PoE Why no bigger fuss for PoE?

I really didn’t think I was going to like Pillars of Eternity, but, surprisingly, I thought it was great. I think the combat was better than the IE games, but still not good at all compared to, say, Blackguards 1 (it was very click and watch, but it was fast and looting and pathing, etc, wasn’t a huge pain). I do not think the rpg system and progression system was very good at all. But everything else is basically my ideal rpg (if I could fully create my own party). The graphics are my style of graphics, I really enjoyed the quests and the dungeons, there is no ridiculous camera scrolling around and fighting the camera, I didn’t have to fight poor pathing and poor pc AI. The quests were done very well, and I actually paid attention to a lot of what was going on.

And the best thing, in my opinion, was the map size. At no point did I enter a new map and feel like it was going to be a huge pain in the ass to explore. It was the absolute perfect map size for my taste. Also, I usually think having my own fort in a game is useless frivolity, but I think they did it really well. I saved money and wanted to get the next upgrade, even if it was just some nonsense. I usually never enjoy exploring, it is just something I have an OCD need to do (clear every map), but I actually liked exploring, and even felt good when I entered a new map because I knew it wouldn’t be ridiculous or a pain in the ass, but I’d find some neat things, and get some herbs, etc.

One thing I really hate is having more npc companions than there are party slots. This was new for me, but I stopped playing when I got the little Halfling druid guy and had to kick someone else out of my party. It’s not bad when they don’t really do much, like in Drakensang (or I never got far enough in on Drakensang to find out if talking to them granted quests, etc). But when you have to group with them and talk to them and get quests from them I think it’s a pain in the ass. I don’t think it would be if there was just enough npc companions where you didn’t spend time outfitting them, learning what the class does, and then have to switch them out.

In a moment of weakness I bought it at full price, but this is one of the few purchases I made that I don’t feel regret or that I was robbed. I am actually planning on buying the new expansion and giving it another try and maybe just ignoring some companions, like just fake I never got them, that way I can continue with a game that I generally liked.

I’m actually surprised at a lot of comments I see from people about the game and setting. I would figure this was going to be a lot more talked about game, but it seems like a lot of IE fans feel lukewarm about it, and their reasons don’t really make sense to me. People are going to like what they like, but this game seems extremely well done and isn’t making the fuss I really thought it would. I hate everything and even I liked it. It’s like everyone is trying to confuse me with their love of absolute garbage games and their cold shoulder or disdain for games that should be more popular.

Not sure - I really love the game, looking forward to replaying after the update release. I think for some it has to do with Obsidian and how they feel about some of their stylistic choices and tendencies. Not sure.

I'm not really a big IE fan to begin with, but to get me excited about that kind of fanservice opportunism, they'd have to, at the very least, exceed the 20 years old design on which they based the game and they failed. Mostly in terms of combat and mechanics, which are rather significant parts of the ancient IE games.

it's a good product, but also a very play-it-safe product. It did a lot of things right considering they were recreating IE games, but ultimately I got bored. I never thought isometric 6 character real time combat was ever a cerebral pleasure to play, it's not my idea of tactical play. The strategic layer they tried to add with the stronghold was half-baked as you could just ignore it and put the gold into your equipment instead. I don't know if this was another fan service reaction to the outcry when the stronghold was first unveiled, but I guess so.

What I do dig is the party creation and the reactivity, but there wasn't enough of the latter to make me hold on to the end. I hope that we see more branching dialogue and reputation options in the expansion, as well as a slew of new abilities to make character building more interesting. In that case I would give it a straight 8/10.

I really liked PoE at first, and about halfway through the game I realized it's just an average game. There are 20 other games similar that I enjoyed playing far more, most of them older and better. As a kickstarter project, I would rate it far below average.

I played Pillars on release day and really enjoyed it even after waiting two, three days for the patch to fix the broken Manor quest.

The problem was it was a front loaded story and once you got past the half way point it just got weaker and weaker. If I remember I scored it 9/10 for the first third 7/10 second third 5/10 for the last third.

As the load times were brutal and started to drive me nuts when you had to got back and forth on a silly quest.

I liked PoE, I also liked BG. In both cases I played the game once, enjoyed it, uninstalled. Other people who play the same game multiple times may have other opinions, but in my case they're both ok. One thing to BG's advantage was that it used AD&D system, and I was a big AD&D player back in the day so it had bonus points for that, but other than that, both were equally enjoyable.

I started a new game because I have nothing else to play. I selected hard difficulty and ironman, and I didn't go expert but I unselected unrestricted stash (which I am regretting but am sticking with).

And I have to change my opinion about the combat. It is actually really good for a RTwP game if you play on difficult and ironman. It is not quite as good as Aarklash legacy's RTwP, but leaps and bounds better than other systems.

I'm not a fan of the attribute system they have but in this game character progression is pretty good. With combat now being meaningful, you really feel the opportunity cost when you have a bunch of talents you really need. Also what NPCs are in your party becomes important. I also like the armor DR system and the attack, recovery speed. I'm not sure if it is working correctly though (from some simple testing since I can't get to crazy and get someone killed in ironman), but in theory it is an extremely interesting way of handling armor types and classes, tank vs. melee dps, etc.

I'm not doing this because I like a challenge, I just like games to be fun and engaging with combat that isn't just click and watch. I don't know what the developer's have said but it really feels like the game was meant to be played on difficult with ironman.

I picked a paladin for this game and I really like how the game supposedly ties in some talents you can pick with how well you stick to the two personality types of the paladin order you belong to. I forget the name of mine but they like benevolence and passion, and dislike being cruel and deceptive.

I did get the IE mod so I can move fast in stealth.

The game just seems surprisingly well done with an extremely high production value. You can tell a lot of thought and polish went into everything. The UI has all the functionality you could want. If you go behind a wall it is easy to tell where you are or if there is an interactable item, etc. I can know what is happening in a fight by looking at the fight instead of at portraits. The only think it is missing (or that I haven't figured out yet) is a way to select a character and then hotkey that characters abilities so I don't have to mouse click them. Everything else I could possibly complain about has been thought of.

I like how stealth and stealing from houses work as well. I think the personality system they have is pretty neat.

This game is now one of my surprise hits of the last couple years along with Blackguards 1 and MMX. I'm really enjoying it on this play through.

There is no bigger fuss for PoE , because it is vastly overrated.

It's like a watered-down Baldurs. Is that good? I guess. Memorable? Uh-uh.

Honestly, I can't stand the IE games. I think the combat was some of the most mindless, boring nonsense I've ever seen. I wouldn't mind never hearing the terms Baldur's gate or IWD again in my life.

But if I was a Baldur's Gate fan I think I would be a little more open and forgiving to games that tried to deliver the BG formula. If you like something, and want more things like it, you have to support more things like it.

This is like MMX. It gets slammed by supposed fans of M&M and grid based party 1st person games, while all the lemmings are whooping it up over rpg-less crap like Grimlock. Well, I'll take MMX over Grimlock any day. I want MMX to make more money so more blobbers are made with shops, quests, npcs, rpg stuff to do.

I don't want more games with extremely lite rpg elements that are fun for 5-year olds to play too. I want more really heavy rpgs. Not content-less rogue-likes. Not content-less dungeon crawls. Not weird things like defending a tower or collecting monsters or trading cards or whatever weird shit people are being idiots about. No child porn interactive novels.

Real crpgs. Like it was in the late 80s to mid-90s, but with better GUIs. Heavy crpgs focusing on the rpg and complexity.

Not more shallow graphic simulator tripe megahits for dummies, more actual crpgs for people who supposedly like crpgs.

So let's summarise...

Someone who hates the IE games is delighted by a game which was supposed to imitate the IE games but, instead, delighted someone who hates the IE games.

QED

lackblogger said:

So let's summarise…

Someone who hates the IE games is delighted by a game which was supposed to imitate the IE games but, instead, delighted someone who hates the IE games.

QED

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Well, looks compare and contrast the main difference between PoE and the IE games, KotORs, and NWNs.

1. PoE has barely bearable combat
2. The other games have combat that can only be enjoyed by people with Attention Surplus Disorder. If you can just watch a group of characters walking really slow and attacking at negative 5 million miles per hour in combat that does not require your input at all for anything 95% of the time, you just watch and wait for the torturous time it needs to be resolves, you have way, way too much attention. A vast surplus of it. Especially if you think the combat of PoE was too fast, or worse than the above mentioned games.

And wait a second, didn't we have some tests and discover that you are extremely not smart and absolutely suck at combat little children can master in ten minutes in the thread we were talking about IWD in? Yes, it was you. I thought it was decided your opinion no longer counts when discussing pretty much anything?

Welcome to my ignore list

I guess this topic shows why no bigger fuss, because PoE divided the community in more than one online place

Archangel said:

I guess this topic shows why no bigger fuss, because PoE divided the community in more than one online place

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I don't know, sites catering to our particular niche(s) might also give an exaggerated impression of that divide -and pretty much any argument over a CRPG- and there may be some overlap across those places.

To the extent that there is a gulf in feelings about the game, I don't think it's among most of the people who bought and played the game. User ratings on Steam, GoG, metacritic, amazon, etc. are about 90% positive. I suspect the divide we see on sites like this come from a number of those who enthusiastically enjoyed specific aspects of previous IE games in spite of some aspects they would have found irksome in their absence.

Might be the same divide you'd see among people who say of Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment that they only really enjoyed one of them and merely plodded through the other while disagreeing on which they mean.

I haven't made a fuss about POE because I haven't played it for any significant amount of time. I'm waiting for 2.0 version. Just as I'm waiting for enhanced edition of D:OS and DLC, patches for witcher 3, etc, etc.

I feel like I play the waiting game more than video games nowadays.

I'll give it another go when the expansion is out, too.