Playing PoE1: impressions

[Stoned Ape]

I think a big reason that I dislike Larian's games is that they feel like a cartoon theme park. Everything just feels shallow and superfluous, and nothing feels immersive or believable. I can't remember a single antagonist from any one of their games, and none of them have made be feel anything for any of their characters. I've yet to be able to complete anything they've released, and generally only make it about 20-25 hours in.

The combat systems are also bad, but that's not what generally makes me quit, it's my complete lack of engagement with their settings and characters (and because they include immersion breaking crap like dual-wielding salami).

 

[Harthwain]

The combat systems are also bad, but that's not what generally makes me quit, it's my complete lack of engagement with their settings and characters (and because they include immersion breaking crap like dual-wielding salami).

I'd say the combat is decent overall. It was basically the only thing that made me go as far as I did with D:OS series. The writing was very meh though. Enough to make me run out of steam at some point and never return to the game. And a bunch of other, minor gripes (boring items, for example). If you want to make random loot, then at least make it interesting.

 

[luj1]

PoE 1 and 2 and DOS 1 are not "really shitty", they're okay and can be enjoyable

rolling in mud can be enjoyable for the right person

 

[Drunken Irishman]

I find POE worldbuilding to be mix of some really good and bad ideas.

PoE World was really nice for the first two acts. Slightly gritty late renaissance flavored urban fantasy in a world where people take religion seriously.

The fictious metaphysics are one the most successful parts of PoE worldbuilding. Durance and Eder actually feel like religious people, not caricatures. While there's more certainty in the metaphysical dogmas being real, the way they relate to their fate is much more real-worldish than characters in typical D&D settings, where gods always reveal their wills. A real religious person always has some doubt and some what-the-fuck does this mean.

Like a Calvinist wrestling with the implications of Double Predestination: how can God be good, if he handpicked evil to be evil before he created anything? what if he gave you temporary salvation, only to take it from you in the end... just to fuck with you? you wasted you life on piety, but God planned to burn you in Hell before he even created the world... fuck... Jesus is the real Lord of Hell, not Satan, etc.

Durance and Eder reflect that sort of uncertainty and trying to cope with the idea of their god, and how their dogma claims their god to be, with how the real world actually is.

That's the best part of PoE worldbuilding.

My take was that Dyrwood is basically fantasy United States, that separated from the British (Aedyr) Empire. A former colony trying to Manifest Destiny on a land filled with... colorful elvish freak barbarians with celtic names?

Act 3 really shits on the tone and feel of the world.

This is where PoE worldbuilding really errs big time... the civilizations don't stick to particular races. So you got elves, dwarves, orlans and humans as these freak druids, as Dyrwoodians, as Antarctic Inuits, as asian warrior monks... except the gunwielding Maori are mostly their own race. It's too much to make sense. They really should have excluded the more exotic ideas... though the gunwielding Maori is probably the best exotic idea. Because their culture is represented by one particular race, so it's easy to imagine that civilization.

It's much more believable for a person from a decent civilization to explore other countries, than for a person from some primitive tribal superstitious culture. The Antarctic Inuit Dwarf would be hopelessly lost and just die in this environment.

Some of these exotic ideas don't make sense, because in real world their civilizations would be too unequal to even have dialogue with each other.

 

[Haplo]

While it should be a coordinated effort to first buff your own Accuracy, lower the enemy defenses with debuff effects and finally land the nasty CC.

In how many fights do you NEED to do that, though, like 2 in the whole base game? (I haven't played the expansion)
It has been a while and I don't recall everything, but I remember that I ironmanned the game (almost, I think I was still working on the dragon fight) in my 2nd playthrough, and I didn't do much of that.

Quite a bit Id say. And the WM content is considerably more challenging in general.

Trouble is its fairly easy to outlevel most content, particularly with the early bounties.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Bester first of all, I really enjoy those insights, keep them coming! I'm always up for a decent critique. Some questions/issues:

For instance, women in history generally weren't equal to men in rights, no matter what period you take. In Archaic Greece, women weren't considered citizens
and lived in separate "women's quarters", where men only went for one purpose - procreation. Women were forbidden to go into the "men's quarters". They lived
so much apart, that it is suspected women had their own version of the Greek language.

Does this really refer to common practices widespread in the greek world during the archaic period? It rather sounds like a typical(accurate, afaik) description of classical Athens. The language claim seems really odd, not only on its own, but in face of the general diversity of greek at the time. Did they have a separate language in every region, for major dialects? Or is it again about Athens specifically?

In Medieval Europe, on which Pillars is more often based, wives were considered their husbands' property. In the 1500s, a Marital Exemption for Rape was passed:
forced sexual intercourse was considered a husband making use of his property.

Could you provide source? Which part of the world Europe does that refer to? Please dont take that for whataboutism, I'm genuinely curious.

About medieval Europe.
Not only it's true but there's more.
I'll pick France as an example, Even if 1789 changed things, in theory, in practice, A man still owned his wife and children and could beat them to death if he wanted to, this up until 1958.

 

[Twiglard]

PoE 1 and 2 and DOS 1 are not "really shitty", they're okay and can be enjoyable, in different ways; and Tyranny and DOS 2 are only somewhat shitty. The only really shitty game in that list is Numenera.

Tyranny has redeeming value in terms of story branching and some originality in worldbuilding. DOS 1 has a good first act. But PoE? Lore and worldbuilding are hopelessly boring and derivative. Forgettable and at times nonsensical storyline. Dumbed down magic. Tedious combat. Nonexistent encounter design.

Tranny can be defended on storyfag grounds. PoE can't be defended on combatfag grounds as the combat isn't any good to begin with.

 

[Sarathiour]

Tyranny unironnically have a better combat system as it revert back to save or suck for CC.

 

[Butter]

Tyranny unironnically have a better combat system as it revert back to save or suck for CC.

Tyranny has cooldown-cycling.

 

[Sarathiour]

and PoE per encounter ability, blank flavoreless combat versus popamole, pick your poison.

 

[Ninjerk]

PoE was pretty and had nice music.

 

[Darth Canoli]

PoE was pretty and had nice music.

It's one of those moments where I whish I had the "nuke it from orbit" button...

Just go watch a cartoon or a fucking movie.

 

[Ninjerk]

PoE was pretty and had nice music.

It's one of those moments where I whish I had the "nuke it from orbit" button...

Just go watch a cartoon or a fucking movie.

That is what I do when I consider replaying PoE.

 

[BanEvader]

Avellone thinks Sawyer's "cultures" and fûnnÿ léttèrs are meaningless bullshit and is not ashamed to say it in subtext:

Is Durance the only good thing about Pillars? I think so.

 

[gurugeorge]

Avellone thinks Sawyer's "cultures" and fûnnÿ léttèrs are meaningless bullshit and is not ashamed to say it in subtext:

Is Durance the only good thing about Pillars? I think so.

"Like, we're all just individuals maaan" - how irredeemably midwit.

 

[BanEvader]

"Like, we're all just individuals maaan" - how irredeemably midwit.

Hey, I said the only good thing in Pillars and that's a really low bar.

 

[Fedora Master]

Someone: "Hey guys, PoE is bad."
Codex, in fucking 2022:

 

[Diggfinger]

I showed the game's first dialogue to my wife, she had a few things to say, which I think is fair critique.

Notice the excessive usage of adjectives, with nothing happening in terms of content? This is typical of female fanfic writer, wife says.

A BROODING, TALL, LANKY, MYSTERIOUS MAN with a SUNBURBED BOW entered the room.
"Where is the toilet around here?" he asked.

Form: a ton of adjectives, epic set-up like something incredible is going to happen
Content: guy wants to take a shit, leaves in the next sentence

You know those writing tips 101? "Expose the scene only if it's going to be important or if we're going to return a lot to this place?" Obsidian subverts this and exposes everything instead.
That guy with a bow? We'll see him one more time, where he dies and all that description goes down the drain.

According to wife, this is 100% the work of a female writer. Whoever wrote this doesn't care about the game. She's fulfilling her self-serving needs of proving that "she's a writer, damn it",
and to hell with the needs of the game.

Another good point wife made: in the older games, the entire problem of character descriptions was solved as follows - if a character is important enough, he gets a portrait. If not, no reason to describe him anyway.

So when's your wife's video game coming out?

How many thousand lines of dialogue can we expect?

 

[agris]

"it's not shit because the person critiquing it hasn't made anything better" is such a bigbrain response. much respect

 

[luj1]

i want to forget the whole pillars-numanuma-tyranny-dos wave of mediocre rpgs

 

[Ninjerk]

i want to forget the whole pillars-numanuma-tyranny-dos wave of mediocre rpgs

...until the next review

 

[RunningWolf]

Most people would forgive a lot to PoE if the writing was good. Arcanum and Torment are the best examples of that. However the writing isn't any good, its purple prose and i've read amateur novels that are infinitely better written than 99% of PoE dialogue and story. All the flaws shine through with nothing to counterweight.

Its actually a great example of the fact that the game has to have strong points to distract you from the flaws that exist in all games. If you have no strong points, then you get mediocre sludge and then the only things to talk about in it are its many mistakes. The same is the case with Outer Worlds.

Larian hides bad writing in cartoony humor and narration which why it doesn't get a pass with me either. Their games are shallow and have no depth either in game systems or world simulation.

If i to sum-up my impressions of PoE series it would be - offensive mediocrity. If i sum-up impressions about DoS series it would be - a very shallow experience.

 

[Arthandas]

I agree, DOS2, even 1 is hella fun to dick around with and playing coop but goddamn everything is quirky and only semi-serious. It doesn't take anything seriously but it seems that casuls eat that shit up. Id rather have DOS to be more serious and dark.

DOS2 is their 5th rpg and all of them share the same lightheartedness. If you expected anything else you're retarded.