So you think that the plot is good but don't really say why other than "interesting", some stuff about gods that most people don't really touch on and disagree that it changes the world (another subject that not many people touched on) ?
The most brought up issues I have seen have been failing to make the player care about the plot or gameworld, not reinforcing the narrative, pacing/structure issues, deus ex machina act 2 ending and boring antagonist. Do you disagree about those?
The issues I adressed are the ones I personally find the most interesting.
Failure to make the player care: I addressed this in my comparison to BG2. The plot of PoE and BG2 shares a lot of common elements, in both games some soul fuckery happens, and you are supposed to feel an urgency to save your PC. IMO both of these hooks fails for me, mostly I feel the guys who say that BG2 is better than PoE in this regard are hypocrites. BG2's strength lies in the personality of the characters (and in the cool dream sequences). Essentially, players want to go to Spellhold either because they want to save Imoen, or because they want to advance the plot to see more of Irenicus and cool dream sequences. I would be very surprised if people were sincerely more motivated to care about the PC's soul in BG2 than in PoE.
The game world is new, so naturally people are not as invested in it. When you start up a Forgotten Realms game the PC will be ready in an instant to listen to Elminster, kill Drizzt, or help the church of Helm because of earlier knowledge of the setting. Killing Drizzt wouldn't have been half as fun if he was completely unknown to you when you met him. PoE has none of these advantages compared to the BG and NWN games. The factions in PoE feel less real and more "lol made up" because we are not invested in them with years of childhood memories. If there were made as many games set in Eora as the FR games, I'm sure factions/entities in the PoE world such as the church of Skaen and Magran would elicit the same response from players as the FR factions we instinctively hate, sympathize with or at least feel invested in somehow. It also goes without saying that a setting such as FR which has existed since the seventies will be more detailed than Eora, which was created only a few years ago.
It's very, very hard for me to see how any of the BG games made you care more about the game world than PoE did. I do think that players' selective memories, rose-tinted glasses and the established FR setting are almost wholly to blame for this.
Reinforcing the narrative: As I wrote, I disagree with people about the reveal about the gods on this point. IMO revealing that the gods were originally made from the souls of humans should have been done earlier, maybe at the end of Act 2, so that the story could focus more on that. As things are it is revealed far too late, at a point when it has already been painfully made clear by other parts of the narrative. This is IMO the core question in PoE. There is definitely also inconsistence in what you can and can not do as a Watcher, I agree with that. The story is SCREAMING for a rest deprivation mechanic which was removed or never implemented - I would like to hear devs thoughts on this.
I felt that the narrative of PoE was VERY heavily reinforced by the various NPCs, though (compared to the BG games where they are mostly random, with the exceptions of Imoen in BG2 and Sarevok in ToB - possibly Aerie in BG2 also counts as narrative-reinforcing since she has been ostracized similar to Irenicus
). PoE was about finding out that the gods were not "real" gods but gods made by man, and how you would handle that. Several NPCs reinforce the narrative because they are searching for something which would give them ultimate meaning or consolation, something they do not find, at least not in the way they expected to (very similar to the search of absolution through the divine). This is true of Sagani (as I understand from the comments of others), Edér who does not find out the exact motivations of his brother, Kana Rua who does not find the origin of his sacred scripture, and Durance whose narrative of connection to Magran basically IS PoE's main theme about the gods. Grieving Mother deals with the Hollowborn part of the plot and the soulfuckery part of the setting, Aloth deals both with being Awakened and the Leaden Key.
It IS true that the entire issue of animancy could have been connected closer to this core plot. Throughout most of the game, animancy is just a way to put/swap souls into or between beings. Only at the end do we learn that the Engwithans discovered that there were no gods through animancy and THAT is why the Leaden Key is against it. The theological aspect of animancy is scarcely mentioned throughout the first parts of the game. Obsidian were guarding the reveal of the gods far to well.
Nevertheless, PoE beats BG and BG2 hands down here. I would even go so far as to saying that the BG series almost entirely lacks non-critical path content which reinforces the main narrative (you being a Bhaalspawn) outside of Imoen in BG2 and Sarevok in ToB.
Pacing/structure issues: Pacing issues are exactly identical to both BG and BG2 in my opinion. Both of these games allow for hours and hours of optional content, which leaves the main plot a laugh in difficulty when you resume it. There was some level scaling in BG2, but mostly of optional content IIRC. In PoE, Act 2 is where a player typically slogs through all the optional content, similar to when you reach Athkatla in BG2. IMO BG2 is a worse culprit as far as pacing goes. BG1, it could be argued, is slightly better since you first get all the wilderness parts and then the entirety of Baldur's Gate, so it's very garbled up. The amount of free-roaming content in Acts 1 and 3 of PoE could be slightly larger. IMO the story content is concentrated in Act 3, with a little in Act 2 and just the PC running around confused in Act 1. However, the optional content is concentrated in Act 2, with little (in comparison) in Act 1 or 3.
I don't really think PoE has pacing issues if we compare to the BG games. I guess the one thing you could to is add level scaling to content in the main story arc.
deus ex machina act 2 ending: TBH I don't really understand this complaint. You're only pissed off because you expected something else to happen. The choices in the Act 2 ending have an impact on the ending slides. What else should have happened? Suppose there were no riots and the people in the courtroom agreed with your positive position on animancy. Virtually no difference to the game. The player expects to hear the full final verdict there, but instead is interrupted and you get the rest only at the ending slides - or maybe if you go back to Defiance Bay later, I haven't fully explored doing that. Note also: I haven't played the game as an anti-animancy character, so I wouldn't know too well the reactivity there.
I guess it feels more like a deus ex machina when you first experience it, you feel as if the game forces you to always fail to vindicate animancy when in fact the riots are completely separate from the trials and orchestrated by the Leaden Key. As the game goes on the Leaden Key position on animancy becomes much more a central part of the game and this particular plot element makes much more sense.
Thaos would probably kill Lady Webb anyways, not much difference there.
I think what is the real blunder is that IF there were going to be riots as per the main storyline, the maybe you should give the player the chance to prevent or mitigate them, if this has no direct impact on the main story. As it is, the storyline contains a riot which the player feels they could/should have been able to stop. But there are lots of complaints that could be made about the BG games: You should have been able to stop Irenicus in Waukeen's Promenade, at Spellhold (his disappearance from which is a deus ex machina if anything) or maybe even in the Underdark. You should have been able to try to stop Sarevok from killing Gorion, and so on.
boring antagonist: Well, BG1 has Sarevok which is probably one of the most banal, shit, boring villains ever created. Dark voice - check, skull helmet - check, glowing eyes - check, killed your father - check, wants to become the God of Murder - check. I couldn't write a more parodic villain if I tried. BG2 has Irenicus, whose emo backstory is not very interesting to me, although not entirely without appeal. However, Irenicus has a really greatly written personality and a superb voice actor. You can say what you want about Bioware, but in BG1 and BG2 they were typically great at giving characters personality. Essentially you want to continue on the main path in BG2 just to see more of Irenicus.
I think that pretty much sums it up. You could argue that PoE has worse combat than the BG games if you prefer their style, you could argue that BG NPCs were better since there were more of them while still having interesting personalities and interactions, you could argue that the music in the BG games was better, but that's pretty much it. You will have to go to Torment, KotOR 2 or MotB to find stories which are comparable to PoE. At that point you are comparing PoE with the best RPGs ever made in that regard, so it's hardly a failure if it's not better than them.
I have my own complaints of the game, particularly regarding lack of reactivity to the PC considering the possibilities for this: Choice of nationality, background, dispositions and reputations. There is a treasure trove of basis for reactivity, but there's very little being made from it. This is my priority number 1 for content patches, expansions, mods and EEs. I will sum up my thoughts later in a review of my own.
The world has the usual people-doing-lip-service that's a lazy pass for 'we are religious' (BY THE NINE DIVINE), and I don't see the investment go much deeper except for a fetch quest or two. There's hints that guns turned the tides on wizards; where's more about that? Why are wizards just common backdrop adventurers like ye olde fighter?
