Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Grunker]

TSL comes close. MotB succeeds, albeit is hampered by the shitty game it's built on.

I disagree on both counts. It's just that the way they fail to live up to their potential has changed. Ur-Obsidian made games with brilliant ideas that shone brightly, but were kind of tedious to actually play. Nu-Obsidian makes games that are pretty enjoyable to play, but any brilliant ideas in them are buried under a ton of dumb ones. Ur-Obsidian was a continuation of Troika in fact.

In both cases they fail to be what they could be.

Again IMO, of the ones that aim high, only FONV comes close to achieving its potential.

How did KotORII fail in the story department? It's a pretty clear deconstruction of Star Wars tenets, but people who say that's all it is haven't played the game much more beyond the first playthrough I'd wager. TSL is about the failure of moral codes, about the flaw of adherence to singular philosophies, about having the sense to view theories as tools to understand the world rather than self-contained truths. Viewing the world through a singular credo leads to frustration when it can't be practiced which leads to apathy, and as we know, apathy is death. Kreia is a wonderful creation and the story more or less delivers every single one of its points within a meaningful context and without being too obscure or on the nose. Yeah there's ALOT going on and it's certainly much more messy and inefficiently told compared to good books and movies, but as far as video games go I'd say TSL's story ranks very high up there.

New Vegas has some great political dialogue and some good questions asked about whether moral systems of governing even make sense in Fallout's world, but I personally rank TSL above it in the story-department.

That TSL played pretty poorly doesn't really negate that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The inquisition was some footnote in PoE's story

This really underlines how horrible PoE's story is. It's not a footnote. It's actually the only concrete centerpiece to the whole plot. We just can't know anything about it or its goals until the end, which is why there's so little about it.

But you actually follow the inquisition and get flashbacks to it constantly through the game. It's PoE's WORST moments by far. It's literally just a bunch of vague and meaningless text you have to click through, yet it's clear that substantial writing resources was put into it.

I know your flashbacks are about the inquisition. The problem is that this is the story PoE says it is about, not the story that the player cares for. I at least don't know anyone who cared about the flashbacks.

I don't know wtf was wrong with the Pillars team but - in BG you have a story centered around your saving your own ass and then foiling the bad guys in the city. In BGII you have a story centered around unmasking the villain (both figuratively and literally) who is one step ahead of you. In IWD and IWD2... you get the idea. Who in their right mind thought the player will care about flashbacks of events that happened to someone else, not the player character, and hundreds of years ago?

 

[Lacrymas]

Flashbacks are supposed to give context to the current events, but PoE's are about something totally unrelated to anything you are doing, so they come off as pointless and filler.

 

[Grunker]

^ that's my point

 

[pomenitul]

Hello everyone! Would you be so kind as to explain why you think PoE's plot is subpar? This take is rather unfamiliar to me yet all the more thought-provoking for it. Thank you for your time, dear sirs!

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'll bite.

What is PoE's plot?
1. The player "falls ill".
2. He finds out what his illness is.
3. Pursuing a man he saw doing something sinister and by that causing his illness seems like the best course of action.
4. The "illness" turns him into "the chosen one". Cue in superficial throes of "but how should I feel about my condition?" which are totally irrelevant to how the story will progress.
5. The man who supposedly caused the illness has also been doing (seemingly related) sinister stuff throughout the land. The player sets out to find him, the details are to be figured out later.
6. Anti-climactic near-ending. The player finds out - through a series of visions - the the man who caused his illness has known him in a past life, and has been in charge of a Big Coverup (tm). The player gets to choose how he feels about all that.
(6.5. Lots of sidequests)
7. Final battle. The villain is defeated. The illness will not be cured. The player gets to decide what to do with the villain's remains. End slides ("much plot reactivity wow").

 

[2house2fly]

The illness is cured by defeating the villain

 

[Parabalus]

I'll bite.

What is PoE's plot?
1. The player "falls ill".
2. He finds out what his illness is.
3. Pursuing a man he saw doing something sinister and by that causing his illness seems like the best course of action.
4. The "illness" turns him into "the chosen one". Cue in superficial throes of "but how should I feel about my condition?" which are totally irrelevant to how the story will progress.
5. The man who supposedly caused the illness has also been doing (seemingly related) sinister stuff throughout the land. The player sets out to find him, the details are to be figured out later.
6. Anti-climactic near-ending. The player finds out - through a series of visions - the the man who caused his illness has known him in a past life, and has been in charge of a Big Coverup (tm). The player gets to choose how he feels about all that.
(6.5. Lots of sidequests)
7. Final battle. The villain is defeated. The illness will not be cured. The player gets to decide what to do with the villain's remains. End slides ("much plot reactivity wow").

4. The player isn't "The Chosen One" by any means, PoE1 abundantly makes clear that there are both other Watchers and other Awakened people

5. How is it "seemingly" related when he does the same thing every time, including on the introduction?

6. You know that right at the beginning, talking to the animancer lady in gilded vale

7. It's explicitly mentioned that dealing with thaos resolved your turmoil

 

[Grunker]

Hello everyone! Would you be so kind as to explain why you think PoE's plot is subpar? This take is rather unfamiliar to me yet all the more thought-provoking for it. Thank you for your time, dear sirs!

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10683

 

[pomenitul]

 

[AwesomeButton]

4. The player isn't "The Chosen One" by any means, PoE1 abundantly makes clear that there are both other Watchers and other Awakened people

There are other chosen ones, k. Superpower: can talk with dead people.

6. You know that right at the beginning, talking to the animancer lady in gilded vale

What exactly do you "know" from talking with her?

7. It's explicitly mentioned that dealing with thaos resolved your turmoil

Because there was ever any turmol to being with?

 

[2house2fly]

The turmoil is having to play the game, and is resolved by defeating the end boss and the game ending

 

[Agame]

Hello everyone! Would you be so kind as to explain why you think PoE's plot is subpar? This take is rather unfamiliar to me yet all the more thought-provoking for it. Thank you for your time, dear sirs!

Or you could explain to all of us why POE is such a literary masterpiece, unless you think our humble nerd brains cannot comprehend its majestic genius?

 

[pomenitul]

Because pointing out the wearying recurrence of the same warmed-over grievances as ever can only mean that I am of the exact opposite opinion. Gotcha.

 

[2house2fly]

Things can only be incredibly bad or incredibly good.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I killed the Adra Dragon yesterday at level 12. I see the years haven't made it any less bullshit. The only trick is surviving her opening half-screen-wide breath + wing combo where she can one-shot the entire party. She stops doing that after that opening for some reason and it's smooth sailing. The designer has been playing too many MMOs. I hope they don't make her a mega boss in PoE2 if you let her possess Falanroed, lol.

Level 12 is when you are supposed to kill the Adra dragon. That was original game content when the level max was 12.

 

[Sacred82]

Things can only be incredibly bad or incredibly good.

and if they're incredibly good, it's too good to be true

 

[Tigranes]

I killed the Adra Dragon yesterday at level 12. I see the years haven't made it any less bullshit. The only trick is surviving her opening half-screen-wide breath + wing combo where she can one-shot the entire party. She stops doing that after that opening for some reason and it's smooth sailing. The designer has been playing too many MMOs. I hope they don't make her a mega boss in PoE2 if you let her possess Falanroed, lol.

Level 12 is when you are supposed to kill the Adra dragon. That was original game content when the level max was 12.

Yup. Also, the breath/wing stuff, from what I remember, she keeps doing at regular intervals? Or maybe it's a limited use ability and she runs out of them after x. I'll see, still only halfway down Od Nua.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't think enemies have limited abilities in PoE. At least not in my experience, but if someone has more reliable info, I'm not arguing with full certainty.

 

[Lacrymas]

She kept doing her wing thing, but not the breath. Maybe they limited its use at one point, which removes a lot of bullshit. Since she has enormous accuracy bonuses on the wing which prones the tank, you can't reliably keep her head away from the party, she switches targets when the tank is prone. If she did the breath at regular intervals, the fight would've required cheese to legitimately beat at level 12.

 

[Akratus]

Doing my first playthrough on PoE, with the expansions and latest update of course. Just shut off that Adra tower in Heritage Hill.

Positives:
Great artwork.
Decent music and good atmosphere.
Enjoyable combat, despite me generally prefering turn based.
Performance on my average hardware even on 4k resolution is super smooth.
Having the choice between custom party members or actual characters.
Enough overal quality that I'm motivated to do every sidequest available so far.

Negatives:
Long loading screens and loading screens between different areas/levels in the same building.
Sure don't let me see enemies from too far away but don't obscure the great art with that damn fog of war and short sight range.
Bloated writing, I skip a lot without feeling like I'm missing much.
Hard is too easy. I didn't pick Path of the Damned because I'm generally horrible at anything tactical so I didn't want to run into a brick wall but Hard could definitely use tuning.
Predictable sidequests.

Having a lot of fun so far and not really getting some of the hate it's getting here, outside of the game being in a different state at launch but I've also obviously not gotten through a ton of content yet.

 

[cloudropis]

Same here. I've been playing the last few days for the first time, and the experience as a patient gaymer with the fully updated game ready to go is pretty nice.

I agree with most of the complaints regarding the combat system. During chargen, while I was making my Cipher, I was astounded to see one of the basic spells was a ranged AoE blind, doubly so (but for the wrong reasons) when I figured out debuffs other than charm, paralysis, stun and knockdown are actually shitty MMO stat penalties. I wanted to cry when I saw this game's version of web. I'm still having fun though, I like the engagement system even though early game as an overreliance towards chokepointing doors (Temple of Eothas, most caves, Raedric's Hold etc) so you don't get to play around it that much. I like the attributes system much more than AD&D's, and I think balance memes aside they did a good job in making every stat important and I was happy to notice most classes have multiple builds with completely different stat spreads covering different niches of their class.

I'm playing on PotD with 25% nerfed XP table and I find it pretty bearable, only things I'm having issues with is fuckhueg enemy compositions like packs of lions/dryads/shadows, otherwise I should be doing fine as a total newfriend who never touched a RtwP game before BG1 last month. It's a bit maddening I've spent 90% of the game fighting stuff yet doing a bunch of sidequests in Defiance Bay has already proven more fruitful though.

Writing is so boring and jargon filled I felt like falling asleep multiple times, I'm speedreading most of it, already lost interest in the main plot, Durance and Sagani are cool though and actually feel like characters rather than wiki dumps (or, at least, Durance has the decency to be both rather than just the latter). Eder too I guess, but generic likeable Matt Mercer voiced brodude is a pretty hard character archetype to fuck up.

Spoiler

I wish CRPGs would take a page from the JRPG book and just make gods and divinities either fuck off forever or just be big dudes to punch in the face holy shit who the fuck cares enough to bother over learning an entire shitpantheon of edgy characters

 

[AwesomeButton]

PotD's advantage is the buffed enemy stats. PotD's disadvantage is getting swarmed by huge trash mobs. Hard's advantage and disadvantage are reversed - good enough enemy group sizes, but enemies are more squishy.

Protip - try Hard difficulty with a party of 5 to handicap yourself a little. I think it gives a good balance of enemy numbers vs your numbers and how tough combat will be.

 

[cloudropis]

PotD's advantage is the buffed enemy stats. PotD's disadvantage is getting swarmed by huge trash mobs. Hard's advantage and disadvantage are reversed - good enough enemy group sizes, but enemies are more squishy.

Protip - try Hard difficulty with a party of 5 to handicap yourself a little. I think it gives a good balance of enemy numbers vs your numbers and how tough combat will be.

I'm fine with group sizes, I dislike the number of groups. I could've done with less rooms of shadow gangrape in the Temple of Eothas, and Caed Nua's courtyard didn't need four/five fucking enemy groups. Still I would probably be more annoyed by the languishing group sizes below PotD, although Hard with less characters could be a good compromise indeed

 

[AwesomeButton]

Then you'll find Deadfire to be just fine. I am sorry areas can't be bigger, to match the size of the BG/IWD ones.