Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity - By Vault Dweller and the Spirit of Grunker

[Excidium II]

I prefer ME2 because of the vanguard alone

 

[Rake]

Personal taste aside, Mass Effect 2 is much more successful in fulfilling its "Space Jesus popamole romance simulator" role than PoE is of being a good spiritual successor to the IE games.

Can't argue with that.

 

[dieu]

Felipepe just reminded me of the Endless Paths of Shit Nua, a mega dungeon full of awesomeness. You have a level full of kobold encounters, another level full of kobold encounters then a level with beetles and one with slimes and trolls. Finally you find an NPC that wants to talk to you! What does he want? He wants you to kill all the other mobs on the level. Brilliant. After 4 more levels of encounters you will meet another NPC who's willing to talk, the head vampire. What's his bidding - wait for it, it's good - of course: all the other vampires on the level need to be killed. Bedazzling. That's some seriously glorious stuff going on there,on par with Watcher's Keep, the encounters at the final seals, the deck of many things, the machine of Lum the Mad, the maze level with all those demons and dead magic zones. Yes, just nostalgia.

There's also the Ogre that wants all the Ogres on his level killed as well

With no combat XP incentive, you need the odd NPC reminding you that the game really is about killing everything in sight.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Take the brothel quest, for example. You’re told that someone’s causing troubles. Since you don’t have anything better to do, you agree to look into it, which in this case means walking around until attacked by a trash mob. Then you enter every house until you trigger the right scripting event and talk to the leader who offers a peaceful solution, which seems out of place after being attacked on sight, but whatever. Turns out the leader is upset that the brothel increased the prices and now the commoners can’t get exotic ass and pussy.

Let it sink for a moment. A local faction is attacking people on sight because the prices in a brothel are too high for the common folk. Who writes this shit?

You haven't played that quest to the end. See, the brothel only had to increase the prices for pussy and ass because the attackers (Doemenel faction) had raised their drug prices. So, since the whores at the brothel apparently require a substantial and constant stream of drugs the brothel owner had no choice but to raise her prices in response. You can then go the Doemenel mansion and negotiate new drug prices. If successful (you cannot really fail) a deal is made, the whores get cheaper drugs and the pussy prices are back to an affordable level. Everybody is a winner. Praise Margran.

 

[Bubbles]

Take the brothel quest, for example. You’re told that someone’s causing troubles. Since you don’t have anything better to do, you agree to look into it, which in this case means walking around until attacked by a trash mob. Then you enter every house until you trigger the right scripting event and talk to the leader who offers a peaceful solution, which seems out of place after being attacked on sight, but whatever. Turns out the leader is upset that the brothel increased the prices and now the commoners can’t get exotic ass and pussy.

Let it sink for a moment. A local faction is attacking people on sight because the prices in a brothel are too high for the common folk. Who writes this shit?

You haven't played that quest to the end. See, the brothel only had to increase the prices for pussy and ass because the attackers (Doemenel faction) had raised their drug prices. So, since the whores at the brothel apparently require a substantial and constant stream of drugs the brothel owner had no choice but to raise her prices in response. You can then go the Doemenel mansion and negotiate new drug prices. If successful (you cannot really fail) a deal is made, the whores get cheaper drugs and the pussy prices are back to an affordable level. Everybody is a winner. Praise Margran.

The prices also get cut in half for the party, but all the prostitutes slept with me for free anyway, because my Dexterity was high enough

 

[Irenaeus II]

definitively the very best Kickstarted game thus far.

Didn't read the rest, but I agree with this.

Looking forward for the expansion, Obsidian! <3

 

[Rivmusique]

Take the brothel quest, for example. You’re told that someone’s causing troubles. Since you don’t have anything better to do, you agree to look into it, which in this case means walking around until attacked by a trash mob. Then you enter every house until you trigger the right scripting event and talk to the leader who offers a peaceful solution, which seems out of place after being attacked on sight, but whatever. Turns out the leader is upset that the brothel increased the prices and now the commoners can’t get exotic ass and pussy.

Let it sink for a moment. A local faction is attacking people on sight because the prices in a brothel are too high for the common folk. Who writes this shit?

You haven't played that quest to the end. See, the brothel only had to increase the prices for pussy and ass because the attackers (Doemenel faction) had raised their drug prices. So, since the whores at the brothel apparently require a substantial and constant stream of drugs the brothel owner had no choice but to raise her prices in response. You can then go the Doemenel mansion and negotiate new drug prices. If successful (you cannot really fail) a deal is made, the whores get cheaper drugs and the pussy prices are back to an affordable level. Everybody is a winner. Praise Margran.

The prices also get cut in half for the party, but all the prostitutes slept with me for free anyway, because my Dexterity was high enough

It was the Dozens who were attacking people in the streets (for the common people!) and the drugs the Doemenels were selling were baby-killers, vital for a working gal.

It says in the guide that someone with high con + dex can headhunt the brothel workers for their stronghold. Wonder how many saw that, considering focusing on those two stats would be pretty uncommon I imagine.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Finished reading the review and I must congratulate Vault Dweller for taking the time to writing so much about something he clearly doesn't like. It's fair the criticism to combat, RTwP in general... I understand some people don't like it, just as I don't like shitty action games like Skyrim et co.

However, a lot of wrong stuff in the review and failure to understand much of the game past the beginnning (understandable given dislike of the game). I particularly disagree with the description of the setting as generic fantasy, the criticism in quest and dialogues, the whole "Chosen One" interpretation. To be fair, I still jumped through the history lesson in the beginning, since I already know he history.

Decado review is still the only decent review so far, while this one could be contrasted as a poor negative/frustrated/incomplete one. The pathetic rant by Darth Roxor is still the #1 as trolling/shitposting/hiver impersonation. Congrats again, bro.

 

[Bubbles]

Decado should write the Fallout 4 review.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Decado should write the Fallout 4 review.

Why do you hate Decado

 

[DwarvenFood]

hey kzerso or how the fuck your name is,are you in some cult or something?

why in the name of cthulu you keep brofisting every post i make?

The cult of Anus Pounder

 

[ROARRR]

I agree with:
Battlesystem is not good enough(flawed), because

1. it is too fast even with slow-mo, and I love enjoying animation but I cant
2. A strong fight is too confusing, because of the super shiny spells and from this follows that I cant enjoy the animation even with pause-function
3. Not all skills and spells can be used beyond battle
4. Doesn´t have much useful spell & skill variety (even a lowbudget game like SitS is miles better in that point! Shame on you Obsidian!)

But I do not agree with turnbased is always superior attitude!

Spoiler

Oh and did you know I like colors?!

 

[DeepOcean]

I watched RK's playthrough of the Bitcher 3 and all that VD's talking about bland settings made me think about PoE's setting. Some fanboys insist that Not Forgotten Realms... sorry... Eora (?) is somehow a better realized setting than Forgotten Realms. Alright, assuming that is true, what I don't, the problem is that someone forgot to send the memo to Obsidian. Jesus, I expected something like the Three Sisters of the Swamp from Obsidian and not some potato upstarts.

 

[Vault Dweller]

However, a lot of wrong stuff in the review and failure to understand much of the game past the beginnning (understandable given dislike of the game). I particularly disagree with the description of the setting as generic fantasy...

Compare it to PST or even MotB.

The setting is described as a place "where mortal souls are bound to an eternal cycle of life and reincarnation believed to be watched over by the gods" and animancy is a thing. Yet I've seen next to nothing of it in the first 2 chapters. In fact, you can lift the first two chapters and place it in some LotR spin-off game and it would fit in perfectly. You can't do the same with Sigil. It's possible that the third chapter blows your mind and takes you far away from Kansas, but sadly I didn't get that far.

... the criticism in quest and dialogues, the whole "Chosen One" interpretation.

What's to interpret? You survived because you're special and have a special soul, unlike the two plebs who were with you when the machine went off.

 

[Turok]

I am retard.

I like POE and WL2 and not much Divinity: Original Sin

Also before the Witcher game was out i read the books and they where awesome.

I like the Witcher games even all the plot make no sense because Geralt die in the end of the books (some autors do this so they work don't get fuked by fan fiction or other autors).

 

[Irenaeus II]

1. You should really play the game to the end to see more stuff on souls and gods. I won't spoil it. Even then, during Act 1 the depth of the soul thing is nothing like I've seen in a game and the god pantheon is really well designed and presented by the books and dialogues. I understand you were not impressed.
2. Being special isn't the same as the "Chosen One". The game has a lot of too forced coincidences to make your character feel special (like being near Thaos in the beginning to be Awakened), but it is a not a story of a super hero fighting the evil forces to save the universe.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[Angthoron]

2. Being special isn't the same as the "Chosen One". The game has a lot of too forced coincidences to make your character feel special (like being near Thaos in the beginning to be Awakened), but it is a not a story of a super hero fighting the evil forces to save the universe.

Chosen One does not need to refer to a superhero, however, within the setting, your character's powers are actually of superhero magnitude. The problem is, we don't actually get to see them, but that's a problem completely separate from the chosenness.

Your character is chosen by the special trait. It can be something like "You're actually king's son" a-la Dungeon Siege. It can be "You have a superglued soul that was previously working with the villain and all these magitech things" a-la PoE. Being unchosen means that your character comes into the game without a default benefit. You're not an Ancient Soul. You're not a Nephalem. You're not Bhaalspawn. You're just some random fuck that got lucky enough to survive and get good enough to fight the rising odds. Everything else is basically a degree of chosenness.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[Irenaeus II]

True, I welcome games where you play a character without any hidden secret entering the story, instead of the slight "special snowflake" traits. I feel it was a bit forced on PoE, the whole Watcher/Awakened thing, particularly the coincidence of meeting Thaos and shit. It did still work for me as a story/game nevertheless, it didn't feel that forced, since like I said you were not playing "the One who will bring balance to the force".

Hopefully some future games will allow us to play more "generic" adventurers, talented but not "kill a dragon by level 1" dovakhin Skyrim shit.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Very nice review. With all the controversy beforehand - at least for me there was no butthurt.
Spot on criticism, no "better than BG2" nonsense.

Not sure about "stopped just short of greatness" though.

 

[Mrowak]

And yet, PoE is selling worse than D:OS. I still remember when people were predicting it would sell a million in its first month. Given how much of a slam dunk the whole project was, it's hilarious how underwhelming its sales performance is.

No surprise there. D:OS is a FUN co-op RPG, that you play with your bro and have many of those "man, the other day I teleported a chicken into a pool of lava" or "I killed the Mayor just when Bob was gonna return his quest to him, hahaha" stories.

PoE has nothing of that. It's a forgettable game, that no one is talking about anymore (except us), and where even reforging the Legendary Blade of the Endless Path - an entirely scripted quest - feels underwhelming and boring. There's no "your story" in PoE, everyone plays the game, kills everything and that's it. Maybe you choose a different class, a different faction on Act 2 or role-play [Stoic], but who the hell cares? Even here on the Codex stories don't go much more than "I had a hard time at Raedric's Hold".

Now compare that with how people still talk about fighting Kangaxx, having a baby with Aerie, quoting Minsc & Boo, laughing at Lilarcor, owning a Planar Sphere, slaying a dragon and finding the Holy Avenger, turning into a Slayer, disguising as a drow, escaping from a mindflayer prison, resurrecting Amoen from the dead, crafting an armor made of human skin, making weird multi-class solo runs... that's why BG2 is a classic and PoE will never be - it's a memorable game.

This. It's been weeks since I started my playthrough, and I cannot recall a single character, a single event, a single quest that would blow my mind at some point. The game is simply too generic and there is nothing really interesting to do.

 

[Lhynn]

My point is precisely the opposite, that PotD is the only place where the encounters make a bit of sense and require some thought. Not because the stats are bloated there, but because they are nerfed to irrelevance on the other difficulties.

They actually have a 50% extra numbers than a character of your level would get. no IE game needed to implement this retarded buff to be challenging in the first run.

All the other issues are still there, of course, and some new stuff is introduced like armor being borderline irrelevant, AoE being mandatory, etc... but there's a functional system buried in PoE, it just wasn't something Obsidian was interested in.

I disagree, theres maybe half of one.

Besides blatant comercialism, one reason why they weren't interested is that it would required them to remove some other dumb shit they added to the game. I.e., the more I think about the graze/hit/critical system, the more retarded it looks. Sure, for weapons it makes sense, but for spells and abilities it's plain stupid. It's very hard to fully miss (like ~5-10%, most of the times), so most of the times you are being hit by every ability, just for a reduced time. This makes every effect feel horribly short and ineffective. And they have to be ineffective, or you end up with things like Slicken, a level 1 spell that has like 90% chance to knockdown all targets in an area.

Yap, the single worst offender in the entire shitty system is graze/hit/crit. Half the problems of the game would have gotten solved if they were separate, graze in the form of a protection from armor and spells, crit would also need some work. Not the only one tho, classes feel incomplete, the choices you make at most level ups shouldnt be there, how does it make a deeper game to pick what your character will spam ON EVERY FIGHT UNTIL THE END OF TIME. They should have given you both skills and tie them to a single resource, thereby sacrificing a long term nonchoice for several short term ones that would bring depth to every fight.
The game is plagued by shit like this, amateur level decision making that leads me to believe that sawyer listened to too many stupid voices.

So, if you can't prebuff against poison, there's no poison hard-counter like an anti-poison magic ring, and every poison attack has a ~90% chance of hitting you no matter what you do, then the only way people are surviving that is by making the poison itself be no more than a minor inconvenience. BRAVO!

Yeah, this has been brought up often enough, lack of hard counters or any real way of efficiently preparing yourself for combat is banned, go there and hit your head against the wall, rinse and repeat. I have no idea how sawyer or anyone with 2 braincells would have thought that was a good idea.
For the record, im not exactly a fan of hard counters, unless they make sense and getting rid of them breaks the narrative (which PoE does constantly, its beyond retarded) you can get rid of them, but there must be good enough counter measures to cookie cutter strategy to make the player THINK.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I watched RK's playthrough of the Bitcher 3 and all that VD's talking about bland settings made me think about PoE's setting. Some fanboys insist that Not Forgotten Realms... sorry... Eora (?) is somehow a better realized setting than Forgotten Realms. Alright, assuming that is true, what I don't, the problem is that someone forgot to send the memo to Obsidian. Jesus, I expected something like the Three Sisters of the Swamp from Obsidian and not some potato upstarts.

I think the difference is that the potato upstarts actually cared about the game they were making, for what it was worth. Not sure how you make a team of 100+ people singularly care about their AAA masterpiece, but that's how the game feels, that someone cared instead of just churning out content out of a production pipeline.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Compare it to PST or even MotB.

I dont wanna!!!

Because then it'd be to obvious what the writing in the game could have been if they had let MCA be lead on it. As much as enjoyed the game, I think MCA could have done so much more out of the souls-schtick.