How would you rate Pillars of Eternity?

[Irenaeus]

Next time be chaotic instead of lawful.

 

[J_C]

3. Then I walk to the south, get ambushed, kill the enemies and run back to the camp. I decide to drop my weapons because some asshole is holding a hostage, battle begins and I am unable to equip ANY WEAPONS UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!!! WTF OBSIDIAN?!!! So I think, this can't be their design decision. Perhaps I have to wait a turn or two before I can equip the weapons I dropped. So I wait 30 turns and am still unable to equip any weapons, despite having a bag full of bows and axes I could use.

Umm, what would be the use of that dialogue option if you can equip your weapon anyway? That is a well executed feature, whatever you say. You decide to drop your weapons, now suffer the consequences. You know, C&C.

You were a pussy to drop your weapon anyway.

I hope you are joking.

In case you are serious:
So, if I drop my sword on the ground, I should be unable to pick it up just so you can shove choices and consequences down people's throat? So you are basically arguing for a design that is going against all logic to achieve c&c. Well, I don't know what to say to that, except facepalm. A little hint. If you are shoving choices and consequences into the game in an unnatural and artificial way,... YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Little hint: putting down the weapon is a abstraction. You don't drop it next to your feat to be able to pick it up immediately. You drop it over to the enemy.

 

[Athelas]

3. Then I walk to the south, get ambushed, kill the enemies and run back to the camp. I decide to drop my weapons because some asshole is holding a hostage, battle begins and I am unable to equip ANY WEAPONS UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!!! WTF OBSIDIAN?!!! So I think, this can't be their design decision. Perhaps I have to wait a turn or two before I can equip the weapons I dropped. So I wait 30 turns and am still unable to equip any weapons, despite having a bag full of bows and axes I could use.
4. Ok, so I kill the enemy with my bare hands and I get the cool animation sequence, followed by some cool text and some options. The hostage guy got ambushed and apparently I can save him if I had a weapon in my hands. BUT GUESS FUCKING WHAT?! I STILL CANT EQUIP A FUCKING WEAPON!!! So the hostage guy dies!!! ARRRRGGGGH!! Now these small annoyances are piling up and are becoming frustrating.

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't throw your weapons away. (This is a valuable real-life lesson as well.)

 

[Ninjerk]

3. Then I walk to the south, get ambushed, kill the enemies and run back to the camp. I decide to drop my weapons because some asshole is holding a hostage, battle begins and I am unable to equip ANY WEAPONS UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!!! WTF OBSIDIAN?!!! So I think, this can't be their design decision. Perhaps I have to wait a turn or two before I can equip the weapons I dropped. So I wait 30 turns and am still unable to equip any weapons, despite having a bag full of bows and axes I could use.

Umm, what would be the use of that dialogue option if you can equip your weapon anyway? That is a well executed feature, whatever you say. You decide to drop your weapons, now suffer the consequences. You know, C&C.

You were a pussy to drop your weapon anyway.

I hope you are joking.

In case you are serious:
So, if I drop my sword on the ground, I should be unable to pick it up just so you can shove choices and consequences down people's throat? So you are basically arguing for a design that is going against all logic to achieve c&c. Well, I don't know what to say to that, except facepalm. A little hint. If you are shoving choices and consequences into the game in an unnatural and artificial way,... YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Little hint: putting down the weapon is a abstraction. You don't drop it next to your feat to be able to pick it up immediately. You drop it over to the enemy.

Pretty sure it's just in your inventory.

 

[Eirikur]

I choose to interpret it this way: 82.6% of RPGWatch thinks that PoE is either 'garbage on every front', 'one of the worst in recent years', 'shameful', 'filled with tons of bad', 'mediocre', 'nothing spectacular', 'disappointing', and at the very least 'problematic', while a mere 17.4% considers it a job well done.

 

[RK47]

Dogs eat dog food.

 

[dragonul09]

Dogs eat dog food.

So much depth dude,you should take avellone place on their next project.

 

[mutonizer]

Pretty sure it's just in your inventory.

Hence why it's called "abstraction"...

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't throw your weapons away. (This is a valuable real-life lesson as well.)

You forgot: "[..]murderous barbarians who just slaughtered dozens of unarmed settlers".


Really loved the whole prologue part personally, really sets the tone of how things will be and that you need to pay attention to what's said, the context and all that. So far, proved true throughout the game (just started charpter 2).

 

[Direwolf]

20 hours in. 9/10 so far. It is not perfect, but it is sure as fuck better than Wasteland 2.

 

[dragonul09]

20 hours in. 9/10 so far. It is not fun, but it is sure as fuck better than Wasteland 2.

How the fuck does 9/10 translate in ''It is not fun''? You have some high standards milord.

 

[Owlish]

The awestruck initial impressions of Pillars of Eternity is like being infatuated with a pretty woman that you slowly learn is as dumb as a bag of rocks, and has an irritating and paper-thin personality. Then you discover she is really a he. Makes you want to jump off a cliff...

 

[AN4RCHID]

i like the music a lot, although at times it gives me some very suspicious deja-vus

just about the only thing i like a lot about this game

well and the graphixxx i guess

The music is pretty good, but it bums me out that there is so little area- or character-specific themes. Places like Twin Elms should have their own music, like Kuldahar. As it is, it seems like they have the same short tracklist on shuffle all the time.

 

[Direwolf]

20 hours in. 9/10 so far. It is not fun, but it is sure as fuck better than Wasteland 2.

How the fuck does 9/10 translate in ''It is not fun''? You have some high standards milord.

Oops. Meant to say fun. I am just a hater by default and sometimes forget to switch to normal mode.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I dunno what my final score will end up being, but the first 5 hours have been disappointing. I hate the refilling healthbar, the writing is mediocre, the maps (although beautiful) feel uninspired, the loot is incredibly boring, the combat is too fast and tedious instead of exciting. Even the music is uninspired - it's almost like a rejected B movie soundtrack. I honestly don't know if I will be able to continue much longer. PoE makes me wish I was playing BG instead.

EDIT: I adjusted some combat settings, basically to pause when even a mouse farts in the distance, and activated the slomo bombat. Now combat actually feels playable. The combat against boars was pretty exciting. I also found Durance who looks like an interesting character. So maybe I spoke too hastily.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

System/Combat - FUN (twas unexpected)
Writing/Lore - OK
Story/NPC/Quests - meh (hoped it'd be better)
Encounters - meh
C&C - meh
Pathfinding - FUUUUUUUUUUUU

VERDICT

Worse than BG 2.

Few thoughts..

I really dig the lore. Obsidian made a good fondation for future sequels, hope to play them someday.

Spoiler

Don't think though that going into AssCreed route with fake gods was a good idea. It kinda spoils some fundamentals of the setting and kills important mystery within it.

The plot itself IMO has noticeable tinge of jRPG pretentiousness. I'd prefer it be more low-key and down-to-earth.

Quests and NPCs are boring as hell. There are some glimpses of INCLINE, but they are drown in the massive swamp of mediocrity. BTW, the best NPCs (Durance, Grieving Mother) were written by MCA, so he is still DA MAN!

He should have written more stuff in PoE instead of designing that miserable Agricultural Center or working on FTL.

 

[Jaesun]

I dunno what my final score will end up being, but the first 5 hours have been disappointing. I hate the refilling healthbar, the writing is mediocre, the maps (although beautiful) feel uninspired, the loot is incredibly boring, the combat is too fast and tedious instead of exciting. Even the music is uninspired - it's almost like a rejected B movie soundtrack. I honestly don't know if I will be able to continue much longer. PoE makes me wish I was playing BG instead.

So basically it is like Fallout?

 

[Nihiliste]

I've played about 18 hours so far, am just starting to mess around in Defiance Bay. Game feels great so far. Very strong resemblance to BG1. Combat still has some issues but is much improved from early iterations that turned me off. Even engagement is growing on me. I wish the magic system was different but overall am enjoying myself.

Writing isn't as strong as one might expect. But isn't a hindrance. Music has been a pleasant surprise, Bell's themes are growing on me. Visuals are obviously beautiful.

All in all this is the closest thing I've played to an IE game since the IE games and I love it for that. Hope they can deliver a BG2 style sequel where more time is spent on scope and content creation now that the engine, setting, system are established.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I dunno what my final score will end up being, but the first 5 hours have been disappointing. I hate the refilling healthbar, the writing is mediocre, the maps (although beautiful) feel uninspired, the loot is incredibly boring, the combat is too fast and tedious instead of exciting. Even the music is uninspired - it's almost like a rejected B movie soundtrack. I honestly don't know if I will be able to continue much longer. PoE makes me wish I was playing BG instead.

So basically it is like Fallout?

I activated the slomo combat and adjusted the pause settings. Now the combat at least is playable. Hopefully the exploration also gets better soon.

 

[Mareus]

Pretty sure it's just in your inventory.

Hence why it's called "abstraction"...

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't throw your weapons away. (This is a valuable real-life lesson as well.)

You forgot: "[..]murderous barbarians who just slaughtered dozens of unarmed settlers".

Well, I don't buy the abstraction argument. If the devs wanted to take away your weapons they could have removed them from your inventory and give them to the barbarians. They however did not do that and you are left wondering why it is impossible to equip a weapon sitting in your inventory.

Worth to note is that BG had a similar situation where Jaheira is being held hostage and you are forced to make a choice. Not only do you drop your weapons, but you have to drop your armor. Weapons you can equip, but you can't equip armor during battle, which makes more sense. Short story is, BG handled the exact same scenario much better, but I guess you can always rationalize things with bullshit fanboy arguments.

 

[Mareus]

3. Then I walk to the south, get ambushed, kill the enemies and run back to the camp. I decide to drop my weapons because some asshole is holding a hostage, battle begins and I am unable to equip ANY WEAPONS UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!!! WTF OBSIDIAN?!!! So I think, this can't be their design decision. Perhaps I have to wait a turn or two before I can equip the weapons I dropped. So I wait 30 turns and am still unable to equip any weapons, despite having a bag full of bows and axes I could use.
4. Ok, so I kill the enemy with my bare hands and I get the cool animation sequence, followed by some cool text and some options. The hostage guy got ambushed and apparently I can save him if I had a weapon in my hands. BUT GUESS FUCKING WHAT?! I STILL CANT EQUIP A FUCKING WEAPON!!! So the hostage guy dies!!! ARRRRGGGGH!! Now these small annoyances are piling up and are becoming frustrating.

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't throw your weapons away. (This is a valuable real-life lesson as well.)

Hey, I was just testing the game to see how the event turns out, and I actually didn't throw away my weapons. They were still sitting in my inventory. If there were no weapons in my inventory, I would have been cool with that, because I would just assume that the barbarians took it. However having weapons sitting in your bag and you not being able to equip them is just retarded design.

 

[DwarvenFood]

 

[Athelas]

3. Then I walk to the south, get ambushed, kill the enemies and run back to the camp. I decide to drop my weapons because some asshole is holding a hostage, battle begins and I am unable to equip ANY WEAPONS UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!!! WTF OBSIDIAN?!!! So I think, this can't be their design decision. Perhaps I have to wait a turn or two before I can equip the weapons I dropped. So I wait 30 turns and am still unable to equip any weapons, despite having a bag full of bows and axes I could use.
4. Ok, so I kill the enemy with my bare hands and I get the cool animation sequence, followed by some cool text and some options. The hostage guy got ambushed and apparently I can save him if I had a weapon in my hands. BUT GUESS FUCKING WHAT?! I STILL CANT EQUIP A FUCKING WEAPON!!! So the hostage guy dies!!! ARRRRGGGGH!! Now these small annoyances are piling up and are becoming frustrating.

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't throw your weapons away. (This is a valuable real-life lesson as well.)

Hey, I was just testing the game to see how the event turns out, and I actually didn't throw away my weapons. They were still sitting in my inventory. If there were no weapons in my inventory, I would have been cool with that, because I would just assume that the barbarians took it. However having weapons sitting in your bag and you not being able to equip them is just retarded design.

Protip: when facing murderous barbarians, don't expect them to give you a minute or two to rummage through your backpack in search of a weapon.

 

[Morkar Left]

My impressions so far (playing on hard, just cleared the way to defiance bay, didn't invade the fortress):

To be honest I didn't back the game on kickstarter and all around didn't even care for it because I was sceptical that they could deliver a BG successor.
That being said, the game so far is really entertaining and Obsidian seems to have delivered. I'm glad I was wrong. It's the closest you will come to a BG experience in this modern age.
Better than Arcanum, ToeE, NWN 2, Drakensang 1+2 or Avernum: EftP. Surprisingly the later one seemd to be an inspiration for Obsidian as well. At least they share some very similar game mechanics (not for the best).

I'm thinking about switching from hard to the hardest difficulty but I'm not sure. Maybe I just reached a sweet spot where I can own most things without problems and it evens out later on. So far all the ghosts were the most challenging enemies, others are rather easy.

Pros:

- I really like the gameworld. It's detailed, rich and consistent. Personally I thought they would create a fantasy world with some "unique" twist gimmick and some history (e.g. Arcanum) but not going too much into detail to challenge the Forgotten Realms (or other pnp settings).
They have a unique twist gimmick with the whole souls theme going on but it's consistent and fits into the world. But what I'm mostly pleased with is the detail regarding the world, from the differentiation of languages, even its own calendar system and its own "campaign guide" (bought as hardcover and I recommend it if you like background knowledge of the world or you want to use the world in your own tabletop p&p session). And most importantly unlike the FR setting it's not a simple mash up but consistently integrated into the world (concept of undead etc.).
Sure, you will find a lot of ideas ripped off of the real world history and other fantasy worlds but it is nicely integrated. It actually makes me more interested in the world to see how they integrated and mixed these ingredients instead of getting a merely deja-vu.

- It defenitely delivers the BG-feeling and feels like an "oldschool" rpg. No fucking limitation of 3-4 partymembers. You have full control (!) of your 6 (!) party members. You are not forced to take the companions with you (damn annoying in all modern rpgs). Your party members can actually die (but still restricted with the health/endurance system).

- The rules system all in all works and allows for experimenting. There are some flaws, but I comment on this further down. It's a solid system with a good selection of classes, spells, equipment and varied game mechanics (fatigue, grimoires, different damage types, restricted resting, stealth etc).

- The dialogues are good and entertaining, the story unfolds well. The quests and dialogues allow more variety than in BG.

- You have areas you can freely explore.

- the graphics are damn good.

Cons:

- attribute handling is bad. The way it's implemented they could allow to raise the stats on level up btw. And Might gives damage for spells...sigh...

- Durations of magical effects are laughable. Most spells/class abilities have such a tiny duration time I don't even bother casting them (especially since they are bound to the attributes you can't increase). Either it damages the enemy or it heals my party are the most important ones. It's just wasted potential.

- no combat xp. In such a game giving some xp for combat is just a reward mechanic that works. Even if it's just a minor xp boost in addition to the monster manual entries (which I like, maybe it should be greatly expanded till it stops giving you xp). Because you're going to kill the enemies anyway to check the territory they occupy for loot/quests.

- no respawning / wandering enemies in the wildernis. That's especially weak when you consider that there is no xp gain that could make it unbalanced. But if they woulkd respawn you would at least have a reason to circumvent them the second time using stealth.

- no random encounters while map traveling. Makes travelling an absolutely riskless effort.

- maps are tiny. Really, they are. Making them bigger would have allowed more interesting scouting and circumventing enemies. Again, especially when you consider that enemies give no xp. Not to mention that it looks a bit silly when different enemies are standing shoulder on shoulder just a stone throw away.

- npcs have no day/night cycle. I'm not talking about full scale activity cycles like in Ultima but a closed (but breakable) smith in the night etc. would be nice.

- no pickpocketing / burglary. Yes I miss that. It just adds detail.

- Nitpicking on resting. I'm glad it's restricted. But camping supplies should be a lot cheaper when the amount you are carrying around is restricted anyway. And additionally resting in the inn should cost some money.

- Hitpoint system. I like the differentiation of Endurance and health but I think you get too much Health. It rarely effects combat effectiveness / in the field readiness. I would be fine with it if you could get some penalties when reaching some tresholds in Health (let's say a wound penalty on your attributes at 50% Health, 25% and 10%).

- eating in combat just feels silly. I think the implementation of food is gimmicky and badly presented. Instead of camping materials they should have gone for food to allow resting. Or at least allow food consumption when not in combat. And allow hunting for food by killing deers etc.

- necklace and cape slots are combined and obsidian hates helmets. Although clipping errors.

- few skills. A missed opportunity all around. There could have been so much done when allowing more gamemechanics (like combat) getting controlled by skills instead just raising by level up. Sigh.

- Too many "fine" items. Less is more. Magic items are a bit too blunt. Shops provide better loot than enemies (and prices are too high imo). Should be more balanced between shops and enemies. And it's way more satisfying to get a new weapon from an enemy who previously tried to murder you with it (and more challenging).

 

[Sranchammer]

Id put on par with Oblivion

 

[Perkel]

oh forgot to add this. Stealth should be improved !

When battle starts all of your members destealth. So you can't for example start fight with fighter and sneak your way to back line and backstab people.
You either have to start battle and work your way to mages or backstab and be dead in seconds since everyone will now target your sneaking guy.