Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity - By Vault Dweller and the Spirit of Grunker

[Infinitron]

Pillars of Eternity: The Dog That Didn't Bark

So, with all this drama about Pillars of Eternity going on for the past few months, it can be hard to notice what didn't happen.

The dog that didn't bark. The dog named hiver. Where are the endless pages of shitslurping? The interminable one on one with Vault Dweller that has to be moved to its own thread?

In fact, as far as I can tell, hiver has never had much interest in this game. And maybe that makes him the truest Codexer of us all. Saving his energy for the would-be Fallout successors and would-be Torment successors. The games that the Codex is supposed to have valued over generic fantasy real-time with elves.

Hiver, I salute you.

 

[Excidium II]

Pillars of Eternity: The Dog That Didn't Bark

So, with all this drama about Pillars of Eternity going on for the past few months, it can be hard to notice what didn't happen.

The dog that didn't bark. The dog named hiver. Where are the endless pages of shitslurping? The interminable one on one with Vault Dweller that has to be moved to its own thread?

In fact, as far as I can tell, hiver has never had much interest in this game. And maybe that makes him the truest Codexer of us all. Saving his energy for the would-be Fallout successors and would-be Torment successors, the games that the Codex is supposed to have valued over real-time with elves.

Hiver, I salute you.

Is summoning hiver your final trump card

This much emotional investment in a kickstarter nostalgia ride...just let it go lah

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Sometimes the crude solution does work. Doesn't make it ideal, but it's unwise to dismiss it out of hand.

Yeah, kinda like hard counters.

 

[Infinitron]

Careful Excidium II, you know what happens to those who fight on two fronts.

No, I would have tagged him if I wanted a summon.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I think Hiver is confined to Prosperland or something, didn't see him post in the GOT thread lately.

 

[Sensuki]

He was arguing with me plenty earlier this year. He wanted engagement to be Fighter only, and he got mad at me or something because I refused to mod it in?

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I seem to remember plenty of walls of text by hiver on PoE, wonder what Inf's angle is here hmm.

 

[Excidium II]

Kills the thing when you call PoE combat shit but praise shit combat on the same post. Not to mention PoE seems to have quite enough of the 'bullshit that pigeon holes you into a single strategy to beat encounters and feel smart doing so' that everyone is nostalgic about

Worse than VD and the TB panacea crowd TBH

Careful Excidium II, you know what happens to those who fight on two fronts.

That's why I only fight on my front

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

That's why I only fight on my front

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't have much hope in this regard, honestly. They aren't that stupid, they know what system they have. VD's review is spot on, this is a game made to sell, to be familiar and accessible, where people can't fail. The biggest difference in PotD is that you are required to adapt and respond to what's going on or you will wipe & have to reload. And that is bad - too bad for Obsidian's intended audience. So they intentionally watered the game's combat until nothing mattered.

Like I've said numerous times: kickstarted by grognards, designed towards casuals and journos.

 

[Zeriel]

Grognards don't have to be your audience, grognards are dead.

(Thanks for the cool 4 million, idiots.)

 

[Excidium II]

Most people who like IE games like PoE so not sure if delusional

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

Like I've said numerous times: kickstarted by grognards, designed towards casuals and journos.

If I'm not mistaken, Sawyer posted his opinions on BG2 and the IE games years (?) before the kickstarter. His ideas on game design were also known; it was your own fault for pledging if you disagreed with them.
It's also doubtful if all (or even a significant proportion) of the backers were grognards.

 

[Excidium II]

If I'm not mistaken, Sawyer posted his opinions on BG2 and the IE games years (?) before the kickstarter. His ideas on game design were also known; it was your own fault for pledging if you disagreed with them.
It's also doubtful if all (or even a significant proportion) of the backers were grognards.

Reported for being reasonable

 

[markec]

And 80% of the game is combat, sure is fun playing that PoE. Especially on PotD where it only manages to last longer so you can savor the fun.

At least I got interested in PoE plot, while D:OS was hurr durr Pontius Pirate (lol get it?). Combat was only fun at start, later you would just alter 2-3 tactics based on enemy invuls.

Well I got interested in PoE story at start with the Hollowborn thing, but it quickly faded with turning to Chosen One plot and Hollowborn being left as a afterthought. That alone would not have been a bad thing if the writing was good but its mediocre at best. A good story can make me ignore poor combat, problem with PoE is that it was focused on atrocious combat but the writing wasnt there either, something I didnt expect from Obsidian.

D:OS has its own problems, poor writing from the start and combat that becomes very easy later on. But the mechanics are there, diversity of enemy and enemy encounters are there, it just needs a bit of tuning while PoE needs complete overhaul of entire game.

In the end both games are focused mainly at combat, one game is good at it one is horribly bad. Maybe you can find some pleasure from PoE withing its writing but to me its far too little to compensate for far too big flaws.

 

[Volrath]

Are you people 4 real

Welcome to Codex 2015, where popamole rtwp IE-shit is elevated to the golden standards of RPGs.

Like I've said numerous times: kickstarted by grognards, designed towards casuals and journos.

If I'm not mistaken, Sawyer posted his opinions on BG2 and the IE games years (?) before the kickstarter. His ideas on game design were also known; it was your own fault for pledging if you disagreed with them.
It's also doubtful if all (or even a significant proportion) of the backers were grognards.

True, Roguey had already been trolling the Codex for years with Sawyer's inane ramblings. However, I don't think it was obvious from the start of the kickstarter campaign that he'd have the final say on the project. Him and Brennecke where annouced as co-project directors iirc.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Pillars of Eternity: The Dog That Didn't Bark

So, with all this drama about Pillars of Eternity going on for the past few months, it can be hard to notice what didn't happen.

The dog that didn't bark. The dog named hiver. Where are the endless pages of shitslurping? The interminable one on one with Vault Dweller that has to be moved to its own thread?

In fact, as far as I can tell, hiver has never had much interest in this game. And maybe that makes him the truest Codexer of us all. Saving his energy for the would-be Fallout successors and would-be Torment successors. The games that the Codex is supposed to have valued over generic fantasy real-time with elves.

Hiver, I salute you.

Don't you actually ignore hiver?

 

[Volrath]

He was arguing with me plenty earlier this year. He wanted engagement to be Fighter only, and he got mad at me or something because I refused to mod it in?

Tbf his arguments of making engament fighter only made a lot of sense and correspond with my own. The system needs tweaking, it doesn't need to disappear completely. However we'll never agree on this so whatever.

 

[Excidium II]

That sounds like an awful idea

As if bringing a fighter along wasn't mandatory enough

What needs to be tweaked is enemy behavior and removing "not getting a disengagement attack" from their highest priority in combat

 

[felipepepe]

I don't get the PotD praise, if you have to engage in some serious stat bloating for system to work somewhat, isn't that a failure of it and/or encounter design?

My point is precisely the opposite, that PotD is the only place where the encounters make a bit of sense and require some thought. Not because the stats are bloated there, but because they are nerfed to irrelevance on the other difficulties.

All the other issues are still there, of course, and some new stuff is introduced like armor being borderline irrelevant, AoE being mandatory, etc... but there's a functional system buried in PoE, it just wasn't something Obsidian was interested in.

Besides blatant comercialism, one reason why they weren't interested is that it would required them to remove some other dumb shit they added to the game. I.e., the more I think about the graze/hit/critical system, the more retarded it looks. Sure, for weapons it makes sense, but for spells and abilities it's plain stupid. It's very hard to fully miss (like ~5-10%, most of the times), so most of the times you are being hit by every ability, just for a reduced time. This makes every effect feel horribly short and ineffective. And they have to be ineffective, or you end up with things like Slicken, a level 1 spell that has like 90% chance to knockdown all targets in an area.

So, if you can't prebuff against poison, there's no poison hard-counter like an anti-poison magic ring, and every poison attack has a ~90% chance of hitting you no matter what you do, then the only way people are surviving that is by making the poison itself be no more than a minor inconvenience. BRAVO!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I don't have much hope in this regard, honestly. They aren't that stupid, they know what system they have. VD's review is spot on, this is a game made to sell, to be familiar and accessible, where people can't fail. The biggest difference in PotD is that you are required to adapt and respond to what's going on or you will wipe & have to reload. And that is bad - too bad for Obsidian's intended audience. So they intentionally watered the game's combat until nothing mattered.

Like I've said numerous times: kickstarted by grognards, designed towards casuals and journos.

And yet, PoE is selling worse than D:OS. I still remember when people were predicting it would sell a million in its first month. Given how much of a slam dunk the whole project was, it's hilarious how underwhelming its sales performance is.

 

[Infinitron]

Anybody who said it would sell that much is dumb.

PoE is in many ways a less accessible game than D:OS - more aggressive about pushing walls of text and numbers in your face, mechanics that aren't about intuitive "use water spell to make the fire go out" interactions of the type people might recognize from popular sandboxy games like Minecraft, a less contemporary art direction without vivid colors, etc. Not to mention no multiplayer.

 

[Jasede]

And so an uneasy peace returned to Codexia...

 

[Excidium II]

I don't get the PotD praise, if you have to engage in some serious stat bloating for system to work somewhat, isn't that a failure of it and/or encounter design?

My point is precisely the opposite, that PotD is the only place where the encounters make a bit of sense and require some thought. Not because the stats are bloated there, but because they are nerfed to irrelevance on the other difficulties.

All the other issues are still there, of course, and some new stuff is introduced like armor being borderline irrelevant, AoE being mandatory, etc... but there's a functional system buried in PoE, it just wasn't something Obsidian was interested in.

Besides blatant comercialism, one reason why they weren't interested is that it would required them to remove some other dumb shit they added to the game. I.e., the more I think about the graze/hit/critical system, the more retarded it looks. Sure, for weapons it makes sense, but for spells and abilities it's plain stupid. It's very hard to fully miss (like ~5-10%, most of the times), so most of the times you are being hit by every ability, just for a reduced time. This makes every effect feel horribly short and ineffective. And they have to be ineffective, or you end up with things like Slicken, a level 1 spell that has like 90% chance to knockdown all targets in an area.

Grazed crowd controls are still p. strong with how fast combat is in PoE so I don't understand

Although I imagine in PotD keeping 3 guys permaccd is not a big deal when you're fighting 12 of them

 

[Cosmo]

And yet, PoE is selling worse than D:OS. I still remember when people were predicting it would sell a million in its first month. Given how much of a slam dunk the whole project was, it's hilarious how underwhelming its sales performance is.

What's more hilarious (or sad, depends on the perspective) is that the leading guys at Obsidian, in their desire to a last be seen as "professionals" failed to recognise why people loved them ; that's how you end up with with something just reasonably good when you've got got Ferraris like Avellone & co never taken out of the garage.