My personal gripes with the game

[Metric Tensor]

1. Since this is a direct sequel to the first PoE, while controlling the same protagonist, why was the game not designed to import your character from PoE1 and start the game at Level 20? Baldur's Gate I & II did it last time. This would make the efforts in PoE1 carry more weight, and PoE2 won't feel like a mere reset button. Yes, I'm aware the mechanics and skills have changed, but there are many ways to get around that. Nobody bothered thinking of a way.

 

2. I am personally not in favour of this game becoming (to a partial extent) a Pirates Simulation Game. All I wanna do is get from city to city to buy new weapons and armour, but I have to now worry about sailing mechanics - thunder storms, text-based ship battles, ship inventory, crew management, food, drink, medicine etc. etc.....not to mention the land exploring system, which reinforces the Pirates Simulation feel. Has Obsidian learned nothing from Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir? NEVER turn a traditional D&D-esque CRPG into a Sim Tycoon game. This game is heading towards Pirates Tycoon.

 

3. The journal could be made better. Unlike PoE1, there are many more small towns in this game. It's hard to keep track of the quests which has to be turned in. The best example is the Bounties. The quest giver might be in Neketaka, and the bounty is in Dunnage. It'll be good to have a more streamlined system to keep track of all the things i need to do in say.....Dunnage, and finally, all the quests I need to turn in, in say....Neketaka. It is not uncommon to have 1 bounty, 1 Vailian Trading Company quest and 1 Royal Deadfire Company quest which I have to turn in, in Neketaka, while at the same time having 2 bounties i need to kill in Neketaka. But the journal scrambles all of these quests all over the place, and I have to scan through the entire journal manually.

 

4. The game is too easy at classic difficulty. Most of my battles involve sending my fighters forward to tank a crowd, while my range characters fire from the back. I'll win the battle regardless of whether I use any skill or spells. As such, I am heavily inclined towards passive skills. There's no point choosing all these active skills since I don't need to use them to win any battle. Why would I need to choose a second Knockdown Power Slash instead of say.....a 10% Critical Damage boost? Even when I tried fighting the dragon below the Watershaper's Guild, it was painfully easy. Won 1st try, and zero casualties. Never had a total wipe yet.

 

 

[Infiltrator_SF]

1. I don't think it's in any way possible. I'm pretty sure they tried or at least put the option on the table of continuing from the same level at the very early stages of development. But that opens a lot of problems. Allocating points in BG2 at the start may not have been so demanding because your character was low-level at the end of BG1. If you had a lvl 20 now, you'd be set to spend a LOT of stats and points, not to mention, they reworked the entire class/skill/progression system so you couldn't just pick up where you left off.

 

2. This is more personal but I think the theme is fine and the execution of the naval stuff is pretty good. Don't know if you played some tycoon games but they play nothing like this.

 

3. I agree that the categorization in the journal could be better, but that's probably the least problematic thing in the game atm.

 

4. Difficulty. Yeah the game is super easy on POTD, I can't imagine the amount of faceroll people must be doing with their offensive cipher/wizard with 2 dex and 20 res on classic or whatever. They said they'll make it appropriately hard though in the coming patches though.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Infiltrator_SF

[Hazmy]

1 - There are waaay too many changes compared to the first game to even make that possible, where the difference in BG1 to BG2 is not that drastic. Also scaling is quite broken atm so that also would be an issue.

 

2 - If you don't like pirating you can basically 100% Ignore it, like apart from the first quest to repair yoru ship and get your crew, you can absolutely ignore caring about your ship. Stop exploring island, always choose escaping enemies, don't do bounties, don't upgrade your ship.

 

On the other hand, it's a nice part of the game and it really makes you more immersed into the Deadfire feeling. But welp if they learnt or not. I love the pirate feeling of the game, I am sorry you don't like it yourself. This is the Deadfires, it is what it is.

3 - I agree the journal is a mess, hopefully they will improve on it. Overall I would just love to not have categories and just a list of quests instead.

4 - Yeah, they will patch it, though I am starting to think the game got easier at it's core and fights will be easy in any-case because of the new mechanics.

[lunattic]

Regarding point one, I personally tried to explain this away by having the watcher (who is also soul drained) and all returning companions be mostly inactive for the entirety of the five year timeskip, so that they'd lose their peak conditioning. This works less well for Aloth and Pallegrina, but then again you get those slightly/much later at higher levels. From a design point of view, having everyone start at the max level would make almost the entirely of the game a walk in the park and thus a very boring experience. Or if you tried to design the game around level 20 being the starting level and do intend to have every enemy still being a credible threat, you'd then also have to explain why every random monster and enemy there is also level 20 and technically capable of beating archmages like llengreth and stuff, which logically makes no sense. 

 

If you're playing on classic difficulty and have experience in all other previous similar games, why didn't you pick a higher difficulty? Shouldn't you expect that you'd be so experienced it would be too easy? But to be fair, even POTD is fairly easy unless you do content underlevelled. 

[ArnoldRimmer]

1 - I don't understand why they couldn't import the initial stats... even if some classes now have different key stats - most min/maxers (of which I'm not one) seemed to ignore the key stats anyway. Same with race and class - or even just the name FFS... or has that become so different in Deadfire?

 

2 - not too keen on the pirates motive either... it seems like an over-done carry-on-esque farce. Just having ships and things is fine... but it seems to have been pushed towards comic stereotypes. I was hoping PoE 2 would just b like PoE1 with new quests - that is all i really wanted - there was no evidence of this pirate lifestyle anywhere in PoE - it doesn't feel like the same world.

 

4 - I think there are too many abilities - fighting now seems a secondary concern - everyone and there dog is using abilities/modals - there hardly seems to be any real fighting any more - normal people don't seem to exist, everyone seems to have "super powers" that can be used every fight. The realism of the game has gone sadly (see point 2)

Edited May 14, 2018 by ArnoldRimmer

[Zeitzbach]

You can turn the journal quest category to "By Location".

 

And the answer for 1) is because you lost everything to Eothas when he absorbed your soul and majority of your power. You lose all your special bonus and buff because of that and it is later brought up when you have to beat the crap out of your old soul for the control of the body.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[ArnoldRimmer]

And the answer for 1) is because you lost everything to Eothas when he absorbed your soul and majority of your power.

 

What, even your race, class and NAME???

Edited May 14, 2018 by ArnoldRimmer

[Dodo00d]

 

And the answer for 1) is because you lost everything to Eothas when he absorbed your soul and majority of your power.

 

What, even your race, class and NAME???

 

 

The game suggest that the watcher you play now is different than the watcher that died in Caed Nua, at least it says so in the narration when you meet yor soul in Eothas.

[Zeitzbach]

 

And the answer for 1) is because you lost everything to Eothas when he absorbed your soul and majority of your power.

 

What, even your race, class and NAME???

 

 

Remake your char into the same race, class and name then. What's stopping you?

 

I rather not go back to perfect-replay PoE 1 again just to make a hearth orlan with greenish-blue hair just so I can look like one in PoE2 because they made Wild Orlan look super wonky with no customization.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[CAlmond]

1. tbh I like being reset to level 1, because had I remained level 12+ it would be too much too soon.

 

2. you can pretty much ignore all the sailing stuff. You are not really forced into it. You can even skip ship stuff to go directly into normal combat if you want

 

3. you can group journals by different categories, so I don't find that an issue

 

4. I agree it's easy, but that's not really a change from the first game? On less than PotD difficulty in the first game I also prioritized passive traits over active ones all the time.

[CAlmond]

1 - I don't understand why they couldn't import the initial stats... even if some classes now have different key stats - most min/maxers (of which I'm not one) seemed to ignore the key stats anyway. Same with race and class - or even just the name FFS... or has that become so different in Deadfire?

 

2 - not too keen on the pirates motive either... it seems like an over-done carry-on-esque farce. Just having ships and things is fine... but it seems to have been pushed towards comic stereotypes. I was hoping PoE 2 would just b like PoE1 with new quests - that is all i really wanted - there was no evidence of this pirate lifestyle anywhere in PoE - it doesn't feel like the same world.

 

4 - I think there are too many abilities - fighting now seems a secondary concern - everyone and there dog is using abilities/modals - there hardly seems to be any real fighting any more - normal people don't seem to exist, everyone seems to have "super powers" that can be used every fight. The realism of the game has gone sadly (see point 2)

 

1. Some of the stats work differently, also if you had done things in PoE 1 you could have bonus stats which skewed things a bit too much in your favour, on a game that many has already said is not difficult to begin with.

 

2. To be fair on them, ALL of their marketing material has been "Pirates! Pirates! Pirates! You're going to be a Pirate!" so they were very clear from the beginning what the game's setting would be.

 

4. It's a fantasy game, it was never about realism, I mean you've got people with fire on their face and plants on their face and all sorts of things.

[BrokenMask]

Pirate rpgs to be honest aren't very common <_< I can only think of one pirate crpg series and that one is kind of bad/mediocre/average from what I remember.

Anyway, ship combat is actually one of really great things about this game(but then again, I think this game was overally great) but if you don't like it then you don't like it, not much they can do to sell someone on that if they don't like idea of captaining a ship.

[ArnoldRimmer]

1 - Even if they work differently, they could have used them as defaults that you then check and modify as needed. And the name???? Why the hell couldn't they import that or the class and race? Some of my saved games are over three years old that I now have to load up in PoE 1 just to see what my character was. If obsidian think there is no need to have these things the same then they shouldn't have bothered letting you import at all.

 

2 - Yes I know but I never imagined the pirates could be at home on the benny hill show - after PoE 1 I thought there would be some level of realism/seriousness kept. It's not terrible but also not what I was expecting. I'm reminded of Blackadder 2 when they discovered the potato: "Not joining us in the "harr harrs Percy?"

 

3 - Yes it is fantasy, but now it's like avengers civil war - or like street fighter where the only thing anyone can do is a some sort of special move... fights on Youtube are nothing more than 1 ability after another. It makes BG2 look real. PoE was so serious in tone compared to BG2, martial types actually did real fighting, most of the time it was only casters that had that little circle above their head with the spell they were casting. Now it is all that you see on everyone. Maybe I'll get used to it after a while.

Edited May 14, 2018 by ArnoldRimmer

[BrokenMask]

Sooo wait, you would prefer it if combat was mostly just martials hitting foes with swords instead of having abilities to use actively? Bit confused there if you are complaining about thematic-ness(I thought you were complaining about stuff like barbarian's leap ability) or gameplay

[CAlmond]

1 - Even if they work differently, they could have used them as defaults that you then check and modify as needed. And the name???? Why the hell couldn't they import that or the class and race? Some of my saved games are over three years old that I now have to load up in PoE 1 just to see what my character was. If obsidian think there is no need to have these things the same then they shouldn't have bothered letting you import at all.

 

2 - Yes I know but I never imagined the pirates could be at home on the benny hill show - after PoE 1 I thought there would be some level of realism/seriousness kept. It's not terrible but also not what I was expecting. I'm reminded of Blackadder 2 when they discovered the potato: "Not joining us in the "harr harrs Percy?"

 

3 - Yes it is fantasy, but now it's like avengers civil war - or like street fighter where the only thing anyone can do is a some sort of special move... fights on Youtube are nothing more than 1 ability after another. It makes BG2 look real. PoE was so serious in tone compared to BG2, martial types actually did real fighting, most of the time it was only casters that had that little circle above their head with the spell they were casting. Now it is all that you see on everyone. Maybe I'll get used to it after a while.

 

1. While I'm not 100% sure since I don't work for them, but I imagine the short answer is likely "too much work for too little gain". Realistically very few people would consider that feature to be a dealbreaker if missing. It would likely fall into the "low priority quality of life" bucket rather than the "core functionality must have" bucket.

 

2. Oh I see what you mean now. A more serious piratical stuff would be nice, but personally whenever I see a "pirate" themed anything, my mind immediately goes to guybrush threepwood and straight away I imagine it to be more comical/light hearted rather than serious.

 

3. You know Dhalsim, and I think M Bison can both float in the air right? Personally I found that I don't have to use all that many abilities. Most ability picks have been for passive ones because I rarely need to use actual abilities in the fights themselves. Even for my casters I may pick 2-3 spells for each power level and the rest of their points go straight to passive abilities. I think this one is more of a playstyle choice, you can choose to drown yourself in active abilities, or you can choose more passives.

[Crucis]

1. Since this is a direct sequel to the first PoE, while controlling the same protagonist, why was the game not designed to import your character from PoE1 and start the game at Level 20? Baldur's Gate I & II did it last time. This would make the efforts in PoE1 carry more weight, and PoE2 won't feel like a mere reset button. Yes, I'm aware the mechanics and skills have changed, but there are many ways to get around that. Nobody bothered thinking of a way.

 

2. I am personally not in favour of this game becoming (to a partial extent) a Pirates Simulation Game. All I wanna do is get from city to city to buy new weapons and armour, but I have to now worry about sailing mechanics - thunder storms, text-based ship battles, ship inventory, crew management, food, drink, medicine etc. etc.....not to mention the land exploring system, which reinforces the Pirates Simulation feel. Has Obsidian learned nothing from Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir? NEVER turn a traditional D&D-esque CRPG into a Sim Tycoon game. This game is heading towards Pirates Tycoon.

 

3. The journal could be made better. Unlike PoE1, there are many more small towns in this game. It's hard to keep track of the quests which has to be turned in. The best example is the Bounties. The quest giver might be in Neketaka, and the bounty is in Dunnage. It'll be good to have a more streamlined system to keep track of all the things i need to do in say.....Dunnage, and finally, all the quests I need to turn in, in say....Neketaka. It is not uncommon to have 1 bounty, 1 Vailian Trading Company quest and 1 Royal Deadfire Company quest which I have to turn in, in Neketaka, while at the same time having 2 bounties i need to kill in Neketaka. But the journal scrambles all of these quests all over the place, and I have to scan through the entire journal manually.

 

4. The game is too easy at classic difficulty. Most of my battles involve sending my fighters forward to tank a crowd, while my range characters fire from the back. I'll win the battle regardless of whether I use any skill or spells. As such, I am heavily inclined towards passive skills. There's no point choosing all these active skills since I don't need to use them to win any battle. Why would I need to choose a second Knockdown Power Slash instead of say.....a 10% Critical Damage boost? Even when I tried fighting the dragon below the Watershaper's Guild, it was painfully easy. Won 1st try, and zero casualties. Never had a total wipe yet.

 

1. I don't mind that the characters were reset.  Not a big deal for me.  As for "nobody bothered thinking of a way", that assumes that they wanted to try to in the first place.  Maybe they never had any intention of continuing the level progression, and therefore there'd be no need to think of a way to continue the progression (even with the changes to the game system).

 

2. Regarding the pirate theme, that's what you're going to get when the the game is placed in the Deadfire.  The devs didn't really have to say a single word for players of PoE1 to realize that a PoE2 set in the Deadfire would be Pirates!  Pirates!  Pirates!  Jeez.

 

As for the ship and related stuff, I can sympathize, but you're overlooking something.  Some (and I do mean "some") people complained that the Stronghold system from PoE1 didn't have enough depth to it.  I was not one of them.  I never wanted to play freakin' Sim Stronghold.  But the Devs obviously caved to those who do with this ship as stronghold model.  And honestly, it's not really a shocker.  A stronghold was going to exist in POE2.  It was only a matter of what form it would take.  It could have been another static location.   Or it could be what it is, a ship.  And because it's a ship in a game located in a region infested with pirates, it's not a shocker that all the other aspects you mention end up being part of the "ship as stronghold" system.  Also, having your own ship makes sense, because it allows the player to go where he wants at will, not on the schedule of some third party owned ship.    Did the player's ship have to also be his stronghold?  Perhaps not.  But even if it wasn't, you'd probably be stuck having to deal with all the same details of ship management.

 

Frankly, I think that the only way to get around having a ship as stronghold would have been a change in the entire setting of PoE2, to a place where you could travel from place to place on foot all or most of the time.  But even then, I think that it was bound to happen that the devs would have made stronghold management more detailed.  And thus, you'd have ended up with most of the details inherent in ship management as part of castle/stronghold management.

 

3.  Hard to disagree with anything regarding a better organized journal.

 

4.  Or maybe the issue is that many of the veteran players are just so skilled that the devs would have to make the game nigh on unplayable for players new to PoE and isometric CRPG gaming.  If classic is too easy for you, crank it up to a higher difficulty and don't blame the devs for classic not being difficult enough for you.  Now, if you get to PoTD and it's still too easy for you, then maybe you have a case.  But until then, just keep cranking up the difficulty.

 

 

4a.  As for passive vs active skills, I'm not going to shed any tears over this.  Personally, I don't like seeing every class being buried in active skills.  Some people aren't happy if they're not constantly triggering active skills to get through battles.  But there are some of us who are quite happy to only use actives once in a while, and can be quite content to point some characters (particularly front liners) at their enemies and leave them alone while paying attention to spellcasters or perhaps some ranged combatants who you want to more carefully control whom they target (i.e. switching from some enemy frontliner who isn't near death to an enemy spellcaster who you want to try to keep interrupting).  I personally do not want to have to constantly baby sit all 5 characters in my party to control each of their actives just to be able to fight every battle.  That's boring to me.  But I also don't really like using AI either.  I prefer more of a middle ground where I probably control some of the party more closely while allowing others to be on semi-autopilot (just my auto-pilot and not an AI's version thereof).  So, if the game's difficulty is in a place where I can play how I'd prefer and not have to go into extreme micro-management of the entire party's active abilities every freaking second of every freaking battle, I'm cool with that.  And if that means that I'm using more passives than actives, that's fine with me!!!

[Metric Tensor]

The whole narrative about your character being reset could be what the devs put in to justify resetting to Level 1. However, they probably never wanted to carry over the levels for POE1 in the first place. You see, carrying over levels has to be a conscious design decision, and not a retrofitted one. If the devs wanted to carry over the levels, then naturally, the skill system had to more or less remain the same. The reason for my gripe on this is because carrying over levels enforces the idea of progression of your character.

 

Just look at Baldur's Gate - in the first game, you leveled from 1 to 7. In Shadows of Amn, 8 to 19. In Throne of Bhaal, 20 to 40. So it's possible to start at Level 20. But by the end of Throne of Bhaal, the whole series does feel like a progression from Level 1 to 40. The option of playing back your same character was there. It felt like a journey. Yes, in Throne of Bhaal, every spider and trash mob was above level 20, but did that bother us? 

 

And i know, just because Bioware did it, doesn't mean Obsidian has to do it. But I really miss the way Bioware used to do things. There's a reason why the Baldur's Gate series is legendary. It was a 4 year journey with my character. You could see your growth. So I bet if PoE3 comes out, we'll have to play from Level 1 to 20 again right? The difference is that PoE1 & 2 feels like two separate games populated by the same NPCs and Gods