I never finished Pillars of Eternity.

[Messier-31]

But really, just generally, I wish people would sometimes get off those same old tropes. "Wizards have to frail 'cause reasons"*, "no gunpowder in my fantasy world!", "dwarves have to like beer and axes and hate horses and elves!", and all that stuff.

For a genre that is named for fantasy, Fantasy's pretty devoid of fantasy. Knights in shining armour, *yawn*. (Or its modern incarnation, knights in dirty armour.) There's so much more than just "we pretend to be Western European Middle Ages" that is your typical fantasy stuff.

 

Because this is the most popular and obvious thing associated with the term "fantasy".

 

Western is in 99% cases set in the Wild West of 19th century USA. Less then 1% is set somewhere else (there even was one movie set in Polish mountains).

Edited March 27, 2017 by Messier-31

[FlintlockJazz]

You're not required to boost strength on your Watcheresses. You can dump Might all you want if that floats your boat ... err, "enhances your immersion".

 

Sure, that's disadvantageous for a mage in Pillars. But really, just generally, I wish people would sometimes get off those same old tropes. "Wizards have to frail 'cause reasons"*, "no gunpowder in my fantasy world!", "dwarves have to like beer and axes and hate horses and elves!", and all that stuff.

For a genre that is named for fantasy, Fantasy's pretty devoid of fantasy. Knights in shining armour, *yawn*. (Or its modern incarnation, knights in dirty armour.) There's so much more than just "we pretend to be Western European Middle Ages" that is your typical fantasy stuff.

 

* Granted, PoE is pretty inconsistent on that front.

 

Edit: Ah, yeah, topic.

I finished PoE, and people really should give White March a shot.

Funnily enough, the stereotypical Fantasy Setting as portrayed by D&D and others, is not very Middle Ages at all.  As one person I saw put it very aptly, "Fantasy aims for medieval but misses by a large margin".  Most of what we take for granted for being in Fantasy isn't anywhere near medieval, the societies depicted in them are nothing like it (the economy especially, and I'm not talking about the adventurer economy issue at all but the fact that people have money at all and that there are shops) and thats before we get to things like rapiers, full plate, etc.  Stereotypical Fantasy Setting 101 is a hodge podge of many different cultures and eras, and has no real bearing on any authentic historical setting at all.  Just sayin'.

[Abel]

Anyway, i fail to see how dropping strenght of female characters a bit compared to male characters and "fantasy tropes" have anything to do with each other. I do the same in Fallout. By the way, i, personally, have nothing against tropes or clichés. It's all about the way you use them. Use them badly, it will be boring. Use them wisely, it will be great. I think it works for cinema or books, too. Using clichés does not necessarily means being lazy.

[White Andromeda]

New flash: most players never finished PoE. That's true of many other cRPGs as well.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/08/pillars-of-eternity-does-it-matter-if-people-dont-finish-games-any-more

 

(I did finish once, then skipped the end game on the second play through.)

 

Maybe i'm some rare kind of person who finished PoE 1 only once, played 333 hours and... I love all things which i 've seen in the game. The funniest moment is that i'm a new flash. Didn't play Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment and became fan of Obsidian only after Pillar's walkthrough this February. However i can say that i played PoE Intermittently, i can playing another game for a month and after that return to Pillars. But i don't think it's the game's blame, it's the blame of my habits of action gameplay which i've seen in every Action/RPG. In spite of this, i finished the game and PoE became one of my favourite game series. I can say that Obsidian do their job great, despite the problems Pillars 1 has(And which game does not have them?). They led a lot of fresh blood to Classic RPG and made these people love this kind of gameplay. I hope people who can't stand PoE 1 will fall in love from DEADFIRE. Obsidian are talented team, and they do their best to make the best game for us, guys)) Anyway, the second game will be more polishing, more intersting and, of course, better.

[Decadency]

First time i've finished Pillars of Eternity on normal difficulty but with expert mode without DLC's and was skipping much content and it was really hard cause i wanted to finish it faster. In Twin Elms I was already tired of the game. That was a hard ending (my party was too low level for the last fight). Later I've played Tyranny and it was awesome. I've rushed through all of the content with Path of The Damned and loved it. And then I've started Pillars of Eternity again to play White March's with the hardest difficulty making every single quest and reading every book. Now I see how awesome is this game and it became one of my favorites.

[Ninjamestari]

Funnily enough, the stereotypical Fantasy Setting as portrayed by D&D and others, is not very Middle Ages at all.  As one person I saw put it very aptly, "Fantasy aims for medieval but misses by a large margin".  Most of what we take for granted for being in Fantasy isn't anywhere near medieval, the societies depicted in them are nothing like it (the economy especially, and I'm not talking about the adventurer economy issue at all but the fact that people have money at all and that there are shops) and thats before we get to things like rapiers, full plate, etc.  Stereotypical Fantasy Setting 101 is a hodge podge of many different cultures and eras, and has no real bearing on any authentic historical setting at all.  Just sayin'.

 

 

People often don't realize that medieval times weren't *that* backwater economically, especially when we start to speak about the 11th and the 12th century. People actually did have money in those times and they did have 'shops'. A village smithy was still more likely to produce equipment at demand rather than stockpile it around for sale though. Hell they even had banking back then. The late middle ages don't really differ that much from the renaissance in economic terms.

[ianzentris]

JFSOCC, you just hit the spot for me.

 

Ive been playing PoE when iam in the mood. I totally agree in all points.

Wall of text npbs... that really annoys me! No icon that shows "this guy has a quest for you" means i have to click everyone of them.

 

I hope that all things get polished, because i still love the game and the passion that flows out of it.

[Abel]

Wall of text npbs... that really annoys me! No icon that shows "this guy has a quest for you" means i have to click everyone of them.

 

I hope that all things get polished, because i still love the game and the passion that flows out of it.

 

Well, the fact that there are no icons showing NPCs "having quests for you" has nothing to do with a lack of polish you know oO. But polish has something to do with the game having no icons. You understand things backwards. I'm pretty much sure that a vast majority of the backers of Pillars 1 definitely did not want these icons. And Obs has stated since the very start that the game would not take the hand of the player.

 

"No icon that shows "this guy has a quest for you" means i have to click everyone of them.".

 

This part struck me hard.

 

That's pretty much the purpose actually. Named characters often have more to say than characters with "townspeople" as a name. Most quest givers are named. Although i saw quests given by "townspeople XX" in past RPGs. I would like more of this, because this means your exploration and research is rewarded, as it is in a tabletop game. That's precisely the point of having several different ways to solve quests: the point is to reward players for thinking. Having quest markers would defeat this whole purpose. Originally quest designs implied players have to think for themselves in order to solve them. There were not any usefull quest log either. You could even fail them if not careful enough. Fetch quests is a pretty recent lazy game design style, which take great care into making sure the player can't lose, and don't miss them (quest markers) (lol. I despise this type of design so much, i can't even tell).

 

Don't expect to see these icons in Pillars 2 either. If there are added, i would feel utterly outraged. Like... utterly.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Abel

[Gnostic]

So what?

 

I backed the first Pillars and never play it and I already backed Pillars 2.

 

That said I already bought Neverwinter Night 2 Series, Star Wars KOTOR, Fallout New Vagas, Dungeon Siege 3 and never play them.

 

I am really poor in free time......

[Aleh1811]

Wow, that was quite aflame fest that I missed. Regarding the previous discussion, despite being a liberal and Considering that women by no means should limit themselves to only being mothers, I do consider that we should accept opposing opinions calmly. At most we can simply require that the off topic comments be moved to its own independent thread. Getting angry or personal seems unnecessary and counterproductive, as it makes us look like we simply can't handle independent thoughts.

 

On the other hand I do like the concept of might being independent from physical size and gender. It makes it slightly more believable when I make my puny looking human to be stronger than an orc and it goes in line with the fantasy settings.

[Sedrefilos]

So what?

 

I backed the first Pillars and never play it and I already backed Pillars 2.

 

That said I already bought Neverwinter Night 2 Series, Star Wars KOTOR, Fallout New Vagas, Dungeon Siege 3 and never play them.

 

I am really poor in free time......

But not poor in your pockets apparently

Can I have them since you're not gonna play them? :D

[Katarack21]

So what?

 

I backed the first Pillars and never play it and I already backed Pillars 2.

 

That said I already bought Neverwinter Night 2 Series, Star Wars KOTOR, Fallout New Vagas, Dungeon Siege 3 and never play them.

 

I am really poor in free time......

I'm confused. Why would you spend money to purchase games made by a specific company if you've never played the other games made by that company? You literally have no way of knowing if you enjoy them. For all you know, you could have just bought a bunch of games you hate and wasted all your money.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Katarack21

[Katarack21]

 

Fetch quests is a pretty recent lazy game design style, which take great care into making sure the player can't lose, and don't miss them (quest markers) (lol. I despise this type of design so much, i can't even tell).

 

 There were fetch quests in Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, ChronoTrigger, and the original Final Fantasy. It's one of the *oldest* quest designs. It's simple, easy to implement, doesn't take much design skill. It was an early "innovation". Interesting, exciting, multi-step quests with complexity and thought came later...like decent journals and notes telling you where the hell to go.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Katarack21

[Jozape]

I never finished PoE either -- I have played less than 10 hours according to GOG -- but I'm glad to have contributed to the KickStarter campaign. I'm only waiting for Obsidian to announce something with a universe I can actually enjoy these days. Maybe I'll become less allergic to Middle Earth and Forgotten Realms in the future but I can't play anything in those types of worlds at this time.

 

...yet here I am reading about Deadfire. I guess I am at least interested in the design.

[Ninjamestari]

I never finished PoE either -- I have played less than 10 hours according to GOG -- but I'm glad to have contributed to the KickStarter campaign. I'm only waiting for Obsidian to announce something with a universe I can actually enjoy these days. Maybe I'll become less allergic to Middle Earth and Forgotten Realms in the future but I can't play anything in those types of worlds at this time.

 

...yet here I am reading about Deadfire. I guess I am at least interested in the design.

 

The sign of intelligence I'd say. No one should be ashamed of a sound mind.

[algroth]

 

 

Fetch quests is a pretty recent lazy game design style, which take great care into making sure the player can't lose, and don't miss them (quest markers) (lol. I despise this type of design so much, i can't even tell).

 

 There were fetch quests in Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, ChronoTrigger, and the original Final Fantasy. It's one of the *oldest* quest designs. It's simple, easy to implement, doesn't take much design skill. It was an early "innovation". Interesting, exciting, multi-step quests with complexity and thought came later...like decent journals and notes telling you where the hell to go.

 

I think a lot of a fetch quest's success falls down to how well you're able to conceal the fact that it is just that, and how the obstacles mix up the design just enough that it stops feeling like "just a fetch quest". An argument could be made that the Cult of the Unseeing Eye questline in Baldur's Gate II for example is a fetch quest, inasmuch as at the centre of it all the main conceit is that of finding, using and delivering the Rift Device. The arc surrounding the Bronze Sphere in Planescape: Torment is also compelling because of the sheer complexity involved in reaching it, too. These tend to be more questionable the more obvious and straightforward they are, however.

[HooAmEye]

At the core of it all, there are only two types of quests. Either bring something back, or bring something somewhere.  I definitely agree that it all depends on the context. Just take a look at the Witcher, Pathologic, or New Vegas side quests. All of them are bring this object to a place, go kill something, or bring me a mcguffin. However, the writing around it all is good enough to make the player ignore what the mechanics are. PoE did this really well with the Twin Elm quests, with how tied to lore/exploration/ and loot they are

[Katarack21]

At the core of it all, there are only two types of quests. Either bring something back, or bring something somewhere.  I definitely agree that it all depends on the context. Just take a look at the Witcher, Pathologic, or New Vegas side quests. All of them are bring this object to a place, go kill something, or bring me a mcguffin. However, the writing around it all is good enough to make the player ignore what the mechanics are. PoE did this really well with the Twin Elm quests, with how tied to lore/exploration/ and loot they are

 

 

 

 

Fetch quests is a pretty recent lazy game design style, which take great care into making sure the player can't lose, and don't miss them (quest markers) (lol. I despise this type of design so much, i can't even tell).

 

 There were fetch quests in Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, ChronoTrigger, and the original Final Fantasy. It's one of the *oldest* quest designs. It's simple, easy to implement, doesn't take much design skill. It was an early "innovation". Interesting, exciting, multi-step quests with complexity and thought came later...like decent journals and notes telling you where the hell to go.

 

I think a lot of a fetch quest's success falls down to how well you're able to conceal the fact that it is just that, and how the obstacles mix up the design just enough that it stops feeling like "just a fetch quest". An argument could be made that the Cult of the Unseeing Eye questline in Baldur's Gate II for example is a fetch quest, inasmuch as at the centre of it all the main conceit is that of finding, using and delivering the Rift Device. The arc surrounding the Bronze Sphere in Planescape: Torment is also compelling because of the sheer complexity involved in reaching it, too. These tend to be more questionable the more obvious and straightforward they are, however.

 

That's all very true. Early on quests were very simple. Go here; grind a few hours; kill this monster to get item; take item to this person to get this item; take this item to this person to get other item; take other item to other person to get third item; take third item to third location to unlock fourth person to send on quest to get fourth item; take fourth item to fifth location to get item originally asked for, take back to original person.

 

I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy I.

[Gregorovitch]

Combat

I hated combat. Not because it was hard, or easy, or simple or complex, mostly because of the epic battle music. It started to grate on me really fast. Variation, not as bombastic when I'm fighting a less impressive group of opponents, that might make a difference.

I also didn't quite ever get that "click" moment where I felt that the toolkit of character abilities I got got used strategically or tactically.

Either they were unnecessary, or by the time I could use them the battlefield had changed. I played a rogue, I cleared the 15 level dungeon, I don't know if that's meaningful. Never did beat the dragon though.

This is probably because I suck at combat, and I'm stupid and I should feel stupid. so please tell me in the comments below. (and don't forget to like and subscribe)

Flow of combat just did not work out for me.

 

Personally I would guess that your problem with Pillars can be summed up right there.

 

There is a lot of combat in Pillars. I absulutely love it and I think it's a master class in RPG combat design. But if you didn't like it then so much of the game is going to grate on you that every last little niggle in the rest of it (you mention the stronhold issues for example) is going to seem that much more dissatisfying or annoying whereas for me they where hardly worth mentioning. It's not hard to see why you didn't enjoy the game as a whole.

[Tuckey]

Thanks for the thoughtful posts Ninjamestari!

 

I didn't think anyone would be brave enough to broach the subjects you have brought up on the Obsidian forums. And you are right that political philosophy influences people subtly in ways we don't even think about. Some posters have harangued you and tried to police what you can talk about which reinforces what I have been thinking about fan communities. I have not posted regularly here in quite some time and would routinely avoid speaking my mind. It is so hard to endure people who cannot communicate ideas effectively and don't even try to grasp what you post sincerely so hats off to you. I agree with everything you have posted about Pillars of Eternity and hope someone at Obsidian bothers to read your posts and take notes.

[Yonjuro]

At the core of it all, there are only two types of quests. Either bring something back, or bring something somewhere. ..

 

 or kill something. 

[Ninjamestari]

 

At the core of it all, there are only two types of quests. Either bring something back, or bring something somewhere. ..

 

 or kill something. 

 

 

I actually disagree with that. Those are just some of the parts you can use to construct a proper quest. Dry french fries alone do not a meal make.

[Heijoushin]

Dry french fries alone do not a meal make.

 

Barba non facit philosophum.

Modo gallico fricta non facit prandium.

 

(Talk about a meandering thread...)

Edited March 31, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Ninjamestari]

Having a beard doesn't hurt though, yes? ^^

 

The point is an important one though, as so many people seem to get the whole "reduction to core components" - idea so very wrong. It is important to understand that simple fetch - deliver - loot - kill - quests are the lowest of the available standards, and that we not only can but absolutely should demand more than that. Much more.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[Gnostic]

 

So what?

 

I backed the first Pillars and never play it and I already backed Pillars 2.

 

That said I already bought Neverwinter Night 2 Series, Star Wars KOTOR, Fallout New Vagas, Dungeon Siege 3 and never play them.

 

I am really poor in free time......

I'm confused. Why would you spend money to purchase games made by a specific company if you've never played the other games made by that company? You literally have no way of knowing if you enjoy them. For all you know, you could have just bought a bunch of games you hate and wasted all your money.

Well I play Baldur gate 2 before. And it look like a lot of people like their games.

 

And I like voting with my wallet for companies with pro customers practices.