Sep 9, 2018 at 11:24 PM - Roguey: PoE is Icewind Dale 3.

[IncendiaryDevice]

Sep 9, 2018 at 11:24 PM - Roguey: PoE is Icewind Dale 3.

This post still has me wondering.

I've been putting off playing Pillars of Eternity for quite a while now, mostly because I'm guessing I wont like it that much. However, I'm quite a big IWD fanboy and Roguey 's remarks the other day have had me wondering to what extent I've made false conclusions about the game from the research I did after its release.

I concluded after its release that I wouldn't pay top dollar for it because the game likely had too much dialogue breaking up the pacing, that the dialogue was a bit sleep inducing anyway, and that even when you got to the combat then the combat wasn't very interesting either, what with not enough monster variety, too many of the same monster in a row & then the loot wasn't unique or interesting either.

These conclusions go completely against what Roguey is imagining when s/he says Pillars of Eternity is most like IWD of the original IE games. And this is even before you factor in the fact that the whole point of IWD was full party character creation whereas PoE is a gang of pre-written NPCs, all with their own walls of text.

So what is Roguey imagining here?

I was going to buy the game when it dropped radically in price so that I wouldn't feel too burned if I kept falling asleep while playing & quitting, but if it is basically IWD III then perhaps I've been the one imagining the wrong things? Roguey wasn't too explanatorial as to why s/he felt this way.

I was wondering if anyone else thought it was most like IWD from the IEs & if so, why is that?

 

[Strange Fellow]

I, too, wonder what Roguey meant when Roguey said this. Maybe what Roguey meant cannot be accurately explained by anyone but Roguey. To that end, maybe summoning Roguey and asking Roguey personally would be a good idea.

 

[Dux]

Who the fuck is Roguey? Is she that one guy??

Eh, PoE is nothing like IWD. In my eyes, PoE is a warped reimagining of Baldur's Gate 2, with gameplay suggesting a multitude of diverging choices in an open world but still hampered by an overbearing and constricted narrative. IWD is constricted and straightforward by design but can sometimes feel liberating to play nonetheless. The only viable comparison would start at the WM expansion, maybe, but I haven't played it. It's got snow and shit, right?

 

[Bocian]

Is she that one guy??

Last thing he needs is more attention, tbh.

 

[Sigourn]

Does Roguey have a masculine vagina?

 

[a Goat]

PoE is most of the time boring.

 

[Ulfhednar]

I wish PoE 2 was IWD 3, but alas, it has far too much bad narrative and hardly any dungeon crawling. The loot and character creation are great though.

The White March 1 and 2 expansions from the first Pillars game feels the most like an IWD spiritual successor.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Who the fuck is Roguey? Is she that one guy??

Eh, PoE is nothing like IWD. In my eyes, PoE is a warped reimagining of Baldur's Gate 2, with gameplay suggesting a multitude of diverging choices in an open world but still hampered by an overbearing and constricted narrative. IWD is constricted and straightforward by design but can sometimes feel liberating to play nonetheless. The only viable comparison would start at the WM expansion, maybe, but I haven't played it. It's got snow and shit, right?

That was pretty much what I thought. The WM expansion also tipped the balance in putting the game back on my radar. No idea why Ivan rated you fake news, the guy doesn't seem to want to elaborate but I don't really see anything fake in what you're saying.

I wish PoE 2 was IWD 3, but alas, it has far too much bad narrative and hardly any dungeon crawling. The loot and character creation are great though.

The White March 1 and 2 expansions from the first Pillars game feels the most like an IWD spiritual successor.

That was the impression I was getting from the amassed feedback.

 

[ga♥]

Is PoE actually IWD3?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 

[Ulfhednar]

White March has several good dungeon dives - Durgan's Battery, both times, is good. Concelhaut's tower and the fights to get there are also good. Fighting the Eyeless starts out fun, but gets a little tedious after you have beaten a few of them. The Abby of the Fallen Moon is also pretty good.

The epic fights with Concelhaut and Llengrath would fit just fine in IWD, but the Kraken is a bit disappointing.

Pillars 2 is mostly about open world exploration via sailing to disconnected islands - ppl have compared it to the NWN2 expansion Storm of Zehir, but I never got on the NWN2 bandwagon to know if it's true or not. It also has a centerpiece city that is similar to Athkatla from BG2. The multiclassing and moderately customizable loot lets you play min/maxer to your hearts delight, but there's not quite enough challenge to justify the effort.

There are 4 in-game factions, and I basically ended up aligning with one by default rather than because I felt they were in any way compelling.

Pillars 2 gets rid of almost all per rest / attrition mechanics, so each fight your characters start at full potential. Some may not care, but that really hurt the few dungeon delving experiences the game had IMHO.

Honestly, the game starts off pretty good, but the longer you play it, the more you realize how paper thin it's justification really is... I agree with Dux that PoE 2 is more a bad BG2-clone than IWD 3.

 

[Roguey]

I made my assessment of Pillars here http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nt-from-the-1st-disciple-of-sawyerity.111666/

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Who the fuck is Roguey? Is she that one guy??

Eh, PoE is nothing like IWD. In my eyes, PoE is a warped reimagining of Baldur's Gate 2, with gameplay suggesting a multitude of diverging choices in an open world but still hampered by an overbearing and constricted narrative. IWD is constricted and straightforward by design but can sometimes feel liberating to play nonetheless. The only viable comparison would start at the WM expansion, maybe, but I haven't played it. It's got snow and shit, right?

That was pretty much what I thought. The WM expansion also tipped the balance in putting the game back on my radar. No idea why Ivan rated you fake news, the guy doesn't seem to want to elaborate but I don't really see anything fake in what you're saying.

I wish PoE 2 was IWD 3, but alas, it has far too much bad narrative and hardly any dungeon crawling. The loot and character creation are great though.

The White March 1 and 2 expansions from the first Pillars game feels the most like an IWD spiritual successor.

That was the impression I was getting from the amassed feedback.

The actual gameplay for the fully patched and updated version has more in common with Icewind Dale 1&2 than any of the other infinity engine games. In terms of combat, it’s like a less densely packed version of IWD2. Yes, it’s far less linear and there’s a lot more narrative, but when you’re actually killing shit, that’s what it feels like. Very much the same school of encounter design. Not a surprise given that Sawyer was the lead on IWD2.

I can’t remember who said this, but structurally it’s like the IWD games except with fully fleshed out hubs. If you want a combat crawl, it’s easy enough to skip the dialogue and play it that way.

In terms of the story and the writing, comparing POE to IWD is like apples and oranges. Word for word, IWD 1&2 had better writing, but it’s not like there was very much of it to begin with.

Compared to previous Obsidian games, POE’s writing is disappointing, but it’s not bad, just kind of bland. Very different from the Saturday morning cartoon tone of BG 1&2. As Roguey says, the sense of humor is pretty understated. Upon reflection, I think there’s just not enough melodrama relative to the volume of text. If they’re going to throw a lot of words at us, the emotional stakes of these stories/conversations need to be higher. This is probably why I preferred the writing in Tyranny: sure, there was a ton of text, but it was all melodrama all the time and you had much more motivation to discover the secrets of the world.

Again, POE gets a lot of shit here, but the writing is pretty okay. I suspect that, when it came out, people expected better from a game where Avellone’s involvement was heavily advertised. Now that we’ve seen the finished product from several MCA affiliated kickstarters, we know better. On the whole, POE is a decent RPG and it would be far less hated here if Obsidian hadn’t promoted it so aggressively as a spiritual sequel to the Infinity Engine games. What’s it sell for now, like $40 with the expansions? I think it’s absolutely worth buying, although since you’ve already waited for years, you might as well wait for the next sale.

Also, NB: you can recruit fully customizable adventurers in POE, you’re not limited to companions.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I made my assessment of Pillars here http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nt-from-the-1st-disciple-of-sawyerity.111666/

I read this and the addendum and nowhere do you really cite any reason why you equate it to IWD3, the only time you even mention IWD is when discussing the combat, to which you conclude that it has somewhere in between BG's death toll and IWD's. Which I find an odd comparison anyway due to the fact that BG has respawning monsters, meaning everyone will have different totals there anyway. You make no real mention of monster variety, loot, pacing and all the other more relevant points for comparison.

You seem to have just stated it's IWD3. Just stated it. It's IWD3, look, see, I just said it is IWD3. That's my statement.

The actual gameplay for the fully patched and updated version has more in common with Icewind Dale 1&2 than any of the other infinity engine games. In terms of combat, it’s like a less densely packed version of IWD2. Yes, it’s far less linear and there’s a lot more narrative, but when you’re actually killing shit, that’s what it feels like. Very much the same school of encounter design. Not a surprise given that Sawyer was the lead on IWD2.

I can’t remember who said this, but structurally it’s like the IWD games except with fully fleshed out hubs. If you want a combat crawl, it’s easy enough to skip the dialogue and play it that way.

In terms of the story and the writing, comparing POE to IWD is like apples and oranges. Word for word, IWD 1&2 had better writing, but it’s not like there was very much of it to begin with.

Compared to previous Obsidian games, POE’s writing is disappointing, but it’s not bad, just kind of bland. Very different from the Saturday morning cartoon tone of BG 1&2. As Roguey says, the sense of humor is pretty understated. Upon reflection, I think there’s just not enough melodrama relative to the volume of text. If they’re going to throw a lot of words at us, the emotional stakes of these stories/conversations need to be higher. This is probably why I preferred the writing in Tyranny: sure, there was a ton of text, but it was all melodrama all the time and you had much more motivation to discover the secrets of the world.

Again, POE gets a lot of shit here, but the writing is pretty okay. I suspect that, when it came out, people expected better from a game where Avellone’s involvement was heavily advertised. Now that we’ve seen the finished product from several MCA affiliated kickstarters, we know better. On the whole, POE is a decent RPG and it would be far less hated here if Obsidian hadn’t promoted it so aggressively as a spiritual sequel to the Infinity Engine games. What’s it sell for now, like $40 with the expansions? I think it’s absolutely worth buying, although since you’ve already waited for years, you might as well wait for the next sale.

Also, NB: you can recruit fully customizable adventurers in POE, you’re not limited to companions.

Again, there's a lot of words here and a lot of statements, but I'm trying to pick out the actual examples, which are, according to you:

More in common with IWDs than any other IE game... because... encounter design and structure. You don't really elaborate at all here and any elaboration you make is actually you saying things that aren't at all like IWD, like "less densely packed combat", "far less linear", "a lot more narrative" & "Fully fleshed out hubs", "high volume of text" & then you start saying how you were disappointed about how poor the writing was, as if the story would even be in a top-10 list of things that would make it similar to an IWD game?

Regarding fully customizable adventurers, this is kind-of a non-argument you often see with companion-based games. It's something that's theoretically possible but somewhat pointless when the vast majority of actual content will be somehow related to companions and their quests. Maybe something that can be done on a replay, but if someone played BG2 just once & said they did it with all of their own-built companions could they really say they've played the BG2 game or experienced BG2? Having the option to use custom companions in BG2 also wouldn't make that game 'like' IWD?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Again, there's a lot of words here and a lot of statements, but I'm trying to pick out the actual examples, which are, according to you:

More in common with IWDs than any other IE game... because... encounter design and structure. You don't really elaborate at all here and any elaboration you make is actually you saying things that aren't at all like IWD, like "less densely packed combat", "far less linear", "a lot more narrative" & "Fully fleshed out hubs", "high volume of text" & then you start saying how you were disappointed about how poor the writing was, as if the story would even be in a top-10 list of things that would make it similar to an IWD game?

Regarding fully customizable adventurers, this is kind-of a non-argument you often see with companion-based games. It's something that's theoretically possible but somewhat pointless when the vast majority of actual content will be somehow related to companions and their quests. Maybe something that can be done on a replay, but if someone played BG2 just once & said they did it with all of their own-built companions could they really say they've played the BG2 game or experienced BG2? Having the option to use custom companions in BG2 also wouldn't make that game 'like' IWD?

Jesus christ.

Most of the game is combat, the combat is more like Icewind Dale 1 and especially 2 than anything else. Why is that so hard to understand? The combat has very little in common with either Baldur's Gate, which had lots of easily auto-destroyed trash mobs spaced fairly far apart. In Icewind Dale the trash mobs were a lot less trash. You have maps that are very densely packed with enemies, more similar to IWD 1 & 2 than Baldur's Gate. Even though they're not as dense with enemies as IWD, they're still closer to that than anything else. Combat requires your attention and active intervention, which is, again, more like IWD than any of the other IE games.

Of course, there are also a number of things that are very different from IWD. The core gameplay is what's very similar. If you liked IWD for its linearity and lack of writing, you may not like POE. If you liked it for its combat and character customization, you will probably like POE just fine. But it's hard for me to imagine someone who cares about story more than gameplay really loving the Icewind Dale series.

As far as customizable recruits, that wasn't part of any argument. Someone--possible you--complained about not being able to use them so I corrected the record. And yes, you can use them without missing out on that much content. The companion quests are not that important, and they're certainly not that big. And you can still get the companion quests without using them in much of the combat. Lots of people here played Pillars with a fully customizable party and they didn't miss out on that much. This isn't a Bioware game.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Yes, sorry, I wasn't being combative about the combat, I'm sure the combat is of a certain nature. I was just trying to picture all the other things, like loot, pacing, encounter variety, linearity, and what have you. No, I wasn't questioning your experiences, more just attempting to imagine the similarities. IWD & IWD2 are very different games, but there are plenty of similarities. It just seemed odd to me that someone would declare it defacto IWD3 when it's otherwise known as an attempt to clone BG2 by many. I was just wondering in what descriptive way it was similar. I can get why the specific moment of combat to combat feels like IWD, just not anything else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . IWD2 had lots of puzzles, interesting puzzles, does it present you with lots of puzzles, for example, etc.

 

[Micormic]

I only played it for like an hour? maybe a bit longer tops. I got to the first town and recruited a couple guys but had lost any interest to continue.



It felt like IWD with worse music, but I'm not a fan of the IWD games or their encounter design(particularly the 2nd, IWD 1 was tolerable to me) I'm not sure if I have the opinion you want lol.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I must admit, I was expecting some varied opinions, but barely any & someone doing a pity post having only played an hour of the game was not what I expected, lol.

 

[Dorateen]

if someone played BG2 just once & said they did it with all of their own-built companions could they really say they've played the BG2 game or experienced BG2?

I did, and I would say that.

I'm not sure about all the content you think would be missed. Unless you are meaning intra-party banter and romance, to which I say, no thanks. Other than that, did the party of customs companions I ran with not chase Irenicus from his dungeon, to Spellhold to the very pit of Hell? Did we not participate in all the open ended questing in Chapter 2? Did we not fight Kangaxx and dismantle the Twisted Rune? We even met Imoen on a couple of occasions, and I rejoice in the fact there was no room for her in our party.

The appeal of Icewind Dale to me, is its unapologetic focus on dungeons and party creation, moving closer in the direction toward a classic AD&D style module. Assaulting Cragholdt's Bluff in Pillars of Eternity with a party of custom adventurers, captures much of that sense of old school role-playing. You are correct in that Pillars was designed and marketed as a Baldur's Gate clone. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the aspect of party creation, and liberating oneself from the developer's narrative and narrative dependent NPCs. So I would suggest that there is a stealth Icewind Dale successor to be found there, if the player chooses to pursue it as such.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

if someone played BG2 just once & said they did it with all of their own-built companions could they really say they've played the BG2 game or experienced BG2?

I did, and I would say that.

I'm not sure about all the content you think would be missed. Unless you are meaning intra-party banter and romance, to which I say, no thanks. Other than that, did the party of customs companions I ran with not chase Irenicus from his dungeon, to Spellhold to the very pit of Hell? Did we not participate in all the open ended questing in Chapter 2? Did we not fight Kangaxx and dismantle the Twisted Rune? We even met Imoen on a couple of occasions, and I rejoice in the fact there was no room for her in our party.

The appeal of Icewind Dale to me, is its unapologetic focus on dungeons and party creation, moving closer in the direction toward a classic AD&D style module. Assaulting Cragholdt's Bluff in Pillars of Eternity with a party of custom adventurers, captures much of that sense of old school role-playing. You are correct in that Pillars was designed and marketed as a Baldur's Gate clone. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the aspect of party creation, and liberating oneself from the developer's narrative and narrative dependent NPCs. So I would suggest that there is a stealth Icewind Dale successor to be found there, if the player chooses to pursue it as such.

Thanks for the brief summary of your experiences. I did some quick research and found this quote, which I personally find potentially relevant to the specific situation you mention:

I tried a custom made party once, and, it wasn't the lack of dialogue that killed it for me, but rather that I had created six characters with maxed out stats. They were steamrolling the game. It got boring for lack of challenge. Turns out, it actually makes a huge difference in challenge level when every fighter has 18/** strength with 18 dex and 18 con, every cleric has 18 wisdom/18 str/18 dex/16 con, etc.

Moral of the story: Don't munchkin your BG characters if you want a challenging game.

Now, Icewind Dale, on the other hand, was written and balanced for a party of six min-maxed characters. It winds up still being pretty challenging with its custom party, but I don't think a custom party works for BG, unless you want an easy game.

PoE is… somewhat... renown for its balance, *cough* *cough*, wouldn't trying to 'force it' into IWD produce some distinct issues even beyond just missing out on swathes of intended content?

 

[Fedora Master]

Except IWD is actually good.

 

[Azarkon]

White March is like IWD. The original game tried to be a bastard child of IWD and Baldur's Gate 2, but succeeded at neither.

 

[Dorateen]

Thanks for the brief summary of your experiences. I did some quick research and found this quote, which I personally find potentially relevant to the specific situation you mention:

I tried a custom made party once, and, it wasn't the lack of dialogue that killed it for me, but rather that I had created six characters with maxed out stats.

But isn't the key point that this person created maxed out characters, and is then complaining about it. Seems like he only has himself to blame.

This isn't something inherent to Baldur's Gate, or Icewind Dale for that matter. There are players who modified stats for all 18's since the Gold Box games, Dark Sun and Eye of the Beholder. Nothing wrong with that, if the player wants a power gaming experience. But it comes off as silly to me to make suped up heroes, and then act surprised to be steamrolling encounters. Party creation offers a great deal of freedom to the player, but I think also comes with a measure of responsibility, especially in Dungeons & Dragons related computer role-playing games.

Personally, I don't roll maxed out characters, instead using as a template the stats of actual pen and paper characters. This includes squishy support party members, which can be a challenge to protect and keep alive in battle.

 

[Roguey]

I read this and the addendum and nowhere do you really cite any reason why you equate it to IWD3, the only time you even mention IWD is when discussing the combat, to which you conclude that it has somewhere in between BG's death toll and IWD's. Which I find an odd comparison anyway due to the fact that BG has respawning monsters, meaning everyone will have different totals there anyway. You make no real mention of monster variety, loot, pacing and all the other more relevant points for comparison.

You seem to have just stated it's IWD3. Just stated it. It's IWD3, look, see, I just said it is IWD3. That's my statement.

Sounds like Pillars was a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale in more ways in one (as I documented in my article).

(that is, I found base Icewind Dale combat largely a bore and noticeably improved with Heart of Winter and again with Trials of the Luremaster)

Additionally, Josh Sawyer was asked how he'd handle a hypothetical Icewind Dale 3 back in 2011, and this was his response

As a series, Icewind Dale has always been, and was known for being, a party-based dungeon crawler. You can have a party-based dungeon crawler be non-linear and you can have strong themes in a dungeon crawler's story, characters, and world design. I don't think these things are in conflict. Most of IWD and IWD2's constraints involved building the games on 14- and 10-month dev cycles, respectively.

This is Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I must admit, I was expecting some varied opinions, but barely any & someone doing a pity post having only played an hour of the game was not what I expected, lol.

Keeping in mind i played PoE soon after its release, i did enjoy it and as far as i remember, BG's trash encounters are not on the menu, i played the IWDs as well but i can't remember much of it except when i tried to replay the EE and stopped right after the first encounter in the warehouse (i don't think those games are meant to be played more than once, people might disagree but hey, people like a lot of mainstream shit i don't )

Aside for the combat, you'll feel like you're playing BG2 in the main city, still, i think it's slightly better than the Irenicus / Imoen drama which was even worse in my eyes than the stupid koveras sarevok thing.

PoE isn't a very good game, it's not turn-based for once and it's IE look alike, there is too many similar games, it's boring as hell but if you enjoyed them, PoE is alright, i see it as a better BG 2 (story wise and combat wise) with the limitations of the fucking RTwP ...

Edit : Just read Roguey's review, i usually don't care about his opinion and once more, i have to disagree, Ciphers were the most interesting thing that happened to this game in my opinion, i played it with a main Cipher godlike char and a cipher NPC.

Probably because it's new, it's boring to replay the exact same races / classes in all those games.