Poll: Expansion after the end of the story or in the middle

[JerekKruger]

I much prefer expansion content to come at the end. Ideally I'd like to see expansion content to be a bit like Throne of Bhaal, and form a minicampaign after the events of the main campaign.

 

EDIT: whilst I love the White March content, I do think it fundamentally messed up the balance of the main game in a way that the level scaling didn't really fix.

Edited February 10, 2017 by JerekKruger

[injurai]

I much prefer expansion content to come at the end. Ideally I'd like to see expansion content to be a bit like Throne of Bhaal, and form a minicampaign after the events of the main campaign.

 

EDIT: whilst I love the White March content, I do think it fundamentally messed up the balance of the main game in a way that the level scaling didn't really fix.

 

​That's a good point. There are less assumptions you can make as far as balance. It could make it harder to handle narrative decisions from the main games finale but I would always welcome the attempt.

[Ganrich]

An idea I've had, and sorry I didn't read through the thread to check if it has been said already, is to do another 2 part Expansion like TWM. Part 1 happens mid campaign, and although it is side content it ties in somewhat to the main story. Then Part 2 picks up after the main campaign because your actions in finishing it, but is more a continuation of the first expansion. This gives a little of both, but the story of the first expansion needs to tie in to the main campaign somehow.

[injurai]

​

An idea I've had, and sorry I didn't read through the thread to check if it has been said already, is to do another 2 part Expansion like TWM. Part 1 happens mid campaign, and although it is side content it ties in somewhat to the main story. Then Part 2 picks up after the main campaign because your actions in finishing it, but is more a continuation of the first expansion. This gives a little of both, but the story of the first expansion needs to tie in to the main campaign somehow.

 

​That's neat. It's like a side-quest of large proportion. But ultimately the concerns of the main plot draw your attention away. Finally when you have saved the world once again yadda yadda, you will have freed yourself up to pursue that oh so noble task that you promised yourself you'd finish.

[Madscientist]

At the end of the story please.

WM1+2 were really good, in some things even better than the main game. But they ruined the difficulty settings. If you did them early, the rest of the main game was a joke. If you did them before jumping into the pit, they were very easy. Level scaling did not change much.

They also distracted you from the main goal. In the main game you must solve the problem with your awakening as watcher or you become insane. But you have all the time in the world to travel to another region and do something completely unrelated.

From a power gaming point of view it was good to make them early. You got many powerful items there and especially the soulbound things required you to deal x damage or kill x enemies.

 

I would prefer one of those:

- BG1: Some high level areas where you can go shortly before the end of the main game. This might be good if the game is more about open world exploration and less about a linear story line where you must solve an immideate danger.

- Throne of Bhaal or Mask of the Betrayer: Events that happen after the main game, either they continue the story directly (ToB) or your char runs into a new problem after solving the last one (MotB). You should continue with your char as (s)he is and some decissions in the main game should influence the expansion.

 

my personal opinion:

- ToB was too epic. I finished it once, when I tried to play it again I quit because I got bored. It is a linear story with one epic battle after the other. I also never finished IWD1, not because it was too hard but because I became bored. And I never started IWD2, even though I own it. Shame on me

- I liked the BG1 expansion. It was completely optional and it was interesting and challenging.

- MotB is one of the best expansions ever. I would even call it one of the best games of its own, together with PST.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Madscientist

[Ganrich]

​

An idea I've had, and sorry I didn't read through the thread to check if it has been said already, is to do another 2 part Expansion like TWM. Part 1 happens mid campaign, and although it is side content it ties in somewhat to the main story. Then Part 2 picks up after the main campaign because your actions in finishing it, but is more a continuation of the first expansion. This gives a little of both, but the story of the first expansion needs to tie in to the main campaign somehow.

 

​That's neat. It's like a side-quest of large proportion. But ultimately the concerns of the main plot draw your attention away. Finally when you have saved the world once again yadda yadda, you will have freed yourself up to pursue that oh so noble task that you promised yourself you'd finish.

 

Sort of. I'll give a better example.  Pretend the WM expansions don't exist, and we will use PoE as an example.  I don't think I need to go through the story for the main campaign's plot points.  I don't want to type it, and there may be people that haven't played the game...  So, I won't.

 

Let's say part one of the expac would occur mid-campaign, but isn't a decent sized set of areas in another part of the world.  It's a few new areas scattered around the Dyrwood, and they indicate something nefarious involving the Engwithan ruins beyond what is spelled out in the first game.  Other people have been there recently, the machines have another use, etc.  That leads to a few situations with the Glanfathans, and some dungeons, etc.  This quest chain leads back into the main campaign, and when you defeat the final boss (I won't name him), and make that decision you then are lead toward the conclusion of finding who else was fiddling with the ruins for part 2 of the expac.  Perhaps that decision at the end causes the other party that's been messing in the ruins to make a move as it foiled their plans.  There are a few ways to go about it.  In PoE that could have fed back into Twin Elms and made it more robust.  Thus fleshing out the core game while adding end game content.  It would have allowed them to populated Twin Elms in the core game a bit more, added areas, and turned it into a better second city than they had.  This is just as an example.

 

Another example, but crossing into sequels is that if in BG:  TotSC you ran across rumors involving Irenicus, and it gave an indication of things to come.  Perhaps leading you south toward Cloud Peaks, and close to Amn.  Of course, Amn takes place in a sequel, and is better for it, but it's a good example of using the mid-game expac to hint at things to come. 

Edited February 11, 2017 by Ganrich

[pi2repsion]

End. Definitely end.

 

I liked the White March and storywise it fit in the middle with two high level areas at the end, but it completely screwed up any semblance of balance the game already had for all the pre-expansion areas you visited after completing the White March.

 

Even the high-level enemy scaling introduced only mildly ameliorated the bizarre issue that almost no loot you found or could buy after the White March when you progressed into chapter three of the main story were really worth it in comparison to what you'd picked up in the middle of the adventure, and that every enemy encounter was a complete pushover since enemy stats and abilities, boosted or not, came nowhere near in power to the power of higher level characters with better gear, durgan-steel enhanced equipment, and entire new tiers of abilities. Now, given that perhaps half the pre-expansion game can fall after your White March visit, that's a rather significant failure of design in my opinion.

 

If an expansion is not to be at the very or after the end I think this was done much better with Tales of the Sword Coast. While you could access Ulgoth's Beard fairly early in your adventure, its content were scaled for high-level (by BG1 standards) characters and if you played methodically you were likely to have already played through a lot of the game when it would appear natural to go there due to its location on the map. Heck, you could even play it as bridge between BG1 and BG2.

 

But my favourite for expansions are after the end, which is one of the reasons why, in Infinity Engine context, I considered the Throne of Bhaal expansion a much, much, better than TotSC that I also really liked. One optional highlevel area within the main story of what you expand, everything else extending the main story. (Given the main story of Pillars of Eternity it is clear that there are many story arguments against such an expansion, which is why I guess they went with the middle of the story White March in stead, but it certainly had its cost where game balance was concerned.)

[Labadal]

I voted after the story. That way, they can balance it for the current player level and maybe expand on the core game plot.

[theBalthazar]

Problem with WM : if the player go in this area at the end, there is a loss of scaling.

 

But with PoE 2 if I understand right, there is scaling... So no problem.

 

Personnaly, for an extension, I prefer an "epic-epic side" (Concept of evolution, ever highter you know). So obviously, High level battle = end.

Edited February 11, 2017 by theBalthazar

[Blades of Vanatar]

Definitely after the story for me. WM was a decent balance but WMII made anything after it a cakewalk. Didn't make much sense to me in that regard. I would prefer a ToB type add-on.

[Varana]

It often depends on the story of your game, and your expansion.

For a general story, you have to strike a balance: Create a sense of urgency (or things're getting worse!) so the player feels the need to do stuff with their character, and becomes engaged in the story. And second, giving the player freedom to explore the world, do side stuff, and so on, so they don't feel like just rushing through a novel. All RPGs fall somewhere in between.
But in the end, there is a certain genre convention, an implicit understanding between writer and player: The game will wait for you. There will be side content that is not directly tied to the main quest, you will be able to do it (even required, to level), and the main quest will not advance unless the player chooses to do so.
At a certain point in the game, the world will open up to the player to do all sorts of things - save random virgins from dragons or vice versa, get a castle built up, become a vampire (why not?), an expert in graverobbing (err... "clearing dungeons"), in alchemy, blacksmithery, and courteous manners, and all these things... and all the time the evil cultists are waiting in their skull temple, starting their ritual just in the moment the protagonist enters their general area, whenever that might be.
That is completely "unrealistic", but it is an accepted trope (unless you're trying to be extra edgy about it and pretend to be special and stuff by not using it, which usually makes your game worse).

The same with mid-game expansions. Sure, they detract from your overall quest - but there's lots of things that do that. (What exactly was the point of doing all that stuff around Dyrford when you could've gone straight to Clîaban Rilag, instead?) Some side quests hide their side questy nature a bit better, and expansion packs have the disadvantage of standing out as obviously not critical content from the start, but that's about it.

On the other hand, setting an expansion after the main game depends heavily on how that main quest ends. Some games (usually those with a more open world) let you continue playing after the main quest, and that's an advantage for having a post-end expansion.
If your ending changes the world profoundly, however, that might not be so easy.
Also, what your end boss actually is. If, during your main quest, you give the player the means to slay gods, dragons, and dragon-gods, you can't really back down afterwards, severely limiting your options for a post-game expansion: it has to have mostly high-level content, and that easily gets stupid if you think too long about it. (That Oasis fight in ToB...) You have to ramp up your run-of-the-mill enemies like guards and mildly annoying wildlife to ridiculous levels to still provide some sort of challenge to your god-dragon slaying party, or allow them to one-hit almost everything.
That happens during the game, as well (esp. with scaling), and is another accepted trope if you don't overdo it (*cough*Oblivion*cough*). It just becomes much more obvious in an expansion pack, also because that's obviously separate content from the start.

In the end, you'll always have to compromise somewhere, and rely on the players to overlook certain inconsistencies.

A mid-game expansion pack messing up the game balance, is a separate issue that you have to provide for, but there's solutions to this, even though PoE1 didn't really achieve that. But that's a question of implementation, not of principle.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Varana

[juanval]

I only play once these games, so I prefer expansion after the final events of main game, or, at least, I hope devs give information about their expansion plans before releasing PoE2 main game.

 

I regret not to playing the White March, but I don't want to replay all the entire PoE campaign again.

 

I think this time, if expansion is at the middle, I'll play one act of PoE2 and wait for the expansion release.

Edited February 11, 2017 by juanval

[JerekKruger]

I regret not to playing the White March, but I don't want to replay all the entire PoE campaign again.

 

Assuming you've still got your saves from your PoE play through there should be an automatic save just before you jump into the hole of no return. You can load this up and then play through the two DLCs if you want.

[hilfazer]

I want Obsidian to do what they want to do. Sounds banal but it's true.

I don't want them to force themselves into doing, for example, past-the-end expansion if they have lots of ideas and passion for doing in-the-middle expansion.

 

It does not mean i have no preferece, no. I prefer in-the-middle expansion because i don't feel like playing a god and yes, i expect POE2 to at least match its predecessor in epicness.

 

The game is going to be more open this time so it either will not have same sense of urgency as prequel or the narrative will suffer already in its vanilla state.

[JerekKruger]

Well I agree with you hilfazer, I just assumed that went without saying. My preference for "post ending DLC" is a secondary preference to Obsidian doing what they feel works best.

[Baramos]

It'd depend on how the main story ends for me if I'd like the expansion to take place after the game.

[Mazisky]

To be honest guys, mid game content suits better in a openworld game, while end game is better for linear games.

 

PoE2 will be more on the openworld side, so mid content is more beneficial to it.

[gibonez]

 

 

PoE2 will be more on the openworld side, so mid content is more beneficial to it.

 

How can you possibly assume that to be so ?

 

If it is anything like the countless CRPG's before it poe 2 will be linear just like POE 1.

[blotter]

Sawyer mentioned that one of their goals in Pillars 2 was providing more freedom to explore the region and allowing players to do so earlier on.

 

I'd agree that allowing for more exploration than the first game is by no means the same as Pillars 2 being an open-world type game, though.

Edited February 12, 2017 by blotter

[Townsendvol]

Seems less confusing if its just at the end of the campaign.