Playing PoE1: impressions

[Russia is over. The end.]

I don't think I'll say anything new here, but I want to write it down anyway, as I want to document this for later use.

I was having a hard time with the two Skuldr Kings with my 4-men party beneath the Eothas temple:

I decided to try different tactics, but quickly understood that there were no different tactics.

The problem is that the Skuldr Kings hit like a train and are fat like a pig. My D&D intuition told me they needed to be distracted or controlled.
On top of that, the Kings have 4 ads.

I'd normally go into my mage's spell book and cook up a strategy.

In POE, Wizard 1 level spells are:
- 1 debuff: "dazed", which won't turn the tide of any battle
- 1 useless buff: +3 move speed +20 Disengage Defense of questionable utility. Usually if you're engaged, by the time you cast this spell to disengage, you'll be dead anyway.

- 3 target damage spells
- 4 AOE damage spells
The only difference between them is their flair and the minor additional effects like "hobbled for 4 seconds". FOUR SECONDS!

- 4 spells to make the wizard more of a melee character for an average of 20 seconds, where he's got no business going. And by the time he self-buffs with these (~ about 16 seconds), the battle will be over. This is a game with no pre-buffing.
- Slicken, which is a CC that lasts for 4 seconds again. Don't you go having too much fun, kids.
I could spam Slicken, but I don't have any ranged damage dealers beside the Wizard, so that doesn't work for me.

2 level spells are:
- Aoe daze
- Web that lasts for THREE SECONDS
- More damaging spells...
- Hold Person for 1.5 rounds...
- etc..


So nothing you can debuff the two Kings with that would turn the tide.
Nothing you can buff your tank with to withstand the assault.
No Summon Monster to distract them.
No Charm Person to charm ONE OF THE TWO KINGS.
No Sleep to disable the ads, if not also one of the Kings.
No Grease to, ugh, kite around somehow...
No Darkness + Infravision or any other fantasy combo to give you some breathing room.
No FUNCTIONAL Web.
No potions that do any of the above.
Most of the things above I'd be able to do in D&D.

Okay, maybe the non-wizards can do something?
I can't use my rogue to set up a bunch of traps either (only one). The only traps I have are damaging, no "Sleeping gas" etc.
There's no "Last Stand" ability that Eder can use to survive for a while.
A monk can "knock back", but that's not enough.

So what CAN I do?

Run into a tight space and kill them one by one. Deep...

Sawyer says his favorite system is Arse Magicka. Sounds magical, yet in here the magic is dead. Is this something he picked up in this Arse Magicka system? Anyone knows how it works?

I hope PoE's system gets at least some depth later on, though I'm not optimistic.

Looking at the spell choice for the first 2 levels, it felt like Sawyer was ordered to put in the spells he detests:
- Slicken, Web or Hold Person, but sabotaged them by reducing their duration to 3-4 seconds
- "Make my mage into a fighter" buffs, but knew they'd be inefficient due to no-prebuff policy
Didn't put in any other typical D&D spells. As a result, mages are damage dealers and nothing else. For a "BG spiritual sequel" this feels criminal.

Maybe this'll change at higher levels, I don't know yet.

 

[Trashos]

Well, I do recall one fight, where one of the wizard spells was very useful. And it has been a while for me, so there may even be another one.

I never understood what Sawyer was trying to do with all those effects that last for 0.001 nanoseconds. I can't rule out your theory, but they looked to be core to his design (even if I don't understand their purpose at all). Game is full of them. I remember in some long-lasting fights there would be 2 billion such effects on my party (applied by the enemy), but it turned out that I didn't need to take them into account.

As for prebuffing, Sawyer is clearly against it. There is food though. Not that you need it, but it is prebuffing, I guess.

 

[Darth Canoli]

So nothing you can debuff the two Kings with that would turn the tide.
Nothing you can buff your tank with to withstand the assault.
No Summon Monster to distract them.
No Charm Person to charm ONE OF THE TWO KINGS.
No Sleep to disable the ads, if not also one of the Kings.
No Grease to, ugh, kite around somehow...
No Darkness + Infravision or any other fantasy combo to give you some breathing room.
No FUNCTIONAL Web.
No potions that do any of the above.
Most of the things above I'd be able to do in D&D.

I believe Ciphers have a charm person or something, it probably doesn't last long.
My first and unique playthrough which didn't end around the first village, I used 2 Ciphers and rolled over everything the game threw at me, mage and rangers are underwhelming, all you need is one fighter damage dealer, one tank and two ciphers and you always use the same tactics over and over again.

Everything in PoE reeks of mediocrity, it's just boring, the only thing which is remotely fun is the stealing mini-game taken from DOS where you have to avoid people LoS or maybe it's from Deadwater.
Well, it's fun once or twice, and then it's just as boring as the rest of the game.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I don't think I'll say anything new here, but I want to write it down anyway, as I want to document this for later use.

I was having a hard time with the two Skuldr Kings with my 4-men party beneath the Eothas temple:

I decided to try different tactics, but quickly understood that there were no different tactics.

The problem is that the Skuldr Kings hit like a train and are fat like a pig. My D&D intuition told me they needed to be distracted or controlled.
On top of that, the Kings have 4 ads.

I'd normally go into my mage's spell book and cook up a strategy.

In POE, Wizard 1 level spells are:
- 1 debuff: "dazed", which won't turn the tide of any battle
- 1 useless buff: +3 move speed +20 Disengage Defense of questionable utility. Usually if you're engaged, by the time you cast this spell to disengage, you'll be dead anyway.

- 3 target damage spells
- 4 AOE damage spells
The only difference between them is their flair and the minor additional effects like "hobbled for 4 seconds". FOUR SECONDS!

- 4 spells to make the wizard more of a melee character for an average of 20 seconds, where he's got no business going. And by the time he self-buffs with these (~ about 16 seconds), the battle will be over. This is a game with no pre-buffing.
- Slicken, which is a CC that lasts for 4 seconds again. Don't you go having too much fun, kids.
I could spam Slicken, but I don't have any ranged damage dealers beside the Wizard, so that doesn't work for me.

2 level spells are:
- Aoe daze
- Web that lasts for THREE SECONDS
- More damaging spells...
- Hold Person for 1.5 rounds...
- etc..


So nothing you can debuff the two Kings with that would turn the tide.
Nothing you can buff your tank with to withstand the assault.
No Summon Monster to distract them.
No Charm Person to charm ONE OF THE TWO KINGS.
No Sleep to disable the ads, if not also one of the Kings.
No Grease to, ugh, kite around somehow...
No Darkness + Infravision or any other fantasy combo to give you some breathing room.
No FUNCTIONAL Web.
No potions that do any of the above.
Most of the things above I'd be able to do in D&D.

Okay, maybe the non-wizards can do something?
I can't use my rogue to set up a bunch of traps either (only one). The only traps I have are damaging, no "Sleeping gas" etc.
There's no "Last Stand" ability that Eder can use to survive for a while.
A monk can "knock back", but that's not enough.

So what CAN I do?

Run into a tight space and kill them one by one. Deep...

Sawyer says his favorite system is Arse Magicka. Sounds magical, yet in here the magic is dead. Is this something he picked up in this Arse Magicka system? Anyone knows how it works?

I hope PoE's system gets at least some depth later on, though I'm not optimistic.

Looking at the spell choice for the first 2 levels, it felt like Sawyer was ordered to put in the spells he detests:
- Slicken, Web or Hold Person, but sabotaged them by reducing their duration to 3-4 seconds
- "Make my mage into a fighter" buffs, but knew they'd be inefficient due to no-prebuff policy
Didn't put in any other typical D&D spells. As a result, mages are damage dealers and nothing else. For a "BG spiritual sequel" this feels criminal.

Maybe this'll change at higher levels, I don't know yet.

Chill fog is a strong and useful tier 1 wizard spell over the whole game. I assume the spell description was again worthless as with many spells, since you didn't pick it. It actually applies its effect multiple times during its duration of 15 seconds, meaning that it can keep the blinded effect on enemies for the whole duration and blinded is one of the best debuffs in the game. It decreases accuracy and deflection of enemies by a large margin. I also didn't like the spells overall, they are bland and the effects, duration/action economy is the opposite of fun. I often found myself thinking that buffs/debuffs aren't worth it, with their silly durations.

 

[Haplo]

I don't think I'll say anything new here, but I want to write it down anyway, as I want to document this for later use.

I was having a hard time with the two Skuldr Kings with my 4-men party beneath the Eothas temple:

I decided to try different tactics, but quickly understood that there were no different tactics.

The problem is that the Skuldr Kings hit like a train and are fat like a pig. My D&D intuition told me they needed to be distracted or controlled.
On top of that, the Kings have 4 ads.

I'd normally go into my mage's spell book and cook up a strategy.

In POE, Wizard 1 level spells are:
- 1 debuff: "dazed", which won't turn the tide of any battle
- 1 useless buff: +3 move speed +20 Disengage Defense of questionable utility. Usually if you're engaged, by the time you cast this spell to disengage, you'll be dead anyway.

- 3 target damage spells
- 4 AOE damage spells
The only difference between them is their flair and the minor additional effects like "hobbled for 4 seconds". FOUR SECONDS!

- 4 spells to make the wizard more of a melee character for an average of 20 seconds, where he's got no business going. And by the time he self-buffs with these (~ about 16 seconds), the battle will be over. This is a game with no pre-buffing.
- Slicken, which is a CC that lasts for 4 seconds again. Don't you go having too much fun, kids.
I could spam Slicken, but I don't have any ranged damage dealers beside the Wizard, so that doesn't work for me.

2 level spells are:
- Aoe daze
- Web that lasts for THREE SECONDS
- More damaging spells...
- Hold Person for 1.5 rounds...
- etc..


So nothing you can debuff the two Kings with that would turn the tide.
Nothing you can buff your tank with to withstand the assault.
No Summon Monster to distract them.
No Charm Person to charm ONE OF THE TWO KINGS.
No Sleep to disable the ads, if not also one of the Kings.
No Grease to, ugh, kite around somehow...
No Darkness + Infravision or any other fantasy combo to give you some breathing room.
No FUNCTIONAL Web.
No potions that do any of the above.
Most of the things above I'd be able to do in D&D.

Okay, maybe the non-wizards can do something?
I can't use my rogue to set up a bunch of traps either (only one). The only traps I have are damaging, no "Sleeping gas" etc.
There's no "Last Stand" ability that Eder can use to survive for a while.
A monk can "knock back", but that's not enough.

So what CAN I do?

Run into a tight space and kill them one by one. Deep...

Sawyer says his favorite system is Arse Magicka. Sounds magical, yet in here the magic is dead. Is this something he picked up in this Arse Magicka system? Anyone knows how it works?

I hope PoE's system gets at least some depth later on, though I'm not optimistic.

Looking at the spell choice for the first 2 levels, it felt like Sawyer was ordered to put in the spells he detests:
- Slicken, Web or Hold Person, but sabotaged them by reducing their duration to 3-4 seconds
- "Make my mage into a fighter" buffs, but knew they'd be inefficient due to no-prebuff policy
Didn't put in any other typical D&D spells. As a result, mages are damage dealers and nothing else. For a "BG spiritual sequel" this feels criminal.

Maybe this'll change at higher levels, I don't know yet.

Chill fog is a strong and useful tier 1 wizard spell over the whole game. I assume the spell description was again worthless as with many spells, since you didn't pick it. It actually applies its effect multiple times during its duration of 15 seconds, meaning that it can keep the blinded effect on enemies for the whole duration and blinded is one of the best debuffs in the game. It decreases accuracy and deflection of enemies by a large margin. I also didn't like the spells overall, they are bland and the effects, duration/action economy is the opposite of fun. I often found myself thinking that buffs/debuffs aren't worth it, with their silly durations.

Yep, Chillfog is OP.
Otherwise, yeah, Ciphers tend to be stronger at CC, particularly mind control.

You also did not mention another low level Wizard staple: Combusting Wounds. Cast that on enemies and focus fire them with multi-hit attacks (like blunderbuss fire) and rapid fire spells (such as rays and walls). And watch enemies melt as each new damage instance triggers another DOT counter.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

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

 

[Lhynn]

Has he noticed yet that the PC actually never gets to cure or treat the monkey pox that got the caravan to stop and kickstart the entire damn plot?

It does get resolved, pretty much immediately, and just when you do the caravan gets attacked.
Must have played through the starting dungeon at least 7 times, to try different builds and mix it up with the choices.

No it doesn't, the PC never even consumes the herbs or whatever it was and never explicitly undergoes a healing process.

Not going to pirate and reinstall that shit again, but im pretty sure you get what you need and wont be shitting yourself in your first fight. Could be wrong though, but im pretty sure im right.

 

[ferratilis]

Afaik, after you finish the first dungeon where the two companions die, you get a message saying something like "your disease has been replaced with something far worse, you hear voices in your head etc. etc." That's why PC never ingests those springberries.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm pretty sure the intro changed with the patches, but you'd probably have to ask some autist like Roguey

 

[Roguey]

I'm pretty sure the intro changed with the patches, but you'd probably have to ask some autist like Roguey

The intro never changed. What happens is that many players were too brainlet to understand that your character never had the runs, your soul was awakening the entire time. You were misdiagnosed.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I paid so little attention to the dialogue that I never knew you were getting the berries for your character until I read it on the codex.

 

[Butter]

I paid so little attention to the dialogue that I never knew you were getting the berries for your character until I read it on the codex.

They sent the sick guy to fetch his own medicine. This brought to you by the caravan that doesn't travel with any water. How did this intro get approved again?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Sawyer says his favorite system is Arse Magicka. Sounds magical, yet in here the magic is dead. Is this something he picked up in this Arse Magicka system? Anyone knows how it works?

I hope PoE's system gets at least some depth later on, though I'm not optimistic.

Looking at the spell choice for the first 2 levels, it felt like Sawyer was ordered to put in the spells he detests:
- Slicken, Web or Hold Person, but sabotaged them by reducing their duration to 3-4 seconds
- "Make my mage into a fighter" buffs, but knew they'd be inefficient due to no-prebuff policy
Didn't put in any other typical D&D spells. As a result, mages are damage dealers and nothing else. For a "BG spiritual sequel" this feels criminal.

Of all my criticisms of the game, this is my biggest one. The magic is completely uninspiring and stupid, it basically amounts to wizards being archers who shoot magic arrows.

I hate how boring magic is in these games. It's barely above "at least you tried" level, restricted entirely to hindering enemies and helping allies.
It's only fair to directly compare it to AD&D as the entire purpose was to create a ruleset designed for cRPGs instead of tabletop, yet Sawyer completely failed. Sawyer is good at identifying problems, but pretty shit at fixing them.

Pull up a list of AD&D 2E spells including splatbooks, there's hundreds of different spells.
In a way, AD&D spells were created the same way a theoretical world with actual magical studies would be created. There are many, many authors and not every spell is meant to be -- on some level -- equivalent to others of the same tier. Many spells are completely situational, which makes sense as wizards would create spells for their specific purposes and perhaps teach them to wizards who study under them.

This is, I assume, a mostly complete list of spells for AD&D 2E: https://regalgoblins.com/spells.php
It includes PHB, splatbooks, UA, and his own homebrew spells -- sources for which are on the card itself.
There are probably more level 1 spells listed than there are spells in pillows entirely.

Picking a random level 1 spell

Patternweave

Patternweave allows the caster to make sense of apparent chaos. The caster can see such things as pottery shards reformed into a whole pot, shreds of paper formed into a page, scattered parts as a working machine, or specific trails appearing out of overlapping footprints.

After casting the spell, the mage studies seemingly random elements-broken bits of glass, shreds of paper, intermingled trails, etc. The items to be studied must be tangible-coded flashing lights, garbled speech, or thoughts of any kind cannot be studied.
The wizard must study the random elements for one round, after which the DM secretly makes a saving throw vs. spell for the wizard. If the saving throw is failed, the spell fails. However, if the saving throw is successful, the caster sees in his mind the pattern these objects form. If the items studied are truly random, no information is gained.

After the caster has visualized the pattern, he can attempt to reassemble the parts into their original form. This requires another saving throw vs. spell to determine whether the mage remembers sufficient details to accomplish the task. The amount of time required and the quality of restoration vary according to the complexity of the pattern. Reassembling a shredded map may be easy; reassembling a broken clock is significantly more difficult; rebuilding a shattered mosaic is extremely difficult. In any case, the wizard can make only a reasonable copy of the item. He can use this spell to restore works of art, but they will be worth only a small percentage of their original value.

This is an interesting spell. It is incredibly situational, yet could easily have many uses throughout basically any campaign you can think of.
PoE has nothing like this because magic is focused entirely -- and only -- on combat. How silly, do wizards do nothing but fight? They don't research, travel, cook food, grow plants, etc?

Ironically, one of the major issues with pillows is that it has no soul.

--
To be entirely fair, white march saw some usage of spells(and magical items) in dialogue/text encounters. I remember being able to use Eder's shield to put out flames because it was enchanted to be able to cast some frost spell.

 

[Lhynn]

I'm pretty sure the intro changed with the patches, but you'd probably have to ask some autist like Roguey

The intro never changed. What happens is that many players were too brainlet to understand that your character never had the runs, your soul was awakening the entire time. You were misdiagnosed.

How was your soul awakening before the magic storm even hit? I thought it was the storm that awakened it, or the ritual after the storm, or seeing the faggot in purple robes.


And how the fuck do you misdiagnose soul awakening as having diarrhea, what the shit?

I paid so little attention to the dialogue that I never knew you were getting the berries for your character until I read it on the codex.

They sent the sick guy to fetch his own medicine. This brought to you by the caravan that doesn't travel with any water. How did this intro get approved again?

This fucking thing always got to me.

 

[Roguey]

How was your soul awakening before the magic storm even hit? I thought it was the storm that awakened it, or the ritual after the storm, or seeing the faggot in purple robes.

No, awakenings are just things that happen sometimes.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

This game is seriously the worst RPG I have ever played. I would write a more precise critique, but I literally cannot. It was so mind-numbing that I forgot all of the companions, all of the story and all of the gameplay. My memories of past lives are clearer than the PTSD this game has unleashed upon me.

 

[Lhynn]

How was your soul awakening before the magic storm even hit? I thought it was the storm that awakened it, or the ritual after the storm, or seeing the faggot in purple robes.

No, awakenings are just things that happen sometimes.

So it happened on the morning before you got trapped in a one in a century storm. And your soul awakening gave you stomach ache, farting and had you shitting yourself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It was so mind-numbing that I forgot all of the companions, a

That's one of the few highlights though?
Eder & Durance are basically the only reason I finished the game.

 

[Roguey]

How was your soul awakening before the magic storm even hit? I thought it was the storm that awakened it, or the ritual after the storm, or seeing the faggot in purple robes.

No, awakenings are just things that happen sometimes.

So it happened on the morning before you got trapped in a one in a century storm. And your soul awakening gave you stomach ache, farting and had you shitting yourself.

Those symptoms are coming entirely from your own imagination. Anyway apparently Sawyer mentioned elsewhere that your soul awakens because of your close proximity to Thaos. I haven't played this thing in over five years, the particular details are a blur now.

 

[The Limper]

I never understood what they were trying to do with the companions. If being the predecessor to BG, where the hell were all the companions. You are basically stuck with the same party for 2 chapters. Then you can add Pallegina in the big city. Thats where you should of been able to add many different companion types. Leaving them for the expansions was lame. Only 1 wizard companion in the entire game including 2 Expansions? BG1 had 5. BG2 had 5. Only 1 Rogue and you have to wait for an expansion. I just cant get that to compute…

 

[Butter]

I never understood what they were trying to do with the companions. If being the predecessor to BG, where the hell were all the companions. You are basically stuck with the same party for 2 chapters. Then you can add Pallegina in the big city. Thats where you should of been able to add many different companion types. Leaving them for the expansions was lame. Only 1 wizard companion in the entire game including 2 Expansions? BG1 had 5. BG2 had 5. Only 1 Rogue and you have to wait for an expansion. I just cant get that to compute…

They were trying to do Torment companions, and they actually have 1 more than that game has. BG2 companions mostly have a lot less to say than PoE companions.

 

[luj1]

fûnnÿ léttèrs

lol'd

b-b-but my Glânfathân....

 

[luj1]

This game is seriously the worst RPG I have ever played. I would write a more precise critique, but I literally cannot. It was so mind-numbing that I forgot all of the companions, all of the story and all of the gameplay. My memories of past lives are clearer than the PTSD this game has unleashed upon me.

same

 

[Raghar]

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

C'mon we are using letters like ěščřžýáíéúůť and iy. There were attempts to reform writing to use only "i" instead of "i and y", but they for some reason failed. So we have to write gramatically correctly přemyšl, instead of přemišl.
It's totally horribly and it was one of reason why I had D instead of C from grammar. Also teachers complained about me writing third variant of "i y" even when it's not currently used in grammar.

 

[Harthwain]

This game is seriously the worst RPG I have ever played. I would write a more precise critique, but I literally cannot. It was so mind-numbing that I forgot all of the companions, all of the story and all of the gameplay. My memories of past lives are clearer than the PTSD this game has unleashed upon me.

Try Planescape: Tides of Numenera.