Flatline wrote on Jun 25, 2015, 16:23:
PoE... yeah that's right. I bought that. I played it for a few hours, got out of the first town, and... I think Witcher 3 came out at that point.

I'll get back to it eventually I guess.

I'm not sure how you can go back to this trite garbage after the most masterful Witcher 3. It's like getting laid with the hottie of the class for a few months and then after breaking up the fattest and ugliest cow of the campus starts hitting on you. Eeeewww...

PoE... yeah that's right. I bought that. I played it for a few hours, got out of the first town, and... I think Witcher 3 came out at that point.

I'll get back to it eventually I guess.

Looks like a lot of good changes, but yes, Pillars of Eternity (at least currently) is not nearly as good as BG2 was, although I find it superior to unmodified IWD1 or 2 overall.

The rest mechanic... needs to be modded out. It adds nothing to the enjoyment of the game. I'm waiting for this patch and the expansion to come out before I play through again though. I think at least one mod already out there removes this though? I haven't checked in awhile.

Health/Endurance mechanic, is ok, I guess. I got used to it but I think I prefer old style hp with in combat heals.

The game would probably also be improved by having Per-Rest Spells change to Per Encounter spells at a much faster rate, but they probably set up this system to be able to support PoEt2, so I can understand the current cut off points.

I actually liked the combat mechanics, even a few patches back vanilla version, but with the new stealth changes the game will be dramatically improved.

I already paid for the "first" expansion, and yeah, I agree, it'll be lame if that only counts for this Part 1 of X expansion chunks.

Just couldn't get into Pillars. Story didn't grab me at all, and even with modern UI improvements fixing some of my major annoyances with the infinity engine combat, it turns out I still can't stand RtwP. Disclaimer: Torment was really the only IE game I truly loved, probably because it was combat light and the combat it had was reasonably uncomplicated..

I've never really been able to properly "grok" stats in these games. What is +1 INT going to mean for my character? +1 Reflexes? Same as with the good old saving throws and THAC0, it's not intuitive/self-explanatory and you need to read the rulebook to understand how it works. Getting a proper "feel" for the dice rolls requires reading the combat log (or having played pen&paper, in the case of D&D), which zips by at astronomical speed with a party of six and twice that number of enemies taking swings. Most of the time, you'll be sifting through 90% junk lines of random swings and misses, when all you really care about is why that spell was resisted. The game seems to encourage experimentation through restarting the game with a new character/party rather than just playing, learning and tweaking as you go along, which is not something I have the patience or inclination for.

Not digging the rest mechanic either, but that's what the majority wanted I suppose. While the per-encounter skills help, walking into a heavy encounter with certain spells unavailable still means you'll usually be reloading immediately, after sticking around for a bit to see what's being thrown at you.

Backed the game high enough to get the expansion (does that mean part 1 or both here, since they split it, btw?) so I might give it yet another try when it comes out. I really wanted to like it, but just couldn't *shrug*. Glad Torment decided to go fully turn based, though it remains to be seen how it turns out.

Creston wrote on Jun 25, 2015, 14:10:
For the life of me, I can't remember whether they'd said that backers got the first expansion free or not? Anyone remember?

You only get expansion at certain Backer levels.. so it's not free for backers, in fact that higher backer level was higher than normal and included ALL expansions afaik.

I am worried about this only being part 1 of an expansion. Piecemeal story and combat heavy expansion releases are worse than anything else.

As a lover (many times over) of BG1&2, IWD and the like...

...I'm kind of disappointed with Pillars. I've played 40 hours so far, not quite finished and I'm struggling to get there. I've not been sucked in by the story at all, the recuitable characters lack any real....character. Overall, the world just seems a flat and lacking any charm.

That, and there's far too much combat (is there more than BG? Can't remember. Feels like it). The levelling never feels satisfying either, I don't feel like I'm actually getting stronger. And what's with the endurance/health system? Seems unnecessary.

I like it but...it hasn't grabbed me like the old days of BG where I could happily gave a 150hr game and not get bored. Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy ("Things were better in my day" etc)

Creston wrote on Jun 25, 2015, 14:10:
For the life of me, I can't remember whether they'd said that backers got the first expansion free or not? Anyone remember?

Pretty sure you had to pay extra. I know I got mine.

For the life of me, I can't remember whether they'd said that backers got the first expansion free or not? Anyone remember?

it was another "me too" BG type game, about as well done as you can get but still the same formulaic stuff that is pretty retro in the full sense of the word

Ludomancer wrote on Jun 25, 2015, 11:52:
I didnt like the game at all. I spent a great deal of time tracknig down all the green named NPCs, eager to see where their seemingly random stories would lead, and all I got was... nothing, because it was just a bunch of dumb fan-shit written by the kickstarter backers, and had nothing to do with anything worth a shit.

And then the story and everything else kind of went nowhere.

Good thing was that as Backer, I knew the green named things were irrelevant to the game. If can only imagine how horrible that must be to not know that and see them as part of the game. One of the worst design decisions in PoEt and it's not like people didn't tell Obsidian it was a bad idea....

But my annoyance comes more from the fact that when all is played and concluded, this game is just a lesser IWD2 with less character building, less proper story, worse way of telling the lore.. it is in all respects an lesser game. And I didn't KS to get a lesser game! Obsidian simply went through the motions of making a RPG, but failed to make anything worthwhile, unique or even interesting. That our supposed "curse" is so shittily done in-game as to offer literally NO danger whatsoever is just icing on the cake. Man compare this to BG2 and the "random uncontrolled transmutation to Baal in combat" which was a HUGE factor to play around. It's the small details that made me feel annoyed.

As I said before, when PoEt concluded, I replayed IWD2 + http://www.gibberlings3.net/iwd2npc/ .. hard to believe, but that was MORE fun.

I didnt like the game at all. I spent a great deal of time tracknig down all the green named NPCs, eager to see where their seemingly random stories would lead, and all I got was... nothing, because it was just a bunch of dumb fan-shit written by the kickstarter backers, and had nothing to do with anything worth a shit.

And then the story and everything else kind of went nowhere.

Mhhh, lately I read a review that summed my feeling up perfectly. I liked Pillars of Eternity, but when I reached the end.. all I was was annoyed. Imo not a feeling one should have after finishing a game.

I've had a fantastic time with the game so far and this is just icing on the cake. Kudos for releasing a chunk of the expansion improvements in patch form for existing owners.

gonna have to wait for pillars 2 to check this out.. im done with this one

Good options for sure, now with the all the options given if AI is good you can play pretty much real-time and with current options turn-based, to satisfy most. We need DA:I to add AI.

As someone who mostly plays for story & atmo, I the AI stuff sounds pretty good. Opting into micro management is nice.

Individual stealth - about frikkin time.

How it took so long for them to come to their senses is beyond me.