Sensuki's complaints, which shouldn't be surprising of the guy who made the "IE mod," boil down almost literally to IT'S NOT THE INFINITY ENGINE :qq:. Except half his shit is wrong even then!
Armor? Did this motherfucker play BG2? He calls out the kensai as "a popular fighter who had terrible AC." Man, a high damage striker with low deflection...so like, what, the two hander rogues I've seen people put together? Let's try to ignore that the most popular thing to do with a kensai was combine it with mage or thief
and completely bypass the equipment disadvantage to gain massive defenses. Because even if his argument made sense, it'd still be hilariously wrong. But even past that, his argument ends up resting at "front liners are forced into the heaviest armor they can find, not like Baldur's Gate, where front liners were limited and could only wear the heaviest armor they could wear!" Which is hilariously stupid at best, and outright blind at worst. To be frank, his complain boils down to "there aren't class limitations FORCING me to use certain armors." Hey, you wanna make a BG barbarian who uses a two hander but lighter armor and trades defense for offense? Fuckin' do it! Oh no, you have to make characters on your own. Perish the thought.
Health isn't a major concern? Did he
somehow not grasp that you lose both endurance and health as you fight, and as such relying on one or two characters to take ALL the attacks meant having to rest much sooner then if you managed to spread out the damage a little? A tank at 10% health while everyone else is at 100% means you're gonna have to step off way sooner then if everyone was at 30% health. Did it somehow fly completely over his head that until mid-game, a KO'd character isn't fighting anymore, so you need to manage endurance throughout the fight, via - let's quote him directly - "either via spells or potions (unless you have regeneration). Healing spells are a per-rest resource, and healing potions are (technically) a finite resource."
Encounter powers, what a surprise
this shows up. Man I'm glad the IE games never had a problem with characters alpha striking with situations like the rogue downing an invisibility potion and the wizard throwing down a time stop on the hard battles while easy battles became sit behind the fighter and haste. Wait, that was every fight? But then it'd be
rote! Surely not! Meanwhile in PoE I frequently have my rogue HOLD OFF from using their big blind or cripple attacks because they're usually
not going to be able to position themselves to hit the big baddie with them. I've had numerous cases of fights that end up dragging new enemies in where I end up being glad I didn't use all those knockdowns. This goes into the argument about engagement later, but I can't shake the feeling that Setsuki mostly just makes his own fights long and dull because he plays dramatically overly defensive.
No immunities? I'm gonna quote something directly here.
There's also just a bunch of awesome stuff that you could do in the Infinity Engine games that is flat out missing from Pillars of Eternity. If a unit is charmed in an Infinity Engine game, you can dominate them back. You can Vocalize yourself and silence everyone else so they can't cast spells with a vocal component. You can wake up slept characters by attacking them (punch with unarmed etc). You can drop stuff like Webs and Entangles and Free Action yourself.
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Did Sensuki
not play the game? I think I found his problem! Because MOST this shit happens! We literally just talked about charming already charmed allies. Nothing is stopping you from using a priest to buff your defenses and then throwing AoEs into yourselves.
But that's not his actual complaint. For all his whinging about how he likes MOMENT TO MOMENT TACTICS, it all boils down to easily the most irritating thing that has always existed in D&D - prep time. "Why can't I spend an hour before a fight engaging all my buffs and immunizing myself to all enemy attacks, thus making those attacks entirely pointless, causing them to exist only as a means to waste my time before the action starts?"
But oh, the lack of enemy immunities. Why don't I have to change between bashing and slashing weapons like I [sub]never[/sub] did in Baldur's Gate? Why don't I have to equip torches when fighting shades like I would [sub]never[/sub] do in Baldur's Gate? Know when I changed my weapons in IE games? When I had to use fire to kill a troll. That's about it. Oh what a horrendous loss.
Engagement? I've had plenty of cases where enemies either avoid or just plain
ignore engagement, and likewise plenty of situations where I do the same, since there isn't actually that big of a penalty for it (though it depends on what you're fighting). It is sometimes ABSOLUTELY worthwhile for the rogue to eat an engagement attack in order to move behind and flank. Most classes who can't handle being engaged have spells or abilities to swap or move without being hit - some of which are actually really strong! This was something that's been stated to him time and time again, and he ignores it every time. He's so paranoid of enemies attacking a non-front liner that he makes his OWN fights stale and one dimensional. You plays super defensively and then gets upset that his offense is weak and boring. And frankly the idea of "once the battle is set up NOBODY MOVES" doesn't match any of my experiences to date. Unless you somehow fight in a tight narrow corridor every single time, that's not gonna happen. And even if you do, shit changes. What happens when your tank gets paralyzed? What happens if someone gets charmed or dominated? What happens with enemies that teleport? What about enemies with AoE spells? Let's not forget his example of AWESOME DYNAMIC IE TACTICS was "the baddies follow the one character who aggro'd them in circles while everyone else shoots them with a bow." Good thing there were no encounter powers in there to make things boring and samey!
Lastly whining about samey enemies in comparison to fuckin' Baldur's Gate where enemies fell into three categories (Enemies That Do Lots Of Weapon Damage, Enemies With One Gimmick You Neutralize With Prep Work, and Spellcasters) is sad at best.
Here's the bottom line - Sensuki is a fucking idiot who can't stop jerking himself off while crying over his memories of a Baldur's Gate experience that never actually existed.
EDIT:
Like, no shit, the guy who claims it's pointless to put anyone but tanks in armor at all is the same guy who says there's no mobility to fights because his back liners have no defense against enemies. The guy who overemphasizes bulking up two fighters goes on to complain that fights are boring because there's no offense.
Here's a new theory - Sensuki is fucking garbage at this game and blamed the game for it.
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