Codex Review RPG Codex Retrospective Review: Pillars of Eternity Revisited

[Brayko]

Doesn't a "miss" attack roll in D&D represent a someone's armor absorbing a blow completely or a dodge?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Dude, but how can you forget spells after you memorized them????? wtf????? Also what is THAC0 lol.
D&D is such shit thank god for Sawyer's system, by autists for autists.

P.S. Sorry I triggered you Prime Jewta, but clearly you are the target audience of Obsidian as well.

 

[Prime Junta]

Sorry I triggered you Prime Jewta

That's amusing, coming from somebody who's been meticulously rating my posts ITT.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yours, and those of other pathetic apologists like Infinitron and Grunker.

How long until you fall back to Infinitron's "but the system is actually not that important guise it's about the content looool", I wonder.

 

[Prime Junta]

How long until you fall back to Infinitron's "but the system is actually not that important guise it's about the content looool", I wonder.

Lucky for us we have people like you to keep us on the straight-and-narrow.

(FWIW I'm a systemfag, and one reason I like Pillars is that, unlike the AD&D games, it has a system interesting and intelligent enough to explore.)

 

[Ulfhednar]

I see very little functional difference in having 30% more damage for a 10 point ability score investment.

Please report the ROI for those ten points if you put them into WIS or INT for an AD&D fighter.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Also lol at this:

You pick from what the designers deigned to offer you, instead of rolling your own.

That's exactly what PoE is. Somehow Sawyer made people feel that it was their own amazing creativity that resulted in their muscle wizurd, when it was Sawyer bending over backwards to support whatever archetypes he wanted and ONLY those, because god forbid somebody might do something he didn't intend and break his precious system.

Not true. BG2 needs kits because the base classes are almost 100% on-rails,

Ah, so it "needs" kits, which means let's ignore them and let's just consider the base classes, right?

 

[Brayko]

(FWIW I'm a systemfag, and one reason I like Pillars is that, unlike the AD&D games, it has a system interesting and intelligent enough to explore.)

I....have to disagree here. Pillars system "works" but character development comes off as too jarbled for my liking. By level 8 you could have 100 different types of Fighters with wide and varying degrees of overall effectiveness. I mean, if it was a 1 char game I could see it but with a party of 5 or 6 it becomes redundant too quick. D&D always struck me as more common sense leveling unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions or morality.

 

[Prime Junta]

That's exactly what PoE is. Somehow Sawyer made people feel that it was their own amazing creativity that resulted in their muscle wizurd, when it was Sawyer bending over backwards to support whatever archetypes he wanted and ONLY those, because god forbid somebody might do something he didn't intend and break his precious system.

This is, again, easily demonstrated to be false. Tons of off-the-wall builds which go against Sawyer's ideas have been posted, and proven not only to work, but to be highly effective. I'm sure you've seen the links since you've rated the posts in which I've posted them. Try harder.

Edit: hmm, I suppose you could always fall back on "if a build was proven to be effective, it was planned by Sawyer." That would need faith in Sawyer's omniscience that goes far beyond what even his most ardent fans have though...

Ah, so it "needs" kits, which means let's ignore them and let's just consider the base classes, right?

Who's ignoring them? As I said, BG2 has a big menu and some of the dishes are very good, but when it comes to character creation and building, that's all there's to it. You make your pick from the menu at the start, and roll with it. Or for the trooly hard-kore, dual at level 9 to make another pick. After those initial choices, zip. Okay technically you have to put a proficiency pip on something from time to time, but if you don't build on what you chose at CC, you're just gimping yourself.

 

[valcik]

As for everyone else the Pillars of Eternity review is here:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9867

Some parts of this review are obsolete since v3.05 went out though. For example, there's mentioned at least twice in Dat Roxor's article that you cannot rest in your keep without passing four loading screens, which is not true in 3.05 - enter the map, hit the rest button and that's it, no need to pass any loading screens. Also he's referring to areas with weak enemies overleveled by your party, while I was asked whether I'd like to proceed with standard encounter design or scaled-up to my level enemies before entering such map in 3.05.. Seem that Obsidian took these complaints seriously and tweaked their game accordingly.

 

[Goral]

I recommend clicking on this link: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?forums/obsidian-entertainment.96/ignore-confirm
and this link:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...s-of-eternity-revisited.116224/ignore-confirm
and in general not responding in any Obisidan thread (unless they'll produce something decent again). These reviews still appear only because there are enough clicks/replies.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm sure you've seen the links since you've rated the posts in which I've posted them. Try harder.

Actually, I did not. I only rated posts of yours in like the last 2 pages (get over it) and I didn't see any link.
But assume I'm blind, and just give me two builds of the same class and explain to me how they're so off-the-wall and how they play so different from each other.

hmm, I suppose you could always fall back on "if a build was proven to be effective, it was planned by Sawyer."

Actually, what I'd fall back to is that no matter what choice you make your build will be "highly effective", because the system is shit and the game is aimed at the mentally disabled.

So, if your amazing difference between builds is how you changed some points around and lo and behold the build still works and is completely different!!!!! then please don't bother.

 

[FreeKaner]

Sawyer's light shines so bright it blinds those who dare gaze upon it with disdain. That's why they think +1 on a 1d20 roll isn't a percentage increase because it's a flat number.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I recommend clicking on this link: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?forums/obsidian-entertainment.96/ignore-confirm
and this link:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...s-of-eternity-revisited.116224/ignore-confirm
and in general not responding in any Obisidan thread (unless they'll produce something decent again). These reviews still appear only because there are enough clicks/replies.

 

[Jasede]

 

[Brancaleone]

one thing that will never cease to amaze me is just how much apologetics people may engage in for such a mediocre game

That's because it's the kind of game (and developer) that draws ideologues like retarded moths to a dry shit-fueled flame.
And systemfags are ideologues.

 

[Prime Junta]

Actually, I did not. I only rated posts of yours in like the last 2 pages (get over it) and I didn't see any link.
But assume I'm blind, and just give me two builds of the same class and explain to me how they're so off-the-wall and how they play so different from each other.

Fine, here's one.

Melee ranger built around Tidefall and maxing out pet damage, wearing Shod-in-faith. You play it by engaging your target with the pet, then joining in. Tidefall gives the target DoT which the pet exploits. You heal yourself and your pet by occasionally getting critted, which will trigger Shod-in-faith. Stats on main character are primarily defensive without maxing RES, because your job is to assist your pet. It's off-the-wall because it's... not ranged, and it makes your pet the main damage dealer rather than you.

Point of comparison is the "standard" ranger, built around ranged weapons with the pet a tanky meat shield and you the main damage dealer. In this case you'll have the pet in the frontline as you hang back shooting away, healing your pet with your pet-healing talents as necessary. The pet is primarily a "spotter."

Both require you to coordinate the pet and master, but the way you coordinate them is completely different. The first build will have brutal single-target damage output, but it will only be able to attack frontline targets; the second build will be a mage-killer as your tanky pet will be able to scoot behind enemy lines and your ranged ranger will be able to quickly eliminate them at... range. Almost as if they were two completely different kits!

 

[Roguey]

Doesn't a "miss" attack roll in D&D represent a someone's armor absorbing a blow completely or a dodge?

It can represent a lot of different things, depending on the on-the-fly creativity of the GM.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

 

[ArchAngel]

You gays are still at this? WTF.
Why are you even discussing character builds when minute to minute gameplay of PoE is cancer. Every character having their own turn, every attack having different time of attack animation and recovery time, engagement system combined with terrible pathfinding during combat. No pre buffing, no running away from combat, spell effects and shit still obscuring the battlefield. The stupid low health high weapon damage system where it is almost expected in tougher fights some of your characters will fall down so the retard Sawyer can use the Constitution sytem as a way to force people to rest. He made the graze system for this reason and even left the full effect of disable spells but only with shorter duration.
Character builds mean shit if gameplay itself is cancer. And I didn't even mention tank and spank tactics that were supposedly fixed in 3.0 or something (but I bet you can still position 2 melee at door for same effect which is how I did most encounters in 1.0 anyways).

EDIT: Oh and how do character build help to survive the lore dumps or shit story and terrible main antagonist? Or 100 other problems with story and setting.

 

[Grunker]

In fact, the way you use Valygar is completely different from Minsc, and both are rangers!

The differences between Valygar and Minsc are almost non-existent. The biggest difference is an inherent ability that isn't even granted by the class. Then there are a few inherent spells which make little difference, perhaps besides haste but what IE game party doesn't have the ability to pre-buff haste anyway? On top of this, all of this is pre-determined on char-gen, there is no customization here save what prefixed packages are available. Meanwhile PoE offers a variety of ways to play a ranger: there's the "carebear"-type build who is all about providing support for allies and the pet. There's the third line damage dealer who does the opposite - uses the pet as a buff for himself. There's a sort of hybrid made possible by some 3.0 additions which focuses both on the ranger and the pet. There's a melee ranger that uses small shields and very fast weapons that outputs moderat damage and is fairly tanky compared to many melee characters considering the damage. And of course there's the traditionel "heavy" hatchet + shield with resistance-based talents, a sturdy race and a tanking animal companion, which lacks in pure defensive capability compared to other tanks but has the advantage of two avatars to spread out the tankyness - and Strengthened Bond is a great talent. Of course you have the bog-standard ranger as well - focus on ranged weapons, attack speed and damage for the ranger, focus on tanking for the pet, pet aggros dude, ranger wails damage. And that's just the ranger builds I've toyed around with, I'm sure there are many more.

The amount of biased blindness necessary to see Valygar and Minsc - which are completely identical except for weapon proficiencies and a minor, inherent trait that won't really be relevant after just a short while - as more diverse compared to the above is impressive. You really have to go to staggering, apologetic lengths to claim such things without blinking.

This FAKE NEWS about Pillars stats being thrash has to stop.

On a per point basis, PoE abilities are on the same level as Bg2, with only strength for melee/throw being close on certain scores.

Take dexterity, the difference from gooing from 10 to 20 DEX is +3 ranged hit and -4 AC. Pillars DEX gives you 30% attack speed and 20 Reflex. The 3+ hit (for ranged only) is much less of a DPS boost than 30 attack speed. The defensive stats are comparable.

Constitution on a Warrior class at 20 gives you +5 for the first 9 levels on 1d10, Pillars gives you +50%. Pillars breaks even on the first levels and wins after. You get shorty saves +1hp regen, but PoE gives everyone fortitude.

Charisma is useless (change party leader, RoHI, Friends [it only has discount value in Bg2, allegedly there are some checks in Bg1]). Intelligence is useless too, it just tells you which NPC's are shitty mages - it's a "you have to be this tall to ride" attribute, no gameplay value. Wisdom at 20 gives you 10 extra spells, this competes with PoE attributes affecting spells (INT, PER, MIG, DEX) and PoE simply giving you more spells naturally.

Strength vs Might requires some assumptions about your damage and enemy DR, and how you'd treat exceptional Strength. On a per point bases MIG starts losing out once you get past 18ish, but this isn't surprising, since melee weapon DPS in PoE benefits from DEX and PER too.

Shitting on PoE attributes and praising IE ones is mostly a FEELZ argument.

 

[Prime Junta]

They've resorted to posting edgy memes and raging. I guess that means we won.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

They've resorted to posting edgy memes and raging. I guess that means we won.

This is what libtards said about the US 'lections too. Guess what sonny?

 

[Lacrymas]

Only ideologues would say that the IE characters have more build options or that attributes are better. I like the IE games more than PoE (obviously), but even I don't blatantly lie about the build options. IE games stop at choosing what you want to be as a class (be it single class, dual or multi) and choice of proficiency (most of the time it isn't even a choice because there's an objectively best one). At most you can say that IE has more combinations because of the multi-classing, but in PoE you can simulate some multi-classes (like Cleric/Thief being a Priest of Skaen). PoE also doesn't punish you for not playing a Wizard, which is the biggest net positive imo. I'm tired of playing mages so much.

 

[Prime Junta]

This is what libtards said about the US 'lections too. Guess what sonny?

So when's the election?