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Eh. Now, that's not true. The NWN2 castle had 8-16 unlockable scenes with rewards, two branching paths depending on your alignment and choices, and several interesting things to interact with (for example, you could befriend a giant spider out in the world during a quest for example -- then go back and find it moved into your cellar, where it weaves you a cloak that served me through MotB). All in all, it was a pretty involving sub-plot/mini-game.
And it was an excellent cloak. If you were kind of heart, you were rewarded, even when you were evil. Buying and having that wizard shop was also very important for learning spells, and to be able to make proper scrolls.
Don't worry, even if you fall to temptation, you WON'T finish the first act.
I tried several times replaying it, because I actually enjoyed the game (I honestly think act 2 and even the rushed 3rd act are quite good), but I've never been able to finish again the atroicious first act.
Eh, I gotta be honest, I didn't see what was wrong with the Fade sequence in this. It was just "proceed ahead, kill enemies and maybe pick up optional items if you feel like". It wasn't a good level and kinda boring, but mostly inoffensive. Short too. Takes like what, 10 minutes?
When you return to Crossroad Keep, you'll be named its Captain, and you'll be given control over its people and lands. The keep will function as your new Sunken Flagon, and you'll be able to use it to set your party composition.
The keep is sort of a mini-game, and it will use a different timeline than the rest of the campaign. If you give an order to somebody and then leave the area where that person is, then when you return to the person the order will usually be completed, even if you simply stepped out of and then back into the area. That means you can build up the keep as quickly or as slowly as you'd like.
The keep won't play a role in the campaign until Act III, and even then you won't need to have finished renovating it, and so most of the activities at the keep are optional. Still, many of the activities are beneficial (such as adding new shopkeepers for you to visit), and so it's worthwhile to play around with the keep and advance it as much as you can.
Which is what I said - a mini-game which broke the regular flow of the game. The illusion of choice - yes you can not bother with stuff, but why would you? Everything is an obvious lead to benefits. You're named captain, but it's all your personal funds which pay for everything, there's no sense at all of anyone else doing work 'for the cause' which I just find to be bad story-telling. "the bad guy's coming we're all going to die..." "I'm sorry guv, 80 grand or your ballista towers aint happening".
In Act III, you'll be allowed to convert the church into a Temple of Tyr (headed by Ivarr) or into a Monastery for the Sun Soul (headed by Rolan). In both cases, a shopkeeper will appear in the church. The temple shopkeeper will sell you things like the Shield of Pratorand the quarterstaff Thornshield. Meanwhile, the monastery shopkeeper will offer you items like Boots of the Sun Soul +5 and the Eye of the Sun. If you build the temple, then you'll also find the recipe book A Study of the Fantastical Vestments of the Priests of the Realms inside.
Unlike the tower (#5), the church can lead to some quests. If you build the monastery, and if you're playing a monk, then Rolan will give you a quest involving elementals. Depending on how you play the quest, you'll earn a history feat, such as Master of the Sun Soul.
If you build the temple, and if you're playing a paladin, a cleric, or an evil character, then Ivarr will give you a quest to kill Tholapsyx the red dragon on Mount Galardrym (you might need to talk to him twice to get the quest). If you complete the quest, then paladins will receive the Holy Avenger, clerics will receive the Loremaster's Mace, and evil characters will shift their alignment towards good.
You build one thing for one type of character or one for another kind of character. I just don't understand why there has to be a one or the other in this way, especially as this game permits dual and multiclass builds. It just comes across as bizarre to me. In any other game they would permit the residence of both, but only allow you to engage the quest-specific if you fit the criteria, but here they are saying if you play a Cleric then your primary companion, who has had the past 25% of game learning to become a Monk, has to go without a Monk dealer. And why? Because someone wanted to make a building choice the key element to the choice aspect.
Why has one aspect of the game channeled you into creating a Monk, only then for another piece of narrative basically tell you "Nah, stuff the Monks, they can't have a dealer because you're a Cleric"
Yeah, I hate it when games put in interesting, meaningful, and consequential choices for no reason other than to have interesting, meaningful, and consequential choices.
I would love to reply to you, but you've had the royal seal of the blessed raptor brofist your post and, as a newfag, I can't compete with that, so I'll just reply in kind and leave it at that:
Yeah, I hate it when games claim they are putting in interesting, meaningful, and consequential choices for no reason other than to have interesting, meaningful, and consequential choices but then deliver meaningless or offensive to the intelligence dross.
Why has one aspect of the game channeled you into creating a Monk, only then for another piece of narrative basically tell you "Nah, stuff the Monks, they can't have a dealer because you're a Cleric"
Calling a 'false' choice is a poor choice of words. A false choice would be if either options just changed the drapings on the wall. I'm not even sure its a shitty choice either.
Calling a 'false' choice is a poor choice of words. A false choice would be if either options just changed the drapings on the wall. I'm not even sure its a shitty choice either.
Calling a 'false' choice is a poor choice of words. A false choice would be if either options just changed the drapings on the wall. I'm not even sure its a shitty choice either.
People in these forums have been trying to separate 'Cosmetic/BioWarian' C&C from 'TruC&C' which is why I nitpicked earlier. Wether feel that denying shopping rights is a 'cuntish' way to promote consequence is an opinion, but that doesn't make it fake. If it was then it would be pretty silly of you to be so pissed. It would be fake if the temple's denomination didn't close off either shops or quests.
The extent to which you think I'm "pissed" is entirely your own invention so I have no idea why that's even an angle. I thought we were having an objective discussion.
The game offered a choice - build temple A or temple B.
For the majority of characters this was fairly meaningless, probably go for the Cleric temple just on the assumption they'd sell more healing equipment. However, for the characters in question, Cleric/Paladin or Monk you have a choice with consequences, but it's an obvious choice, so it's not really a consequence, it's just doing the obvious. The only real consequence is if you have both a Monk and a Cleric/Paladin as preferred party members to which the consequence is the same, extra goodies for one plus an extra adventure, neither of which effect the main story, it makes no real difference which you pick. The consequence is really that it's denying one character a shopkeeper, that's the only thing that really matters. If you have both a Monk and a Cleric/Paladin you are prioritising then it's an impossible choice, you might as well flick a coin, the result is one character is unreasonably more fucked over. It's all "arbitrary"
I said this before and i'll say it again. NWN2 entire campaign was one large tutorial for a D&D adventure, and it was meant to be by design. That's why it feels like the most cliched RPG campaign ever made. Because that's what it was supposed to be. It was meant to be a large introduction for people who had never played an RPG or a D&D game before and it was supposed to serve as an example for people to go out and make their own adventures.
Now, never mind that Obsidian fucked it up with their shitty engine and shitty camera or combat design. The very idea in itself is extremely idiotic to me, because you are wasting a shitload of time and effort to develop something that has no value not merely in fact, but in principle. The blandness of the campaign was entirely by design. It just boggles the mind.
All this said, i find it fascinating that this is exactly how Bioware operates, with the difference that Bioware understands how to pander to the idiots better, because they themselves are no different from their audience. Basically, idiots making entertainment for other idiots. A retard writing retarded shit for retards will always be more successful than a talented person lowing his standards on purpose to pander to an idiotic audience. This is also how Bethesda have become so successful.
What Obsidian should do is stop wasting time with their retarded "design goals" and simply make the best game they can. Forget about pandering to the masses, because if you don't understand the masses, you are never going to reach them anyway. But that's just me and my stupid opinion i guess. Carry on with killing fun or whatever demented design principle you have adopted this time.
I think New Vegas showed that Obsidian can take the best of the retarded and the best of the "true holy might" and mix them together into a generally pleasing "mainstream enhanced" experience.
I said this before and i'll say it again. NWN2 entire campaign was one large tutorial for a D&D adventure, and it was meant to be by design. That's why it feels like the most cliched RPG campaign ever made. Because that's what it was supposed to be. It was meant to be a large introduction for people who had never played an RPG or a D&D game before and it was supposed to serve as an example for people to go out and make their own adventures.
Now, never mind that Obsidian fucked it up with their shitty engine and shitty camera or combat design. The very idea in itself is extremely idiotic to me, because you are wasting a shitload of time and effort to develop something that has no value not merely in fact, but in principle. The blandness of the campaign was entirely by design. It just boggles the mind.
All this said, i find it fascinating that this is exactly how Bioware operates, with the difference that Bioware understands how to pander to the idiots better, because they themselves are no different from their audience. Basically, idiots making entertainment for other idiots. A retard writing retarded shit for retards will always be more successful than a talented person lowing his standards on purpose to pander to an idiotic audience. This is also how Bethesda have become so successful.
What Obsidian should do is stop wasting time with their retarded "design goals" and simply make the best game they can. Forget about pandering to the masses, because if you don't understand the masses, you are never going to reach them anyway. But that's just me and my stupid opinion i guess. Carry on with killing fun or whatever demented design principle you have adopted this time.
I said this before and i'll say it again. NWN2 entire campaign was one large tutorial for a D&D adventure, and it was meant to be by design. That's why it feels like the most cliched RPG campaign ever made. Because that's what it was supposed to be. It was meant to be a large introduction for people who had never played an RPG or a D&D game before and it was supposed to serve as an example for people to go out and make their own adventures.
Now, never mind that Obsidian fucked it up with their shitty engine and shitty camera or combat design. The very idea in itself is extremely idiotic to me, because you are wasting a shitload of time and effort to develop something that has no value not merely in fact, but in principle. The blandness of the campaign was entirely by design. It just boggles the mind.
All this said, i find it fascinating that this is exactly how Bioware operates, with the difference that Bioware understands how to pander to the idiots better, because they themselves are no different from their audience. Basically, idiots making entertainment for other idiots. A retard writing retarded shit for retards will always be more successful than a talented person lowing his standards on purpose to pander to an idiotic audience. This is also how Bethesda have become so successful.
What Obsidian should do is stop wasting time with their retarded "design goals" and simply make the best game they can. Forget about pandering to the masses, because if you don't understand the masses, you are never going to reach them anyway. But that's just me and my stupid opinion i guess. Carry on with killing fun or whatever demented design principle you have adopted this time.
NWN2 was redeemed with expansions; the first one is probably the best storyfag game ever made (yes, i personally think it's even better than Torment, or at least it works better as a story based game - Torment is basically a visual novel) with much better combat design compared to OC, and the second expansion is the ultimate hardcore DnD experience (or at least it's the closest thing to that in case of CRPGs). Storm of Zehir is the only game based on DnD, which tries to utilize the whole system, thus fmaking use of skills/tactics/features that are more or less useless in other games. NWN2 as the whole package is the best thing Obsidian made to date - both expansion being in my TOP 10 for sure.
I still don't get why Corypheus is supposed to be a bad guy. He just wants to ascend to become the living god that the degenerate world of Thedas so desperately needs. He can't be worse than the weirdos who you become stuck with nor can he be a worse deity than Gaider and his waifu Andraste. Why can't you ally with him and the Teviner monocle cult? You got the anchor to get to the black city and he knows what to do once you get there, supposedly. I'm not sure why he didn't do it the first time around but whatever, it's not like Bioware really cares about their lore. But seriously, why doesn't Bioware allow you to team up with the next big thing? Or how about using your mcguffin hand and claiming that throne for yourself?
Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty.
Instead you're forced to stop him, because of... uh... reasons. Ugh, I really hate railroading when there is much more interesting routes that should have been available.
Goat Vomit - you just don't understand Bioware's writing talent.
But maybe you can understand their game mechanics better, so let's talk even more numbers:
So, with the archery build I discover something even more ridiculous with Tempest:
I thought Flask of Flame is ridiculous with its 5 seconds of 'spam anything freely with no cooldown/stamina costs' but it turns out Bioware doesn't think that's enough - you can unlock Tempest's Focus Skill - Thousand Cuts.
First, let's recap what's a Focus?
Focus is generated when you deal damage, it's like a limit break meter.
There are 3 tiers of focus bars you can fill - and those are unlocked by Inquisition Perks - because - reasons.
Now this focus skill can be an AOE dmg like the Hand of Rift the Herald has, or a Revive All for Vivienne, or a Dorian's Party Haste.
I found this mechanic very punishing for tanks and classes that are doing very low damage, because taking incoming damage doesn't grant you focus (unlike Final Fantasy).
Now that's over with. What if I tell you damage you deal from doing a focus attack ALSO generates FOCUS?
Enter - Tempest's Thousand Cuts.
It's not enough that you hit something - it has to hit hard. The harder you hit, the more focus you generate. Making the Archers insane Focus generating machines.
Think about it, full draw at 1600% weapon damage, follow up with Flask of Flame then fire off 4x Long Shot at 800% weapon damage.
Congrats you just fired 4800% weapon damage in the first 10 seconds of the fight.
You've got a lot of focus - let's assume you got Tier 3 Focus ready and hit Thousand Cuts
What happens?
Thousand Cuts: Damage per Hit: 300% Weapon Damage
Tier 1 Number of Hits: 12
Tier 2 Number of Hits: 25
Tier 3 Number of Hits: 38
So let's recap:
You see an enemy from 15 meters - what do you do?
1. Hit the Awesome Button (Full Draw) for 1600% Weapon Dmg
2. Hit the very Awesome Button (Flask of Flame)
3. Hit the moar Awesome Button (Long Shots) x4 for 3200% Weapon Damage
4. Hit the Super Awesome Button (Thousand Cuts) for 38 hits x 300% Weapon Damage =
(The book bit omitted wrapping body into something to prevent intenstines and blood falling out, and its transport while something strange moved under his skin.) Also they missed the I feel killer intent. He don't want's to only kill the target, he wants to KILL US ALL.
