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Anthony Davis Pillars of Eternity FULL GAME Impressions [UNMARKED SPOILERS]

Anthony Davis

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So as most of you know, I'm not on the PoE project, but I have a vested interest in it as a gamer, a backer, and an Obsidian employee.

Starting over the break, I sunk as much time in as I could - which is hard considering the nature of the holidays and that I have a family.


Let's go over some background and *MY* expectations.

My Background:
I've played all of the IE games. I'm a fan of the IE games because of what they were in that time period, not because they were DnD. In other words, they were quality RPGs breaking new ground. I have good memories of playing these games, but I also recognize that they also had some flaws.

When I play DnD, I do not get consumed by the rules and mechanics, I do not purposefully seek out ways to 'game' the system or to min max my characters. I actually prefer flawed characters. On a related note, this is one of the biggest challenges with a CRPG versus a PnP RPG - the lack of a Human Gamemaster who can tune games. For example, my campaign I was running recently was centered around a party of con-artists who masqueraded as circus performers - so they weren't walking around with heavy platemail and two handed swords. Most of them work leather breastplates or chain shirts - or no armor. Try doing that in a CRPG and see how far you get. Anyway...


My Expectations:
I was not an Obsidian employee when I backed the game, but I love Obsidian and I like to be honest. So to be honest, I probably would have backed anything Obsidian put up on the kickstarter. A RTwP game would not be my first choice if I was calling the shots - I prefer TB, but I backed it anyway because again, I love Obsidian.


I almost hesitate to talk about my experience with the game, because even in the time period between that build and the current build I just got yesterday, SOOOO much has changed and been fixed.

But I promised, so here I go - there will be unmarked spoilers below.

The Story and the World: to me, it seemed new with some familiar hints of fantasy. I understand that some of you might read more fantasy than I do, but this was mostly new to me. This is my understanding of the world, so I might actually have some details wrong.

This is a a world where reincarnation is fact, but people are blissfully unaware of their previous lives - unless they are a Watcher. Watchers are people who can see their previous lives and experiences. I got kind of a PS:T Nameless One vibe from some of the experiences. There are charlatans who pretend to be Watchters, fleecing people, so Watchers can have a bad reputation - but it can be overcome.
There are also people who are "Awakened". Typically this happens when someone is exposed to a serious magic event and they survive.

The player's character in PoE is both a Watcher and he/she has been Awakened. Most people that this happens to tend to go insane over time. It remains to be seen how the player will deal with it.

I liked the differences in these playable races, or Kith, as the civilized races are referred to. I like that there is a variant of dwarves who aren't Scottish gold diggers - but rather semi-barbarian-ish natives. I like the Orlans, and I especially thought it was clever on the differences between "Hearth" Orlans and the Wild Orlans. It was neat.


The Companions: I only found Edar the fighter, Aloth the wizard, Kana the chanter, Durance the skeevy healer, and Sigani the ranger. I liked them all, even though Durance is skeevy and creepy. I thought the voice acting was good to great, and the stories, what I found, were pretty interesting.



Character Creation: I liked the details and all the various things I could select for my character and how they affected their stats and starting equipment. This has already been improved since my first run through. I wish there were more and varied backgrounds, but the backgrounds do come up at minor conversation points. I also wish there were more portraits. One, Obsidian is working on getting more portraits, and 2, we support custom portraits. So while I wish there were more, it is a fixable problem.


Graphics: The game looks good to me. It's like a mash up of IE and ToEE. I like the capes, I like that there are several variant looks for the same armors - if you can find them. I loved that I could give my ranger a sweet shirt, a dueling cap, and an arquebus and he looked like a musketeer. The spell effects were nice.


Combat: This is a sticky point for some of the more vocal friends/haters/trolls/fanboys/etc. of the game. To me, and I understand this is my opinion, it felt like IE - which is not the same thing as saying it felt like DnD.
I set my controls up so that WASD moved the camera, and Tab highlighted stuff. I set my pause options up so that the game paused when and enemy appeared and some other settings I don't remember specifically.
When I found an enemy (or enemies) the game would pause, I would issue combat and move orders. I would then unpause and let things commence. I would pause and adjust the orders as the situation required. The engagement system seems to work, unless it's a surprise, or I make a mistake, and I can mostly keep my squishies protected. Ranged enemies seem to target my squishies about as much or more than they target melee, which can be a trick - but it's not too bad.

While learning the system on my first playthrough, there was quite a bit of quickloading or forced loading. For example, when you finish the starter dungeon, you are alone as you make for the Gilded Vale. If you think that your solo character can take on a giant brown bear, or 3 bandits, or three wovles with knockdown abilites, all by yourself you will be reloading - unless you play on the easiest setting - and even then... maybe you are going to die.

So what I am saying is that you can wander into areas and fights that you most likely will not win. Fleeing mechanics are difficult and in some cases, impossible, so a reload will be required. In one sense this is good and realistic, in another sense - RPGs, with few exceptions, have taught me that while party members are great, my lone hero can face roll level scaling armies. It was kind of refreshing. It is not as unforgiving as AoD, which is another RPG where your hero is not Superman, but it is similar and makes the attempt.

To wrap up combat, I would have preferred TB, but I didn't have any qualms. Combat also got a LOT more fun for me once I started to get better equipment and I gave my ranger an arquebus. Sure it takes 7 seconds to fire, and it's inaccurate, but I like the alpha damage and it looks cool.


The Stronghold: I'll be honest, the Stronghold didn't really do it for me. Yeah, the buildings get better and repaired which is nice. Followers walk around, which is neat. I never got an invasion, which was a bummer. On the plus side, it didn't feel like I was being forced to do anything and it didn't bother me. It does look nice and I think for people who like Strongholds more or dig into it deeper, it might be better.

Od Nua, the dungeon underneath it was pretty damn awesome (what I saw of it).

I don't want to sound like I'm being harsh on the Stronghold. It's entirely possible that I just didn't dig deep enough - but there is a LOT to do in this game already.


Bugs: Yeap, there were quite a few. To be fair, I encountered ZERO story breaking critical path bugs. I did encounter quite a few UI bugs, most of which have already been fixed. Actually, the review build I got yesterday already had fixed almost every issue I had reported over the Christmas break - and there are still months left to fix issues.
So still a lot of work to be done, but the team is busting their asses - I mean it.



So there are some broad strokes. I can try to answer questions, time and NDA permitting. I don't really want to turn this into a combat focused thread - I get it, there are a lot of passionate people out there who think they know the best combat system - and maybe they're right - I just don't care to get into it. Still, I will answer questions about combat and whatever else.
 

Anthony Davis

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Oh...

The Dungeons.

I really enjoyed the dungeon crawls in the game. The Catacombs, the temple of Wodica, Od Nua, the sewers beneath Lord Rudric's castle. All good. Full of traps, monsters, and other good things.

There are more than than, those are just the ones I could remember the names for.
 

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Did you play the full game? How does it compare to BG1 (or possibly 2) in terms of sheer size and the amount of things you can do, in your experience?
 

Anthony Davis

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Did you play the full game? How does it compare to BG1 (or possibly 2) in terms of sheer size and the amount of things you can do, in your experience?

I did not finish before I started over with a new character (an Orlan rogue now).

I don't remember how big either BG1 or BG2 was. I do remember spending over 200 hours on BG2 - PoE is not as big as that.

After about 20 hours I was still in the beginning of Act 2. There was still a ton of stuff to do in Act 2.


Before the break, the PoE team did a week long playthrough. Only two people beat it in 5 days on playing. One just went as fast as he could to get to the BAD ending - and it took almost 30 hours. The other player knew the crit path like the back of his hand, and ONLY did the critical path and skipped through everything as fast as he could. He took about 25 hours.

I would GUESS that the average player would take 30 to 40 hours for their first playthrough if they do not skip the side content. It could take longer.
 

Abu Antar

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Oh...

The Dungeons.

I really enjoyed the dungeon crawls in the game. The Catacombs, the temple of Wodica, Od Nua, the sewers beneath Lord Rudric's castle. All good. Full of traps, monsters, and other good things.

There are more than than, those are just the ones I could remember the names for.
How were the wilderness areas compared to the Beta wilderness areas in size and content?
Why did you misspell Sagani's nmae. Are you a racist? What dwarves ever do to you?
How would you rate the writing and companions with other rpgs that you personally enjoy?
Did you feel that you had to rest too often or was the rest to adventure ration good enough for you?
What do you think of fatigue systems in general? I hated it in the IE games and I have the same opinion of it in PoE.
Have you tried cheesing enemies in different ways? I mean this more in purpose of trying this out to report stuff to the team.
 

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Only two people beat it in 5 days on playing. One just went as fast as he could to get to the BAD ending - and it took almost 30 hours.

I would GUESS that the average player would take 30 to 40 hours for their first playthrough if they do not skip the side content.

Something doesn't make sense here.
 
Last edited:

Anthony Davis

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Something doesn't make sense here.
Maybe it was 25 hours to the bad ending? I don't know how much side content bad ending guy skipped.
Here is what I know:
Two people beat the game. One took 25 hours, one took a little longer. One got the bad ending, the other guy did not get the bad ending, but he skipped all or almost all side content.
 

Infinitron

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Maybe it was 25 hours to the bad ending? I don't know how much side content bad ending guy skipped.
Here is what I know:
Two people beat the game. One took 25 hours, one took a little longer. One got the bad ending, the other guy did not get the bad ending, but he skipped all or almost all side content.

Well, you make it sound like side content is fairly minor compared to the critical path in terms of contribution to total playtime. My experience is that in these types of games, the side content can actually take a significantly larger percentage of total playtime, because it typically contains battles that are harder than the critical path. Plus there's often just lots of it!
 

Anthony Davis

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How were the wilderness areas compared to the Beta wilderness areas in size and content?
Why did you misspell Sagani's nmae. Are you a racist? What dwarves ever do to you?
How would you rate the writing and companions with other rpgs that you personally enjoy?
Did you feel that you had to rest too often or was the rest to adventure ration good enough for you?
What do you think of fatigue systems in general? I hated it in the IE games and I have the same opinion of it in PoE.
Have you tried cheesing enemies in different ways? I mean this more in purpose of trying this out to report stuff to the team.


Chances are I misspelled Sagani's name because I'm a poor speller and typist. The fact that I'm racist against dwarves is just a bonus. ORLANS 4 LYFE

From what I've seen for far of only those five companions, I like them a lot. Some aspects have been seen before, Edar for example is sort of struggling with his faith. The way it works is that as you play through the game and accomplish certain criteria, companions will then have a chat bubble on their portrait letting you know that they want to talk to you. I do not know what the final effects of your player conversations will be - but I've enjoyed them.

On my first playthrough, things got type a couple of times because I was out of camping supplies (you can only carry 4) and I was in the middle of a dungeon. Sometimes you can find camping supplies as loot too. So far in my second playthrough I've been able to handle it a bit better. The mechanic feels good - it didn't aggravate me and it encouraged me to spend my resources wisely. Spell use is only reset after resting - it isn't an encounter power like most melee skills.

I only had to rest a couple of times due to fatigue. There are conversation/scripted events, the ones that are fullscreen and painted, where I didn't have the athletics to do something well and my party ended up fatigued as a result. Sometimes if you travel around a bunch on the map and the dive into a dungeon you might get into trouble. Minor fatigue isn't too bad. Major fatigue is dangerous. The system didn't bother me at all. I think it is easily manageable and the athletics skill also seem to improves your resistance (so to speak) to fatigue.

My main way of dealing with enemies that are too numerous or too dangerous was to use the terrain, ie. a chokepoint or something like that. This can easily backfire and become a chokepoint for YOU if you mess up. I didn't feel that I had to cheese - but sometimes in longer fights when I am out of spells or abilities the fights would turn into knock down drag out slug fests.
 

Anthony Davis

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how much can u squat bro?

I don't know, how much does your mom weigh?


No, I'm joking, your mom is an awesome lady.


I'm in pretty terrible shape and I want to live long enough to see my daughter graduate or something - so off to the gym I go.
 

Athelas

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How much does the game accomodate a pure stealth/pacifist approach?
 

Anthony Davis

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How much does the game accomodate a pure stealth/pacifist approach?

I don't know. I doubt you could do it.

There were numerous quests where I chose "conversation solutions" instead of combat, but there are random encounters that are straight up hostile. Even if you had enough stealth to get through it, I doubt your entire party will.

However, for quest solutions, I noticed frequent solutions that were diplomatic or benevolent.

Also, some fights are unavoidable I think. There is a crit path encounter:

The previous owner of the strong hold is a watcher who has lost his mind and I believe a fight with him is unavoidable.
 

Anthony Davis

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How much does the game accomodate a pure stealth/pacifist approach?

Let me add some more, stealth is DEFINITELY useful. You find hidden areas and traps in stealth mode. You can disarm traps and place traps in stealth mode. You can snipe and crit dudes from stealth mode.

Is it required? Probably not.

Is it useful? Very much so.
 

Athelas

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What was the most interesting combat scenario you encountered so far? You can describe it without spoiling the context.
 

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Double-tap, and it zooms in.

Or maybe I've just gotten used to it, I dunno.
It's either too small to read anything or too large to comfortably view posts without dancing your fingers off. The worst thing though are the ads that occupy half the screen and have the habit of pop up under my finger, so you're bound to accidentally click them.
 

LundB

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I don't know, how much does your mom weigh?
She's really light, you could probably squat her no problem.

Also, some fights are unavoidable I think. There is a crit path encounter:

The previous owner of the strong hold is a watcher who has lost his mind and I believe a fight with him is unavoidable.
You sure there's no secret Rat Diplomacy method of getting around this?
 

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Have you played the backer beta, and if so, how would you compare it to the full game in simple terms of having fun?


I actually prefer flawed characters.
Me too. Do you agree or disagree with Sawyer's balance mantra?


What's the purpose of the Stronghold? Does it feel like adds anything to the game?


I can still boot up BG2 and lose myself in it, almost like a game of Civilization at its peak. Except, instead of "one more turn", it's "gotta finish this dungeon." Did you ever experience this in PoE?
 

Crooked Bee

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
It's either too small to read anything or too large to comfortably view posts without dancing your fingers off. The worst thing though are the ads that occupy half the screen and have the habit of pop up under my finger, so you're bound to accidentally click them.

Good thing I'm ad-free, then :M

Without ads, it's fairly comfortable to browse, really. (Although yes, I do need to scroll to the side to see the full post/article occasionally.)
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Hello, can I interest you in a membership in the Cult of Tapatalk?
 

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