You don’t? This was my defining memory of PoE 1.
It’s true of almost every single rpg, especially open world ones like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim.
Skyrim had a main story?
BG1 did not do well in this regard either.
The exception is BG2, which had a few nice devices to really tie you into the main plot: the initial hook to gather enough gold to progress to the next stage of the plot (under the narrative pressure of a kidnapped party member), which then resulted in a huge detour to some islands, plunging down into an undersea temple, the underdark, and I can’t even remember how you get out of that and return to the main map.
After that long roller-coaster of main-plot, it’s a glorious relief to go around and finish up side-quests for a bit, before taking on the final part of the main story.
Yes it does.
I…wasn’t entirely serious.
Anther thing that bothers me about PoE2 is that most of the spells / abilities are uninspiring.
I remember leveling up so many times, looking at everything I could pick, and just feeling “meh” about everything. Certainly the 2 casts per level is a huge limit. If you pick up a buff you will use, then you can only get 1 invocation of anything else.
Also when my choice either single target / aoe of fire / ice / acid damage, all this is very boring. Abilities that simply give some kind of small statistical change on an ally or enemy are also boring. IE: -5 perception or int or whatever. BORING…
Now compare these to D:OS2 powers. In warfare, there is a power called blitz. Your character ping-pongs between several other enemies, getting a full melee attack on each. It also lets you travel a fair distance. You can throw your shield and have it bounce between enemies, or do a cone-aoe ground slam which will knock enemies prone. On the magic end, all ice spells can freeze an enemy solid, electrical can stun, etc… You can teleport enemies and objects. Fire spells can create a persistent AoE of fire on the ground, etc…
All that is far more interesting than the spells on PoE2, and that is a big part of the problem.
I was looking forward to this for quite some time, I’ve been busy but I had a friend over and finally tried it out for a 2 hours. My main reason for taking interest in this was that I’d tried Divinity Sin 2 and absolutely loved the lore and style and felt like this was a close enough cousin.
However I found the game to completely overload me with information, I tried to take it all in, and couldn’t even button press my way to figuring out how to get my secondary companion to start following me again without leaving the area. Then I got to the part where they started telling me HOW MUCH MANAGEMENT I HAD TO DO WITH MY CREW AND THAT I ALSO HAD TO LEARN SHIP BATTLES? Not only that I’m pretty sure I injured myself on the second “book scene” and I just felt like the universe was working against me in this game.
All of this seemed far too overwhelming, now, did I give up to soon, or is there ANYWAY someone not looking to micromanage every step of the way can get into this game?
I didn’t like the ship combat so I just tried to close distance as fast as I could to resolve with regular party based combat. That made the ship portion go much more quickly.
Apparently the beta patch greatly increases difficulty on the harder levels, e.g. drake in the first engwithan ruins, asshole charing boars, etc.
Also bunch of skill nerfs.
In the very beginning if I raced to board the fight would be too hard for me, depending on which captain I was fighting. I may have explored a bit too far and gotten high level captains. But after that as robc said, you can close to board and fight that way; it might cost you a few more meds and repair supplies but it’s not a big deal.
I also find that in combat the AI does a decent job with my companions. On veteran I’m rarely managing anyone other than my main character after the initial positioning is set up. Just make sure to turn on AI for each companion as you recruit them. On normal I’d think AI should be pretty sufficient for most battles and you could ignore combat management entirely.
that helps, I’ll take a look at this when I take another stab, I honestly died on my second encounter in the game after getting injured I was attack by some lizard dudes I think? The game just felt like the learning curve was insane, brutal, and super overwhelming- if I was failing that early didn’t see how I’d manage a ship and its battles ><
did they have a silly name like xuarips? if so I saw someone die to that first xuarip encounter three times before he got it. that one is a bit difficult right off the bat, especially if you aren’t familiar with the combat at all (or didn’t find the second companion like the streamer i was watching) but there are skill check options to bypass the fight if you have certain skills.
don’t remember which, but it was probably a combination of perception and survival.
if you need more help in the early game you can also just go hire an extra adventurer at the inn until you’ve found enough companions to round out your party. and if you haven’t found the inn you need to explore town a bit before you go gallivanting about the wilderness.
and rest with food to heal your injuries.
About the difficulty, it is pretty easy. I had to lower the difficulty in POE 1 during dragon fights, but this one I’ve yet to face an enemy I felt frustrated by, in fact doing almost all the sidequests I could possibly do before starting the mainstory…I actually find most fights a little too easy. Considering I rarely complain about that and play some games on story mode…that’s saying a lot.
Actually forget I said that, yes its easy, but I like rolling over bad guys like a uber tank, and when my spells make bad guys explode into bloody giblets. I am enjoying that part lol
This has been known since before launch - they focused on bug squashing rather than making Veteran or PotD as challenging as they wanted, and are making this a priority for the first patch, which is already available in the beta branch.
Do you know if Obsidian has given out more info on the physical goodies? Around launch time they issued a statement saying they were a few weeks behind, but that was 4 weeks ago.
I don’t, no. To be honest I would never aim for physical goodies with any kickstarter, just seems like this is how it always turns out.
Pillars 1 physical goods shipped on time for release. This is pretty bad.
I emailed their customer support earlier, will post whatever I hear back.
The response was things should ship in mid-June.