PoE is total SHIT, therefore BUY IT NOW - Steam Curator Page X Review

[Sensuki]

Sadly, I'm not the one who can answer this question as I stopped playing in Act 2 and can't force myself to continue.

What's stopping you? (I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Yet they were all very different. BG2, IWD, PST, etc, so you can't review the game accurately (or at all) just by focusing on combat.


It's not that simple. PST has been a top game around here for more than a decade. PoE has more role-playing options than all the IE games combined. Of course, the question is, is it enough to make it a good RPG that can be praised despite its combat, the same way PST and MotB are praised. Sadly, I'm not the one who can answer this question as I stopped playing in Act 2 and can't force myself to continue. Maybe after they patch it a few times.

That RPG options are very superficial, you could make your reviews examining this, but then it would be a negative review. Which everyone stated isn't going to be the case. And considering your Wasteland 2 review I'm inclined to think you'll be too generous.

All infinity engine games are about combat, the exception of torment. If the goal was to make a new infinity engine like game, which it was, then combat was still the main focus.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Plus all them BG fans who think that BG RtwP is better than PoE RTwP.

Even it's just that, it's a good reason as any (especially considering the combat heavy nature of both PoE and BG).

To take simple action games for comparison, if I enjoyed Quake, Blood and DN3D that it no way means I'll enjoy a modern static FPS with cover system, regenerating health and turret sections anywhere near as much, no matter how much those modern features are considered to be improvements over the old formula by a number of people.

 

[Kane]

Why would anyone expect the Codex Curator page to not be retarded? It's run by people who use Steam Codex staff.

fixd

Let's make a CDS curator page.
Ed123 Bruticis raw LundB Menckenstein evdk and everyone else. I ain't got time to tag everyone

I would only qualify for strategy titles. Because RPGs are for women and faggots. And more importantly, for this to end up any less retarded than the current list, these pieces need to be written by people with enthusiasm for the respective title and a will to dig down on it. I doubt anyone in CDS actually cares about 'gaming' enough that he's willing to drop time on this nonsense. Perhaps evdk, but do you really want Boredlands/Final Faggotry as our flag ship reviews? I don't think so.

 

[Miserable Panda]

I throughly enjoyed the game. There are some points however, that are remarkably true:
-The info-dump. Walls and walls of text, disorganized and sometimes complete unnecessary. When you have to resort to this option, your plot is not really working.
-The unrewarding process of leveling, almost no individuality between different classes, with three lists of different perks that change tiny aspects of the gameplay-
-Itemization, completely random and the loss of "uniqueness", surprisingly different to BG.
-Good companions with relevant back stories, who suffer from irrelevant personal quests (However, Grieving mother, the character written by Avellone, was fantastic)

The graphics are optimal, and I felt that the gameplay and the UI were really satisfying, with correct difficulty and random encounters.

The thing that annoyed me the most:
-The freaking npcs with the golden boxes, seriously, if you are going to write a short story for a game, please learn how to. The first ones were bearable, but later on they didnt make sense.
I know it was optional, but I swear, they were swarming the god damn city. At one point I was tempted to go on a murderous rampage. Which of course, I did.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

(I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

What's stopping you?

For me it was loading screens taking longer and longer, very repetitive combat encounters and a story that was getting duller and duller with poor choices, yet very specific, and ways for me to react to it. The only thing that kept me forward is Thaos. Got me curious.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Sadly, I'm not the one who can answer this question as I stopped playing in Act 2 and can't force myself to continue.

What's stopping you? (I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

I don't know. It's kinda ... meh? Not much to look forward to? I liked the dungeons but clicking on enemies gets boring fast. The loot isn't really there, so you get a bunch of shit, sell it to pay for the castle improvements because it's the only game in town. Every now and then you get a really cool option (like that thing in that dungeon) and that's it.

The options are great, but the quest/setting logic is often lacking. I had that brothel quest - someone's causing trouble! Trouble, you say? Say no more, I'm bored and need something to do! So I go outside and get attacked, click on the trash mob, they die, eventually I find the place where the attackers are coming from. Great, it's the asshole faction. You guys attacked me! If combat wasn't fucking horrible, I could have died or got injured or something. What? A peaceful solution? You want what now? You're butthurt that the prices in the brothel are too high? Power to the people? So you send assholes to attack people on sight because the fucking prices on ass and pussy are too high? Who writes this shit?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Great, it's the asshole faction.

Why am I not surprised

 

[Vault Dweller]

That RPG options are very superficial, you could make your reviews examining this, but then it would be a negative review. Which everyone stated isn't going to be the case.

Am I supposed to be responsible for what people say? I wasn't asked to write a positive review and I made no promises (other than trolling BG fans).

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Am I supposed to be responsible for what people say? I wasn't asked to write a positive review and I made no promises (other than trolling BG fans).

No, indeed, a negative review is in order for a game that's neither a good tactical combat RPG, nor a good story driven RPG.

 

[Sensuki]

Sadly, I'm not the one who can answer this question as I stopped playing in Act 2 and can't force myself to continue.

What's stopping you? (I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

I don't know. It's kinda ... meh? Not much to look forward to?

Heh sounds a bit like me.

Who writes this shit?

Interns / new hires

Not that whether you're new or not means much as to how good of a level designer you might be, but the PE level design team included four new designers who'd never worked on a game before. They were generally the ones in charge of minor quests I think (Matt Perez and Ryan Torres who were interns still in school when they started on PE) did lots of the mini quests in Defiance Bay.

As a level designer don't you just have to be pretty good at implementing content?

 

[Vault Dweller]

The freaking npcs with the golden boxes, seriously, if you are going to write a short story for a game, please learn how to. The first ones were bearable, but later on they didnt make sense.

Fucking hated it. Nothing breaks immersion faster than these fanfiction morons with their shitty stories.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Nope. It was probably the fanfiction tier writer they hired. The Indian girl. Take a look at her work and you'll understand where most of the idiocy is from. Frensternmaker is additionaly, not a good writer. And Ziets was booted early.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

They don't like turning the tide in battle with a well-placed -10% recovery time debuff, which they find boring, but want something more spectacular, a la BG mage battles.

Actually, that's kinda untrue. Sawyer might tell any kinds of things in his interviews (I don't give a fuck so I haven't read any), but all the "effects in the game are too unnoticeable" is absolutely untrue. There are lots of high-impact, incredibly noticeable spells in the game, even on the first and second level.

The druid, for example, has his 20 seconds of blindness AoE nuke at level 1 (which is an incredibly strong debuff), 60 endurance heal on level one (which, at this stage of the game, pretty much doubles the party's HPs) and the 6 DR increase buff at level 2 (which is also insanely strong and noticeable through all of the game, especially on hard and lower difficulty).

The point of my example wasn't so much about quantity, but quality. I get the impression that people don't miss BG's spells because they were more powerful, or whatever, but because they were more "interesting" in affecting not just primary and derived stats, but in introducing wholly new gameplay elements (and thus inherently difficult to balance ones), with spells like invisibility.

I have the feeling that that's what people most miss about things like hard counters. Not the rock, paper, scissors puzzle element to it, but that it derives from spells having unique effects that can only be countered with similarly unique means.

I think it has to do with people expecting fantasy magic to involve things that are at least somewhat (mechanically) fantastical, not rote status effects (kind of like simulationists like me getting upset over guns operating mechanically as slow, long range punches in this game, as opposed to them having unique requirements ).

 

[cvv]

Infinitron just out of curiousity what's the average view count of our reviews? And what's the view count of Roxor's one? It's by far the most crushing PoE review I've read on the interwebs and I've read my share. I wonder if people took a notice.

Just to get a rough picture about the real impact of this asylum on the world out there.

 

[Shevek]

It was obvious from the first snippet that vd posted that he would not give it a glowing review.

 

[Sensuki]

I wonder if people took a notice.

Just to get a rough picture about the real impact of this asylum on the world out there.

Who is people?

Outside of the codex, it was posted on reddit - some people agreed, some people disagreed. It was posted on the steam forums, same story. There was a pretty good article comparing it against the RPGWatch review. Something Awful and GameFAQs thought it was aids.

Chris Avellone didn't retweet it

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron just out of curiousity what's the average view count of our reviews? And what's the view count of Roxor's one? It's by far the most crushing PoE review I've read on the interwebs and I've read my share. I wonder if people took a notice.

Just to get a rough picture about the real impact of this asylum on the world out there.

Beats me, ask DU.

The point of my example wasn't so much about quantity, but quality. I get the impression that people don't miss BG's spells because they were more powerful

These two things are routinely conflated though, ie, there are a whole bunch of people on this forum who will swear that PoE's spells literally don't do anything that they can notice

 

[Immortal]

Sadly, I'm not the one who can answer this question as I stopped playing in Act 2 and can't force myself to continue.

What's stopping you? (I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

I don't know. It's kinda ... meh? Not much to look forward to? I liked the dungeons but clicking on enemies gets boring fast. The loot isn't really there, so you get a bunch of shit, sell it to pay for the castle improvements because it's the only game in town. Every now and then you get a really cool option (like that thing in that dungeon) and that's it.

The options are great, but the quest/setting logic is often lacking. I had that brothel quest - someone's causing trouble! Trouble, you say? Say no more, I'm bored and need something to do! So I go outside and get attacked, click on the trash mob, they die, eventually I find the place where the attackers are coming from. Great, it's the asshole faction. You guys attacked me! If combat wasn't fucking horrible, I could have died or got injured or something. What? A peaceful solution? You want what now? You're butthurt that the prices in the brothel are too high? Power to the people? So you send assholes to attack people on sight because the fucking prices on ass and pussy are too high? Who writes this shit?

K now I really want this review..

MFW the PoE apologists say VD's Review isn't the REAL review anymore.

(I stopped in early Act 3 and also can't force myself to continue, but I've read about the rest)

What's stopping you?

For me it was loading screens taking longer and longer, very repetitive combat encounters and a story that was getting duller and duller with poor choices, yet very specific, and ways for me to react to it. The only thing that kept me forward is Thaos. Got me curious.

Act 4, Latest Patch, Quicksave takes like 45 seconds. Don't want merchants to forget about all those Skaald masks I sold them in Act 3..

 

[Pope Amole II]

The point of my example wasn't so much about quantity, but quality. I get the impression that people don't miss BG's spells because they were more powerful, or whatever, but because they were more "interesting" in affecting not just primary and derived stats, but in introducing wholly new gameplay elements (and thus inherently difficult to balance ones), with spells like invisibility.

Well, the thing is, I just went over the BG's list of spells and I haven't found much things that didn't had a direct analogue in the PoE. Pretty much Invisibility + some of the exploration only stuff like clairvoyance or detect alignment or knock. In terms of combat, it's all more or less the same, without BG showcasing anything drastically different. I've looked at BG 1 spells only, mind you.

 

[Sensuki]

You only need to look at the difference between Mirror Image and the equivalent PE spell to see what's going on there.

 

[Immortal]

The point of my example wasn't so much about quantity, but quality. I get the impression that people don't miss BG's spells because they were more powerful, or whatever, but because they were more "interesting" in affecting not just primary and derived stats, but in introducing wholly new gameplay elements (and thus inherently difficult to balance ones), with spells like invisibility.

Well, the thing is, I just went over the BG's list of spells and I haven't found much things that didn't had a direct analogue in the PoE. Pretty much Invisibility + some of the exploration only stuff like clairvoyance or detect alignment or knock. In terms of combat, it's all more or less the same, without BG showcasing anything drastically different. I've looked at BG 1 spells only, mind you.

Mirror Image, Dimensional Door Way, Knock, Dispel (Hard Counter?), Protection From Evil / Detect Evil (Priest Spell?), Buffs that can be cast on things besides the wizard casting it.. Plus many more, some you listed.

It would be a shorter list to list the spells they DO share.. Spoiler.. Evocation School.

Even when they share common spells.. The spellcasting in PoE suffers from "Everyone is a Wizard Ninja" Syndrome. It doesn't feel powerful or expensive or rewarding to cast spells.. Maybe it's unfair to compare that in BG 1 to PoE though since BG 1 was a low level campaign.

 

[AwesomeButton]

That RPG options are very superficial, you could make your reviews examining this, but then it would be a negative review. Which everyone stated isn't going to be the case.

Am I supposed to be responsible for what people say? I wasn't asked to write a positive review and I made no promises (other than trolling BG fans).

Lol, this is going to priceless. After Roxor said unpleasant truths without taking the trouble to sugarcoat the language, and fanboys braced themselves that "the real review", "the official review" would come to apply butthurt-alleviating salves, seeing the "official" review repeat the same truths will be so much fun to observe.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Regardless, mods will fix this.

Spoiler

For only $1.99!

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Infinitron just out of curiousity what's the average view count of our reviews? And what's the view count of Roxor's one? It's by far the most crushing PoE review I've read on the interwebs and I've read my share. I wonder if people took a notice.

Just to get a rough picture about the real impact of this asylum on the world out there.

Attempting to summon DarkUnderlord

I believe this is relevant.