and 10 for the latter if you'd played Sword Coast and had a higher XP cap). That's significantly lower than the cap for vanilla PoE - and AD&D was a very simple system, where there were essentially no real significant new class features for most classes between low and high level; spellcasters getting spells being the most obvious. (And cleric spells were never as good as wizard spells, and wizard spells could be limited by the devs as to where the scrolls could be obtained).

 

(And BG1's level cap was absurdly low compared to play time, and why no game thereafter has followed its lead.)

 

All in all, it was MUCH easier to deal with that than with PoE, which is much more like 3.x than AD&D. (Mercifully - as a mechanical system, AD&D was actually pretty crap. BG2 and PS:T succeeded in spite of, rather than because of, that underlying ruleset)

 

So I can see their rational in not wanting to start a game where you could have a potential level range of 11th to 16th and have to scale the entire game to those levels AND make a very steep curve for anyone who has not played the first one. (Because there is a massive different between an AD&D Fighter and a PoE Fighter at 16th level.)

 

Like I said, I would have preferred them to have split the difference a bit, but that's their decision."

 

Boring lying spam is boring lysing spam.  Even if what you said was 100% true (it isn't)  it doesn't change the fact this is just plain poor planning by Obsidian.  Like I said, this is just another ME2 all over again (Iand I loved ME2). that doesn't mean the game will suck but this just illustrates that Obsidian failed in understanding another thing that made the BG series so special. It wasn't just playing the same character in the sequel. It was continuing to level the same character. BIO even got flack for BG2 for taking  away most of the BG1 equipment and companions yet this somehow is better. As for the soul sucking, it is just a story excuse to delevel you because of lack of imagination.  Though, I do hope we can eventually fight said god.

 

 

P.S. AD&D is awesome.  The BG series/IE games were fun but they didn't even come close to doing it justice. AD&D 2E is not vanilla or simple.  But, hey, when the games skip out on secondary skills and non weapon proficiencies, I could see why the ignorant might think that. If you don't know what those terms are you shouldn't be debating or bashing 2E. Just stick to the dumbed down (but still enjoyable) IE versions.

 

 

To "spam," I do not think I have posted in this thread any more than, say rhiengold has, and I would not presume to say to that gentleman/lady/etc is "spamming" the thread. As to the rest:

 

I am well aware of AD&D with all the bells and whistles. I played it a fair bit (some years, on-and-off, between when I started roleplaying in about 1990 until 3.0 came out in 2000); I even have a the full set of the "Complete [classes]" books. (Though, no, I did not have every expansion, such as the player's option etc - I reserved that level of completeness for Rolemaster.)

 

I went and double-checked the XP totals (out of the BG-2 manual, in fact), before I made that post (beause I ALWAYS do that so as not to rely on memory and to be factually wrong before I post something), so I would be interested to know exactly what you think I was "lying" about. Yes, you could start at higher level than that is you used an XP Cap remover, but that is (what is now termed) a mod, not the base game as was intended. BG2 gave you 89000 XP or 161000 XP as cap if you were importing from vanilla (or a new character, as I recall) or Sword coast, which on the XP tables is level 8 for almost everyone but wizards and bard/thieves (which were 9 and 10 at 161000 respectively).

 

(BG2 enhanced edition may be different - I wouldn't know - but it was not the original design.)

 

I further went and checked by PHB before making this one and I stand by my statement - there are not many classes that have any class abilities granted by level (i.e. things which let you do new and different things from what you could at first level, not the same thing slightly better (e.g. more percentage points on thief skills)), and none of those come much beyond 9-10th level or so (even Druid, which I though did). (I am not going to check every kit, so yes, I will concede there may be kits which do that, and I also recall BG2 itself handled kits slightly differently to the complete books wit more 3.0-like abilites granted at higher levels.)

 

 

 

I stand by my statement. As a MECHANICAL SET OF RULES, AD&D was poor*. (Important qualification: this does not mean one cannot have a good GAME from a poor set of rules, but that is independant of the set of rules; especially in an RPG where a good chunk relies on things which have nothing to do with the rules.) It had awkward and occasionally utterly ludicrously counter-intutive rules (I defy anyone to have read the AD&D Compete Psionics and tell me the way psionic skills are rolled is not ridiculously nonsensical - and people complained about 3.0 psionics...!) and needlessly restrictive (especially with regards to race and class).

 

Notably, I played AD&D under about four or five different DMs (plus when I ran it myself) and no-one of them ever used the same sub-set of rules (and I think only one even used the rules as written). When I determined to run it, the very first thing I wrote down was all the houserules I felt required to bang it into shape. For that matter, even BG/IWD/BG2/PS:T also did not use many of the more contrived aforementioned limitations (e.g. class level restrictions), to their benefit.

 

Later years and better understanding of the general theories of game design (which did, of course, not exist back when the first RPGs - which AD&D still carries a lot of carry-overs from) and wargames were written, mean that better mechanical rule-sets now exist (later editions of D&D or PF. (I am not a fan of 4E, but as a mechanical system, I can't fault it - it does exactly what it sets out to do, it's just that what it sets out to do and what I want from my sets of rules are rather disprate.)  Many things are improved by building on the basis of earlier ones, because they have the advantage of knowing what worked well or not or what not to do.

 

(This does not preclude the existance of bad sets of rules, of course; especially with wargames. A lot of people think writing rules is easy and that anyone can do it, rather like how people consider anyone can write a novel. The reaity, is of course, entirely different.)

 

But, as I say, this is drifting rather off-topic, so I won't debate the issue of rules quality at length here in this thread, especially since PoE2's is pretty locked in.

 

 

 

The point I was making was that a 16th level fighter in AD&D, has no additional abillities from first level other than "higher numbers (or number of attacks) to hit monster with weapon," so is quite easy to predict what it can do. (Throne of Bhaal actually added some in at post-20th, though, as I recall.) At 16th level PoE fighter has a considerable number of abilites to account for in terms of making an optimised encounter.

 

(As a tabletop DM, I have to convert the Paizo adventure paths (for the house-rules and most pertiently larger party sizes) in chucnk, rather than all at once, so that I can at least keep some track of all the extra abilities the PCs get for this same reason.)

 

Too much of a spread of abilities gives you either a massive grey area, or means three or four times the work, as you would have to make each encounter for each difficulty level for each spread of levels. So I can understand their decision, even though I would have preferred them to do something different.

 

 

 

(Also, if you wanted me to engage in intelligent discourse, Volourn, it might have helped if you had used the quote button, rather than just quotation marks, as I only noticed you replying to my post by chance.)

 

 

 

*In the same sense the the Wright Brother's aircraft was mechanicallty pretty poor. It was the first, and therefore could not possibly have been up to later standards because they did not - could not - exist yet. This does not in ANY WAY diminish the historical importance of said device, nor of the quantum leap of achivement that allows them to make it at all.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Aotrs Commander

[IndiraLightfoot]

As I said earlier, my ideal would've been to start over, and yay! Here we do get to do that. High levels are usually wonky and cumbersome, and with all the changes planned to the systems overall, this feels great. I'm sad to hear that many of you feel a bit dismayed over it, but I ususally play CRPGs for...

-Exploration

-Rolling up characters & composing parties (I'm a compulsive restarter) and love planning ahead (that's what I did when I managed to finish PoE1 on PotD solo, such fond memories)

-Cool NPCs and story threads

-Music, mood and dreamy fantasy.

[Fenixp]

Yeah, starting over is by far the best choice. Pillars of Eternity on lvl 16 already suffered from insane talent/skill/spell overload, can't even imagine the nightmare higher levels would be. Not to mention that it would make for a fairly boring game or be fairly illogical anyway, considering we defeat some of the most powerful beings on Eora at the late levels of Pillars. So ... Either 90% of everything will flee on the sight of us, or Deadfire would make for the most formidable bandits and monsters in the game's world :-P

Edited January 28, 2017 by Fenixp

[morhilane]

I expect most loot will get "soul drained", lost in the ruins of Caed Nua or sold to buy a ship to get to the Deadfire islands. I expect equipment and enchantments to be revamped to match the revamped combat related systems.

[Osvir]

Posted in wrong thread pretty much:

What if Level 1 in Deadfire is like the equivalent of Level 12 then? You get to start with X amount of Ability and Talent points? Mages/Druids/Priests get a couple of levels in their respective schools?

​Perhaps the spell system is more transformative and flexible (like Tyranny), allowing you to mix and combine components, basically giving you room to cast a myriad of different spells at Level 1?

​And Attributes starting at a higher value as well, or getting more points at character creation, perhaps?

​If they go the Tyranny route of character creation ("Conquest"-esque) they would probably reward several abilities and such as you go forward.

 

 

 

What if Level 1 in Deadfire is like the equivalent of Level 12 then? You get to start with X amount of Ability and Talent points? Mages/Druids/Priests get a couple of levels in their respective schools?

This would mean that we're starting with a watcher that was capable of killing Adra Dragon. Which means there's pretty much no threat in the world that would be able to touch the protagonist.

 

 

 

In Deadfire, what happens to an Adra Dragon that gets touched by Eothas rebirth? Not to mention all new areas and such, no threats there?

​Were there no threats in Baldur's Gate 2?

​Level 1 is just a mechanical number. But it does spark the question what sort of "power level" characters will be equivalent of. Is it Level 5? Level 10?

​Or is it just a narrative "level drain"?

​Is Deadfire a High-Level Campaign in concept?

 

------------------------------

 

I expect most loot will get "soul drained", lost in the ruins of Caed Nua or sold to buy a ship to get to the Deadfire islands. I expect equipment and enchantments to be revamped to match the revamped combat related systems.

 

Or put on display in Caed Nua, and when the titan revives and rises lots of it falls down the pit it came from. Most of the treasury falling down the drain, making the Lord of Caed Nua pretty much broke, and depending on what happens in Dyrwood at this time, I can only expect that it becomes so chaotic that everyone has to flee in desperation or they're going to be squished.

​EDIT: Furthermore, this response (barrels of gundpowder exploding) to melnorme pretty much states that the environment may be a threat as well (and thinking about it, sailing, piracy, potential ship combat etc.) pretty much tells us one thing that makes sense:

​The Watcher is pretty much a noob at sailing = Level 1.

​What if we could start at Level 16, just for the prologue segment of Eothas rebirthing, and then escaping to sea and become Level 1.

​I'm getting some sort of WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, Undead Campaign, vibes here (Arthas going down 1 level every map, because Sylvanas shoots him with a weakening arrow).

Edited January 28, 2017 by Osvir

[Eurhetemec]

I was very skeptical about the L1 start, but after reading through people's thoughts, I think it's probably a necessary evil, and the setting allows for it, given souls are specifically and repeatedly tied to both memories/skills and magic in the first game - so being damaged/drained in that area could indeed make you vastly weaker.

 

Given the subclassing, multi-classing and so on, and probably other system changes, likely changing and/or adding/removing a bunch of spells, talents and so on, we would at the very least have needed to rebuild our character from the ground up, and getting us to start at L11-16 as a baseline would have meant the game was very unfriendly to anyone coming to it new, and hell, rebuilding your character would probably have been off-putting to even some veterans.

 

Personally I do hope they do one of two things though (or both):

 

1) Make L1 to L6 or so more interesting mechanically - your options are very limited at these levels in Pillars and the game is significantly less engaging, mechanically, than in the mid and late game, and the encounter design is necessarily more boring too (as you have fewer counters/strategies available). A lot of different ways to potentially do this.

 

And/or

 

2) Start at L1 but give XP very rapidly until you're around L6 or L8, which could be lore justified by having use somehow recovering fragments of our soul (each one could grant a very large glob of XP).

 

The change from 6 to 5 characters is interesting - the only reason I can see for this is if they are making each character more mechanically complex - i.e. having more abilities to manage - which could be the result of beefing up the number of options you have at lower levels. They only thing I have against it is that I like mixed parties with both companions and player-created hired NPCs, and the smaller the party, the trickier that is to make work.

[Ashen Rohk]

If you imported your BG1/2 character into Neverwinter Nights, you got slapped back to Level 1.

Mass Effect, slapped back to Level 1.

Witcher 2/3, slapped back to Level 1.

 

Literally, the only game I can think of where you actually get to keep your character level between games is Baldur's Gate.

 

It's better to have a premise, however flimsy you find it, to be taken back to Level 1. With the sub-classes mechanic if you have a bunch of Level 16 characters you now have party members who don't take advantage of the sub-class mechanic unless you have a respec option which is even more lore-breaking.

 

I don't really understand what the hurry is to get up the levels faster aside from getting to play with the higher level abilities and spells. For newcomers to the game, you need the learning curve. For returning players, yes it might be a bit of nostalgia to tread over the level progression but you do get the chance to play that same character a completely different way.

 

If the sub-class system is taking a 5e approach to how you can develop a character I'm all for it. But you need to start at the beginning.

 

2 days into the crowdfunder and we're already having to go "This is not Baldur's F*cking Gate 3". Please, let's not turn this into the Disengage of PoE2.

[Eurhetemec]

If you imported your BG1/2 character into Neverwinter Nights, you got slapped back to Level 1.

Mass Effect, slapped back to Level 1.

Witcher 2/3, slapped back to Level 1.

 

Literally, the only game I can think of where you actually get to keep your character level between games is Baldur's Gate.

 

It's better to have a premise, however flimsy you find it, to be taken back to Level 1. With the sub-classes mechanic if you have a bunch of Level 16 characters you now have party members who don't take advantage of the sub-class mechanic unless you have a respec option which is even more lore-breaking.

 

I don't really understand what the hurry is to get up the levels faster aside from getting to play with the higher level abilities and spells. For newcomers to the game, you need the learning curve. For returning players, yes it might be a bit of nostalgia to tread over the level progression but you do get the chance to play that same character a completely different way.

 

If the sub-class system is taking a 5e approach to how you can develop a character I'm all for it. But you need to start at the beginning.

 

2 days into the crowdfunder and we're already having to go "This is not Baldur's F*cking Gate 3". Please, let's not turn this into the Disengage of PoE2.

 

I don't entirely disagree but I would make two points:

 

1) I am horrible pedant, and whilst in ME1 to ME2, you did get booted back to L1 (but, IIRC, you could get bonus XP from having been high level and start at like L5 - or was that NG+?), in ME2 to ME3, you kept your level - it's just that they re-jigged everything so there were 30 more levels. So BG2 isn't quite the only one.

 

2) The hurry to get up the levels faster is because, at least in Pillars 1, the gameplay was pretty much objectively better at higher levels. You had more options, the enemies could be allowed to have more options, you didn't need to rest quite as much (as you could ration abilities better with more of them), and so on.

Now, they say they are re-working progression, and if L1 is more like L4 or L5, say, which wouldn't break anything or stress people too much, then this issue will be much reduced, and I don't think speed leveling will be needed. But if you don't have either more choices at L1, or speed leveling, you are going to effectively make the beginning of the game mechanically dull - and if you level as damn slowly as in Pillars 1, that's going to be a long, painful part of the game.

[IndiraLightfoot]

This post by Josh over at Something Awful certainly shows that they will change class and character levelling and progress systems a lot!

And he definitely knows about the pitfall of having peeps rolling high level chars right off the bat, like in MotB:

 

 

This post gives this old knucklehead hope. I am exactly that person who couldn't "get it" wrt the mechanics.

 

[rheingold]

Not sure how often I have to repeat this I am not opposed to starting at level one, in fact it's a good idea. I am very much opposed to plot crowbars, or just plain bad writing. So a level one noob - awesome way to go can't wait. Level one watcher soul drained by giant adra statue inhabited by deceased god, not so much.

Edited January 28, 2017 by rheingold

[Archaven]

I don't really have a problem to start back at level 1. I think more of the problem is about i probably have to be at 70-80% of the content to be able to access the high level spells and skills and at that point in time, the game is almost over? Or they could possibly saving the "high level" combat encounters content for the expansion? I have more issues with having just 5 characters much more than this.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Archaven

[Messier-31]

I don't care about character level starting from 1, because it is only a number indicating your progression.

 

Nobody in the world of Eora will approach your character and say "zoinks Scoob, like it's the 1st level dude that was 16th one time".

[paladin181]

I don't care about character level starting from 1, because it is only a number indicating your progression.

 

Nobody in the world of Eora will approach your character and say "zoinks Scoob, like it's the 1st level dude that was 16th one time".

But as it does indicate progression, it feels like our previous progress is completely lost. My character may as well not be my character because the adventures to this point are completely invalidated.

[Messier-31]

But as it does indicate progression, it feels like our previous progress is completely lost. My character may as well not be my character because the adventures to this point are completely invalidated.

 

Your PoE1 decisions still matter. I start a new game, I start a new level 1. Obvious. Imagine you start Deadfire with your 16th level character and then what? What enemies must you face in this game for it to make sense. Swarms of uber-dragons and demonic legions from hell? Or every mere thug has the same powers and experience as you, so he could pose a threat for a demigod like you?

[boffmoffet]

Baldur's Gate 2 is a strange outlier in RPG sequels that start as high level. It only worked because of the unique way baldurs gate transferred a P&P system to a video game. It was kind of a wonky and awkward fit, and it was not particularly balanced well. 

 

I strongly prefer systems and games that start at level 1, they just seem to be more fun and balanced. I also have a strong addiction to creating my own party of mercs with fleshed out backstories and relationships, then never playing them. That takes forever at high levels even with the considerable amount of meta knowledge I have built up. 

[Tigranes]

 

I don't care about character level starting from 1, because it is only a number indicating your progression.

 

Nobody in the world of Eora will approach your character and say "zoinks Scoob, like it's the 1st level dude that was 16th one time".

But as it does indicate progression, it feels like our previous progress is completely lost. My character may as well not be my character because the adventures to this point are completely invalidated.

 

 

Of course it's lost, this is a new game. I want to play a new game with overhauled, improved game mechanics, which is much easier to do with a fresh start. I don't get any particular hard-on from being level 800 and I don't really care to believe the Watcher is a real dude that goes to the loo and his life stretches out in one linear progression of power. I want to enjoy a good story, I want to play a fun game, and the history of CRPGs indicate that it's much easier to do that at low/mid-levels than super epic.