Playing PoE1: impressions

[ItsChon]

I actually blame George Martin for this. Because readers know all details should be important and Martin wants to subvooooooort expectations, he intentionally fills in every detail whether important or not and leaves the reader to sift through the detritus. I find it odious and unreadable, but the dude sold a shitzillion copies so what do I know.

I blame Tolkien, actually. He is basically infamous for describing the intricate details of the party's bar crawls (complete with multiple pages of singing) before they finally rest for the night and continue again in the next chapter.

Game developers need to realize that this sort of thing can be okay in a book, but in a game where there is a visual component, it takes a very skilled writer to not only how to make something like this interesting, but also to know when and how to implement it so that it actually adds to the overall quality of the game.

 

[Tacgnol]

Didn't you play the game fairly significantly when you made the original IE mod Bester?

Regardless your points are pretty spot on.

 

[Ninjerk]

I actually blame George Martin for this. Because readers know all details should be important and Martin wants to subvooooooort expectations, he intentionally fills in every detail whether important or not and leaves the reader to sift through the detritus. I find it odious and unreadable, but the dude sold a shitzillion copies so what do I know.

I blame Tolkien, actually. He is basically infamous for describing the intricate details of the party's bar crawls (complete with multiple pages of singing) before they finally rest for the night and continue again in the next chapter.

Game developers need to realize that this sort of thing can be okay in a book, but in a game where there is a visual component, it takes a very skilled writer to not only how to make something like this interesting, but also to know when and how to implement it so that it actually adds to the overall quality of the game.

I quite enjoyed the boozefest in the Witcher.

 

[Humbaba]

Has Bester yet experienced the utter joy of having to sneak through every dungeon at a snail's pace because Soyer thought it was hilarious to litter every single inch of any dungeon's floor with traps?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wait so op downvoted pillars of eternity despite never playing it?

5 points
Pillars of Eternity 1
Pillars of Eternity 2
Tyranny
Wasteland 2
Fallout New Vegas

 

[Aarwolf]

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.

You didn't play NumaNuma, no? Comparing to that PoE is a brilliant, straight-to-the fact written piece of game.

 

[luj1]

You didn't play NumaNuma, no? Comparing to that PoE is a brilliant, straight-to-the fact written piece of game.

lets see

both games have shit writing
both games have annoying companions
both games have shit core systems

the difference is that Numanuma at least has a memorable setting (tho they didnt come up with it)

and its turn based

 

[Humbaba]

You didn't play NumaNuma, no? Comparing to that PoE is a brilliant, straight-to-the fact written piece of game.

lets see

both games have shit writing
both games have annoying companions
both games have shit core systems

the difference is that Numanuma at least has a memorable setting + turn based

At the very least Pillars doesn't have a quest where you have to reunite your gay pirate companion with his monkey poxxed lover.

 

[luj1]

At the very least Pillars doesn't have a quest where you have to reunite your gay pirate companion with his monkey poxxed lover.

Dont get me wrong I hate both Pillars and Numanuma as they are two of the worst RPGs in recent memory

I just hate Pillars more cause its shilled aggressively on this site by Infinitron

also ToEE (a cult combatfag GOAT) had a gay pirate but its actually done well and wasnt pushy

 

[Aarwolf]

the difference is that Numanuma at least has a memorable setting (tho they didnt come up with it)

And they managed to screw it royally. I don't care about Numenera, but few who do said it was terribly presented.

and its turn based

It doesn't matter - fighting was so atrocious that I coouldn't forece myself through it and rage quited game in a first town, whereas I managed to end PoE without effort. It was mindnumbing and boring, but not as screwed as in Numanuma.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

and its turn based

yet the combat is far worse, the combat sequences are often the worst part of the game simply because of how long they take to resolve

 

[almondblight]

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.

With level 1 and 2 spells a wizard can inflict these on enemies: paralyzed, confused, blinded, knocked down, stuck. Some other debuffs as well, but those are all pretty potent status changes. They last pretty long as well, with Aloth paralyze should be ~10 seconds (funny enough, the Codex review missed being able to paralyze enemies and then complained about it not being in the game). I didn't find the spells there much less interesting than the ones in BG1 for the most part (many of which were +/- to certain rolls).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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.

With level 1 and 2 spells a wizard can inflict these on enemies: paralyzed, confused, blinded, knocked down, stuck. Some other debuffs as well, but those are all pretty potent status changes. They last pretty long as well, with Aloth paralyze should be ~10 seconds. I didn't find the spells there much less interesting than the ones in BG1 for the most part (many of which were +/- to certain rolls).

how does that refute what I said?
magic has been reduced to a firearm, it serves no purpose to do anything but cripple and kill.

 

[Haplo]

Isn't that the case in all cRPGs, though?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Disappointed by the Raedric quest, which had the great beginnings of solid C&C. But for all the possible ways to enter the castle, once you reach Raedric, you can either kill him or go back and kill Kolsc. No way to solve this through conversation.

The troika of "force, stealth, smarts" was not used for this quest for reasons unknown.

Stealth is only partially implemented in the quest. You can get to Nedmar wearing disguise, but once you kill him, the entire floor turns hostile and you have to fight people.
If you had pickpocket, you could've stolen the key from him, too, but something as simple as pickpocketing is not in the game. Even if you don't have it as a mechanic, you could implement it through dialogue.

Smarts are used in episodic instances, but never for anything significant in the quest.

And once the quest is over, nobody even wants to talk to me, like I'm yesterday's news. No follow-ups, which is a missed opportunity. Osrya promised we were going to get rid the Valley of the curse. I kill Kolsc, come back and she won't give me time of day.
Raedric could pretend he needed something else of us, but in reality would send us away on a suicide mission hoping we'd die and he'd never have to pay up. And when we come back, now he really has thank us big time.
Even something minor, like a letter of introduction from him to some erl in Defiance Bay. Anything. Life doesn't stop just because we killed Kolsc.

 

[Haplo]

Come on, now you're just being (even more) nitpicky and petty. Its a great quest and a great location.

I wish more crpg quests had that attention to detail and polish.
Sadly the rest of the game does not keep that level (until WM, that is)

 

[almondblight]

how does that refute what I said?
magic has been reduced to a firearm, it serves no purpose to do anything but cripple and kill.

Reduced from what exactly? Magic being used almost exclusively for combat is the case in almost all CRPG's, going back decades. Pillars is actually one of the few that let's you do interesting and meaningful things with magic outside of combat (during the text adventure segments). Wanting games to do more is fine (though I'm not sure something like patternweave would be able to be implemented much better than the spells in Pillar's text adventures), but it's silly to blame PoE for something that's a staple of the genre, and that it does better than most games in the genre.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

how does that refute what I said?
magic has been reduced to a firearm, it serves no purpose to do anything but cripple and kill.

Reduced from what exactly? Magic being used almost exclusively for combat is the case in almost all CRPG's, going back decades. Pillars is actually one of the few that let's you do interesting and meaningful things with magic outside of combat (during the text adventure segments). Wanting games to do more is fine (though I'm not sure something like patternweave would be able to be implemented much better than the spells in Pillar's text adventures), but it's silly to blame PoE for something that's a staple of the genre, and that it does better than most games in the genre.

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

 

[rusty_shackleford]

No way to solve this through conversation.

based

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Isn't that the case in all cRPGs, though?

I'm guessing the oldest cRPG you've played is diablo 2?

 

[Haplo]

Isn't that the case in all cRPGs, though?

I'm guessing the oldest cRPG you've played is diablo 2?

No, I've played Diablo 1 as well, thank you.

Come to think of it, the oldest I've played around release was probably Ishar 2. Or perhaps Might and Magic IV.

 

[Humbaba]

Isn't that the case in all cRPGs, though?

I'm guessing the oldest cRPG you've played is diablo 2?

There are a lot older RPGs where magic serves little to no non-combat purpose tbf.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Isn't that the case in all cRPGs, though?

I'm guessing the oldest cRPG you've played is diablo 2?

There are a lot older RPGs where magic serves little to no non-combat purpose tbf.

Baldur's Gate wasn't one of them.
And yes, there are a lot of shit RPGs that focus solely on turning wizards into magical archers, most thanks for that can be laid at the feet of games like diablo 2.
We've been going backwards for decades now in terms of actual gameplay mechanics in RPGs, and people ask for it to only get worse.

 

[almondblight]

people like you are the reason BG2 doesn't have charm dialogue

You're proving my point. Pillars does have dialog like that. For instance, if you are a cipher, you can use your powers to repair the girls mind at the end of the Skaen runes. If you're a wizard, you can use cold fog to put out the fire in the burning cottage. Complaining about Pillars for something it does better than most CRPGs is silly. There's plenty of reasons to complain about the game, but most Codex complaints seem to come from people who were half paying attention and didn't understand the systems (the kind of complaints that get mocked here when people do the same thing to older CRPGs).

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I wish more crpg quests had that attention to detail

This is incorrect. Whether you kill Nedmar or Osrya or BOTH or NEITHER, Raedric simply says "ah, you've made quite a mess coming here".

Okay if he doesn't care I killed Orsya. But he's a man of faith who just stabbed his wife for heresy. Charname killing his priest and 3-4 dozen clergymen not deserving a single line from him is not "attention to detail".

Whenever there's branching and afterwards the branches are joined in a single event, that event usually pretends to take preceding actions into account and acknowledges them. Not the case here.