The definitive, last Pillars of Eternity rating thread!

[ilitarist]

By the way, don't you see something retarded in the "every character is a caster" notion?

I think that PoE's ruleset is designed for a good combat experience in PC -even if the actual fights aren't that great, because design-, but it's not realistic at all. D&D at least is somewhat simulationist, or at least it was at the beginning.

I don't see anything retarded in this at all. I like the system that gives you a variety of things to do using your different stats. E.g. PoE allows fighter to be fast, precise, heavy-hitting and/or tanky. He has lots of abilities that benefit from his stats - most often from tankinness and heavy hitting. Buy in rare occasions you may actually need to be very precise to hit someone agile so you use all kinds of abilities. I don't like D&D, especialle 2e, where your fighter is always strong and tanky, anything else is just a wrong answer. And they don't vary. Lots of abilities means different builds and more moving parts. It's not like, say, Divinity Original Sin where everyone eventually can do everything. You still have precious few classes capable of healing or AoE damage.

It says a lot about the game that you needed to up the difficulty to hardest to just get any semblance of challenge. Also that challenge is MORE enemies + multiply their stats so I go no idea what you are talking about here.
In BG1 and BG2 hardest difficulty made enemies hit 2x harder but the game was already challenging on Core difficulty and on Normal difficulty on first playthrough.

PoE is as difficult as BG1/2 on recommended difficulty, I don't know what are you talking about. Also more enemies plus some very specific stat adjustment is a good design. BG2 uses the same shit system you see in every other lazily designed RPG difficulty (Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age and so on): multiply stats with no regard to how it changes the tactics and balance. And I'll tell you how it changes: damage reduction becomes useless, raw damage is nerfed - but if you played with control character then nothing changes for you hence now the game has one and only true set of tactics. Same shit in every RPG I see, just a sandbox of tools allowing you to break the game plus a difficulty setting that doesn't affect anything at all. Pillars of Eternity didn't have that, it had a system that gave me 2 playthroughs during which I enjoyed combat and challenge. And no RPG up until point didn't turn into a boring set of trash fights on second playthrough. Thansk to Throne of Baal BG2 had managed to turn into this on first playthrough.

 

[Theldaran]

The fighters in D&D pose a lot of problems, more often than not they don't know what to do with them. For example, in 4ED they were tanks, though you could choose between pure tank, tank with some DPS, and tank with some "buffing". In AD&D2, fighters were like the most vanilla of classes, even though that didn't mean they couldn't be powerful.

But that's derived from the concept that wizards should be king. Mostly because they are cool, also, if you take old D&D, the challenge to level up a wizard was higher, you had to forage for spell scrolls and then check to learn them, you were weak as a kitten and easily killed, so it only makes sense that the reward in power is greater as you hit high level.

In PoE, since all that seems to matter is balance, there's none of this. Maybe that's why some people have compared it to the "soulless" D&D4 system, another ruleset obsessed with balance and anti-munchkin policies.

 

[ilitarist]

One thing is fighting munchkins, the other fighting obvious gamebreakers. The process of mastering Baldur's Gate 2 (or any D&D) combat is a process of learning the objectively right path. Once you know all there is to know - which can be achieved by reading a guide - there's no fight in combat unless you use self-restrictions. In PoE learning the mechanics is the basis, then you master it to beat the challenges. I much prefer that.

Soullesness came with itemization. That's where PoE drops the ball - ancient artifacts are not much better than a regular sword I've enhanced with some ingridients and gold. Expansions made it better so I have high hopes for PoE2.

 

[Theldaran]

Soullesness came with itemization.

I disagree, if you don't appreciate the coolness of a unique magic item, it's you who's soulless.

Though the D&D system directly calls for lots of magic items (as we see in the BGs), and that is troublesome for some DMs, and whole playing groups (fighting over the loot and whatnot).

Who wants to find a vulgar magic item at the end of the day? Not me, for sure. D&D was meritocracy at its best: you fight hard to kill your enemy, and only then you get what he was using against you moments before.

In the BGs there's no "objectively right path", especially in those games compared to things like Ravenloft, you had A LOT of approaches for every fight. The fact that you can read a guide and find an entirely new way of playing the game testifies how much varied the game is. In no small part thanks to, I'd say, the D&D system. BG devs were D&D connoisseurs and they exploited it well.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Paladin is unplayable? So you mean that the Inquisitor or even UH are shit?

I think that the Inquisitor trade-off is pretty nice. You don't hit as hard, but you have more chances vs. mages, and the game is filled with them. I don't think that blindly charging against a mage, being a pure Fighter, is gonna do any good.

Not unplayable, I just said he's a gimped fighter class. Low level cleric spells and few debatably useful abilities simply cannot compete with 5 pips in some weapon and extra attacks.
This was partially balanced by giving him uber sword in BG2/IWD/IWD2, but still, pure fighter is better. Cavalier is only semi-useful kit, Inquisitor is redundant, since you can spam breach/dispel in most of mage fights.

Also, can someone explain to me what's with this legendary appeal of magic in BG2?

You haven't played a solo Sorcerer, right? You actually feel like Palpatine if you do.

The Sorcerer is handy in a party, but hoarding all the experience for himself/herself he's a killing machine.

Agree that solo sorc/wiz run may be fun and then, and only then, you can feel the full potential of most of the spells, i.e sequencers.

While playing with semi-full party, wiz is mostly just for bringing down enemy mages defenses/throwing AoE CCs/buffing party with haste.
I just cannot see any mythical depth in this, just a regular mage role in most of cRPGs.

As for the higher difficulties in both games - I'm with ilitarist on that. PoE handled this much better, and PotD is much more fun than BG2 on insane. Again, it all boils down to mechanics and 2E D&D being just outdated and simplified system.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yet SCS completely blows PoE's PotD out of the water.

 

[ilitarist]

Soullesness came with itemization.

I disagree, if you don't appreciate the coolness of a unique magic item, it's you who's soulless.

I had worded it wrong. I meant that if there's a part of PoE that is soulless it's itemization.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Yet SCS completely blows PoE's PotD out of the water.

True to some extent, at least at reasonable settings.
But shit like having enemy mages always pre-buffed seems ridiculous and immersion-breaking.

Can't imagine anything more hilarious than wizard sitting at his home/lair with stoneskins and protection from magic weapons casted. You know, just in case some bunch of adventurers would like to break in.

 

[Lacrymas]

The pre-buffing thing is because buffing is so powerful that the enemy is always at a huge disadvantage if they don't have the buffs. That's one area I think PoE is better, it's always a choice whether to buff or to do something else, even though it got ridiculous by the end, with Priests having these gamebreaking buffs that Ciphers make even more overpowered with Defensive Mindweb, there's no reason not to buff.

 

[Parabalus]

There are plenty of memorable encounters for first playthrough, even on Core rules difficulty. From Beholders, Liches, Dragons to Iron Golem and different NPC party enemies.

Bg2 is memorable because it uses a hard counter system:

• Beholder - will my party get randomly gibbed by multiple save or die spells per round or will I run in one guy with Shield of Balduran and laugh (no SCS)
• Liches - standard mage flowchart with the caveat that they are naturally immune to non-magic so no normal weapon abuse vs PoMF
• Dragons - shortened standard mage flowchart, they use dispel magic/200 damage breath so keep up SS/MI on their target
• Iron/Adamantine Golem - if low level, cheese with doorway, else haste/IH and right click

It's in essence a puzzle game, where you use your spellcasters to solve it.

In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.

Ah yes, this is what I remember of BG2.

Standard fight? Just kill them all. No sense in using potions or something. No sense in saving your spells for later, I can rest anytime anyway (maybe some helpless rats will attack me).

Hard fight? Well I can try to be clever. Or I can reload the game, cast all the hastes and blesses and mirror images and all the fancy stuff and then the fight is turned into a standard one. In rare cases it wasn't enough, I remember using some scrolls and potions against dragons. Rare.

Well in PoE you don't even need to reload because everything died while you jerked off.

PoE on PotD is harder than Bg2 on Insane, certainly it's harder than Bg2 Core.

 

[Piotrovitz]

The pre-buffing thing is because buffing is so powerful that the enemy is always at a huge disadvantage if they don't have the buffs. That's one area I think PoE is better, it's always a choice whether to buff or to do something else

Words of wisdom. I generally lean towards restrictions of buffing outside of the combat in any RPGs. Beside PoE, Wiz 8 did it nicely (beside few spells usable at any time).
Having a dilemma whether to buff your party or nuke enemy with DD or summon mobs or use wands etc, just adds depth to the combat.

In BG2, you just run around with tons of buffs, and the only way to balance that is to give the same option to enemy mages. Which leads to ridiculous situations where you enter the room and there's a wizard standing in the middle with dozens of magical protections, which he threw on himself just in case.

 

[ArchAngel]

There are plenty of memorable encounters for first playthrough, even on Core rules difficulty. From Beholders, Liches, Dragons to Iron Golem and different NPC party enemies.

Bg2 is memorable because it uses a hard counter system:

• Beholder - will my party get randomly gibbed by multiple save or die spells per round or will I run in one guy with Shield of Balduran and laugh (no SCS)
• Liches - standard mage flowchart with the caveat that they are naturally immune to non-magic so no normal weapon abuse vs PoMF
• Dragons - shortened standard mage flowchart, they use dispel magic/200 damage breath so keep up SS/MI on their target
• Iron/Adamantine Golem - if low level, cheese with doorway, else haste/IH and right click

It's in essence a puzzle game, where you use your spellcasters to solve it.

In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.

Ah yes, this is what I remember of BG2.

Standard fight? Just kill them all. No sense in using potions or something. No sense in saving your spells for later, I can rest anytime anyway (maybe some helpless rats will attack me).

Hard fight? Well I can try to be clever. Or I can reload the game, cast all the hastes and blesses and mirror images and all the fancy stuff and then the fight is turned into a standard one. In rare cases it wasn't enough, I remember using some scrolls and potions against dragons. Rare.

Well in PoE you don't even need to reload because everything died while you jerked off.

PoE on PotD is harder than Bg2 on Insane, certainly it's harder than Bg2 Core.

Poe on hard was much easier than bg on core, maybe potb is harder.
A difficulty that gives way more enemies and buffs all their stats is needed to make the game a bit harder than bg on standard difficulty. And only because your hit chances become bad compared to what enemy has. That is same bad difficuly design that nuXcoms have. Gotcha! Design
That is pure decline.

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE's combat system finally makes sense on PotD, though. Sometimes bigger numbers is all it takes. Too bad it shoots itself in the foot halfway through by making several classes gamebreaking.

 

[Parabalus]

There are plenty of memorable encounters for first playthrough, even on Core rules difficulty. From Beholders, Liches, Dragons to Iron Golem and different NPC party enemies.

Bg2 is memorable because it uses a hard counter system:

• Beholder - will my party get randomly gibbed by multiple save or die spells per round or will I run in one guy with Shield of Balduran and laugh (no SCS)
• Liches - standard mage flowchart with the caveat that they are naturally immune to non-magic so no normal weapon abuse vs PoMF
• Dragons - shortened standard mage flowchart, they use dispel magic/200 damage breath so keep up SS/MI on their target
• Iron/Adamantine Golem - if low level, cheese with doorway, else haste/IH and right click

It's in essence a puzzle game, where you use your spellcasters to solve it.

In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.

Ah yes, this is what I remember of BG2.

Standard fight? Just kill them all. No sense in using potions or something. No sense in saving your spells for later, I can rest anytime anyway (maybe some helpless rats will attack me).

Hard fight? Well I can try to be clever. Or I can reload the game, cast all the hastes and blesses and mirror images and all the fancy stuff and then the fight is turned into a standard one. In rare cases it wasn't enough, I remember using some scrolls and potions against dragons. Rare.

Well in PoE you don't even need to reload because everything died while you jerked off.

PoE on PotD is harder than Bg2 on Insane, certainly it's harder than Bg2 Core.

Poe on hard was much easier than bg on core, maybe potb is harder.
A difficulty that gives way more enemies and buffs all their stats is needed to make the game a bit harder than bg on standard difficulty. And only because your hit chances become bad compared to what enemy has. That is same bad difficuly design that nuXcoms have. Gotcha! Design
That is pure decline.

That's the wrong perspective, consider the opposite, that difficulties below the max have nerfed stats. Games today are for a wider audience than they used to be, so you nerf everything and sugarcoat the difficulty scale, so you don't insult your customers.

Bg2 difficulty (esp. w/o SCS) is hardly influenced by the slider, since the mechanics you need to solve don't change. In PoE tiny advantages quickly snowball because of modifier stacking so the jump is steeper than you would think from looking only at puny "+15" numbers.

PoE's combat system finally makes sense on PotD, though. Sometimes bigger numbers is all it takes. Too bad it shoots itself in the foot halfway through by making several classes gamebreaking.

A 'Dex poster(=RPG "veteran") who played PoE on less than PotD really did himself a disservice, it's surely much less enjoyable.

 

[Trashos]

I don't know what you guys are talking about about PoE vs BG2 difficulty. I will explain why I find BG2's curve and difficulty much superior, and why BG2's Hard difficulty (not even Hardest) is much superior to PoE's PotD. But here are the rules:
- No ToB. I emphasize Shadows of Amn for a reason. ToB removed the level cap and destroyed SoA's beautiful balance. I haven't played ToB for ages, don't even remember much about it. SoA is where it's at.
- BG2 SoA has some extremely beautiful and difficult fights, that can also be cheesed through various cheesemaker tools (protection from undead, shooting from out of sight, summoning). Personally I think this a good compromise. Serious players can play the fights seriously, weaker players can cheese them and be done with them. This way, Bioware did not feel obliged to make the fights easier, like Josh obviously does.

Now, take any lich or dragon fight in SoA, on Hard (not Hardest). I actually have to pre-play the fight in my head to get ready for all the steps I have to follow to implement my winning strategy. These fights, without cheese, have a very complex solution. This is what I call beautiful, and have never seen it repeated in a full RPG game other than some DAO (Bioware again) boss fights.

Now take any PoE fight on PotD. I 'll be talking about the base game again. PoE is designed in such a way that you don't have to pre-plan anything, other than making sure you have a priest with you (with the possible exception of 2 fights IIRC, the adra dragon and the final fight, which are still not as satisfying as SoA's fights). Anything else you can beat just by -easily- adapting to what is going on on screen.

The difference in quality is immense. The whole strategic layer has been removed from PoE. IWD was like PoE too, which is why I don't like it, and have never actually finished it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Which DA:O bosses are even slightly comparable to BG2's best fights?

Also, I see you mentioned Priests. Weeelll, the entire game plays entirely different if you don't have one. With the discussion going on at the PoE2 thread, I'm "inspired" to make a Triple Crown run with a party without a Priest, I don't think I'll make it far, but it'll be an interesting experience.

 

[Trashos]

The Jarvia fight is a masterpiece. Also the Revenant fights were beautifully designed, as long as you didn't approach them overleveled.

Yes, you need a priest, but that's all that is "complex" about it. Can't call this satisfying. Do you find the fights that require a priest to be beautifully designed when approached without a priest?

 

[Sizzle]

That fight is so memorable I had to Google it to even remember it :D

PoE all but requires a Priest in the party, and BG all but requires a Mage.

 

[ArchAngel]

That fight is so memorable I had to Google it to even remember it :D

PoE all but requires a Priest in the party, and BG all but requires a Mage.

No it does not. You can fight enemy mages with potions and scrolls. Also Mage's favorite antiweapon spell - Protection from Magical Weapons - is easily beaten by carrying non magical version of weapon you are using.

 

[Lacrymas]

You can also simulate a Priest in PoE by using scrolls and potions. You do need access to those spells, though, especially the immunities.

 

[Trashos]

That fight is so memorable I had to Google it to even remember it :D

PoE all but requires a Priest in the party, and BG all but requires a Mage.

Are you talking about the Jarvia fight? DAO has some problems that BG2 SoA didn't. It had a lot of filler combat, which made people play on easier difficulties. It was also easier to be overleveled in DAO if you left a fight for later (not as easy as in PoE though).

If you ever play DAO again, play the Jarvia fight on toughest difficulty, and fight the Revenants while not being too overleved (play them when you first meet them or a bit later, but don't wait for too long). You 'll see the design talent. I am inclined to think that it was Ohlen/Martens again who designed these fights.

 

[Lacrymas]

Was Jarvia the crime boss in the dwarf commoner origin? Don't revenants have like 1 ability, that pull thing?

 

[Parabalus]

Now, take any lich or dragon fight in SoA, on Hard (not Hardest). I actually have to pre-play the fight in my head to get ready for all the steps I have to follow to implement my winning strategy. These fights, without cheese, have a very complex solution. This is what I call beautiful, and have never seen it repeated in a full RPG game other than some DAO (Bioware again) boss fights.

Dunno what you're talking about, all solo lich/dragon fights go the same way:

Contingency/Tattoo triggers -> Use True Sight if illusion -> read combat log to see which spell protections were cast -> cast minimum required pierce magic/khelben/spellstrike (x2 if spell shield)-> breach (this can all be done in one round if you stagger correctly) -> select all, right click --> repeat process when contingency triggers.

Dragons are the same except they melee / breath your guy with MI/stoneskin and dispel him occasionally, at which point you simply recast for damage immunity.

Not sure why you'd praise lich and dragon fights tho, best parts of Bg2 are the party vs party battles.

The Jarvia fight is a masterpiece. Also the Revenant fights were beautifully designed, as long as you didn't approach them overleveled.

Yes, you need a priest, but that's all that is "complex" about it. Can't call this satisfying. Do you find the fights that require a priest to be beautifully designed when approached without a priest?

IIRC Jarvia is that dwarf thug boss who has a bunch of assassins teleporting in a pretraped room, don't recall anything too cool about it.

Revenants I remember being long tank and spank fights, with them occasionally using pull on your mage, who they'd one shot if it connected. The pull ignored line of sight but would stop on object collision. Fight was about finding a suitable blocker in the room and waiting for it to die with it's huge hp pool.

 

[Trashos]

Was Jarvia the crime boss in the dwarf commoner origin? Don't revenants have like 1 ability, that pull thing?

Yes and yes (IIRC the Revenants also has some interesting resistances). Don't forget that we are working within the DAO framework. The Revenants pull ability made a huge difference, when they suddenly switched targets from your tank to your mage.

 

[Trashos]

Now, take any lich or dragon fight in SoA, on Hard (not Hardest). I actually have to pre-play the fight in my head to get ready for all the steps I have to follow to implement my winning strategy. These fights, without cheese, have a very complex solution. This is what I call beautiful, and have never seen it repeated in a full RPG game other than some DAO (Bioware again) boss fights.

Dunno what you're talking about, all solo lich/dragon fights go the same way:

Contingency/Tattoo triggers -> Use True Sight if illusion -> read combat log to see which spell protections were cast -> cast minimum required pierce magic/khelben/spellstrike (x2 if spell shield)-> breach (this can all be done in one round if you stagger correctly) -> select all, right click --> repeat process when contingency triggers.

Dragons are the same except they melee / breath your guy with MI/stoneskin and dispel him occasionally, at which point you simply recast for damage immunity.

Not sure why you'd praise lich and dragon fights tho, best parts of Bg2 are the party vs party battles.

You described a proper attack strategy (probably, don't have it in front of me) and forgot all about defense. So add the defense measures to that. What are you comparing this to that even comes close?

Revenants I remember being long tank and spank fights, with them occasionally using pull on your mage, who they'd one shot if it connected. The pull ignored line of sight but would stop on object collision. Fight was about finding a suitable blocker in the room and waiting for it to die with it's huge hp pool.

Well, you can cheese them like that or try to play them properly. I have already commented on Bioware's strategy of letting people cheese, which I find acceptable. Josh made it his mission to remove all cheese, and then dumbed everything down so that average gamers wouldn't despair. I much prefer Bioware's style.