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Dragon Age: Inquisition is a better game than Pillars of Eternity

Delterius

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Dec 12, 2012
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into a BG2-esque
I agree, what a horrible idea for a videogame.

Jesus.

I love BG2 as much as the next guy, but it sure as hell isn't perfect, and the rock-paper-scissors attacks/immunities system is fucking shallow.
Indeed, which is why we must make use of this one of a kind opportunity to come up with our own system of rules. I mean, every year we get something inspired by the Infinity Engine games.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
:eyeroll:

No it isn't an IE clone. If that's the extent of your criticism of it, then it's doing pretty damn good I would say.
 

Immortal

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In My Safe Space
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(What's Garrison Gated content?)

The latest expansion is going to be adding quest lines in that are tied directly to your garrison and how far you've progressed.
Originally Sawyer had stated that any content gated behind player garrison progression was wasted or annoying for people who didn't like garrison management.

The obvious consequence to everyone except sawyer was that if you have zero content tied to a garrison, the whole thing is pointless.

Another "Sounded good in sawyers head but made a boring game play experience" design feature.
 

Bleed the Man

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
(What's Garrison Gated content?)

The latest expansion is going to be adding quest lines in that are tied directly to your garrison and how far you've progressed.
Originally Sawyer had stated that any content gated behind player garrison progression was wasted or annoying for people who didn't like garrison management.

The obvious consequence to everyone except sawyer was that if you have zero content tied to a garrison, the whole thing is meaningless.

No, he said that stronghold gated content wasn't a priority because a lot of people wouldn't experience that content and it would have affected the resources dedicated to more general quests. Basically, it was a matter of time and budget that the stronghold was purely systemic, without any type of content, which is why they've tried to improve it with the 3.0 patch.

But he seems to have changed his mind about tying the stronghold to the main plot. That's something that he was against because -he believes- a lot of players don't like stronghold managment, and in a recent interview (italian interview, so I might have misundertood some things ) he stated the opposite, that he would have liked for it to be more connected to the storyline.
 

Delterius

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:eyeroll:

No it isn't an IE clone. If that's the extent of your criticism of it, then it's doing pretty damn good I would say.
I'm happy to see we agree that the highest priority of a game like Pillars of Eternity is to be as innovative as possible. To push the envelope and drink from design paradigms that rose from competitive online play and League of Legends. The sort of elegant game design that turns the use of a handful of spells (banal, shit and boring) into stacking a bunch of weaker versions of consumables, spell effects and D&D's attributes. For tacticoolness.

Because thank God this game isn't like that footnote in history, Baldur's Gate 2. Those who cannot see the light, those who cling to the rules system of the past, well, those people are the same that unfortunately hold this series back with "2D backgrounds", RTwP and "Jeremy Soulesque soundtracks".

he said that stronghold gated content wasn't a priority because a lot of people wouldn't experience that content and it would have affected the resources dedicated to more general quests
A wise decision. Going by the game's overall quest quality, resources were better spent, in the end.
 

Immortal

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No, he said that stronghold gated content wasn't a priority because a lot of people wouldn't experience that content and it would have affected the resources dedicated to more general quests. Basically, it was a matter of time and budget that the stronghold was purely systemic, without any type of content, which is why they've tried to improve it with the 3.0 patch.

It should have been a priority. Do it right or don't do it at all.

No matter when they do the garrison it's going to take content away from something else.
The fact they are beefing it up now with gated content (that is completely disconnected from the expansion story) shows the whole "People who hate garrisons will miss out on large swaths of content" doesn't really hold up as a paradigm any more.

The garrison quest lines will still take content away from the second expansion, we just moved the goal post of which content got swapped to fix that blight.

I still consider it a flip flop on design goals - regardless of your hand waving.
Thanks for contributing another one though, I didn't even see that interview.
 

Lhynn

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Aug 28, 2013
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Enemy immunities are already in since 2.0. They're adding spells, abilities, and (possibly) items which confer immunities also.
Cool.


What the game offers you is a broad palette of tools which you can combine in lots of ways to get the result you want. What you're asking for here -- items or abilities which confer a blanket immunity -- is one-dimensional and rote by comparison.
Nothing more onedimensional than just riding out any ill effects because they run out in 3.2 seconds and whatever you can do to get rid of them goes of in 2.6 seconds.


Then why were you complaining about "cheaty, unresistable" charm/dominate?
Wasnt complaining, was saying that cheaty shit is the best the game offers. Meant it as a compliment

And, if you want to boil it down to numbers, that's exactly how it works in every cRPG ever.
Nonsense, if anything in good rpgs good tactics supercede numbers.

Beating Firkraag? Just making the numbers higher on your side and lower on his side.
Nonsense. It has a lot more depth than this, and is the reason redoing encounters and changing tactics was a thing in BG2.

The only difference is that in addition to that BG2 gives you scads of items and spells that let you simply neutralise any special attack in the game.
More nonsense. Itemization changed how you aproached encounters, this is a good thing.

It's only a matter of knowing that Negative Plane Protection (or Enhanced Mace of Disruption, or that one amulet) counters level drain, Chaotic Commands (or that one helm, or a number of other items) counters Charm/Dominate, and so on and so forth. Those things make the game simpler and more rote, not the opposite.
Metagaming knowledge makes RPGs and games in general easy, theres no exception. It comes with games requiring good judgement and decision making.

This is precisely why I think you're lying about Pillars. You're claiming that enemies there don't provide unique challenges, when they specifically do.
I keep claiming this

With fampyrs you need to find a way to deal with their Dominates, without having recourse to a win button like Chaotic Commands.
I quoted this as a good exception to the rule of PoE fights. Chaotic command was hardly a win button against mind flayers tho.


With dragons, the Terrify aura, the nasty breath weapon, and the minions.
And knowing what you are facing beforehand you are still unable to use your protection spells before hitting someone on the face, because fuck you everyone and everything in this world is systemically retarded. The second fight people bring up as unique, congrats, youve been reading their posts.

With ogres, the Knockdown attack. With ogre druids, the Knockdown attack, the high DR, and the extremely nasty DoT effects and debuffs they slap on you.
Another one of those fights they talk about. good going there.

With lagufaeth, their fast movement and ranged Paralyze attacks.
Bringing up the expansion? are you that starved for enemies? note that there are the same amount of enemy types in pillars than in BG1, and while in BG one every enemy was an unique challenge in PoE you can name 3, you need to bring up the expansion to name a couple more.
Found it lulzy that the first match i found when i googled was a thread in obs forums called "Lagufaeths are underwhelming".


With adragans, the ranged Petrify attack, and so on and so forth.
Yup, you are.


These do provide unique challenges, and they cannot be beat by repeating a single, rote tactic. Can. Not. That is just flat out untrue. Not even when playing on Easy, let alone PotD.
Sure, my point exactly, 99% of the encounters in the game are trash mobs. Why do you point those out as if they were the rule? when they are clearly the exception of what to expect? ill tell you why, because you got absolutely nothing to argue here.


(I'm also struck by the fact that you haven't mentioned any of the tactics that are borderline exploitative and overly-broadly applicable, or were until 2.0 anyway. Which also suggests that you're lying about having played the game.
No reason to mention them, i didnt need to apply them, encounters where too easy. But we are not discussing difficulty here, only the system.

Slicken-spam for example, never even mind 'advanced' exploits like playing with six Moon Godlike chanters singing Come Come Soft Winds Of Death.)
Nothing advanced about that. or interesting.
 

Trashos

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Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
To people who are asking about tankiness: I confirm Prime Junta's testification that it is good now. I am playing with 2.5 tanks to make do (Eder, Kana and in messy fights a spiritshifted Hiravias).
 

likaq

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Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
1,198
ITT BG2 as a example of game with excelent itemization, i too love finding new magical +3 item every 10 minutes and very powerfull magical item that gives you a immunity to level drain /entire school of magic every 20 minutes. And no,that doesn't mean that PoE is better just equally shitty for different reasons ( items are boring as fuck ).

ITT rock-paper-scissors attacks/immunities system from BG2 as a example of good design. And no, the fack that hard counters are boring as shit doesn't mean that poe magic is good.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Delterius I'll try to remember to include a trigger warning the next time I mention BG2 in an unfavourable light.
 

Lhynn

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ITT BG2 as a example of game with excelent itemization, i too love finding new magical +3 item every 10 minutes and very powerfull magical item that gives you a immunity to level drain /entire school of magic every 20 minutes. And no,that doesn't mean that PoE is better just equally shitty for different reasons ( items are boring as fuck ).
Gross exageration, but explain to me how this is a bad thing.
 
Last edited:
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BTW a note about that "outleveling the content" thing -- on PotD that's the main reason things get dull after a certain point, and the expansions are making it worse. That's largely down to the scope of the game and the lack of level scaling. They wanted to put crit-path level scaling in but got shouted down by the community, and IMO that's made the game materially worse than it could be. Now they have optional end-game and WM (high-)level scaling, which is a really clunky half-measure.

I really wish they had done it like in BG2, by scaling up the encounters if you hit them late. And even there, the game does become rather trivial if you have a good build. (In my latest BG2 playthrough, I had a blast of a time reaching my self-imposed goal of getting Crom Faeyr as early as possible; after that point, all the Athkatla stuff I didn't do is a complete yawn.)

yea no shit faggot doing quests from 2nd chapter in 6th while having the strongest weapon in game makes their encounters much more trivial. what is next on your "hardcore/bg2 is easy run" list? :lol: beating firkraag/shadow dragon short before fighting Irenicus in Suldanesseral? :roll:

How about you go straight from your first visit in Copper Coronet to Wind-spear Hills/Watchers Keep?
 

Telengard

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The end of every place
Pillars of Eternity is too good atmospherically for Dragon Age: Inquisition to have a chance. Eora "feels" like a richer setting than what Thedas has become. Mechanics and writing don't always back that up (and it didn't have to be that way), but there's hope they'll improve on the next iteration.

True but the bigger issue I have is that the setting as it is just doesn't seem to lend itself well to the overabundance of fantastical stuff in it. On one hand it feels low key and historically inspired (with some sci-fi vibes in things like the origin of Gods with Thaos resembling a mad scientist) while on the other hand it has D&D bestiary, dragons, elves, dwarfs and fireballs which (for me) feel out of place in it.

IMO they would have been better off replacing magic entirely with something like alchemy (a la Darklands) and making fantastic creatures be extremely rare, the result of some botched science experiments or obscure rituals and thought only to exist in folklore and legends (instead of them being common as dirt).
I agree wholeheartedly. But, that's the trouble with funding through nostalgia and Kickstarter.

* Look at this thing that looks just like this other thing from the past! Cue Codex - and everyone else - drooling over screenshots of mainstream D&D fantasy. Don't you want another game just like those games from when you were a kid!?! *

After that sell, any dev is stuck in the limbo of nostalgia-land. Really, the best they could have done within the strict confines of the nostalgia prison is ape the rules and story of BG, in addition to aping the 'look' as they did do, in order to please as many people as possible. Of course, they're not Bioware, so even that wouldn't have worked very well, and it would have been seen as just another (in a long list of) Bioware knockoffs.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
yea no shit faggot doing quests from 2nd chapter in 6th while having the strongest weapon in game makes their encounters much more trivial. what is next on your "hardcore/bg2 is easy run" list? :lol: beating firkraag/shadow dragon short before fighting Irenicus in Suldanesseral? :roll:

How about you go straight from your first visit in Copper Coronet to Wind-spear Hills/Watchers Keep?

I was just pointing out that outleveling the content is an issue that's not specific to Pillars; it's inherent to any game of this type which is broad, allows for a lot of freedom to do stuff in any order you like, and has a lot of optional side content.

This, because the "Pillars is too easy" whine is not true if you're playing PotD, other than if you outlevel the content.
 

likaq

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Groos exageration, but explain to me how this is a bad thing.

Too many too powerfull items makes game too easy ( and BG2 is not hard game to begin with ).
Too many items granting immunity to status effects / drain levels / drain stats/ instant death/ magic remove any difficulty when fighting with vampires, liches, mind flayers etc.

And i prefer 'low magic' settings where magical items are rare, it makes finding them much more fun / exciting.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Trigger warning: BG2 criticism.

BG2 has more memorable epic items. Building a character around Carsomyr or Crom Faeyr feels like an achievement in itself. With Pillars, other than the soulbound weapons introduced in WM, there aren't any that really stand out that way.

However, Pillars has better itemisation in general. Few of the uniques are genuine vendor-trash throwaways, and a great many have properties that are worth building parties or characters around. Because there are so many and they have different unique properties they also support building lots of different characters and parties. With BG2 OTOH, did anyone really actually use that +2 Flametongue?
 

Lhynn

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Aug 28, 2013
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Too many too powerfull items makes game too easy ( and BG2 is not hard game to begin with ).
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/258273-baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn/51751917
:lol:
Youll find that with SCT the game is plenty hard but even without it a lot of people cant beat the first dungeon.


Too many items granting immunity to status effects / drain levels / drain stats/ instant death/ magic remove any difficulty when fighting with vampires, liches, mind flayers etc.
Thats a bunch of bullshit


And i prefer 'low magic' settings where magical items are rare, it makes finding them much more fun / exciting.
Thats preference, low magic settings can be super easy and high fantasy can be stupidly hard. Also its easier to find magical items in poe setting oddly enough.
 
Last edited:

Trashos

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Too many too powerfull items makes game too easy ( and BG2 is not hard game to begin with ).

BG2 is one of the harder full RPGs. Out of the Codex Top 10, it is probably the hardest one after Gothic 2 (although, sure, it is not always easy to compare).
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Early-game BG2 is hard, even punishingly hard depending on the order in which you do things.

Mid to late game BG2 is piss-easy if you know what you're doing.
 

thexsa

Educated
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Jan 29, 2015
Messages
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DAI is a nice tech-demo for Frostbyte. They just forgot to release the tool-set afterwards for people with brains to produce some content.

PoE is just a failed experiment where classes and characters have no identity. Only memorable thing about that game was that the character creator made the game actually seem like it had potential the first time you entered it.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
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Mid to late game BG2 is piss-easy if you know what you're doing.

I've read anecdotes from goons who managed to get through the most of it well enough and then feel brickwalled by the final area. :M
 

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