My collected criticism on Pillars of Eternity (very minor spoilers)

[Sensuki]

What a useless comment, lol. I think scratching my balls with a hot poker is more fun, so I guess you're gonna accept that as fact?

PoE's combat has a lot going for it, vanilla BG1 doesn't really have that much. It makes no difference what you and I find "fun", PoE's combat has much, much more complexity and tight design.

I like complexity when it doesn't amount to the banal shit boring result that felipepepe outlined in his OP. In a lot of ways it's self-defeating unfortunately.

Skaen dungeon is comparable to Cloakwood Mines. banditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbandits

Cloakwood Mines has more encounter variety than the Skaen Temple does, even if all of them are easier to beat. Guards, Hobgoblines, Ghasts, a few Wizards, an Ogre Mage, Doom Guards and Mustard Jellies, from memory.

 

[felipepepe]

PoE's combat has a lot going for it, vanilla BG1 doesn't really have that much. It makes no difference what you and I find "fun", PoE's combat has much, much more complexity and tight design.

Even if it's, it's all wasted on boring encounters, and that's the issue. Hurray, you improved upon BG's combat, but kept its simplistic encounter design, instead of taping on all the experience the team has or the vastly superior blue-print from Baldur's Gate 2.

Again, BG is 17 old and made by newcomers. Obsidian are veterans with +20 years working with RPGs. Such boring encounter design is inexcusable and should be called upon.

 

[Ellef]

Mainly thinking of BG2 tbh, especially with the claim of poe dungeon design > bg2

Wait, who claimed this? Because I would agree that that is a retarded notion.

PoE has better story, better lore, better companions, better choices, multiple solutions, better dungeons and better dungeon's design.

It might've been in reference to BG 1

 

[Sensuki]

A lot of the designers for Pillars of Eternity have never made an RPG like this before. Two of their designers have worked on RPGs like this in the past, the others have not.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So you're saying that expansion packs focused on a single dungeon did dungeons better than a full game that had to deliver everything? You don't say.

And didn't we pay for a special single dungeon from our own pockets for a package deal? And why Obsidian couldn't focus themselves on quality instead of quantity and skip with a few packs of lions and such to make more than one "stick your blazing godlike head into a pillar to remove symbols" encounter?

Just because you paid for a mega dungeon doesn't mean that Obsidian could drop everything else and focus just on that dungeon.

Coincidentally, BG2 is way better than BG because Bioware had a ready engine with all the systems and could focus on gameplay and locations.

 

[Grunker]

If you say that BG2 did lore and role-playing better, we'll have some words..

@Roleplaying: it didn't. It's PoE's one, sole victory over BG2. The one thing it does better. My beef with you is that you proclaim PoE to be the better game, solely based on this one victory. That makes no sense when BG2 is better in every other department, easily.

@Lore: I disagree. PoE is stuck between wanting a low-fantasy feel in a high fantasy setting. But it's a lie. In the end it is just as high fantasy as the games it compares to, it's just more pretentious about it. Unlike PS:T it has no right to be. There is more character and struggle in Irenicus, Linvail and Imoen than there ever will be in 3/4's of PoE's Thaos, random quest-givers and Aloth. Tackling mature themes ≠ being mature. PoE tries to be more than high fantasy, and fails. BG2 tries to be adventurous high fantasy, and it succeeds with flying colours.

BG2 is obviously the better game here though, even if I conceded the lore point. Suggesting otherwises takes a ton of subjective disregards for the relative strengths of the two games.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

You're discussing encounter design, not the design of the dungeon.

Encounter design is an important part of dungeon design. I'm not there as a sightseeing tourist.

Besides the fights with Avarice and co., Durlag's has next to no interesting encounters either.

It had far more variety in terms of enemy types you face (doppelgangers, ghosts, wyverns, slimes, those monsters that go invisible and backstab etc.) and the fight with Avarice and co. are probably more interesting than anything I've faced in PoE so far.

I liked the cipher encounter and two of the Skaen groups are larger than the rest and will give you trouble on level 6 and below. As far as sameyness goes, Skaen dungeon is comparable to Cloakwood Mines. banditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbandits

You said better than anything in BG1 and now you say Cloakwood Mines. Sure, there are mostly bandits there but a welcoming party at the entrance is a fun fight with great loot reward (boots of speed), it has an Ogre Mage as well IIRC and Davaeorn himself is an interesting encounter unlike PoE's mosquito mages.

 

[Grunker]

Mainly thinking of BG2 tbh, especially with the claim of poe dungeon design > bg2

Wait, who claimed this? Because I would agree that that is a retarded notion.

PoE has better story, better lore, better companions, better choices, multiple solutions, better dungeons and better dungeon's design.

It might've been in reference to BG 1

It was, I believe.

 

[Sensuki]

There is more character and struggle in Irenicus, Linvail and Imoen than there ever will be in 3/4's of PoE's Thaos, random quest-givers and Aloth. Tackling mature themes ≠ being mature. PoE tries to be more than high fantasy, and fails. BG2 tries to be adventurous high fantasy, and it succeeds with flying colours.

BG2 is obviously the better game here though, even if I conceded the lore point. Suggesting otherwises takes a ton of subjective disregards for the relative strengths of the two games.

I agree. I do like some of the bits of the PE writing but I have not cared about a single secondary character in the game. The only one who made somewhat of an impact is Raedric, because he's talked about a bit by several other characters. I also don't find Thaos a compelling villain, and I hated the bit where he had a history with Lady Webb too, I literally facepalmed at that part of the story.

 

[sqeecoo]

The OP pretty much nails it, in my opinion. The only thing you didn't mention are all the baffling imbalanced and stupid decisions in the character system, and the idiotic pathfinding and poor visual information (partly due to too many character abilities) that make combat a clusterfuck where you can't clearly tell what's happening even while pausing every half-second.

At the same time I agree with VD that PoE is as good as BG2 as a complete package - I can't say I enjoyed it less. However, this is on a first playthrough. As the OP points out, there are no choices to do differently, no crazy builds to make around unique items, no weird encounters or bosses you can only approach in a certain way in a second playthrough, etc. I sincerely doubt I'll be replaying PoE. And BG2 is far from my favorite game and I wouldn't even consider it great (it just did lots of things decently well and had huge scope), but I played it lots of times and it had enough scope and variety to capture my imagination and tactical depth to make me want to try new builds, companions, etc.

The final thing I'd like to say that the OP doesn't mention is the general trying-too-hard feel I get from PoE. People have mentioned this in the writing topic so I won't elaborate too much, but basically PoE unevenly tries to be PS:T in writing and story, and falls short in a way that is more painful to me than the mediocrity of BG2 that embraced it's cliches. If you don't ask me to treat your writing as Deep(TM), I can forgive much and just enjoy the inspired bits. But PoE's writing and story leaves a sour taste in my mouth, even though it is obviously better than BG2.

 

[Grunker]

It had far more variety in terms of enemy types you face (doppelgangers, ghosts, wyverns, slimes, those monsters that go invisible and backstab etc.) and the fight with Avarice and co. are probably more interesting than anything I've faced in PoE so far.

Enemy variety ≠ encounter design. You need to figure out what your point is and make it. Though, I don't see how Durlag has more enemy variety than e.g. Od Nua. And this is with you taking the absolute BEST dungeon from BG1's expansion solely focused on this dungeon and trying to make the point that it was a notch better than core PoE. Come on bro. BG1 and PoE are extremely close in dungeon design.

I liked the cipher encounter and two of the Skaen groups are larger than the rest and will give you trouble on level 6 and below. As far as sameyness goes, Skaen dungeon is comparable to Cloakwood Mines. banditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbanditsbandits

You said better than anything in BG1 and now you say Cloakwood Mines.

No I said ENCOUNTER DESIGN was comparable to Cloakwood (the "sameyness" you refered to). Are you misreading me intentionally or just forgetting what we're talking about while we're talking?

As far as layout goes, multiple paths of entry, multiple ways to handle the final boss, multiple ways to end the quest, multiple ways around in the dungeon itself?

Skaen dungeon handily beats anything BG1 has on hand.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah the pathfinding ;_; is really bad in combat

Skaen dungeon handily beats anything BG1 has on hand.

But .... it's the same encounter like 15 times o_O

I have checked the characterstats with Bester's Object Browser, it's the same NPCs copy pasted over and over again.

Playing through that dungeon was probably the least enjoyable part of the game for me, it was awful. Not surprising though because it was the very first dungeon they made for the game.

 

[felipepepe]

The final thing I'd like to say that the OP doesn't mention is the general trying-too-hard feel I get from PoE. People have mentioned this in the writing topic so I won't elaborate too much, but basically PoE unevenly tries to be PS:T in writing and story, and falls short in a way that is more painful to me than the mediocrity of BG2 that embraced it's cliches. If you don't ask me to treat your writing as Deep(TM), I can forgive much and just enjoy the inspired bits. But PoE's writing and story leaves a sour taste in my mouth, even though it is obviously better than BG2.

I was gonna do a huge wall of text on how PoE didn't have the guts to use a system like MoTB's curse system and so the "you are going mad" plotline falls horribly flat, but the OP was long enough already.

Curious to what Vault Dweller thinks of this. Do you think the McGuffin works, that players feel that they are going mad and finding Thaos is the only solution?

 

[Shadenuat]

Just because you paid for a mega dungeon doesn't mean that Obsidian could drop everything else and focus just on that dungeon.

Coincidentally, BG2 is way better than BG because Bioware had a ready engine with all the systems and could focus on gameplay and locations

It doesn't excuse the way many locations are designed, like a thin layer of butter over huge slice of bread of 50 hours game. And Obsidian is not some juvenile company that doesn't know how many locations they can design before they have to resort to banal copypasta. They had Sawyer ffs, he had experience with IWD2, that experience alone should have worked for the better and added the very much needed focus to PoE's design.

 

[Grunker]

PoE's combat has a lot going for it, vanilla BG1 doesn't really have that much. It makes no difference what you and I find "fun", PoE's combat has much, much more complexity and tight design.

Even if it's, it's all wasted on boring encounters, and that's the issue. Hurray, you improved upon BG's combat, but kept its simplistic encounter design, instead of taping on all the experience the team has or the vastly superior blue-print from Baldur's Gate 2.

Again, BG is 17 old and made by newcomers. Obsidian are veterans with +20 years working with RPGs. Such boring encounter design is inexcusable and should be called upon.

So much bullshit in one post bro

1) Encounter design is decidedly not better for the majority of BG1.

2) As other's have asked for, where is your basis for claiming this vast difference in experience? According to Sensuki, the majority of designers on PoE were completely new.

3) Some encounters are well designed. I don't agree with your blanket statement that it all just sucks. You are seriously lacking in nuance in your analysis of PoE, while at the same time giving BG1 completely free passes. It's bullshit, bro.

Like, you take the VAST improvement in combat and character customization and handwave it as "yeah OK I guess it's a small improvement on BG1's next-to-nothing", and then you take tiny differences in encounter design and go "WOW SUCH A DIFFERENCE ONE GAME IS CLEARLY INFERIOR"

 

[Sensuki]

Bobby Null and Jeff Husges worked on the NWN series.

Everyone else is from Fallout New Vegas, South Park or completely new.

 

[Haba]

Curious to what Vault Dweller thinks of this. Do you think the McGuffin works, that players feel that they are going mad and finding Thaos is the only solution?

That's not true really, you are provided with multitude of reasons for chasing after him. You can even

Spoiler

have a small Deionarra moment with the elf chick if you chose the love options in the soul flashbacks.

Unfortunately most of them are provide too late in the story.

 

[Vault Dweller]

If you say that BG2 did lore and role-playing better, we'll have some words..

@Roleplaying: it didn't. It's PoE's one, sole victory over BG2. The one thing it does better. My beef with you is that you proclaim PoE to be the better game, solely based on this one victory. That makes no sense when BG2 is better in every other department, easily.

Alright, let's take inventory:

Setting & lore - PoE
Character system - PoE (sure you can't multiclass but it's still better)
Combat - PoE (subjective, I know)
Quests and dialogues - PoE
Location variety - BG2
Monster variety - BG2
Itams! - BG2
Crafting - PoE
Companions - mostly PoE, Avellone is still a God amongst men, the lazy fuck should have written moar companions
Art - about the same, but PoE has more details and atmosphere
Dungeon design - BG2

Extra shit:
Mage battles! - BG2
Text adventures - PoE

Extenuating Circumstances:
- Drizzt

@Lore: I disagree. PoE is stuck between wanting a low-fantasy feel in a high fantasy setting. But it's a lie. In the end it is just as high fantasy as the games it compares to, it's just more pretentious about it. Unlike PS:T it has no right to be.

At least it's an interesting high fantasy that makes you pay attention. FR is generic shite.

 

[Grunker]

Cloakwood Mines has more encounter variety than the Skaen Temple does, even if all of them are easier to beat. Guards, Hobgoblines, Ghasts, a few Wizards, an Ogre Mage, Doom Guards and Mustard Jellies, from memory.

Are you really unaware of the levels of ignorance here? :/

The difference between a bandit and a hobgoblin is almost nothing. They are nearly identical. Meanwhile, the difference between a Skaen Cultist and a Skaen Temple Guard is weapons, combat role, spells, buffs and items.

 

[sqeecoo]

I agree with your inventory VD, but how about replayability? And the C&C is minimal to non-existent in PoE. It wasn't super interesting in BG2, but there was a lot you could do very differently in subsequent playthroughts. And build diversity made you want to replay as well.

 

[Shadenuat]

Tackling mature themes ≠ being mature. PoE tries to be more than high fantasy, and fails. BG2 tries to be adventurous high fantasy, and it succeeds with flying colours.

And what does better roleplaying matter if you roleplay in a boring world and in a narrative that doesn't know what it wants to be?
This is one of my major gripes with the game - even if it gives you options, I personally am not invested into the game enough to care to take them.

I know story, characters, it's subjective stuff which is why I wasn't very vocal about it, not unlike about encounters or magic, for example, since it's something everyone can bite on and at least agree or disagree on the same level of "discuss!".

 

[Sensuki]

Are you really unaware of the levels of ignorance here? :/

The difference between a bandit and a hobgoblin is almost nothing. They are nearly identical. Meanwhile, the difference between a Skaen Cultist and a Skaen Temple Guard is weapons, combat role, spells, buffs and items.

See above quote

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...very-minor-spoilers.98295/page-3#post-3843449

But .... it's the same encounter like 15 times o_O

I have checked the characterstats with Bester's Object Browser, it's the same NPCs copy pasted over and over again.

Playing through that dungeon was probably the least enjoyable part of the game for me, it was awful. Not surprising though because it was the very first dungeon they made for the game.

Playing through that dungeon was a boring fucking slog - same encounter over and over again, same guys, same gear, same stats, same AI and spells.

Many of the levels in the game suffer from this problem, unfortunately.

 

[Grunker]

If you say that BG2 did lore and role-playing better, we'll have some words..

@Roleplaying: it didn't. It's PoE's one, sole victory over BG2. The one thing it does better. My beef with you is that you proclaim PoE to be the better game, solely based on this one victory. That makes no sense when BG2 is better in every other department, easily.

Alright, let's take inventory:

Setting & lore - PoE
Character system - PoE (sure you can't multiclass but it's still better)
Combat - PoE (subjective, I know)
Quests and dialogues - PoE
Location variety - BG2
Monster variety - BG2
Itams! - BG2
Crafting - PoE
Companions - mostly PoE, Avellone is still a God amongst men, the lazy fuck should have written moar companions
Art - about the same, but PoE has more details and atmosphere
Dungeon design - BG2

Extra shit:
Mage battles! - BG2
Text adventures - PoE

Your list is bs, bruv. Characters - BG2. Main plot - BG2. I also disagree on Companions and Setting & lore.

Also: crafting? WUT. BG2 has a swath of unique items and items parts. PoE has a generic consumables system that is totally superflous and like 3 items throughout the world.

Also: what about the keep? BG2 has like 6 different keeps with their own questlines and cool shit. Meanwhile PoE has one of the worst and most superflous strongholds in the history of RPGs with strongholds. I literally stopped paying attention to it 3 hours ago and I've lost nothing. No quests, money, nothing. All the keep is is 7 loading screens between sleeping/buying camp equipment and returning to Endless Paths.

But what is most bullshit about your list is that it leaves out degrees of success. Example: PoE beats BG2 slightly in terms of roleplaying options. It has a small, mostly insignificant personality system and a better reputation system. Meanwhile BG2 completely shames PoE's itemization, dungeons and encounter variety.

BG2 is the better game here by a very, very large margin. You still seem to be defending PoE in comparison mainly because it has more of what you like while BG2 works extremely well in some areas you evidently don't care that much about.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Bobby Null and Jeff Husges worked on the NWN series.

Everyone else is from Fallout New Vegas, South Park or completely new.

Sawyer was responsible for a lot of the writing, and he took over NWN2 after Ferret Baudoin left Obsidian. I don't think he was involved in MotB - Kevin Saunders and George Ziets were the leads on that - but I think some of the better parts of NWN2 are down to Sawyer. Things like reactivity from the traits you gain at various points in the adventure, things like that.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah BG2 crafting is way better, especially with ToB.

The best Wilderness Area is probably Magran's Fork - it has a neutral NPC encounter, you encounter Durance there and there's a few different types of enemies, some dead adventurers with some good loot for that stage in the game, and an abandoned lodge.

The only unfortunate thing is that there was no dialogue with that chick that ambushes you, I'm not even sure who they were, maybe working for the Leaden Key? No idea whatsoever. It was cooler in BG where you could trade words with a bandit leader before a fight.

I was like hey this isn't too bad actually. Unfortunately basically every other one was a huge disappointment.