Playing PoE1: impressions

[rusty_shackleford]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

You're proving my point. Pillars does have dialog like that. For instance, if you are a cipher, you can use your powers to repair the girls mind at the end of the Skaen runes. If you're a wizard, you can use cold fog to put out the fire in the burning cottage. Complaining about Pillars for something it does better than most CRPGs is silly. There's plenty of reasons to complain about the game, but most Codex complaints seem to come from people who were half paying attention and didn't understand the systems (the kind of complaints that get mocked here when people do the same thing to older CRPGs).

"there's a dialogue option!" IS NOT FUCKING GAMEPLAY.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

dialogue trees were the worst thing to ever happen to crpgs in the history of the genre, eventually everything in crpgs will be decided by picking a color coded, bolded, underlined, blinking text prompt

 

[ERYFKRAD]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

You're proving my point. Pillars does have dialog like that. For instance, if you are a cipher, you can use your powers to repair the girls mind at the end of the Skaen runes. If you're a wizard, you can use cold fog to put out the fire in the burning cottage. Complaining about Pillars for something it does better than most CRPGs is silly. There's plenty of reasons to complain about the game, but most Codex complaints seem to come from people who were half paying attention and didn't understand the systems (the kind of complaints that get mocked here when people do the same thing to older CRPGs).

"there's a dialogue option!" IS NOT FUCKING GAMEPLAY.

If I understand rusty_shackleford correctly the criticism is more about the fact that the spells are designed first as options in combat rather than as another aspect of interacting with the world.
I mean, the examples above, cipher and wizard, sound like, well, jury rigging a combat spell to have a noncombat impact.
In contrast, say if you look at D: OS(just bear with me jack) , you have spells like Rain and Black oil, which work as ways to interact with the world first. You do end up making use of them to navigate amd manipulate the world around you, not just in combat.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

In a properly thought out fantasy world, magic that has strictly combat uses should be in the tiny, tiny minority of spells available. The idea that all wizards would have entire grimoires only full of ways to disable and kill people is ridiculous. Just like how a lot of historical weapons were simply repurposed tools, so too would be most 'combat magic' outside of professional soldiers.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

. The idea that all wizards would have entire grimoires only full of ways to disable and kill people is ridiculous.

Probably not too far fetched when you consider all the bullying those pencil necks would want to get even for.

 

[almondblight]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

"there's a dialogue option!" IS NOT FUCKING GAMEPLAY.

I mean, do you even pay attention to what you yourself wrote? You complain about not having magic in a dialogue option, and then in the next breath say that magic in a dialogue option doesn't matter. This is probably an argument you want to finish having with the two halves of your brain first.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

"there's a dialogue option!" IS NOT FUCKING GAMEPLAY.

I mean, do you even pay attention to what you yourself wrote? You complain about not having magic in a dialogue option, and then in the next breath say that magic in a dialogue option doesn't matter. This is probably an argument you want to finish having with the two halves of your brain first.

It's clear you have no idea what I was even referencing.

 

[NJClaw]

I can only assume rusty's wife will sooner or later leave him because of his inability to stop whispering "come on baby, give me some of that charm dialogue" during sex

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wife

My state has discretionary alimony based on how the divorce judge is feeling that particular day, I'm not getting legally married ever.

 

[NJClaw]

wife

My state has discretionary alimony based on how the divorce judge is feeling that particular day, I'm not getting legally married ever.

What if you find a woman with charm dialogue AND a different set of lines for dominate dialogue?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wife

My state has discretionary alimony based on how the divorce judge is feeling that particular day, I'm not getting legally married ever.

What if you find a woman with charm dialogue AND a different set of lines for dominate dialogue?

 

[Bester]

I mean, do you even pay attention to what you yourself wrote? You complain about not having magic in a dialogue option, and then in the next breath say that magic in a dialogue option doesn't matter. This is probably an argument you want to finish having with the two halves of your brain first.

He's like Aloth, he got Awakened into one guy who's a combatfag and the other a storyfag.

 

[smaug]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

You're proving my point. Pillars does have dialog like that. For instance, if you are a cipher, you can use your powers to repair the girls mind at the end of the Skaen runes. If you're a wizard, you can use cold fog to put out the fire in the burning cottage. Complaining about Pillars for something it does better than most CRPGs is silly. There's plenty of reasons to complain about the game, but most Codex complaints seem to come from people who were half paying attention and didn't understand the systems (the kind of complaints that get mocked here when people do the same thing to older CRPGs).

There’s no agency involved, which is the problem. You just have the stats and the game gives you the option in dialogue, you just click on the awesome button to pick the choice which isn’t different from modern cinematic games in a way.

Magic shouldn’t be just a dialogue option, but a unique way of interacting with the world on the players own initiative. Arcanum had Raise Dead (I think that’s what it’s called.) and you can talk to dead NPCs spirits. In various parts of Fallout, you can pass a check but still have to use agency in said scenario (scorpion cave), which perfectly combines player agency, RNG, and player skill.

 

[smaug]

The logical end of what you want is Age of Decadence where the player has little agency in anything and everything is determined by stats and RNG in dialogue. Might as well make a CYOA novel instead.

 

[Nano]

They last pretty long as well, with Aloth paralyze should be ~10 seconds

lol

 

[Ol' Willy]

player has little agency

everything is determined by stats

Who chooses these stats? Slot machine?

 

[smaug]

player has little agency

everything is determined by stats

Who chooses these stats? Slot machine?

Nice strawman.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Nice strawman.

NOOO I made char with 3 STR and I can't pick the option to move those massive boulders by hand! Where's player agency!?

 

[smaug]

Nice strawman.

NOOO I made char with 3 STR and I can't pick the option to move those massive boulders by hand! Where's player agency!?

Still a strawman.

 

[MuffinBun]

player has little agency

everything is determined by stats

Who chooses these stats? Slot machine?

Yeah but that captures the difference well. There are two types of agency in rpgs: at the character creation level, and during the progression of the story. There can be a game in which there are multiple options to build your characters, but every build is completely railroaded throughout the story and gameplay; and there are games where your build is predetermined, but you do get to choose different story paths and diverge during play - within that predetermined build.

I'd rather be forced into, say, playing a mage, and then be able to make a variety of meaningful decisions with my mage powers, than to be given a choice between warrior/rogue/mage, and then be able to only do that one class-specific thing the devs accounted for in encounters later on. This design philosophy switches the attention of the devs - in ideal world you could have the best of both approaches combined - so in that PoE example a warrior build could choose between different, exclusionary ways of using his prowess - this would probably be the case if you could only make a warrior - but given the variety of builds the reality of the situation is that devs settle for each distinct build having only one way to show its skills or uniqueness.

This is shit because it means that in terms of choice and consequence, the game is extremely frontloaded. The encounters are designed in the following way: you find an obstacle on your way. if you picked warrior, you get to idk, move the rocks due to your high strength. If you picked ranger, you get to find a way around the obstacle. It all references that choice you've made at the beginning, whereas ideally, you should be given multiple ways of using the skills of your chosen class, so that you can make some decisions throughout the whole duration of the game. So as a ranger you could use tracking skills to find a way around the obstacle, but you could also, say, use communicate with animals, to discover a hidden path, and so on.

If I have to pick between the two, I always prefer to be able to play one predetermined role to the fullest, with variety of expressions, than to have 5 or more linear paths to choose between.

 

[Ol' Willy]

This is shit because it means that in terms of choice and consequence, the game is extremely frontloaded. The encounters are designed in the following way: you find an obstacle on your way. if you picked warrior, you get to idk, move the rocks due to your high strength. If you picked ranger, you get to find a way around the obstacle. It all references that choice you've made at the beginning, whereas ideally, you should be given multiple ways of using the skills of your chosen class, so that you can make some decisions throughout the whole duration of the game. So as a ranger you could use tracking skills to find a way around the obstacle, but you could also, say, use communicate with animals, to discover a hidden path, and so on.

You explain the same thing only in first example lazy design presents only one class-specific choice while in the second several of them

 

[MuffinBun]

This is shit because it means that in terms of choice and consequence, the game is extremely frontloaded. The encounters are designed in the following way: you find an obstacle on your way. if you picked warrior, you get to idk, move the rocks due to your high strength. If you picked ranger, you get to find a way around the obstacle. It all references that choice you've made at the beginning, whereas ideally, you should be given multiple ways of using the skills of your chosen class, so that you can make some decisions throughout the whole duration of the game. So as a ranger you could use tracking skills to find a way around the obstacle, but you could also, say, use communicate with animals, to discover a hidden path, and so on.

You explain the same thing only in first example lazy design presents only one class-specific choice while in the second several of them

yeah, that's why it's not the same thing. I'm not sure what's your point. I would not call it lazy design either, I think quite often thats what people are aiming at, that's their idea of a roleplaying game. They'd say there is no need for variety or choices within a playthrough of a certain build, because to be able to pick/make a build is already enough of a choice. So its kind of expected that the path of this specific character will be linear, settled, from the moment you make that character.

Some expect the game to have a variety of quite linear paths, determined by the character build. They're okay with being railroaded, because basically they got to pick the rail at the start. I'd rather have a divergent story with one specific character. Technically these approaches are not exclusive, but they tend to be in practice. Not necessarily due to laziness, but rather different tastes.

Edit: its the same with morality and alignment. Technically there could be a game that allows you to choose your alignment and then provides meaningful choices within each alignment. But in reality, you know it is going to go that way: you want to make an evil character. Either: 1)the game's major point is that you're supposed to be evil, and get to pick from different evil choices; or 2)you get to choose an alignment, and in every situation there's going to be a single >evil option, leaving you with no choices to make except for that foundational one.

 

[plem]

funny that you think not having helmets for godlikes is historically innacurate but gloss over the fact that none of the armor in the game is custom-made at all, which is the same for every CRPG. in BG a generic set of armor fits a little gnome just as well as a burly half-orc. at least PoE doesn't have "studded leather"...

 

[Devastator]

generic set of armor fits a little gnome just as well as a burly half-orc

I erroneously thought armors fit Gnomes because their plump bellies fill all the extra space.

 

[plem]

I erroneously thought armors fit Gnomes because their plump bellies fill all the extra space.

the fat ones are halflings. in D&D, gnomes are (I think?) meant to be slim and elf-like... which is weird since halflings get DEX bonuses and gnomes get CON bonuses.