Ah thanks I'm probably thinking of Wasteland 2 or another game I backed in the past.

Yep you're right, Wasteland 2 took forever. Although not as long as PoE2 will take now.

And don't forget Jagged Alliance: Flashback, where they never sent out the physical rewards period :lol: (or not to North America anyway…)

I never played PoE I was wonder if it was as good as BG and BG2

My ranking

PoE2 > PoE1 with expansion > Baldurs Gate > Baldurs Gate II

Mine is the exact opposite of Silver Coin.

BG2 > BG1 > PoE

Haven't played PoE2 yet since I found PoE mediocre and bland.

I have to clarify PoE1 with the expansion, because White March is amazing. Great story, great characters, great sidequests, great dungeons, great bosses, beautiful artwork and soundtrack. Without it, I'd say BG1 > PoE.

I think BG2 is overrated, but I tend to keep that opinion to myself.

You are doing great job of keeping that opinion to yourself :rolleyes:

You're right, but I've learned in the past that any criticism of BG2 is considered heresy.

I'll have to ask my friends about this game. The friends staying at the Friendly Arm Inn………………

Yeah that would be my order as well, with or without the White Matches. I quite enjoyed PoE but I wasn't blown away by it and I don't think I'd replay it. I thought Tyranny was better to be honest, I'd put that ahead of PoE in a list.

PoE2 does sound great though - thanks for the review, Maylander! It sounds like a big improvement over the first one and I'm looking forward to spending a serious chunk of time with it when all the DLC is released.

Thanks for the great review, Maylander!! :)

Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy. Anyway, thank you for the responses, folks. Always nice to hear. :)

Also interesting to see some specific opinions that differed from mine. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree Pessimeister, but I can certainly explain my point of view.

I enjoyed the combat of PoE2 much, much more than that of PoE1. I like abilities that pack a punch, and I like being able to create characters that range from wet noodles to powerhouses. PotD in PoE1, for me, was never about any of those things. It was all about:
1) Buff my tank to the point where he or she could no longer take damage
2) Debuff the enemy to either crowd control them or lower their stats so they couldn't hit anything

In most cases only one of them was needed, but on harder fights I had to use both. I found that rather boring, and I especially disliked the Adra Dragon fight (at level 12, not after the level cap increased in the expansions), where it was either control or die. Well, certain people used glitches to beat it, but I don't take that into consideration.

As for the resting mechanic: I loved the fact that it's gone. To me, it was never a limiting factor; simply one that lead to me go back to town a lot more often than I'd like. You have no idea how many runs back to the top of the keep I had while exploring the dungeon under it.

It's actually the same with inventory space: I hate it when they're too limited, like in the Diablo games. It just means I go back to town every 5 minutes instead of once per hour or some such thing. I don't get any more or less selective in terms of using abilities or looting due to such mechanics.

It was exactly the same in Baldur's Gate 2, except for the final boss, where a Wish spell is needed to restore spells between phases. Beyond that, I could always find a place to rest if I needed more Horrid Wilting for some fight.

I agree that the reputation system with the companions felt lacking. It didn't really add anything for me.

However, I still preferred the companions to those in PoE1, mainly due the fact that I didn't have to do "meta gaming" to see their quests and so on. PoE1 suffered from the same problem KotOR2 and NWN2 did, which is the fact that you need to bring companions along either for X amount of time or certain events to make progress. It sort of works that way in PoE2 as well, but it's much easier to "cap out" all companions, so I could just settle for a party without having to worry about bringing someone I didn't like (like Grieving Mother, who has spent way too much time in my PoE1 parties).

True, but this was also the case in PoE1 for the most part, except for the massive one under the keep. I'm not much of a dungeon crawler though. In fact, I consider Durlag's Tower the weakest, most boring part of Baldur's Gate 1, which I assume is not the case for most people around here.

I see where you're coming from, and I originally wrote SoZ. I changed it, however, because I felt it could lead to people expecting the map to have an actual function or gameplay, which it did in SoZ (trade routes, minerals, etc).

I intended to point out that the main quest mainly served as a reason to explore the world, but I left it out because it's pretty much par for the course now in any game with exploration.

I guess The Witcher 3 sort of managed to work around it, but that's pretty much the only example I can think of. Baldur's Gate 2 and its "get 15.000 gold" thing also worked until you actually get 15.000, which will be long before you finish all the content available in Act 2.

I found the worst offender to be Oblivion, in which demon portals spawned everywhere, yet the hero could still spend time looting absurd amounts of cutlery.

Anyway, it is certainly a weakness, but one I've come to accept at this point, so it's something I consider a "pro" if fixed, but not a "con" if not.

You suck! :p

On a serious note, you're finishing Yakuza 0 review at friday or saturday? ;)
Can't wait! What do you mean you're not… OMG

I've never even heard of it! o_o

I think the next, new RPG I'll play is Kingmaker, but I assume purpleblob is keen on doing the review of it, given how interested she seems in it, so I guess it might actually be a while until I review anything again.

Maybe I should review my own renovations or something, but I'm not sure I'd like to see my own "pros" and "cons" list, or the overall rating. :lol:

Purpleblob can't review Kingmaker, she's too biased already. ;)

I would love to see her review of PoE2 though, since I believe she found the first one severely lacking compared to her beloved (rightfully so in my opinion) Baldurs Gate 1&2.

Im actually looking forward to playing through PoE2 even more than I am Kingmaker, but I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy them both immensely.

I'm definitely going to do a review on Kingmaker, but it shouldn't stop you doing one too - I'm sure people wants to hear different opinions.

I liked what I've seen so far, but who knows how my opinion will change when I play the whole game ;)

I am thinking of doing PoE2 review at some point but it won't be any time soon since I will be playing it once all DLCs are out and its sale :P

To be perfectly honest, if you got bored playing in this particular conservative way then perhaps you've really only got yourself to blame? I say this with all earnest respect. The game's much better than that; you can be creative with party structure and tactics. I played the first game's PotD with two priests, two rogues a monk and a wizard (interspersed with Hiravias and Maneha for some encounters) and it was great fun and rewarding. Thus, plenty of party make-ups are viable and it's not really about playing one particular way.

addendum:
Just to clarify; I'm not meaning to offend or accuse anyone of playing in a "right or wrong way"; here, on the contrary, I'm merely making the suggestion that it is sometimes easy for players to get stuck in a rut playing in one particular way and that games (specifiically here PoE) can reward thinking or playing outside of regular approaches. Hopefully that clears up Dart's response below.

Unfortunately, Poe2 on Veteran didn't meet the level of enjoyment of the first game for me. I'm not a big power-gamer but If I'm able to select all, merely left click on monsters, click a few ability buttons here and there and just watch them die, it's just not satisfying enough. This happened for the most part of the second half of the game. There were simply more memorable and challenging fights in the first game at this point in development; but that's certainly subject to change with the DLCs coming. With some well designed high level encounters and the right amount of tweaking, improvements can be made to get the second game to a much more respectable level.

I liked the Adra Dragon fight a lot incidentally; that was a tremendous feeling when it went down in PotD! I guess we simply enjoy different aspects of these games.
I don't back away from challenges and welcome these fights. Concelhaut and Llengrath were also excellent. Durlag's Tower is also a big favourite, haha so we'll definitely have to agree to disagree on these points.

Another aspect I felt was much better in the first game that I didn't mention in my first reply was the soundtrack. Justin Bell unfortunately leaned far too heavily on his melodic work for the first game and for me didn't produce as many memorable new themes. In fact the tavern music in poe2 was quite awful and felt entirely inappropriate. Some of the battle themes were also quite weak and timid and no where near as memorable as the classic BG2 scores or even songs from the first game. The sea shanties were fun though! The White March soudntrack is also very good in my opinion.

Well - this was a departure for Obsidian and the bizarre shortness of the main quest for me was very noticeable. I do think it is impportant to emphasize this and not let the reader merely assume based upon genre expectation. That said, I think they did a better job of balancing experience compared to the front end loaded; over leveled by Twin Elms issue from the first game.

Anyway, thanks for responding to my points Maylander. I'm sure the game will be better once all the DLC are out and maybe i'll enjoy it more.

Oh, I guess being bored by PoE and loving PoE 2 means I also only have myself to blame?

Cool!

Um. No? I'm not talking to you Dart, so why you'd infer any generalised meaning in that quote being directed to yourself is beyond me.

As I said, I disliked the combat for much the same reasons as Maylander.

In fact, I tend to agree with him about combat systems and mechanics more often than not.

So, I don't think my "guess" was that far fetched.

No, it's just that I find the whole "you're not playing it right or you'd be enjoying it" highly amusing.

Obviously, he's not "playing it right" because he's different from you.

In that same way, I could explain why you're not "playing PoE2 right" - because you don't enjoy the same things for the same reasons.

What you describe as "click a few buttons" is obviously subject to your perception - and just as obvious not the perception of people who enjoy that kind of approach.

It would seem Obsidian themselves consider it a better game design, but that's besides the point.

But, of course, if you insist that there's a right way to enjoy games - and that way is yours - that's cool.

Personally, I think we all enjoy different things for different reasons - and trying to talk about "blame" within that context is just silly.

No need to be so defensive. If people get bored by falling into a rut, they can be motivated to change it, or not and wait to be forced to change by gameplay mechanics, or not. I think the point is that either game gives you that choice. Choosing to do the bare minimum to win is a choice.

What is it about this "defensive" claim? Is that the word of the day - or is it not possible to point out how silly a position is without being defensive?

Ok, so be it ;)

Even so, I don't think that's how personal preferences work.

Personally, I enjoy finding the optimal strategy or set of tactics and then perform as efficiently as possible within that context. That's not a choice I made so much as the result of playing hundreds or thousands of games to discover what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy.

If enjoying games or features of games is a choice - then maybe we should all just choose to love all games and never disagree about any of them?

Not really.

The point is that PoE and PoE 2 are different, and there's nothing wrong with preferring one over the other.

We can, of course, discuss our preferences and clarify why we enjoy the combat in PoE more than the combat in PoE 2 - and vice versa.

But as soon as we go into the blame game and we start telling people they have only themselves to blame because they didn't manage to enjoy it correctly - then we might as well give up.

To me, that's like saying personal preferences don't matter or shouldn't exist.

I don't believe that's true for a second.

Personal preference may either fully or partially drive your choice, but it's still a choice, I think.

I guess that would depend on exactly what we're talking about. I think it's possible to expand your preferences within certain areas - and to a certain extent.

But, for instance, once you reach a certain age and have a certain level of experience - it can be extremely hard, and we have to ask ourselves what the point is.

I mean, do we choose who we fall in love with based on our preferences in others? Do we choose what flavor of icecream we prefer?

If Pessimeister doesn't like the easy "button clicking" in PoE 2 - can he adapt and change his preferences until he likes it?

I mean, in that case - where does it end?

I think I understand what you're saying - but I think, when exchanging about games we like and don't like - we sort of have to assume that we've all played enough games to properly establish our preferences, and unless we like every single game out there (like, say, Fluent almost did) - then it's a bit unreasonable to talk about people having only themselves to blame for not enjoying something.

Well, that would be my position on the matter anyway.

That said, if some people believe this kind of preference is a personal choice - who am I to control that.

I just disagree, is all.

My suggestion, in this specific case, would probably be a simple rephrasing of the claim. Instead of using concepts like blame - then a milder approach and suggestion could work.

But, really, I think the best way to present an alternative to the "Tank is everything" approach to PoE combat, is to simply talk about how fun it was to do something else.

Personally, I felt the game went out of its way to make the Tank role absolutely essential to almost all the fights - and I felt like I was just playing it as it was intended.

My problem with PoE combat was more about the feedback, terrible pathfinding and crappy AI - but that's another story.

Personally, I don't always follow my preferences, because I think it's healthy for me to step outside my comfort zone, to learn and experience new things, which to me is also more interesting to me than staying in my comfort zone. But I know a lot of the community prefer to game for comfort rather than learning. So that's cool, and I don't think anyone should judge other's on their preferences and choices, particularly for comfort vs learning vs experience vs challenge vs social preferences. I think each of us has a rather unique preference spectrum and we all should respect that.

Well, I play for fun and I have the most fun when games meet my preferences. But, as you say, to each his own ;)

That said, some games manage to teach me new preferences by doing new things, but that’s so very rare.

Certainly, PoE was NOT such a game.

Yes, can we do this please? Can I always post first though?:lol:

On a serious note is POE2 combat really that much better than 1? For that matter is the game much better than 1?

I too have grown bored with POE1 in several attempts to play it to completion.

Sorry I haven’t read the review, I will if someone can confirm it’s not spoilerish.

PoE was so long ago now I barely remember the gameplay. But I do remember at least one overpowering spell that I found necessary on occasions. Never played the expansions/dlcs/whatevers so have no opinions on those.

Learning how to best use a cypher and a chanter made the combat fun for me. And figuring how best use a new character system and combat system was a blast. Didn't need to learn much to figure out how to tank with Eder or bomb with Aloth.

And this is the problem with POE2 for me, not much new to learn. It doesn't help that it's so easy.

Well, as with all things - it comes down to subjective tastes.

Personally, I think PoE 2 is much, much better than PoE in nearly every imaginable way - and I really, really mean that.

For me, the problems with PoE were many - and while I do concede the balance was eventually better than PoE 2 at launch, the challenge involved was less due to the mechanics and the systems - and more about much more basic fuck-ups by Obsidian.

Now, this is just my experience with PoE - and I was never a big fan of it.

My experience was that the challenge of combat in PoE was largely about not knowing what the hell was going on - because the feedback was awful - and the pacing equally bad. I spent an inordinate amount of time micromanaging movement - because my characters would very often get stuck moving between each other.

I absolutely COULD NOT create a script that was comfortably doing what I wanted. They implemented basic scripting at some point - but it didn't really help.

As for the ACTUAL challenge - as in, overcoming harder fights when you were in FULL control of combat - I found it just about the same as PoE 2 is after the recent balance changes - with the notable exception of PoE 2 being much more prone to powergaming, because the system is much richer - and, as a result, much more fun.

In PoE, if you micromanage every single thing every single character does - I find that most fights are relatively trivial - even in PotD, once you reach a certain level of power. Now, I don't really remember exactly what that level of power is - but I'd say somewhere around level 6-10.

The difference in PoE 2 - is that you don't actually have to fight the interface, and you're not in much doubt about what's going on, your characters don't get stuck constantly - and you can actually create custom scripts to have your characters do pretty much whatever you want - whenever you want.

The end result is a game that FEELS much easier compared to PoE - but I don't really think that's the case. I'm sure there are edge cases - and I'm sure there are bosses where that's not the case.

It should be noted that I haven't completed either PoE or PoE 2 - but I have at least 100 hours in PoE (2-3 attempts past Defiance Bay) and I have around 60 hours in PoE 2 at this point.

Beyond this aspect of combat differences, PoE 2 also happens to look MUCH better, FEEL much better - and have MANY more toys to play around with during combat.

So, yeah, to me PoE stands absolutely no chance in hell of comparing well to PoE 2 in terms of combat - or much else.

Frankly, in many ways - we're talking night and day.

But that would be my opinion.

A very late thank you for this great review. I haven't commented for a while to do my vacation and getting my new computer up and running. I'm really looking forward to giving this one a go, but have so many games in my backlog that wouldn't run on my old rig that it will have to wait awhile. First comes Torment, and then we'll see what comes next.

For me POE 2 is still so easy that all I have to do is left click on enemies to assign targets, and let the AI figure out what to do. With maybe a forced heal thrown in sometimes.

In POE 1 such a lackadaisical playstyle would pretty much always get a party member killed.

So yeah, PEO 2 is still much much easier than POE for me.

Can't be sure of the difficulty settings I used on POE 1 but I thank at that point I had decided to play everything on normal.

Oh, in terms of "mash buttons" level of difficulty, PoE2 is certainly much easier than PoE1.

However, as Dart pointed out: Once you figured out the PoE1 system and can counter it, it'll quickly become as easy as PoE2. Very few spells pack any punch in PoE1, and I found few of them to be genuinely fun as a result, but they are certainly efficient. It's simply a matter of debuffing or crowd controlling enemies at all times, after which everything is a breeze.

If I recall correctly, they reduced the effectiveness of Slicken greatly in a later patch, but blinding spells, such as Chill Fog, could still trivialize most fights.

As for playing it differently: That was my problem with PoE1 and its more difficult fights: Beyond certain exploits, they're all about crowd control or debuffing. I never felt I had any choice. I'd love to see anyone killing the Adra Dragon in vanilla PoE1 without a daft amount of debuffs and crowd controls (without getting it stuck or similar).

Also, if people want a more challenging experience in PoE2, just do what I did: Duo it. Or go even further and solo it. My 2nd party only consisted of two people most of the time, and that was certainly difficult. I did the same in PoE1 before starting PoE2, and I'd say they were roughly similar in difficulty, but I could vary my tactics more in PoE2, which made it a lot more fun.

No tactics required whatsoever for POE2 so far. It’s a joke in comparison with POE 1. The game practically plays itself.

What difficulty level are you playing on? Can you change it once you've started the game?

I am certainly going to up it.

As I said before I just play on normal nowadays, but POE2 is too easy for that.

The point being that POE1 was much harder on the same settings.

I played both games on PoTD (deadfire with level scaling). I found it harder than the first game, and more tactically balanced. The first game derived most of its difficulty from pumping enemies with high defenses and barraging the player with status afflictions. Deadfire on the other hand gets most of its difficulty from great encounter design.

If you think the game is too easy, they're adding challenge modes into the game to make it harder. The first two were added with the last patch, and already they made the game a lot tougher. The difficulty will be a nightmare once they're all added.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/obsidian-me…ine--thumb.png

It can't be any easier than setting the game on automatic, so I don't see how POE 1 could possibly be any easier. I bet you played on different and dissimilar settings.

Like I said, I played both games on PoTD.

Restart the game on PoTD with upscaling. If you still find it too easy, then you can complain.

Excellent review sir.
@Maylander
#MaylanderReviewGate 2017
Never Forget.

Thanks for all the replies seems opinions are split, so it still leaves me undecided.

I found POE1 pretty easy if like Darth said you micromanage all party members. I also limited my party to 4 to try and keep combat from devolving into a clumped up mess, Especially when they trap you in small areas or rooms.

I also didn’t find the watcher story line interesting at all. Does it continue or is thier a different story line?