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Commissar Draco

Codexia Comrade Colonel Commissar
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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
We don't have black people here, I thought they were a myth.

Anyway I stand behind my complaint about the Death Godlike thing.

Vailian Republics were colony of Old Vaila only 200 years ago don't tell me Portugese and Brazilians or Cubans and Spanish are so apart even in our much more rapidly changing world.... and there is scat of allusions to my Moon Godlike Paladin being Aedyr Aristocrat... Even in Defiance bay full of marks of war with Empire.
 
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vivec

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The game is pretty mediocre as a whole. Haven't played to completion yet, but in act 2. The reactivity is almost absent. The combat is a chore and damage dealing is the only viable option. The lack of pre combat preparation in any meaningful manner kills 'planning'. Worse yet, availibility of per encounter abilities add to the chore of this. The story or the setting is nothing to marvel at and the characters are bland and pointless. More detailed review when I finish the game in a month or so.
 

Kiste

Augur
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Feb 4, 2013
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636
damage dealing is the only viable option.
Bullshit. If anything, the game might be a bit too heavy on the CC stuff.

The lack of pre combat preparation in any meaningful manner kills 'planning'.
Quickloading after not being able to faceroll an encounter and the trying again pre-buffed to the hilt is "planning"?
 

Wulfstand

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Guys chill shhhh this game is, like, BG 1, so that means the sequel will totally be, like, BG 2, 'namean?

In all honesty, no matter how much I might bitch about the game, it's still the best rpg I've played in the last few years. Acts 3 and 4 felt way too short, and the 4th one felt completely unsatisfying for me at least, but hopefully an expac will fix it. If the devs listen to the fans Codex, there'll most probably be great things in store.
 
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made

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Perhaps for one player choice like fire godlike, but for every possible ones? Not a chance. They amount of work going through every option in every scenario would be staggering. Not only that but it would be wasted energy.

When that reactivity manifests in nothing but an extra line of flavor text in a la "I see you're a Cipher. My cousin is a Cipher too. Now let's get back to business." it might as well not be there. Rather focus that energy on a small number of reactions that actually matter gameplay-wise, or at least offer lore/story insights not available otherwise.
 

Thal

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What a sad waste of scripting.

Like most games released these days, it's front-loaded with reactivity for reviews and trailers, then promptly left by the wayside. If the whole game had the options in raedrics hold, the starting dungeon and maybe dyrford, the game would be immeasurably better.
The thing is that the kind of reactivity visible in the screenshot could and should have been accomplished systemically. There shouldn't even be a dialogue window, only a floater after examining the pillar.

Perhaps for one player choice like fire godlike, but for every possible ones? Not a chance. They amount of work going through every option in every scenario would be staggering. Not only that but it would be wasted energy. Let's say you are an [aggressive] [fire godlike] [raider] [monk] or something. You have dialogue option for each one. Which one do you choose most of the time?

Every class, backround, attribute and disposition will have some meaning during the game. This is the best possible way to give player feedback for their backrounds. Everyone gets some and unless someone goes to the game expecting hand crafted playthrough for his wild orlan they won't be disappointed.

The reactivity you seem to be expecting would be possible if there were only few player choices during character creation.
You have it ass backwards.

The reason it dissolves into special case mess is that it's handled by specific scripting.

If fire godlike had an ability to ignite stuff or apply minimal amount of fire damage as racial, and objects such as braziers would have an ability to be ignited by fire damage without caring about its source, then every objects set to be flammable would automatically react to fire godlike in appropriate manner, as well as to being ignited by torch and so on.

Performing actions through dialogue window should always be the last resort.

From scripting standpoint you are right. And I do think that godlikes did not get the representation in the game that they should have. Haven't played death godlike beyond gilded vale so I cannot comment with 100% certainty.

My point was that the game is filled with player reactivity. Individual choices made in character creation may not matter everytime it would have been appropriate, but taken together, the number of additional dialogue options is impressive.
Considering that this was supposed be a spiritual successor to infinity engine games, most people probably didn't except anything beyond stat checks as in PS:T. Obsidian has greatly exceeded those expectations in this regard. In some others they have not.

Reactivity is not the problem in this game.
 

Carrion

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DraQ's right about the superiority of systems over scripting, but then again, text descriptions are nice and atmospheric and that was also the way the IE games handled unique interactions with the game world, so I don't mind it.

If you're playing a wizard, can you use a spell to light up the braziers, by the way?

Anyway, the reactivity and C&C seem to be of the same type as in the BG games, meaning that most choices are made at the end of quests where they no longer have a notable effect on how things will play out (maybe I'm wrong and there are some delayed consequences, in which case I'll be very happy). PoE seems to have a lot more checks in dialogue, though, as well as some alternate ways of approaching certain quests or areas, and in the first act alone I've seen several dialogue options linked to my character background (Old Vailia - Dissident). It's fluff, but it's still nice to have it there. The reactivity is not quite as good as in some other Obsidian games, definitely not even near something like New Vegas, but it doesn't seem too shabby compared to any of the IE games. I don't know if they ever promised anything more than that.
 

Angthoron

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The stronghold is a complete and total let-down. I hope the expac will take full use of it and actually make it something worth the designer/coder effort.
 

Thal

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Perhaps for one player choice like fire godlike, but for every possible ones? Not a chance. They amount of work going through every option in every scenario would be staggering. Not only that but it would be wasted energy.

When that reactivity manifests in nothing but an extra line of flavor text in a la "I see you're a Cipher. My cousin is a Cipher too. Now let's get back to business." it might as well not be there. Rather focus that energy on a small number of reactions that actually matter gameplay-wise, or at least offer lore/story insights not available otherwise.

I did not play a cipher so I cannot comment.

But the game offers some ways where your choices lead to new openings.
I will give Eder's quest as an example.
You need a good reputation in Defiance Bay to get access to records, which is entirely reasonable. However, you can bypass the requirement if you had boostet might during character creation. However, if I remember correctly, this would give you [aggressive] reputation, and maybe even a further reputation hit Defiance Bay, which might impact how nps percieve you later.

Again, Infinity Engine games, esp. Baldur's Gates that seem to be the biggest inspiration for PoE one had none of this. Extreme reputations made party member leave you but that's about it. Alignments in BG 1 and 2 mattered jack shit and neither did race.
 

gunman

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The lack of pre combat preparation in any meaningful manner kills 'planning'.

What do you mean? There are a lot of ways to prepare a combat. From placing traps in the expected paths to using consumables that gives DR or energy before combat, or aggroing the enemies at a distance with a bait and drawing them into a bottleneck where they can attack only one at a time. Party positioning before combat is crucial.
 
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vivec

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Gunaman and kiste.

Preparation requires a lot of metagaming. You *have to know* that the enemy lurks ahead. And even then it is pretty mundane with the traps and the food items which provide very uninteresting results overall. Granted scouting helps a lot here, but personally scouting is so underpowered that investing in it is a waste. You might as well learn to game the system and deal ridiculous raw damage. Mind you, that is *extremely* easy. The mechanics are so shallow that certain repetitive tactics will get you through *all* battles. For example, the cipher mind blade is lolbroken. It deals raw damage and does a TON of it. At certain times this kind of "tactics" is not only easy but the only way of getting through the game, as enemies have pretty idiotic defenses. The most optimal way to beat *all* fights is: charm the boss and nuke the mob with mind blades. Rinse and repeat. CC is almost useless and if you are using it, then you are playing the game less than optimally, hands down. If you are feeling the need to heal in the fight often, you have failed to understand the mechanics etc.

Now, for some reason, I suspect you are thinking "how is any of that different than BG?" The answer is that in BG at least the magic was fun. Here all abilities can be classified into two distinct groups: useless turds and game breaking.

And it seems to me that not one, including, BG understood what pre-combat prep means. It does not mean metagaming or casting *all* buffs on yourself. It means that you get to hear from the game what kind of monsters you are facing and going on quests to find its weaknesses and then preparing for it. There are no *unique* things in the game for that such a pre-combat prep to happen. I run PnP campaigns a lot and the MOST important thing there is allowing the PCs to find out how to defeat an antagonist. If every encounter is the sam old same old, it gets boring very fast. No points for guessing how it is in PoE.
 

DraQ

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...right...

I also believe houses in games should be built out of individual bricks so they can realistically collapse.
Strawman detected
This.

Of course, if you can manage it, you can build houses out of individual bricks - the key word being if.

OTOH setting up some objects to react to fire is perfectly doable and will likely be worth it in a game featuring stuff like offensive fire magic.
 

Kiste

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Now, for some reason, I suspect you are thinking "how is any of that different than BG?" The answer is that in BG at least the magic was fun. Here all abilities can be classified into two distinct groups: useless turds and game breaking.
AD&D also has plenty game-breaking as well as utterly useless spells. It just has a fuckton more spells. And it's really beginning to get on my nerves that some PoE distractors, after basically having to admit that most of the criticism leveled against PoE would also apply to the IE games, are repeatedly using the non-argument "Well, at least the the IE games were fun!" - which of course implies that PoE isn't fun. That's a bit of a conversation stopper right here because it's completely subjective and cannot be argued against.

So combat in PoE is supposedly a "clusterfuck" while IE combat was great, but when looking at IE combat, well it actually was a clusterfuck of a somewhat different sort but that doesn't matter because it was FUN. Righto. :salute:

At this point it just seems that some people are DETERMINED to "prove" that PoE isn't any fun because they decided months ago that it wouldn't be fun based on a remark about game balance by Sawyer. Yet, that still doesn't stop them from also complaining about the fact that there's still overpowered / broken stuff in PoE, i.e. the kind of things they declared to be the magic fairy dust that puts the "fun" into the IE games.

And it seems to me that not one, including, BG understood what pre-combat prep means. It does not mean metagaming or casting *all* buffs on yourself. It means that you get to hear from the game what kind of monsters you are facing and going on quests to find its weaknesses and then preparing for it. There are no *unique* things in the game for that such a pre-combat prep to happen. I run PnP campaigns a lot and the MOST important thing there is allowing the PCs to find out how to defeat an antagonist. If every encounter is the sam old same old, it gets boring very fast. No points for guessing how it is in PoE.
Yes, that's fun in PnP but it's simply not viable in CRPGs with their much higher encounter frequency, except maybe for a boss mob or two. It's also not something that's wrong with PoE in particular but with CRPGs in general, yet you make it sound like it's something that specifically makes PoE a mediocre game at best.

This is the all-too-common Codexer argument template: decide that you don't really like something and then measure it against some arbitrary, completely unrealistic yardstick so you can declare it shit.
 
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Kem0sabe

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On act 3 at the moment and despite enjoying the setting and writing, the has started to loose me in terms of the main story.

The motivations behind the player actions are poorly explained, the introduction to twin elms is also lacking.

I feel like there's a lack of depth to the storytelling and antagonists, while in BG1 and Bg2 the bad guys were interesting and had different layers to their plans, in PoE all I get from thalos is that he's an immortal dick doing dickish things for the sake of bla bla bla.
 

Ninjerk

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On act 3 at the moment and despite enjoying the setting and writing, the has started to loose me in terms of the main story.

The motivations behind the player actions are poorly explained, the introduction to twin elms is also lacking.

I feel like there's a lack of depth to the storytelling and antagonists, while in BG1 and Bg2 the bad guys were interesting and had different layers to their plans, in PoE all I get from thalos is that he's an immortal dick doing dickish things for the sake of bla bla bla.
What BG bad guys were is simple. Thaos isn't simple, but he isn't handled as well as simple Sarevok and simple Irenicus.
 

made

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Perhaps for one player choice like fire godlike, but for every possible ones? Not a chance. They amount of work going through every option in every scenario would be staggering. Not only that but it would be wasted energy.

When that reactivity manifests in nothing but an extra line of flavor text in a la "I see you're a Cipher. My cousin is a Cipher too. Now let's get back to business." it might as well not be there. Rather focus that energy on a small number of reactions that actually matter gameplay-wise, or at least offer lore/story insights not available otherwise.

I did not play a cipher so I cannot comment.
It wasn't an actual example from the game (at least I hope so), but it's just what the reactivity boils down to in most cases - 1 inconsequential line of text that acknowledges your choice. At the same time, NPCs don't acknowledge major events in their immediate surrounding: (spoiler) all patients in the Sanitarium slaughtered? None of the animancers (apart from the questgiver) seems to give a damn, including those standing around within earshot.

Now, I didn't reload every single time to check different outcomes of dialogue choices because whenever I did the outcome was essentially the same, so I must assume that kind of shallow reactivity is the norm. Admittedly, I haven't been to Roedric's castle yet and I gather that's where reactivity really shines from how often it's mentioned around here - much like that one demon quest in DA:O that was touted as an example of the game's C&C but was in fact the only satisfying C&C in the whole game.

Not saying POE doesn't have satisfying C&C. You can, after all, send (spoiler) a kid to his death which is bloody gutsy and satisfying enough to make up for any shortcomings the game might have. At least until they patch it out at some mom's twitter request.
 

Thal

Augur
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Messages
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Perhaps for one player choice like fire godlike, but for every possible ones? Not a chance. They amount of work going through every option in every scenario would be staggering. Not only that but it would be wasted energy.

When that reactivity manifests in nothing but an extra line of flavor text in a la "I see you're a Cipher. My cousin is a Cipher too. Now let's get back to business." it might as well not be there. Rather focus that energy on a small number of reactions that actually matter gameplay-wise, or at least offer lore/story insights not available otherwise.

I did not play a cipher so I cannot comment.
It wasn't an actual example from the game (at least I hope so), but it's just what the reactivity boils down to in most cases - 1 inconsequential line of text that acknowledges your choice. At the same time, NPCs don't acknowledge major events in their immediate surrounding: (spoiler) all patients in the Sanitarium slaughtered? None of the animancers (apart from the questgiver) seems to give a damn, including those standing around within earshot.

Now, I didn't reload every single time to check different outcomes of dialogue choices because whenever I did the outcome was essentially the same, so I must assume that kind of shallow reactivity is the norm. Admittedly, I haven't been to Roedric's castle yet and I gather that's where reactivity really shines from how often it's mentioned around here - much like that one demon quest in DA:O that was touted as an example of the game's C&C but was in fact the only satisfying C&C in the whole game.

Not saying POE doesn't have satisfying C&C. You can, after all, send (spoiler) a kid to his death which is bloody gutsy and satisfying enough to make up for any shortcomings the game might have. At least until they patch it out at some mom's twitter request.

That line of text is more than in any other infinity engine game and more than what is in almost every other rpg. I don't remember how Arcanum handled it, but I imagine it being the only competition to this game on how the game responds to your characters disposition, class, culture, etc. Maybe some of that is cosmetic, but on the other hand stat checks allow you alternative ways to pass quests, like Eder's quest that I mentioned.

As for the rest, Raedric's castle allows you to make a choice in the end and possibly a further choice later in act 3 (you can find about it in at least 2 ways
Another player reported that undead bearing Raedric's banners invaded his keep (imo a great gameplay way of foreshadowing a future quest), I never encountered that but met a quest giver in twin elms who filled me in
) on how to handle the one possible consequence of the first one. I didn't complete this optional choice in act 3 which was reflected in the end slides.

I don't think we should be too hasty to judge C&C until enough playthroughs are done to actually establish what actually affects the end slides and what different options there actually are. Apparently even
snuffing out candles
in temple of Eothas can have an effect on Gilded Vales future.
I remember another player complaining that his stronghold went to shit in the end slides and blamed the games lack of choices, but I it turned out that he simply hadn't done enough to turn the castle's fortunes around. My end slides reported the stronghold becoming a thriving community, etc.

In any case, I think people expect too much in this departement. What game has ever accomplished full reactivity in important choices? Considering that a lot of development time was spent on a new system, new engine, new setting, new everything we shouldn't in my opinion expect it to be the best rpg of all time. Look at the progress achieved between BG 1 and 2. PoE showes a lot of potential in this department, but it's up to expansions and PoE to the really shine. As for now I consider it to be a great rpg with some glaring flaws that prevent it from becoming a true masterpiece. However player choice is not one of them, even if I agree that it could be improved. In what game it couldn't be?

IMO the biggest faults in this game are the story (Torment was by far more interesting and BG 1 and 2 fully succeeded in their simple approaches) and itemization (what you find is irrelevant because you can even craft a better kitchen knife. Example: Eder's starting armor is one of the best ones in the game, what a way to reward exploration.)
 

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