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Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

adddeed

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What's the excuse for Tyranny then? "Oh, but it was rushed!", "oh, it changed directors, it's not a fair comparison!", "oh, Paradox fucked everything up!", "it was made by their B-team!"
It's time to stop making excuses, jesus christ. Stop being such a retarded drone. Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits, it's not just Obsidian.
Excuse for what? Tyranny is good fun. Its smaller scope was probably due to the fact that the team got burned out with Pillars and wanted to make something lighter for a change, before PoE2.
 
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Lacrymas

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I don't think souls in general were a very good idea, it not being a good idea caused the main plot to be nonsensical because it was constructed on shaky ground. I think they felt obligated to tie it with the souls, so nobody's motivations make sense, least of all the PC's.
 
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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
But what we got instead was: you fuck up his plans at the sanatorium

Have you? He's already thoroughly frustrated and discredited Caedman Azo by the time you arrive. As far as I can tell the only reason he still inhabits meat-puppets in the Asylum is to troll him even more, or maybe just to spy.

Seriously, if it wasn't for the occasional LK assassin squad at night, you would think they don't care about you at all - even though you're directly interfering in their affairs, and it's been stated they kill for less than that.

Maybe that's all they have. One thing the game does which I thought was sort of interesting is subtly imply that the Leaden Key are mostly poseurs and LARPers, only good for spying and sacrificing themselves on Engwithan machinery. See Kana Rua's stories about their hilarious failures to kill him, or the reaction you get when you bring them up in the animancy hearing. Or the fact that they recruit vulnerable weirdos like Aloth.
 
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Grunker

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You don't have to quote it bit by bit if you actually have a life in constrast to the rest of us, but avoiding the main point is weak tea, Infinitron:

Honestly, I think the above is sort of obvious and you'd no doubt agree I have overexplained it with a sense of desperate, autistic fevor. The evident point is that during most of Pillars of Eternity, you're exploring a bog standard fantasy setting with a soul gimmick as its sole original concept. During the final half hour, the game unravels a political plot, a philosphical dillemma and a question about the religious nature of man and how to best consolidate that nature with a grim and careless world. As such, the game breaks every rule of story-telling by thinking it can "be about something" that it is really only about during the rushed events of its final minutes.
 

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
I'm not sure what you think I'm trying to argue. The bit by bits are the only things I have to say.
 

Grunker

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You were comparing The Leaden Key to Sarevok, emphasizing that they have roughly equivalent "screen time", as a counterpoint to Sizzle's point that they were a contrast to Sarevok.

My point is that though you are technically correct that they have similar screen time, Sarevok has adequate screen time considering the simplicity of his motives and the sparse motivation you need in light of those. The reverse is true for The Leaden Key: they have very little screentime considering the complexity of their motives, and the screentime they're given is spent on - often quite literally - nothing, as the game must simultaneously tell us "these guys are the antagonist" while not telling us a single concrete fact about their plans because the writers are saving that for the final reveal.

As such, Sizzle has a principal point regardless of you being technically correct (perhaps even off in your own favor - I believe The Leaden Key/Thaos have more screen time than The Iron Throne/Sarevok. Again, technically).
 
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Sentinel

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What's the excuse for Tyranny then? "Oh, but it was rushed!", "oh, it changed directors, it's not a fair comparison!", "oh, Paradox fucked everything up!", "it was made by their B-team!"
It's time to stop making excuses, jesus christ. Stop being such a retarded drone. Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits, it's not just Obsidian.
Excuse for what? Tyranny is good fun. Its smaller scope was probably due to the fact that the team got burned out with Pillars and wanted to make something lighter for a change, before PoE2.
"I-it's not as good because they were tired after making one game, y-yeah!"
Thanks for the laugh.
 

Sizzle

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See Kana Rua's stories about their hilarious failures to kill him

I always thought that bit with Kana Rua was just silly little meta-commentary about how bad guys invariably send incompetent, low level mooks after the heroes and later regret it.

There's even a resolution to this (it's somewhat tricky to get, don't know how many people have seen it): after confronting Gabrannos, you return to Level 1, where there's a Leaden Key group waiting to kill you for attempting to find the Tanvii ora Toha.
 

adddeed

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What's the excuse for Tyranny then? "Oh, but it was rushed!", "oh, it changed directors, it's not a fair comparison!", "oh, Paradox fucked everything up!", "it was made by their B-team!"
It's time to stop making excuses, jesus christ. Stop being such a retarded drone. Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits, it's not just Obsidian.
Excuse for what? Tyranny is good fun. Its smaller scope was probably due to the fact that the team got burned out with Pillars and wanted to make something lighter for a change, before PoE2.
"I-it's not as good because they were tired after making one game, y-yeah!"
Thanks for the laugh.
Not every release needs to be big in scope chump.
 

Maculo

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Furthermore, so what if Thaos or our place in the events aren't actually random? We're not even given a hint that this is the case until much later, and even then we're just told "you knew Thaos in a past life, so please care about this." We're not given a reason to care, we just get random visions of random people stirring up trouble within a random organisation. Because of the nature of the ending's twist, the writers can't fill us in on any of this till the very, very end, but the game knows it can't just let us play through 60 hours with no story, so it gives vagueness instead. And it ends up being worse than nothing. I am at my most bored during PoE when I'm clicking through those Watcher Past Life(tm) dialogues, being told a story about how I did something in the past using placeholder expressions like "The Inquisition" or "The Woman." Because the game can't tell us even slight details about what's going on, it has to invent a new language to tell us the story, without actually telling us the story. And holy shit is it boring! I don't know why I'm supposed to care about any of it.

I appreciate ambition, but when you try complex things the chances that you fail are higher. And that's exactly what happened here. I don't give a rat's ass about PoE's main plot until someone bothers to give me a reason to care during the last 12th of the game. At which point it's too little too late.

If you really want to make comparisons, don't compare the story to BG1 or 2, compare it to Planescape. The two are similar in that they attempt to ask questions about humanity and use their settings to do so. Almost every single encounter in PS:T - even banal subquests - explores themes central to the main plot. We're not introduced to villains until the game is ready to make at least part of their purpose relevant to us. Even though Planescape's ending is filled with revelations and twists, there's never a moment where any of the characters we know or the secrets we hunt are just vaguely out of reach with no compelling reason to motivate us to progress. Planescape has all the revelationary goodness that PoE has, but it doesn't achieve it by hiding the reason for our immortality until the end. It doesn't hide the central questions it wants us to ponder, so when we're faced with the realization of our past, we know enough to grasp it. The game is a monster of complexity and ambition, so it has to weave its themes into every bit of dialogue it has and dole out revelations as breadcrumps each step you take - to make sure you have a reason to be intrigued and "keep asking questions", as it were. When you're at the very end of the game, the important questions have been asked multiple times. At this point, you know, and it's easy to understand the motives of your past selves and The Transcedent One, even though just the concept of these characters is stupefying at face value. That's why Planescape is so hard to explain to others, yet so easy to talk about with someone who has played it.

"You just had to be there, to experience it, man" *huge puff*

Pillars of Eternity has similar amibitions to Planescape but fails utterly at letting the player in on its thoughts and ideas. Most of those are rolled out during a hectic final act, and the questions that are supposedly the backbone of the story - and the villain who is supposed to represent the extreme answer to that question - aren't even slightly known to us until the last part of that last act. As much as the game acts like we should know the guy from our "past lives", the game fails completely at telling - much less "showing", in the story-telling sense of the word - us about him and about the dillemas he struggles with. As such, you go through 95% of the game knowing even less about Thaos than you do about Sarevok, yet he is an infinitely more complex character, and the game is trying to be about the very logic that drives him.

Planescape is like high class prostitute; it slowly undresses, shedding stockings and ear-rings and high heels bit by bit while we clench our cocks in agonizing expectation. PoE is a boring prude hidden beneath layers of wool and cotton. When it finally rips apart its clothes and reveals a pair of fairly nice tits, we're like "that's cool, but did you have to wear a snowsuit at the restaurant?" Our date is a silent, frigid companion until we get home - then she suddenly wants to give us a sloppy blowjob.

Honestly, I think the above is sort of obvious and you'd no doubt agree I have overexplained it with a sense of desperate, autistic fevor. The evident point is that during most of Pillars of Eternity, you're exploring a bog standard fantasy setting with a soul gimmick as its sole original concept. During the final half hour, the game unravels a political plot, a philosphical dillemma and a question about the religious nature of man and how to best consolidate that nature with a grim and careless world. As such, the game breaks every rule of story-telling by thinking it can "be about something" that it is really only about during the rushed events of its final minutes.

There's nothing wrong with the ambition - just the execution.

I disagree to an extent Grunker. In my mind, PoE is an atypical amnesia story. In the beginning, all we have is a memory of the machine and the dialogue about the "question" to go on. Although far from perfect, the flashbacks begin to fill in the gaps in your memory and elaborate on the Thaos and the MC's relationship. Specifically, if you choose the "I wanted redemption" dialogue options, I think that sets up a nice betrayal/revenge story as a backdrop. If I remember correctly, one dialogue option leads to the flashback where the MC is looking for redemption/having a moral crisis, and Thaos goes out of his way to mentor the MC. For once, Thaos comes off as sincere.

This can culminate in the MC turning the elf over to Thaos, and the MC slowly comes to the realization that the elf was correct all along (depending on your option, you got your lover/sibling/friend tortured and killed over a fake religion). This ends with the question ("are the gods real"), to which Thaos deflects. Depending on the options you chose, you set up a amensia and revenge story that took place multiple lifetimes.

I also think Planescape is a better comparison than BG, as the MCs are both piecing together past memories to figure out what is going on. Granted, I think Placescape pulls it off much, much better than PoE.
 
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Grunker

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Forgive me I misremember (which would be embarassing considering I just finished a second playthrough like two months ago), but isn't that dialogue also near the very end? I did like it because it is the first bit of even remote detail we get on what all the rest has been about, but again: it doesn't redeem the repugnant boredom of what came before it.

You cannot save bad writing with a good ending.
 

Maculo

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I last played a while ago, and so I think my memory could be shaky. In terms of pacing, I remember:
  1. Memory of the machine and the question at the end of the introduction.
  2. Flashbacks of Thaos at the end of Chapter 2 (in which you give your reasoning for joining the religion, and pep talk from Thaos)
  3. Flash back of Thaos about doubts, in which he gives you another pep talk at Chapter 3(?). (I think this happens outside the furry psyker den)
  4. Flashback of the elf, in which you set her relationship status (lover, sibling, etc) in Chapter 4, where you leave Defiance Bay for the eastern tribes.
  5. Twin dryads reveal that you and Thaos have crossed path many times.
  6. Flashback to elf in which she is tortured to death.
  7. Tell the elf why you betrayed her (I chose, "I was afraid").
  8. Circle back to the first flashback of the machine, where you asked Thaos the "question."

The awkward moment in my mind is Maerwald (crazed Watcher). It could have been handled with a flashback of Defiance Bay and how you met Thaos instead. Otherwise, I think Defiance Bay fills in the memory gaps (sets up why we trusted Thaos), Chapter 3 (4?) sets up the betrayal with the elf/gods, and the the final chapter brings it full circle (revenge).
 
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Sizzle

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You cannot save bad writing with a good ending.

I'd argue that it fails not so much because of the writing itself, but because of the idea ("See, this is your past self - CARE ABOUT WHAT S/HE DID!!") and sloppy execution ("Click through this boring flashback that has no relevance on gameplay and barely any on the story itself, and enjoy it, dammit!").

I think those flashbacks could have been much better if they had multiple outcomes, instead of "Iovara: 'Oh, hi there, my dear reincarnated brother/sister/friend/lover.'"
 

Lacrymas

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It's not a good ending though, "hurr-durr gods are not real" (although they are, they are just constructs) comes off as incredibly trivial and "whatever"-ish (kinda like it doesn't really matter whether God truly, literally exists in real life, our mental concept of gods and the ideology formed around them force us to do real, meaningful things [whether that is "good" or "bad" is besides the point], which is beyond the scope of any gods). Now that I think about it, I don't think there's a main plot at all, there are all kinds of threads that you think are forming a main plot, but they fail to connect in any coherent way. The PC just stumbles upon Thaos' inane plan and goes downhill from there, it doesn't matter that we've known the elf or him in our "past lives", so the flashbacks are a side-side-siiiiide effect of being a "Watcher". I don't know how to explain it, but it just doesn't gel.
 
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Maculo

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It's not a good ending though, "hurr-durr gods are not real" comes off as incredibly trivial and "whatever"-ish (kinda like it doesn't really matter whether God truly, literally exists in real life, our mental concept of gods forces us to do real, meaningful things, which is beyond the scope of any gods). Now that I think about it, I don't think there's a main plot at all, there are all kinds of threads that you think are forming a main plot, but they fail to connect in any coherent way. The PC just stumbles upon Thaos' inane plan and goes downhill from there, it doesn't matter that we've known the elf or him in our "past lives", so the flashbacks are a side-side-siiiiide effect of being a "Watcher". I don't know how to explain it, but it just doesn't gel.
I disagree. Those things do matter, because it contextualizes the revenge from the prior life. You caused the elf (your lover, sibling, etc) to be brutally tortured to death and her soul stuck in eternal limbo, because someone you trusted (Thaos) lied to you.

The gods are just the pretext, and being a Watcher is what gives you the ability to seek revenge, because you can finally put the memories together and find Thaos. The Twin Dryads tell you that you have crossed path with Thaos many times in prior lives. The difference is that you were not a Watcher in prior lives.
 

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Raedric's Hold at L4 is pretty challenging, yeah. You can always run back to the bedroom and have Edér hold the door though; Aloth's AoEs with Durance's buffs should be enough to beat it from there. Maybe throw in a couple consumables for good measure.

I always do it at L4, never did at 5. I got it down to clockwork I do it without any knocked out members now. What I do is like, walk up the stairs with my whole party position so that in the middle is durance (wearing plate from the godlike in the vale), in front of him is eder (I trigger the conversation by running eder forward) and aloth and myself on sides of durance, you just nuke the priest at the start of the combat, put down a healing aoe with durance, then focus down mages and rest is done. If I get Kana it's a cake walk because he can also tank at that level and has a nice fine estoc.

I remember though first time I did that place I had a full party, with Kana and Sagani, at level 4 I kept wiping there. It's impressive how challenging it is but once you learn it you can do it without wiping anymore. I also got better at properly utilising consumables and scrolls however.
 

Lacrymas

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You say that like the revenge and how you deal with it is the point of the story, which I fail to see. Not to mention that it's incredibly forced, because it's not us who did it (that segment should've been playable and the writing guiding us to do it), it's some incarnation that might as well be another person. What would change if you see visions of another person condemning Iovara to torture, but you just happen to use your Watcher powers to find Thaos anyway? You aren't banned from accessing other people's "soul memory".
 

Grunker

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You cannot save bad writing with a good ending.

I'd argue that it fails not so much because of the writing itself, but because of the idea

Yeah, dats wot I meant :)

EDIT: Although I do hate most of the writing in the main game, for reasons VD have quoted me for in his review and that Darth Roxor elaborated on in his excellent "fuck long-winded RPG dialogue"-post.
 

Maculo

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You say that like the revenge and how you deal with it is the point of the story, which I fail to see. Not to mention that it's incredibly forced, because it's not us who did it, it's some incarnation that might as well be another person. What would change if you see visions of another person condemning Iovara to torture, but you just happen to use your Watcher powers to find Thaos anyway? You aren't banned from accessing other people's "soul memory".
But you would need a reason to see into another person's so to find that. In a sense, this is a weird amnesia story, where you piece together your old memory.

And, I do think it is a revenge story at this point. If you take away the evil god plotline, you were betrayed by Thaos, you consistently cross paths with him in prior lives, and it ends with you killing him. Also, I am not saying it was perfect execution by any stretch. It lacks coherence, especially when compared to Planescape.
 

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There's actually an advantage in doing Heritage Hill first since you get to learn Engwithan sooner (though I don't recall if there's any to read in Cliaban Rilag)

From what I remember - there is. Fluff text on the walls, but it's a nice addition.

I think it's very important fluff text for background. Because it describes how the Engwithans infused armours with souls and you learn that basically they were p. much a place with human sacrifice and animancy, unlike what Thaos wants to make people believe.
 

Lacrymas

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A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?
 

Maculo

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A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?
When I first played it: stopping an evil god from imposing a harsh rule and "political" games with animancy. When I played it a second time: getting revenge on the guy that made you kill your own lover/sibling/friend.

Honestly, it depends on how important you think the flashbacks are.

edit: I want to reiterate, I am not saying PoE has a masterfully executed story. In fact, I think it is the lack of cohesion that helps it, because it creates ambiguity. Without that ambiguity, it would be a pretentious failure at Planescape-ish writing (as opposed to an incoherent, execution failure of Planescape-ish writing).
 
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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
Thoughts on the "What does it matter that the gods are artificial? They're still powerful!" argument:

1) I think it's an argument that betrays a misunderstanding of religious faith. Don't really want to go deeper into that, though.

2) Even disregarding that, it's not a twist that stands alone. The significance of the gods' artificiality needs to be understood in the context of events such as the killing of Eothas. If the gods can be killed, and the gods are artificial, why don't we kill any god that crosses us? Or how about we find out how the gods were created and use the new science of animancy to turn ourselves into gods? These things matter.

And one further thought about the gods-are-artificial twist. Chris Avellone has said that he thinks the gods aren't an important enough part of the game's storyline, so players won't care about the twist. That's possibly true if you take the game in isolation and ignore the genre that it's part of. But I think that as an intentionally nostalgic product that's meant to be a commentary on an entire generation of fantasy RPGs, Pillars of Eternity should be given some allowance to assume that players already have certain expectations about the nature of gods in fantasy settings. Even if the twist isn't shocking to you as viewed from the in-game perspective of your player character, it's still a surprise on the meta-genre level. I wonder if MCA really doesn't realize this or if he just thinks it's not good enough (which is certainly a defensible position).
 

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A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?

There is no conclusive point to the story, I think that doesn't sit well with a lot of people but for me it's exactly why while I think the story had a lot of flaws, it worked. For example for its flaws I think factions in defiance bay are hamfisted and I think leaden key just is not even in the game, they should be around more, even in white march where you find them, it's like one quest and one you get and solve very early with ogres. They should have sprinkled way more leaden key into the game to show them as this active, influental organisation instead of having same exposition as lover of a Doemenel member. Also I think there is as huge gap of nothing happening when a lot should happen between defiance bay burning and you getting to meet thaos, it feels like they just tried to conclude story because they felt it was getting too long for one game, so instead they force the story very fast with 2 flaskbacks between defiance bay and twin elms.

However I think story works, because in Obsidian tradition, they left it open-ended, story is how you want it to play it to be. There is no "point", there is no grand closing act, in fact this is lampshaded by Thaos' own words. Story is how you conclude it and what you think it should be, you can agree with Thaos and Woedica, you can agree with other gods, you can just be in personal revenge and not give much fucks about either animancy or gods. It's not like New Vegas which whatever way you choose concludes with the battle at dam which is a conclusive, standalone ending. I liked that about the game, I liked that instead of following a grand quest, we just have a problem and we follow it through in a way we think is appropriate, roleplaying you know, not a cinematic experience. It's loose, it's intertwined with the setting and place itself and you go through it on your own direction. It gave an illusion of choice that isn't there due its nature. Setting is part of story and the story is part of the setting.

Now I think PoE's main story was lacking and I'll be disappoint if PoE2 has similar content to combat ratio or the holes in the story like PoE did. I would also prefer story to be more present instead of take and forget like a Bethesda game but I would also prefer they take similar narrative decisions, that's to say, let you choose why you are doing what you are doing in a way that makes sense while allowing a platform for that choice to flourish. I think PoE didn't quite accomplish that but it was a step in right direction, just not fully realised.
 

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