The writing is worse than IWD? That's rather hard to determine given how little writing there is in both Icewind Dale games, particularly the first one.
No, it's not. IWD doesn't waste your time with endless "dialogues" and descriptions that go nowhere. IWD is much more coherent as a result. The best thing you can do in PoE is leave every conversation the moment such option presents itself, you literally don't lose anything by doing this. The purple prose is pretty terrible as well, if you can't do what Shelley (before anyone jumps on this, he's just an example), who I posted before, does then don't do it at all, it's a waste of time for both you and the audience (which is worse). You aren't a part of the conversation in PoE, you are being talked TO, not WITH. This is exacerbated by the sheer amount of bullshit they spew in your face. I had a friend play through PoE's (and BG1's) prologues and he said the exact same thing.
It's better than NWN. It doesn't come close to the art in the IE games, but I've never seen another cRPG that does.
No, it's not better than NWN in the context of what I'm talking about. Outside of NWN's aesthetic being endlessly charming, the models
don't look like they are from another game.
I do agree that there is a consistent theme to the dungeons (much as there is with Morrowind), but I never found the Engwithian ruins to be bland *shrug*.
It's not only about the theme, even if Engwithan ruins are the predominant dungeons. It's about what you can
do in them. Only Raedric's has more complex design, all the others are filled with the same kinds of copy pasted fights (it was worse on release) with nothing much else to do. The vast majority of them have no NPCs, no story, no extra quests, no puzzles, only token interaction with the environment (the most significant one being the blood pool), if any.
Uhhh, that's the same for high level combat in IE games and MoTB, which is why I find starting campaigns with high level parties (such as in MoTB) unsatisfying. Most battles in MoTB are easily won with a casting of Sunburst, and from then on it's just a mop up operation. Jeez, you even have an epic spell that auto-kills enemies who fail their saves, and takes away half of their HP if they do, and it bypasses magic resistance. But that's just overkill.
It only gets ridiculous at the epic levels, not 10th, and even then it depends on how the campaign is built. Yeah, Vampiric Feast is pretty OP. Like I said, MotB doesn't offer just combat. PoE's is still too fast and clusterfucky, too frontloaded and the outcome is decided in the first 5-10 seconds. I also think recovery is not good design and a lot of the problems stem from it and the way combat is distributed across time.
Do you have examples of good encounter design from IE games?
It actually depends on the AI. With SCS all major fights are pretty brutal in both BGs. Outside of that, in BG1 alone you have the first mage fight in the "mage prison", pretty much the entirety of the lower levels in Durlag's Tower except the Demon Knight because he drops too fast, the Red Wizard encounter, the main bandit tent fight, the spider fight with Irenicus' ex, the last werewolf fight on werewolf island, and maybe Sarevok, but he can be abused by focusing on him.
That argument applies to the companions to Baldur's Gate 1, who are poorly optimized and offer almost nothing in the way of dialogue. At least the companions in PoE are inoffensive, while having somewhat interesting backstories that add to the plot and over-arching themes of the game.
They aren't "poorly optimized", the evil companions are more powerful than the PC. Coran is the best archer in the game, Kivan and even Khalid can also shoot pretty well, Imoen is great when dualed to mage, Jaheira is a fighter/druid, Minsc has 18/93 STR, even Anora, the least used companion, has 19 DEX (also lucky rabbit's foot, but it needs a fix to work). Even if you find a companion's stat not up to par, you can gift them some items to automatically improve them. No idea where you are getting that "poorly optimized" thing. The fact that they don't have much dialogue is the reason they are better! They only have enough quips, and a quest here and there, to characterize them and for them to feel like characters. They don't whine and moan, and bitch throughout the whole thing. PoE's companions are
boring and
uninteresting people, with the exception of Durance and maybe GM, and no, it's not because MCA wrote them. The more they open their mouths the blander they become. BG1 doesn't have this problem.
No way. Apart from Baldur's Gate itself, most of the maps are barren, with the occasional special encounter in-between.
They are more, bigger and more visually interesting, that's enough. In comparison, PoE's are ridiculously small and lacking things to see.
That's demonstrably false, given all the character builds for each class that have been posted all over the web.
You seem to be confusing build variety with the way a character plays. Yes, I've freely admitted that PoE has good character building, but all the builds you can make play in 1, or a combination of, 4 archetypes - Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Tank (again, being generous), Support. My priest of Skaen plays in the exact same way as my barbarian, even down to the sneak attacks, there is no reason not to pick those up. My priest also has AoE on melee attacks due to the spellstriking enchantments on the stilettos. My ranged cipher plays in the exact same way as my ranger (rangers actually have Powder Burns, which makes them more interesting, but it's a specific feat). All of them have Barbarian rage, because why wouldn't they?
