Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity, by PrimeJunta

[Azarkon]

Oh, they very much designed that in from very early on. Its not like a little coding gnome snuck past a sleeping Sawyer and coded that in vehement protest to his strict balance dogma.

I'm not talking about the mechanic by which these classes have per-encounter abilities, but rather the imbalances that you think exist from these abilities. Last I saw, Obsidian was actively fixing all the 'imbalanced' abilities in the game.

Not to mention, having low-level abilities be imbalanced while high-level abilities are shit is the opposite of what you actually want.

 

[Rake]

So the gods aren't that impresive, the man that shaped Eora's history through the ages wasn't that impresive, the ancient vampire-wirards weren't that impressive, ancint dragons aren't that impressive,

Really? I found it impressive. I dont think I stated otherwise. I am just saying that we do not have any conception of what will come after. So, our conception of high level vs mid level, etc, may not apply in this instance. I know you really want to drive your point home, whatever it is, but folks on forums tend to see meaning in the posts of others that is not there simply to validate their own opinions. Basically, I would suggest that you look at the contuinity and context of the discussion first rather than projecting your beliefs/opinions on it.

Replace the Word impressive with High level in my post if you like. Does it change anything? The original arguement was you and felipepepe disagreeing if PoE should have it's magic be compaired to BG2's magic at all since PoE is more compairable to BG1 as a low level campain.
And felipepepe (correctly) disagreed that PoE is low level. Setting aside the fact that at 12 level cap (plus 2 levels of the First expansion and pressumably another 2 for the second part) we are already in middle Shadows of Amn levels, PoE doesn't feel low level.
You already fight some of the most impressive and powerfull creatures in the setting, not to mention some of the most powerfull and influential people in the World. Ignore gameplay. Sawyer could make a piglet in PoE2 and give it higher stats than the adra dragon. I'm talking about the lore.
Thaos is a more important and powerful figure in Eora than Jon Irenicus ever was, almost every high level monster in BG2 has it's counterpart in PoE (be it lich,mind flayer,dragon, you name it), and PoE plot is far more epic than BG2 ever was.
PoE may be many things, but low level it's not. And if we consider PoE "mid-level", in order to reach "High level" numbers, PoE 2 will have to strech it's lore to the breaking point.
Even if Obsidian desides to have us murder the gods in PoE 2, i'll critisice them for lazyness. When the only way for you to up the stakes is having the Player kill gods/become god (after a single game to add insult to injury) someone somewhere messed things up.

 

[Kz3r0]

4 reviews?

The date of this review should forever remembered as the day of eternal infamy, when the Watch made the codex its bitch.
Never forgive, never forget.

 

[Azarkon]

Good post. On one hand, I agree. They had the opportunity to make some really crazy stuff with their own IP, and they didn't do that at all. My assumption is that they spent too much time on creating all those classes and making them all work, so a lot of their good ideas were distributed across different classes. (Of course, they should still have made, say, Cipher spells more distinctly different from mage spells.)

On the other hand, nearly every single example you cite from IE games are 6th or higher level spells. That is, the original Baldur's Gate didn't have Spell Trap, Wish, FoD... I don't think it had any sequencers, either. POE spellbooks sseem to have slots up to Level 10, and we only get to 6. Given 'm pretty willing to cut them a break as long as they continue to improve; if they don't, then they'll never have anything close to matching BG2.

I don't expect to see a lot of systemic improvements in the White March, especially because they cut the expansion into two (a horrible idea). But I do expect to see a bit more thought gone into encounter setup; a bit more out-of-the-way quest design now that they're using existing assets; and a bit less uneven writing quality that gets back to Obsidian's best (K2/MOTB) and away from its worst (NWN2 OC). And, for god's sake, more story adventures with more different outcomes/ skill checks / checking your previous C&C.

Their magic system goes up six levels presently, by which time D&D already had a plethora of unique and powerful abilities. BG 1 only went up to level five spells from what I remember, and even with low-level casters in AD&D being weak, they had a variety of powerful abilities eg Improved Invis., Chromatic Orb, Clairvoyance, Knock, the ability to spam a wall of monsters with Monster Summoning and Animate Dead, etc. It's precisely these sorts of abilities that Obsidian cut from their wizards and priests, and on top of that they straight up lifted spells eg Ironskin and Dimensional Door from D&D and made them worse, while their own creations were practically all damage spells/affliction causing spells/affliction causing damage spells, a lot of them completely redundant due to how little they differ from each other. In fact, the amount of redundant spells in Pillars of Eternity exceed those of AD&D by a fair amount, which shows that though they have a spell list around the same size, they actually have a lot less spell variety.

Is this capable of changing? Sure, by implementing new spell effects and increasing spell variety. But just the fact that they allowed Pillars of Eternity to be released with this magic system lowers my faith in them 'getting' it. Playing through the game, you had to have seen these problems, unless you were actively ignoring them due to your design philosophy.

 

[Tigranes]

I think vanilla BG mages were a bit more interesting than POE wizards, but if you consider the game as a whole, the variety of stuff to do offered across the spellcasting classes holds up quite well. I think some of your specifics are overstated - e.g. did anybody actually use Clairvoyance out of P&P? That said, I actually agree with the general sentiment, as I said before. I think what POE offers is decent but has a long way to go.

I think the expansion packs will start to indicate whether they see the problem as well but couldn't address it with their resources, or they really think this is fine. The former I am fine with supporting, because I think there's a lot of interesting things in the POE system that can be played up. The latter would make me think that their designers have played far too many shitty MMOs.

 

[Azarkon]

Their encounter design makes me fear the latter, but eh, we have to see. Regardless, I spent $75 supporting the project out of faith, won't do that again.

 

[Ismaul]

4 reviews?

The date of this review should forever remembered as the day of eternal infamy, when the Watch made the codex its bitch.
Never forgive, never forget.

The tower must fall!

 

[Crescent Hawk]

POE is a perfectly fine game.

People are bitching because it really is a soulless game. The story never ever fucking grabs you. SOmething happened to obsidian in these years, even flawed alpha protocol always kept me engaged.

Somebody should really tell them that. If they care anyway. I fear for numanuma.

 

[Lhynn]

POE is a perfectly fine game.

People are bitching because it really is a soulless game. The story never ever fucking grabs you. SOmething happened to obsidian in these years, even flawed alpha protocol always kept me engaged.

Somebody should really tell them that. If they care anyway. I fear for numanuma.

It isnt tho, the systems are retarded and frankly kind of insulting. Inspired in mmo crap or 4th edition tripe. Take the regenerating health mechanics, the per encounter usables, the boring magic, the accuracy system that makes everything work exactly the same. the huge dissonance between the narrative and the character system, shit i could go on.
Its an overdesigned piece of crap.

 

[Excidium II]

To me the most amazing thing is how horribly unbalanced it came out, considering balance was such a #1 concern it became a meme before release

 

[Black]

This isn't Roxor's review.

 

[RK47]

POE is a perfectly fine game.

People are bitching because it really is a soulless game.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

the huge dissonance between the narrative and the character system

This also gets me. Game looks so good but everything underneath it is a complete failure.

 

[Cadmus]

That's THE review I agree with. Good job confirming my opinions are shared by other people, I can't decide for myself if I like something without official approval!

Whats your point, FeelTheRads? surprised someone likes the reviews best that coincides with his own opinion the most?

good review, most fans go yay! by default
bad review, most haters go yay! by default

all of them critical thinkers, naturally.

Omg this is so fucking long I don't think I'm even gonna read it. It's also not fun to read, judging from the first 2 paragraphs. PrimeRetard indeed.

You know what Cadmus, thats the second time I notice that your "critique" of someone elses writing is 'lol didn't read'. Perhaps you shouldn't call other people retards but learn to fucking read instead or just shut your impudent mouth. If you didn't read something, don't bother commenting on the quality of its writing, its fucking ridiculous.

I'm glad you noticed I don't need to finish a game seven times to decide if it's shit or not. I'm gonna read it, I just said the beginning was fucking boring. I've read the fucking shill alpha version of this shit and it gives me nightmares to even think about repeating that experience. Got plenty of boring shit to read every day on top of my hobbies.

 

[Lady_Error]

Somebody should really tell them that. If they care anyway. I fear for numanuma.

Numanuma isn't Obsidian.

 

[Stompa]

Pillars is not perfect, but it is a good game, has innovative ideas and plot,

Pillars has innovative plot

I swear, every time new PoE review pops up, fanboy arguements get more and more retarded. That aside, the only "innovation" Pillars has is that rep system, everything else is standard RPG fare.

 

[Lhynn]

I swear, every time new PoE review pops up, fanboy arguements get more and more retarded. That aside, the only "innovation" Pillars has is that rep system, everything else is standard RPG fare.

The one that allows you to be an honest liar?

 

[Commissar Draco]

POE is a perfectly fine game.

People are bitching because it really is a soulless game.

Kommissar review was right than pillows are just to banal to rage... but I must admit doing review which was both more shit than Delgados and more boring than Game was is a kind of achievement; like wining special Olympics that is.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

So, is this the review I read to actually choose buy this game?

 

[made]

Inb4 100 pages

 

[Overboard]

4 reviews?

The date of this review should forever remembered as the day of eternal infamy, when the Watch made the codex its bitch.
Never forgive, never forget.

I crie every tiem

 

[Stompa]

I swear, every time new PoE review pops up, fanboy arguements get more and more retarded. That aside, the only "innovation" Pillars has is that rep system, everything else is standard RPG fare.

The one that allows you to be an honest liar?

I never said it was working perfectly . Give it enough polish and it could be a decent descriptory system for your character.

 

[Tigranes]

Perhaps POE is the final arrival of postmodernity in the Codex. I think I've seen literally every single feature both worshipped and condemned... maybe the environment art?

 

[Western]

Perhaps POE is the final arrival of postmodernity in the Codex. I think I've seen literally every single feature both worshipped and condemned... maybe the environment art?

People like the art, people have said character creation is relatively enjoyable, combat is meh, but I was probably expecting worse, people have said the music is competent, though not rated as highly as previous IE games. People seem to like Durance and Grieving Mother. The setting itself is not awful, the exposition of the setting is what got most of the complaints. The writing in general was probably the biggest dissapointment, rest of the characters were meh, awful fanfiction backer NPCs all over the place, info dump style NPCs, dissatisfying conclusion to the hearings, motivation of combating madness never had the feeling urgency or even a sense of progressiveness (while Blackguards 2 was disliked it gave a much better feeling of encroaching madness ).

 

[Tigranes]

Now I sit back and wait for each and every one of those points to be disagreed with.

OK, no, wait. Backer NPCs/tombstones. Surely nobody's going to defend those.