It’s the entire package. The characters, the world they are building, the visuals and art design, the gameplay rules and mechanics, how your characters progress, the enemies you face and the villains and allies you encounter, it all clicks so well for me. I too have gone back and played BG and IWD2 very recently (just last month) and they are fun to get into but don’t hold my attention any more. Some of that is just that I’ve played them so much, but some of it is at this point, I’d rather be playing PoE.
I started yet another game, this time with a cipher named Garilonn in imitation of Julian May’s stuff.
I played the BGs so long ago and they were so good that I’ve not wanted to return even with the EE versions. With decades between them and PoE, I find it difficult to consider them side-by-side. On its own merit, PoE shines. I love a game with detail in world-building and history, and I want one with memorable characters and enjoyable gameplay.
As a comparison, I never completed Divinity:Original Sin and gave up on my second attempt with the Enhanced Edition. There was something about the quirky humour and weird writing coupled with the gameplay that didn’t sit well with me. On the other hand, loved Wasteland 2. So, it’s not like any old game of that classic style will grab me.
And yeah, PoE2 will make me drop everything else for a big chunk of time. Most anticipated game for me right now.
BG2 is the superior game.
This is not a knock against PoE. Pillars just isn’t the best RPG of all time. That’s no sin.
If BG2 had 3rd edition mechanics I’d be playing it right now.
I’ve reached a point where I just can’t stomach 1st-2nd Edition anymore.
This exactly.
PoE was a very good game, much of it due to what @Scotch_Lufkin mentions above. I also loved the way attributes / abilities were used in dialog and the little text adventure sections. If there is one thing I hope that PoE2 ‘fixes’ is the pace and flow of combat. Even when having characters with their zone of control ability (forget the name) upgraded, combat devolves into a mess too easily. The log is informative, but I never found a good autopause setting that suited me. The combat wasn’t bad - but if was probably the most frustrating aspect for me. It would help if they have less mobs and have fewer but stronger enemies.
I haven’t played BG 1 or 2 in ages and have the enhanced editions, so I really need to play them again.
BG1 remains hamstrung by the silliness that is low-level AD&D, but BG2 remains 100% brilliant.
I see your Mass Effect, and I raise you Yoshimo. And Minsc. And Edwin. And Jaheira. And Korgan. And Viconia. And goddamn, even the third-tier NPCs would have been headliners in another game…Mazzy and Jan are more than solid.
Well…Jan. Maybe not. That guy. Gnome. Whatever. Not my thing. But I get to leave him to rot in prison forever, so it’s all good.
e: also. ALSO! BG2 is still one of the two (thx KotoR / the bits of KotoR2 that were finished-ish) games to ever have evil characters that weren’t (just) moustache-twirling scenery-crunching Ming the Merciless cartoons, but actual people. Selfish, terrible people. But a hell of a lot better than Final Fantasy ‘muahahahah i’m going to blow up the world because reasons!’ people.
I guess everyone watching this thread has played it and no one wants a free copy.
I’m watching this thread but have not yet bought it. So not everyone :)
This is out today on Xbox One and PS4. It includes both expansions.
I was looking at the achievement list to see if there was anything interesting. This fits:
Relative Pacificism Complete the game killing fewer than 175 creatures and NPCs (100 GS)
Super Murderer Complete the game killing 1200 or more creatures and NPCs (100 GS)
Two competing achievements. I would think most people are not likely to get either of those achievements, right? Is that pacificism one even possible?
With the stealth mechanics so limited, I don’t know how you kill fewer than 175.
I got the 1200+ kill one maybe 2/3rds of the way through the game being a completionist explorer. It’s not that hard.
Going sub-175 would be tough, yeah. Possibly a one-character run with a stealth emphasis? (There are achievements for winning with one character, also.)
I’m going to be contrarian and say that after trying to replay BG2 a few years ago, none of the characters hold up favorably compared to more recent RPGs (basically, from DA:O and NWN2 onwards.) Not being able to initiate conversations is a big deal, and the party banter, which is often silly and off-tune, doesn’t make up for it. There are good character concepts there but the execution is very dated.
(I loved BG2 when it was released, and still remember the epic battles fondly.)
In my opinion, Pillars of Eternity was a very disappointing game. Having grown up with Infinity Engine and Fallout games, i wanted so badly to like this game. But i couldn’t get into it. I think this was for 2 reasons:
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IE-styled games have aged quite badly. Back in the day, with 3D so underdeveloped and voice acting almost nonexistant, this style was a perfect compromise for what they attempted to accomplish: A party based CRPG. But today, we don’t have the limitations of the past. We can have perfectly detailed worlds in 3D and voice acting is mandatory at this point. There is no need for huge walls of text, or a 2D RTS interface that ruins the immersion. I think modern games have spoiled us with their rich immersive and beautifully detailed worlds, and we can’t really immerse ourselves in this type of game anymore. At least i can’t.
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Pillars of Eternity emphasized some of the worst aspects of the old formula: It has a TON of useless text and exposition, the graphics are as unimmersive as they can be, the game is really slow and loves to waste your time, and the battle system is a chore to learn and to play. Why use a DnD type of combat system and its assosiated clunkiness? These types of systems were never designed for CRPGs. And while you can excuse BG for those faults because that is what Bioware could do with the state of tech back then, you can’t excuse PoE in the same way. It is a design choice. And it is a bad one.
You can’t expect me in 2015 to complete the campaign of Witcher 3, and then play Pillars of Eternity. I just can’t do it. You want me to go from the incredible experience of a state of the art RPG to the bland ancient relic of experience Pillars of Eternity offers? At first i am looking at incredibly designed characters and stellar voice acting, with no walls of text to ruin my mood, and next you are asking me to care about the past of some random npc PIXEL BLOB that i can read through a wall of text because i am a “soulreader”?
Pillars of Eternity commits the cardinal sin of gaming, which is that it doesn’t respect the player’s time. I am pretty sure you could cut 3/4 of text and the game would lose nothing. You could speed the walking speed. You could speed the combat. You could have a less complex character creation screen full of useless shit like character backgrounds of a world you don’t know or care about. Why should i care what type of paladin order my character belongs? Will it really make a difference in game? No? Then why should i study the orders details and choose one before i get to play? Why you are wasting my time with meaningless fluff that give only the illusion of choice?
In the 2010s, you don’t immerse players in RPGs with stupid complex systems and useless exposition, you immerse them with beatufilly designed worlds and characters and dialogue. Show, don’t tell.
Pillars of Eternity was really overrated in my opinion and i don’t care about its sequel at this point. And this comes from and old-time BG fan.
I don’t understand the text complaints. A few taps of the spacebar and your time is your own again.
Do we count action-adventure games like Witcher 3 as the same genre as isometric RPGs? In my mind those two types of games are very different. I prefer isometric RPGs as I just don’t enjoy action gameplay anymore.
I didn’t read all the soul text I will admit and I think from a design point it was probably a poor choice since I felt like I had to initiate dialogue with stand around npc’s so I wouldn’t miss any quests. And maybe there was some meta story being told by the stories…which were actually quite well written. If that was the case then I missed it. It would be cool if there was one but I would bet not.
All that said, I really loved the isometric presentation and the environments. This year I’ve played a lot of Fallout 4 and recently Skyrim (I also had a terrible ESO pvp addiction that I finally broke this spring but that’s another sad story.) and I have to say that PoE was a really wonderful palate cleanser even beyond all the nostalgia from the BG series. It does take some effort to grok the systems and I still have to play most combats out at slow speed but I eventually got it. And the lore and thought that went into the world is really top notch. I backed PoE 2 without hesitation and can’t wait to sail my own ship around.
Yeah, but then, why are you playing this game? It is an rpg, if you aren’t reading the text, then you disconnect from the lore/story. Then what remains? A boring rts-light with clunky combat and complex rules you have to study for hours because apparently it is more fun rolling dice instead of just controlling a character yourself?
If you ignore the writting in an rpg, you might as well play a proper strategy or action game.
Witcher 3 is an RPG, not an action adventure. Only a hater would call it an action adventure. I have seen plenty of those in hipster places like the rpgcodex, but they are just hating it because it is more popular than their niche trash and can’t play the “cool kid” anymore.
Why it is an RPG you ask? It has all the usual elements of an rpg game and only differs in that the character is pre-established and not your own creation. But other “tru-rpg™” games like Baldur’s Gate offered pre-build characters as well. You didn’t have to make your own. As for the action elements, this is a valid point, as true rpgs should never let player ability influence avatar ability, but even PoE allows that, as it is still real time and thus faster reaction times and better mouse positioning influence a battle. Only turn based rpgs are true rpgs, in that sense.