Darth Canoli
Arcane
I didn't play it yet but from experience it's probably missing some features soon to be introduced in the Diamond Enhanced Director's Cut version.
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After so many patches and DLC - Poe1 Worth playing?
- Thread starter cretin
- Start date
I didn't play it yet but from experience it's probably missing some features soon to be introduced in the Diamond Enhanced Director's Cut version.
Johnny Biggums
Learned
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2020
- Messages
- 223
Play/don't play depends a lot on what your alternatives are. POE is in the vein of BG1, only with more lore dumps and purple prose, worse characters, less funny, worse class system, etc. Still I think it's a cool game and now I'm thinking I might fire it back up myself.
Generic-Giant-Spider
Guest
Twenty hours.
TWENTY HOURS of this TRASH. I'm going to be 80, wheezing, dying of throat cancer, and as I weakly clutch my third son Percival's collar out of desperation to tell him where I kept the keys to the kingdom and the Caprice... I'll die. All because I wasted twenty FUCKING hours on this game.
TWENTY HOURS of this TRASH. I'm going to be 80, wheezing, dying of throat cancer, and as I weakly clutch my third son Percival's collar out of desperation to tell him where I kept the keys to the kingdom and the Caprice... I'll die. All because I wasted twenty FUCKING hours on this game.
So it's boring.
Pillars is complicated to recommend... PoE 1 & 2 have very different pros & cons, and none of them feel 100% "whole".
PoE 1 has the best companions and some cool battles, but the main quest itself is dull & linear, without any real player agency, the itemization is boring and there's way too much trash combat.
PoE 2 has turn-based mode and far more interesting battles, with much less trash mobs. It's also very open, with nice side dungeons & quests that offer loot a hundred times more interesting. I think it's by far the better game, but the big downside is that the companions & plot are terrible.
I wish I could tell you to jump to PoE 2 directly, but I think it's impossible to get into what's going on in the world & lore unless you finished PoE 1 first. That's my take: with so many better RPGs out there, I would only recommend PoE 1 if you want to play PoE 2 afterwards.
PoE 1 has the best companions and some cool battles, but the main quest itself is dull & linear, without any real player agency, the itemization is boring and there's way too much trash combat.
PoE 2 has turn-based mode and far more interesting battles, with much less trash mobs. It's also very open, with nice side dungeons & quests that offer loot a hundred times more interesting. I think it's by far the better game, but the big downside is that the companions & plot are terrible.
I wish I could tell you to jump to PoE 2 directly, but I think it's impossible to get into what's going on in the world & lore unless you finished PoE 1 first. That's my take: with so many better RPGs out there, I would only recommend PoE 1 if you want to play PoE 2 afterwards.
dacencora
Guest
Yep, until the Druid grove, it’s pretty good, especially White March, but it definitely devolves pretty bad at the end. It doesn’t deteriorate to the same extent that DOS2 does, but it does still struggle at the end.
Comrade Goby
Magister
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2011
- Messages
- 1,219
The writing is awful. You can tell 20 year old girls wrote it
Poseidon00
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2018
- Messages
- 2,055
I've tried my hardest for as long as it has been out to complete/care about PoE and despite many attempts I just can't do it
Just play Kingmaker instead
Poseidon00
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2018
- Messages
- 2,055
So true!
Malamert
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2018
- Messages
- 2,466
Play neither.
Goldschmidt
Learned
Why play Knights of The Chalice, if you can play Tibia which offers strategic positioning and resource management in real time! It is also 20 years older than KoTC.
Nifft Batuff
Prophet
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2018
- Messages
- 3,203
No ekera, at least.
It's not a bad RPG per se but it definitely has a few significant problems.
CONS
- The plot is pretty meh. The dialogue is also pretty uninteresting except for some exceptions.
- Companions are mostly boring, except for Durance, who's pretty interesting.
- Combat is a mess. Even making it turn-based wouldn't fix it because you can't take 5 steps in this game without being thrown into some dumbass throwaway combat encounter. Trash mobs abound. The developers would need to make encounters way less frequent and a lot more interesting - fat chance of that happening.
- Environments are BORING AS FUCK. There's literally one type, for the most part: FORESTS. You want some variety? Here's PINE FOREST. Oh you've been stuck in a forest too long? Don't worry, here's LEAF FOREST! I know it might be a dumb complaint but the lack of variety on maps pissed me off so much.
PROS
- The side quests can be kinda interesting with quite a bit of player agency available.
- You can experiment with a variety of builds, though they all seem kind of samey.
- You get a castle, which you can upgrade, which is cool.
CONS
- The plot is pretty meh. The dialogue is also pretty uninteresting except for some exceptions.
- Companions are mostly boring, except for Durance, who's pretty interesting.
- Combat is a mess. Even making it turn-based wouldn't fix it because you can't take 5 steps in this game without being thrown into some dumbass throwaway combat encounter. Trash mobs abound. The developers would need to make encounters way less frequent and a lot more interesting - fat chance of that happening.
- Environments are BORING AS FUCK. There's literally one type, for the most part: FORESTS. You want some variety? Here's PINE FOREST. Oh you've been stuck in a forest too long? Don't worry, here's LEAF FOREST! I know it might be a dumb complaint but the lack of variety on maps pissed me off so much.
PROS
- The side quests can be kinda interesting with quite a bit of player agency available.
- You can experiment with a variety of builds, though they all seem kind of samey.
- You get a castle, which you can upgrade, which is cool.
Darth Canoli
Arcane
Combatfag isn't a thing because anything-fag means it's lame but you still like it, like storyfag (i didn't grow up and i'm illiterate so i need video games to tell me stories).
So either you like tactical combat and you know RTwP is garbage or you don't like tactical combat but you like MMO-balanced systems with poor worldbuilding and you can stomach RTS-like combat in which case, PoE 1 & 2 are made for you.
Yep it's a good game and well worth playing. Not stellar, but good. I agree with Rusty above: it's actually rather engaging story-wise for the first half and the DLC, but the latter half of the main game somehow seems to lose its coherence and one's interest starts to flag somewhat. Combat-wise it seems to be a love it or hate it thing for people here. Personally I like the Pillars system in both versions (POE2 is a bit better).
Outside of old hype and disappointment history, it's worth playing. There still aren't enough games around that do the full package like the Pillars games do.
The only really big downside of POE for me is the "graphics soup" effect in big battles - that can get really annoying at times (they sorted it out in the sequel). But if you mod closer zoom (it's just a console command) that helps with that. IEMod highly recommended for piddling about with builds etc. (it has extensive console commands that don't break achievements).
Outside of old hype and disappointment history, it's worth playing. There still aren't enough games around that do the full package like the Pillars games do.
The only really big downside of POE for me is the "graphics soup" effect in big battles - that can get really annoying at times (they sorted it out in the sequel). But if you mod closer zoom (it's just a console command) that helps with that. IEMod highly recommended for piddling about with builds etc. (it has extensive console commands that don't break achievements).
ExposedBrainMatter
Educated
I still don't understand why this website has a section for what you think about PoE. For me it's garbáge.
Van-d-all
Erudite
I was seriously hyped for the game, and even bought a boxed edition, and despite having no real technical issues I never finished it. It's just super fucking boring. I think, the overall presentation simply lacks the storytelling to get hooked - the plot is a generic "OH THE GOOOOODS BLAH BLAH", the characters mostly unmemorable (can't remember a single one), locations look bland and feel forcefully filled with those garbage yellow/backer NPC that just spout scribbler loredumps without rhyme, reason or connection to the game world. Not that the official writing is much better, it delivers everything through walls of text full of diacritic riddled hêrp dêrp proper nouns from their copy paste "this is not D&D (tm)" setting, which makes realizing what's what in this world a serious chore.
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,395
PoE is like Obsidian decided to remake the NWN 2 OC and removed the only good part of it, 3.5e DnD, replacing it with a chinese knock off version.
Seems I'm joking but I'm not, lets see:
You have a fortress that is useless? Check.
There is a fake trial where whatever you do doesnt matter? Check.
You character is super special because weird barely explained conveniences like having a sword stick on the ass and witnessing some soul magic because apparently watching magic that can fuck you turns you into soul superman? Check.
The first half is you walking on some random country side areas with zero coherency and zero explanation on what the fuck is happening with the most convoluted excuses the game can find to explain why cant you just go straight to the big city where your objective is? Check.
The big city is boring as fuck with almost no real content? Check.
The NPCs are the types that you need to read PoE wiki to remember who they are if you pause for a few weeks and no, you dont have Alzheimer yet? Check
There is an ancient civilization with special powers that you must understand but it was done with the profoundity of a TV tropes ancient civilization trait sheet? Check.
The villain was a misunderstood guy that was a tragic figure that was just doing what he tought it was right and ended corrupted? Check.
Most characters except the ones written by Avellone are boring losers that do nothing of worth to justify their existance? Check. Here it is a bit better because there is Durance, on NWN 2 OC even the ones written by Avellone were shit.
The game devolves into a boring ultra linear series of setpieces maps involving glorified trashmobs at the end and totally not worthy the pain? Check.
Does the game have the most boring, banal smug liberal take at religion that can be summed up by: "religion bad." , "atheism good, atheism smart."? Yes, there wasnt this on NWN 2 OC but I guess this is Obsidian evolving the formula.
Do they the whole "The villain escaped you on custcenes while you sit on your ass watching on what supposedly is a video game." to the point you think this is a JRPG and you are on Final Fantasy 7? Check. Actually NWN 2 OC wasnt that bad at this.
I would forgive all of this if the game at least let me murder some kobolds and rob the living shit of them in peace but nope, there are no Kobolds but xaurips and the weapons are shit. Do you think a volley of flintlock guns at close distance would do a nice damage and sound powerful right? They sound like a volley of wetfarts and are as useful at killing things at distance as Star Wars storm troopers. Most magic is just, what kind of color you want to smear the enemy in until they are a christmas tree and you cant see shit? There is green cloud, there is purple cloud, they are only useful to reduce the obscene amount of cheating of PoTD. If you are truly desperate... there are better games out there, please, be a champ, dont do drugs.
Seems I'm joking but I'm not, lets see:
You have a fortress that is useless? Check.
There is a fake trial where whatever you do doesnt matter? Check.
You character is super special because weird barely explained conveniences like having a sword stick on the ass and witnessing some soul magic because apparently watching magic that can fuck you turns you into soul superman? Check.
The first half is you walking on some random country side areas with zero coherency and zero explanation on what the fuck is happening with the most convoluted excuses the game can find to explain why cant you just go straight to the big city where your objective is? Check.
The big city is boring as fuck with almost no real content? Check.
The NPCs are the types that you need to read PoE wiki to remember who they are if you pause for a few weeks and no, you dont have Alzheimer yet? Check
There is an ancient civilization with special powers that you must understand but it was done with the profoundity of a TV tropes ancient civilization trait sheet? Check.
The villain was a misunderstood guy that was a tragic figure that was just doing what he tought it was right and ended corrupted? Check.
Most characters except the ones written by Avellone are boring losers that do nothing of worth to justify their existance? Check. Here it is a bit better because there is Durance, on NWN 2 OC even the ones written by Avellone were shit.
The game devolves into a boring ultra linear series of setpieces maps involving glorified trashmobs at the end and totally not worthy the pain? Check.
Does the game have the most boring, banal smug liberal take at religion that can be summed up by: "religion bad." , "atheism good, atheism smart."? Yes, there wasnt this on NWN 2 OC but I guess this is Obsidian evolving the formula.
Do they the whole "The villain escaped you on custcenes while you sit on your ass watching on what supposedly is a video game." to the point you think this is a JRPG and you are on Final Fantasy 7? Check. Actually NWN 2 OC wasnt that bad at this.
I would forgive all of this if the game at least let me murder some kobolds and rob the living shit of them in peace but nope, there are no Kobolds but xaurips and the weapons are shit. Do you think a volley of flintlock guns at close distance would do a nice damage and sound powerful right? They sound like a volley of wetfarts and are as useful at killing things at distance as Star Wars storm troopers. Most magic is just, what kind of color you want to smear the enemy in until they are a christmas tree and you cant see shit? There is green cloud, there is purple cloud, they are only useful to reduce the obscene amount of cheating of PoTD. If you are truly desperate... there are better games out there, please, be a champ, dont do drugs.
cretin
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2019
- Messages
- 1,372
Ive put a few hours in. It seems alright, but I think josh replaced 2E and 3.5E systems that are easy to grok and enjoyable with his systems that are supposedly in service of average players but ironically way harder to make sense of and a lot more dull in the results they produce.
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