Pillars of Eternity

[ShivaX]

Wait, the backer NPCs drop gear?

Most people do in the game. Typically just regular stuff, but Desslock has plate before you can get it iirc so he… uh… get’s murdered in the corner sometimes.

[robc04]

Most people do in the game. Typically just regular stuff, but Desslock has plate before you can get it iirc so he… uh… get’s murdered in the corner sometimes.

That’s hilarious! I never even thought to murder Desslock! Maybe I need to do a Desslock murder run!

[Fifth_Fret]

Maybe I meant open! The experience is much tighter in BG2, still.

[Desslock]

That’s hilarious! I never even thought to murder Desslock! Maybe I need to do a Desslock murder run!

Wow, I tried to make him a cool NPC, and instead I just made him a prize turkey.

[AntediluvianArk]

So uh, where does the Desslock NPC hang out? Asking for a friend.

[Fifth_Fret]

I had no idea about this Desslock strategy! Where do we murder him? Find him, I mean. Find him.

[marxeil]

Because much of the dialogue is about things that the game could show you instead of describing to you. I didn’t finish PoE, but i played it for a bout 10 hours. Writting up until then, and i don’t believe this changes later, is in the style of a novel. It is very verbose and tries to explain to you things that you can’t see, while a well designed modern crpg like the Witcher 3 shows to you almost everything and only dialogue needs to be written/voiced, plus item descriptions. Take for example the small peeps into people’s past you do when you speak to most npc, in a game like the Witcher 3, you would just watch these set pieces, instead of having a wall of text describing them. In PoE, the text goes somewhat like this (not real example, i don’t recall any of this shit so i made up an example): “You see NPC X and NPC Y standing close to each other, with swords on one hand and shields on another, shouting to each other and being ready for a fight… bla bla bla bla”. On Witcher 3, it would just show you in-game. Thus, no need for text or voice acting.

As for the maps and the graphics, they were decent for a 2D game. But they are not as immersive as the graphics in a game like Witcher 3 or Dragon Age Inquisition or Skyrim. You don’t really feel like you are part of the place, you always feel that you are playing a computer video game. Back in 90s this wasn’t so bad because we didn’t have an alternative. Now we do have an alternative, which is what makes PoE graphics archaic in comparison.

Look, i understand that PoE has its audience and i am not saying it is a “hot garbage” game, because it really is not. If it was released back in '99, it would have been an instant classic like BG2. All i am saying is that it is archaic and doesn’t really belong in today’s gaming landscape.

Which is something i didn’t expect myself to say, as i was really into this project from its announcement. But the end result reminded me of why rpgs aren’t made like in the 90s anymore.

If you enjoyed it, then that is fine, really, it is a well made game given its type. But it is indeed overrated on places like Metacritic, it received tons of praise yet the game is really a niche game for a niche audience and pretty divisive among RPG fans: Some swear by it, others like me were dissappointed. It doesn’t deserve something higher than 80 for that reason, in my opinion. Yet it has an 89 score on metacritic, and a 8.3 user score. Seems the fans were more accurate than professional critics on this, a 8.3 is closer to what this game deserves in my opinion.

This has a TON of useless text and exposition ;)

[John_Reynolds]

My NPC cries every time someone doesn’t read his backstory.

You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to kill that bastard, just out of spite. :D

[Desslock]

You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to kill that bastard, just out of spite. :D

He’s happy to have the attention heh

[quarryman]

So I decided to give this one more shot and picked it up yesterday on Xbox one. Put about 6 hours in so far.

Controls work well put load times really break immersion. Its not that they are THAT long but that there are so many of them. Every little floor for each building. Each floor in dungeons. And on the main map. And there doesn’t seem to be any caching of previous loads - go back through a door you just came out of and the load time is exactly the same. Really badly optimised in that area.

I’m considering stopping playing altogether as I’ve heard the load times just get worse.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I really don’t understand why consoles aren’t using SSD’s, honestly.

[John_Reynolds]

Is it auto-saving per load and can you turn that off in the options? Hopefully Deadfire offers that choice.

[inactive_user]

Because they were designed in 2007 when SSD prices were absurd?

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Yeah, but even if you put an SSD in a system on your own it’s not really much faster - the bottleneck is the board they are using. For the original release of the PS4 and XBOX I suppose that makes sense, but it wouldn’t have been much (any?) more expensive to allow for the option that end-users might want to upgrade to an SSD with the XBOXONEX or the PS4 Pro. It’s just a big missed opportunity, imo.

[quarryman]

As it happens I am using an SSD in my Xbox but I have it connected to the USB3 port as an external drive. The game is installed on that. From what I’ve read this actually gives better performance than the internal non-SSD drive.

But load times are still really irritating.

[Ex-SWoo]

For some reason I woke up today and got the idea stuck in my head to buy the DLC for this game despite never beating the original (I played to the end of Act 2 back when it first came out but fizzed out for some reason).

Good Idea or Bad Idea?

[Alistair]

Bad Idea. Finish the one you paid for already :)

[Scotch_Lufkin]

The DLC at $9 each is a fantastic value, each one is lengthy and introduces new NPC’s you can recruit as well as new content from powerful later-game weapons/equipment to new skills and a higher level cap (both DLC’s do this). But they are aimed entirely at the end-game, once you beat the vanilla game for the most part, so you should probably play PoE again and see if you are getting into it more this time. If you aren’t, save your $18. If you ARE, getting them now 40% off is a decent investment in future fun.

[malkav11]

I would recommend it if you were enjoying yourself. Personally I found the expanded level cap and additional companions well worth it even without getting to the expansion content (and actually some of the early stuff is doable by act 2, IIRC). But of course if you fell off because you weren’t gelling with the game, investing more in it would be silly.

[Ex-SWoo]

Thanks all - urge to spend is in check for now (will probably blow it on something else :) )