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Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,609
Codex 2012 MCA
I played through Siege of Derpspear, and the writing as as fucking horrible as I expected, it's basically utterly shit fanfic drivel, and the whole story is so fucking retarded that I'd think it was come up by modders. Some aasimaar gets manipulated by evil servant of some devil/demon to wage crusade and siege some castle to go to the nine hells to save her uncle, supposedly, and the being who's manipulating her is so obviously untrustworthy that she'd have to have intelligence of 3. Her class is fighter and she has some special abilities, and I can fucking guarantee it that she was originally suppose to be paladin, but someone figured out that detect evil would've killed the whole story, and due her crazy actions, she'd fallen long time ago. At least based on my impression, they try so hard try to play it as "she's tragic figure", but instead she comes across as fucking retarded.

And why they're after you? because your partially divine blood can open the gates to the nine hells, the machinations of the said Master Manipulator are revealed, he plans to open the portal for his master and unleash the hell on "earth", if I understood it correctly, I was phasing out pretty badly. She goes after him/it and you go after her...to the nine hells...as level 9-10 party, just....WHAT?! it's fucking ridiculous, it's like they wanted to do out-do BG2 on epicness. You kill the demon, and she or her uncle sacrifices herself/himself by staying behind to close the portal yada yada "Muh Heroic Sacrifice"

And the cherry on top? after you come from the hell as hero, and you celebrate through night, you wake up in the night and find "Hooded Man" (aka Irenicus, who's been appearing through out the game as "Hooded Man") hypnotizing you (or framing, it wasn't completely clear if you actually killed her or was it Irenicus) killing Skie, you then wake up in the hallway with her body, and everyone jumps into conclusion that YOU KILLT HER! even though there's no murder weapon (from what I gathered), you (the character) get railroaded in the very short trial for execution, even if you'd been the most heroic of the heroics during the game, then you just get exiled by the nobles because Skie's father (who's the grand duke of baldur's gate, or something) wants you dead. If you've not been, then you get set free by some nameless thief who says that Imoen hired him, but it's implied that it was arranged by Irenicus. You don't get any kind of closure with the companions, you just meet with the default party from BG2, and off you go, and get ambushed by Irenicus. People have said that the stuff with Irenicus is one of the better stuff in the game, and that you get railroaded because you're child of bhaal, but it's still fucking dumb, the whole "Ur child of Bhaal!" is so hacky throughout the game, with decent writers that stuff could've been fine. David Warner does his best with the material, but he sounds so much older now than in BG2, he is almost 80.

This whole last segments is like 5 last minutes of the game, no epilogues for the new companions, and it's so fucking abrupt, hamfisted and hacky that I just had to go "WTFLOL IS THIS SHIT?!", my friend said that I should play through it to experience the ending because it's so fucking dumb, and boy, he wasn't wrong...mostly. From what I remember in BG2, they just say that you were traveling near Baldur's Gate.

From the existing companions, Viconia and Edwin were the most tolerably written, and they didn't manage to ruin their characterizations too badly, Safana was made into a huge bitch and fucking annoying cunt, with very hacky fanfic tier writing, Khalid and Jaheira weren't THAT horrible either. Didn't try any of beamdog's own ones from BG1, and from the new ones I tried out Corwin, the flaming fist captain, she was fucking borefest, Glint, who's budget-tier Jan Jansen, and Vohglin (or something) who's basically very stereotypical viking type, I think he's probably the most tolerable of those ones, and might've been fun character in BG1 if written by original Bioware writers.

There was one fun dungeon at pretty start of the game, one mediocre dungeon, some fun fights, some of the loot was fine, but I don't think SCS really works with it, as it was easier than BG1, even on hardest.
 
Last edited:

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,992
Compared to SCS BG1, SoD is easier. But if you put SoD on Insane difficulty but turn off extra damage for enemies you get harder encounters and better AI and most of the fights are harder than Bg1 or Bg2 without mods.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,442
Compared to SCS BG1, SoD is easier. But if you put SoD on Insane difficulty but turn off extra damage for enemies you get harder encounters and better AI and most of the fights are harder than Bg1 or Bg2 without mods.

I agree, I found SoD on Insane harder than SCS BG1. Might be the novelty.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,362
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
There was one fun dungeon at pretty start of the game

That would be the Dwarves of Dumathoin quest. A high point of the expansion, to be sure.

Also of note, the developers did include a party creation interface right from the start and I rolled with six generated characters, so I did not have to deal with any asinine NPC writing. In this regard, it played more like Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate, and in more ways than one.
 

Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,609
Codex 2012 MCA
There was one fun dungeon at pretty start of the game

That would be the Dwarves of Dumathoin quest. A high point of the expansion, to be sure.

Also of note, the developers did include a party creation interface right from the start and I rolled with six generated characters, so I did not have to deal with any asinine NPC writing. In this regard, it played more like Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate, and in more ways than one.

Yeah that one, I considered making my own party, and re-create the party from SoD by trying to find the original voicesets and use those, but I wanted to experience to horribleness to its fullest. I doubt I'll ever again touch it, the gameplay wasn't that horrible but not worth of going through the same shit all over again.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,992
Compared to SCS BG1, SoD is easier. But if you put SoD on Insane difficulty but turn off extra damage for enemies you get harder encounters and better AI and most of the fights are harder than Bg1 or Bg2 without mods.

I agree, I found SoD on Insane harder than SCS BG1. Might be the novelty.
I only played scs bg1 once so it might have been novelty for me as well. But still my first run through SoD on insane seemed easier.
 
Unwanted

Horvatii

Unwanted
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
563
So a made a disgustingly gay elf fighter/thief multi longsword/bow, start the game and it gears me out nice, and I am level 6/6.
Dick around on Hard and the first boss at the end of the dungeon casts Timestop, wtflol :lol: Did not expect that.

Did I make a terrible mistake and should have gone single class with kits?

Is dual class even possible? And what weapon prof should I pick for mastery for a 3/? fighter/thief dual?

I read that the xp cap is 500k but how reasonable is that to reach?

I assume switching to Insane only works on area transition to never before entered areas?

How does Insane (x2 dmg, extra extra mobs) with NoExtraDmg compare to plain Hard (x1.5 dmg, extra mobs)?
Eg, basically how many more mobs does Insane spawn, or should one just go Insane and not modify the extra dmg?
Normal, 5 mobs, 1 dmg = 5 dmg
Hard, 10 mobs, 1.5 dmg = 15 dmg
Insane, 15 mobs, 2 dmg = 30 dmg
Insanex1dmg, 15, 1 dmg = 15 dmg
 
Unwanted

Horvatii

Unwanted
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
563
Damn I havent played IE game in more than 10 years and forgot how chaotic it is (and how its time/speed/everything is tied to fps...). Deadfire is a microcontrolled precision instrument in comparison.

SOD looks nice, they even have some kind of effects on the first level, like fog or some shit.

Dual classing does not work if going straight to SOD. It gives you 7 levles of fighter and thats it.

Insane enemy inflation is not super extreme. So, keeping their x2 dmg is probably not too masochistic.

insane
PmOBep4.jpg


hard doesnt have the bladed horror and worse skelly quality

insane
1vRRSV2.jpg


hard
zFJ1ic6.jpg


insane
5tl51VA.jpg


hard
4CBPi5T.jpg
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,267
My party at the end of Baldur's Gate was MC necromancer, Montaron, Xzar, Kagain, Viconia and Edwin. After the tomb mission the Duke's henchwoman says "Yeeeah we tracked your companions Minsc and Dynaheir"......barely spoken with Minsc and killed the witch in Baldur's Gate because Edwin told me to do that, I mean a witch, so burn the witch. So they tracked Viconia only.
I recruited Edwin and Baeloth and later Dorn. With the vampire item that helps regeneration you don't have to sleep every time so Dorn become a decent replacement of Kagain with much less HP but more damage.

I defeated Caelar's army and she Is trapped in her castle's dungeon. Humphrey Bogart summoned a portal to the Nine Hells and she disappear....abishai and Imps are coming non stop....are they supposed to stop? My characters aren't using the portal and I am already at the 12th wave.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,065
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
People keep saying that David Warner sounds old at 80, but I'm more inclined to think that he was just ambivalent / depressed / fed-up, or angry that the last voiced line of his career (after being brought out of retirement) was voicing a character written by a bunch of talentless cunts. I bet that a professional like him could have mustered the drive to sound like the old Irenicus if the writing hadn't been written by children.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,174
People keep saying that David Warner sounds old at 80, but I'm more inclined to think that he was just ambivalent / depressed / fed-up, or angry
You know, I really doubt BioWare included reprisal commitments in their VO deals for BG2. So unless you think Oster kicked Warner's door in, screaming that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract, it's safe to assume he was happy to do the part.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,065
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
People keep saying that David Warner sounds old at 80, but I'm more inclined to think that he was just ambivalent / depressed / fed-up, or angry
You know, I really doubt BioWare included reprisal commitments in their VO deals for BG2. So unless you think Oster kicked Warner's door in, screaming that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract, it's safe to assume he was happy to do the part.

Yeah maybe I just misheard him, and he really sounded thrilled. Like, old man thrilled.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,790
:necro:

The Roguey assessment of Cringe of Redditspear: the dialogue ranges from tepid (par for the course for BG) to terrible (made all the more painful by some of the fully voiced lines where the actors are audibly struggling with the delivery). The plot requires you to carry too many idiot balls. The combat is pretty good after the first chapter, though the game is more Icewind Dale with Companions than Baldur's Gate (even stealing IWD's boss for some reason that was never really made clear). I'm glad the endgame wasn't a meat grinder of constant fights. Overall I had fun with the gameplay, though I can see why Beamdog was deemed undeserving of BG3.

The kind of thing that makes Sawyer seethe: a level one spell insta-killing a dragon
KEVzYn9.png
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
The dungeon design & art is quite good, the game is only ruined by terrible writing. Fine example for people who think you can just neglect any one area and still get a good game.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,790
Siege of Dragonspear was written by that dangerhair with the "bard's hat", Amber Scott.

https://twitter.com/amberwriting

While she is obv garbage writer, the responsibility lies with Trent Oster.
She was one writer. I'm convinced that she wrote all the cringe lines (I could tell whenever she wrote a PC's dialogue node when the choices included some incredibly feminine-sounding responses) and Andrew Foley wrote all the Baldur's Gate-sounding lines.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,235
The companion selection in SoD is truly awful. Everyone will basically end up with the same party (because fuck beamdog companions), and if you want to replay you're best off doing it in multiplayer so you can create the full party.
 

Palomides

Augur
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
419
The companion selection in SoD is truly awful. Everyone will basically end up with the same party (because fuck beamdog companions), and if you want to replay you're best off doing it in multiplayer so you can create the full party.
I love how easily every one casts you aside or assumes your guilt at the end, too.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,442
There are a few other good ones, the Lich dungeon and Bhaal temple for instance.

Gameplay wise it really is a solid expansion, too bad it's packaged with all the crap.
 

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