In BG1 it takes a while until you get magic weapons to your whole party. Finding the few +2 weapons is already somewhat of an achievement, particularly if you don't have too much prior meta knowledge.
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Mature and rational discussion re: itemization in Pillars of Eternity
- Thread starter Blaine
- Start date
In BG1 it takes a while until you get magic weapons to your whole party. Finding the few +2 weapons is already somewhat of an achievement, particularly if you don't have too much prior meta knowledge.
Yes, many unique and excellent items in shops. Unique and excellent.
...
I think you might have misunderstood me, then. I was only commenting on the presence of uniques in shops. As you'll see from my first comment in this thread, I think itemization is the no. 1 critique of this game after writing.
Disagree, unless we call Fine weapons magical. If we don't, it took me about the same time to outfit the entire team as it did in my first BG playthroughs.
Gord
Arcane
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I think the relatively large amount of "fine" items and the mostly minor bonuses magic items give on top, even rare ones makes the itemization underwhelming.
I'd like to see more uniques with special properties that are not accessible so easily otherwise or with higher bonuses offset with some negative attributes.
I'd like to see more uniques with special properties that are not accessible so easily otherwise or with higher bonuses offset with some negative attributes.
No I was just groaning about shitty loot in PoE and being nostalgic about BG
Truth is, magic itself has nothing to do with how good or not item in PoE is. Ie in D&D +2 means item is magical, but here the quality of item is what makes it worthy or not. Exceptional & Superb items do make you party stronger by a lot, since Superb weapon gives you a whooping 45% more damage. If Eder critted for 40 or 50 damage before, with best sword in game he will do 70+ hits and crits just may turn enemies into chunks.
But, you can buy exceptional items and just add a few mods to them like +25% elemental damage and they will be miles better than any magical item you either found or will find in the game. Same goes for Superb items. Having just a Superb sword is better than having any exotic weapon. It's not like BG where you would carry, say, a +2 mace with you because it gives 18 str, or because it slays undead.
Armor is the same. It's better to buy an Exceptional leather armor from last city and stick some bonus proofing on it than fap on your fine magical plate. The difference in DR is small and you will even do more damage in leather armor.
So I don't think even unique magical bonuses would do anything to this system where what really matters is item quality. Magical items are just not necessary for your success in the game.
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The enchanting limitation makes no sense. An armor like Éder's Saint War Armor can be made:
Superb (6 slots),
of Might +2 (4 slots),
Pierce Proofed (1 slot),
Second-Chance (1 slot).
And still fit the "12 enchantment" limit because Second-Chance only occupies one slot. Yes, reviving mid-battles takes ONE slot. Meanwhile, stuff like Rending (ignores 3 DR) occupies 2 slots, so I can't fully enchant my weapon.
Superb (6 slots),
of Might +2 (4 slots),
Pierce Proofed (1 slot),
Second-Chance (1 slot).
And still fit the "12 enchantment" limit because Second-Chance only occupies one slot. Yes, reviving mid-battles takes ONE slot. Meanwhile, stuff like Rending (ignores 3 DR) occupies 2 slots, so I can't fully enchant my weapon.
Gave up on the manual during character creation. It's pretty bad for this kind of game, and full of outdated info. Tried creating a monk by the manual, all his abilities have wrong values and nowhere it explains how Wounds work.
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Disagree, unless we call Fine weapons magical. If we don't, it took me about the same time to outfit the entire team as it did in my first BG playthroughs.[/QUOTE]
Let's see...
You can get a dagger +1 in Candlekeep, and another one in Beregost (paying for it). There are only 2 daggers +2 in the game, and both appear inside Baldur's Gate, which is late into the game.
There are a couple of extra daggers +1 around, if you go all the way to Ulcaster or enter the Ankheg caves, which you cannot really do at low level in your first playthrough unless you have asperger's.
There are only 2 battle axes +1, you have to purchase them, one from Beregost and another one in Baldur's Gate, where the +2 one is too. So... late game stuff. The flying one is after returning to Candlekeep.
There's a single hallberd +1 in some random cave in the ass of the world.
There are 4 flails +1, but the only one kind of accessible early is the one carried by one of the fishermen near the entrance of Baldur's Gate.
You can purchase a Mace +1 in Beregost or wait until you reach Baldur's Gate to loot one.
To grab a Morning Star +1 you have to go towards Gullykin, which you have no real reason to do by plot, and will need to either loot it from a group of adventurers in the area north of Gullykin, or from one of the group in the south of the Gullykin map, which can be a tricky encounter.
You cannot get a spear +1 before the third level of the Cloakwood Mines. No +2 spears in the game.
You can purchase a quarterstaff +1 at Beregost or get it from Silke's corpse. +2 quarterstaves appear only in the expansion.
You can purchase a bastard sword +1 and a longsword +1 in Beregost. There are plenty of longswords +1 though, as soon as you go out of the main paths, and getting Greywolf's +2 Longsword is achievable early-ish following the main plot.
If you don't buy the shortsword +1 at Beregost, you can get a couple of them in Nashkel, from the assassin and in the mines.
There's a single two handed sword +1 in the game, and you have to loot it from a half-ogre.
There are a couple of warhammers +1 before Baldur's Gate, one of them in the bandit camp and another one in Peldvale. It might be actually easier to get the +2 from Bassilus in this case, but the combat can be hard for a low level group depending on how you handle the conversation with him.
So, yeah, you can buy a lot of +1 weapons as early as Beregost, but if you're just approaching the game for the first time it's unlikely you can have a well equiped party until quite a long stretch into the game. Equipping your party of 6 with magic weapons that suit them (blunt weapons, druid weapons, yadda yadda) happens naturally slowly unless you have some metagaming knowledge, as I said.
I don't disagree, I'm just saying that's more or less how it's been with my PoE party thus far.
And don't forget class restrictions. Chances are, you want a magical one-handed weapon for Jaheira or any other druid, you will have to wait a looong time to get it. I remember using wooden club for half a game because there are only 2 magical scimitars in the game, one in expansion, and one is carried by you know whom, and only one club. So I used wooden club because I could use shield with it and because wooden weapons didn't break unlike metal ones.
It's really part of a charm of class restricted equipment, and while I am happy that in PoE my druid can use, say, a Warbow and look and feel good about it, I also never got that feeling when I get hands on weapon and I know that this one is special, this one was placed by designer for me, for my class, for me to find it and care about it. Before game came out they said they wanted players to be able to finish the game with starting sword and feel good about it, but during the game if you want to be effective, you'll probably discard your fine sword for exceptional mace, and then that for superb estoc, like I did for example.
It's really part of a charm of class restricted equipment, and while I am happy that in PoE my druid can use, say, a Warbow and look and feel good about it, I also never got that feeling when I get hands on weapon and I know that this one is special, this one was placed by designer for me, for my class, for me to find it and care about it. Before game came out they said they wanted players to be able to finish the game with starting sword and feel good about it, but during the game if you want to be effective, you'll probably discard your fine sword for exceptional mace, and then that for superb estoc, like I did for example.
Yeah, no. Now you're just being nostalgic. AD&D's class restrictions were fucking dumb and served little purpose.
This is the real issue, and can be solved without resorting to really lame and pointless restrictions.
The undisputed kings of the Infinity Engine are Baldur's Gate 2 and Torment, with good reason. I suppose IWD and/or IWD2 are okay. Fuck 'em.
Characters starting out well-developed and nuanced (in a game mechanics sense) and actually being able to use lots of neat spells and obtain cool shit like the Flail of Ages, The Equalizer, etc. (exciting stuff, stuff you'd theme and build a character around even), are just two of many reasons. Torment's focus wasn't on combat, which is fortunate, but there was still plenty of cool stuff to pick and choose from. In the case of BG2, interesting itemization was far more important.
I don't understand why anyone enjoys low-level D&D or the equivalent, and don't see the appeal, not even a little bit. I've viewed the entire concept with contempt since 2003. Without exception, I greatly prefer when characters begin at middling levels of power in tabletop and tabletop-like cRPGs.
The only issue with this is that it's more daunting for newcomers to both create characters and to know how to use them. Given PoE's convoluted mechanics, it's a damned good thing characters start off simple.
Characters starting out well-developed and nuanced (in a game mechanics sense) and actually being able to use lots of neat spells and obtain cool shit like the Flail of Ages, The Equalizer, etc. (exciting stuff, stuff you'd theme and build a character around even), are just two of many reasons. Torment's focus wasn't on combat, which is fortunate, but there was still plenty of cool stuff to pick and choose from. In the case of BG2, interesting itemization was far more important.
I don't understand why anyone enjoys low-level D&D or the equivalent, and don't see the appeal, not even a little bit. I've viewed the entire concept with contempt since 2003. Without exception, I greatly prefer when characters begin at middling levels of power in tabletop and tabletop-like cRPGs.
The only issue with this is that it's more daunting for newcomers to both create characters and to know how to use them. Given PoE's convoluted mechanics, it's a damned good thing characters start off simple.
I think some of the unique equipment in this game is meant to be further enchanted to make it top tier - like Eder's armor or that ghost-slaying sword you find early in Caed Nua. Basically anything that has special abilities but is not "fine" by default.
The most useful weapon I have found so far was fine arbalest, which allows my rogue to make 60-75 damage combat openers. As far as ranged weapons go, I do not see any reason to use the low-damage ones - opening volley has huge impact on the combat and enemy DR increasing further into the game does not help faster weapons either.
The most useful weapon I have found so far was fine arbalest, which allows my rogue to make 60-75 damage combat openers. As far as ranged weapons go, I do not see any reason to use the low-damage ones - opening volley has huge impact on the combat and enemy DR increasing further into the game does not help faster weapons either.
Yeah, a Rogue opening combat with a super-slow, super-strong ranged weapon is pretty great.
It boggles my mind that with all this obsession over the game mechanics being balanced, Obsidian committed the incredibly amateurish mistake of not talking scaling into account most of the time. This isn't just an issue with fast, low-damage weapons vs. skyrocketing NPC DR, either. Food gets shittier as time goes on, as do numerous class abilities and talents. In fact, a lot of the Chanter phrases are almost useless in the beginning, and certainly becomes so by midgame. 0.5 damage/second to every enemy in range, we're fuckin' winnin' now, boys! Yippie-ki-yay! Hope you upped that Intelligence so as to include as many enemies as possible in this dank-ass pwnwagon.
It boggles my mind that with all this obsession over the game mechanics being balanced, Obsidian committed the incredibly amateurish mistake of not talking scaling into account most of the time. This isn't just an issue with fast, low-damage weapons vs. skyrocketing NPC DR, either. Food gets shittier as time goes on, as do numerous class abilities and talents. In fact, a lot of the Chanter phrases are almost useless in the beginning, and certainly becomes so by midgame. 0.5 damage/second to every enemy in range, we're fuckin' winnin' now, boys! Yippie-ki-yay! Hope you upped that Intelligence so as to include as many enemies as possible in this dank-ass pwnwagon.
Shannow
Waster of Time
Personally I like the itemization. The uniques are obviously intended to be further enchanted to your preference. While they are a bit boring, they stay viable as you go along and they're more or less balanced and not overpowered. *shrug*
That said, I think some weapons (arbalests are the best example) don't "scale" well. Now I don't know all the numbers behing very slow attack speed and reload time, but I get the feeling that the ranged weapons more or less have the same dps. Speed, dmg and acc seem all more or less balanced against each other... without taking DR into account. Fast weapons might be good for applying conditions, etc, which might be useful for certain builds. But otherwise I'd always go with more dmg. 4 shots for 10 dmg simply do not compare to one shot for 40 dmg.
Which surprizes me since the whole beta was dedicated to achieving balance. No?
That said, I think some weapons (arbalests are the best example) don't "scale" well. Now I don't know all the numbers behing very slow attack speed and reload time, but I get the feeling that the ranged weapons more or less have the same dps. Speed, dmg and acc seem all more or less balanced against each other... without taking DR into account. Fast weapons might be good for applying conditions, etc, which might be useful for certain builds. But otherwise I'd always go with more dmg. 4 shots for 10 dmg simply do not compare to one shot for 40 dmg.
Which surprizes me since the whole beta was dedicated to achieving balance. No?
Gord
Arcane
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Low level DnD is shit, epic levels is stupid. Most enjoyable level range imo is ~5-16.
PoE trades the insanely high power progression of early DnD levels for a more even progression, but ends up going maybe a bit too far at times.
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Yeah, I find it staggering that there's no scaling for food, potions or abilities. Food and potions should get boost from survival-skill, would make the skill much more useful what it is now. I can't imagine what they were thinking.
Edit: What's even less balancing is that afaik the active skills like fighters knockdown, rogues blinding and paladins flame weapon keeps their usability, but passives becomes utterly useless.
PoE characters really do start at around Level 3 in D&D terms IMO.
I am nostalgic, but I can also understand why you'd want to balance some classes between having inherently better defense or amount of abilities (read - spells). That's for armor anyway. And I can't help but mock at how a superior system where everyone can use anything still ended up with a terrible itemization unlike grognard D&D. At least there party got to use some varied items because of restrictions, and at least designers provided unique items for classes.
PoE also has unique items for classes, right, like one belt for a Ranger for +2 Perception or something. Yay.
And even with armor, there's basically two armor sets for everyone - either clothes for back row or some best DR combo you can find for front, that's it. Perhaps some people feel better when they can equip someone squishy into better armor, but for efficient (read - fastest kills) play it's very clear what to use and what to wear.
It's not that unique. Fighter gets high level ability that allows him to get raised from the dead, for example. And you can enchant weapon to do more damage against spirits. High quality weapons do matter lot more compared to most if not every unique effect you'll find.
As for arbalests and various guns, I think people overstate their effectiviness. You can do great numbers with faster shooting weapons too given right upgrades and skills. My char does 40 dmg crits with superb warbow and he shoots waaaaay faster than gun users.
I can't believe that all ranged weapons have same DPS, doesn't stick to my experience and I don't believe Obsi would miss that in their spreadsheets.
Best openers are spells anyway. And whom do you want to remove from combat really fast when there are 12 enemies which are all almost the same? Spellcaster? They die even to normal weapons and AoE spells.
Because spellcasters can't protect themselves in PoE game throws 3 or so at the same time at player often (ogre druids, or wizard bounty encounter with golems and mages, or spider psionics).
It's challenging. You fear everything. Can't make mistakes. The sense of growth in power. You gotta start somewhere to appreciate all the abilities you get eventually and learn how to use them right. Some people didn't know what to do with spells in BG2 because they never knew what magic missile does. BG1 sure teaches you what it does and more.
Gord
Arcane
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As I said before, I suspect they just wanted food to be not totally without any effect (i.e. a junk item). Making it suddenly behave like ultra-potent magic potions seems strange to me.
Some loots is random though so once I kept findig magic sabres, pole axes and estocs while I needed good old Jewropean style long swords for bro Adern and my Pally with no luck had to waste the rare consumables to enchant one myself... Coming from Aristocrat background should give you better gear and more jewgold balance to be damned btw.
The itemization in BG2 wouldn't suddenly become worse if all classes could use Warhammers. As for this:
It's pretty laughable consider the amount of attention paid to balance in AD&D (read - none).
Meh, it's not like you and I disagree about the substance of PoE's troubles, it's more that I cannot fathom why anyone would advocate for artifacts from AD&D like clerics of War Gods not being able to use sharp weapons for arbitrary reasons.
I have no problems restricting fragile mages from wearing armor. Just do it organically. GURPS does it by factoring encumbrance into spell casting, which means that it is possible. 3.5 does it by a more forceful arcane penalty. PoE doesn't really need to do it, since there's no inherent value difference between the classes that warrants it.
It's a design choice, and there's nothing inherently wrong with any of the approaches - only in their specific design.
It's the eternal conflict of roleplayers vs gamers. (A)D&D has a heavy roleplayer cult and those people tend to view high power campaigns with disdain, preferring low level party of adventurers because it allows them to tell more "serious" and down to earth stories and get that feel of, to quote one of the comments on the page I link, going from "zero to hero". There are p&p players who literally never play anything past lvl10. Gamers (by which I mean all type of games, including board games) lean more heavily on the higher power stuff because it gives a higher breadth of options, decision making and tactical combat considerations.
It's boring. BG1 only works because as a video game it had the degenerate capability of letting you rest infinitely, which prevented going out of ability to use and having nothing to do but click on mobs so that the fighter/ranger/cleric etc did their standard attack spam. If, like actual low level ad&d2, you had almost nothing to do tactically speaking you'd get bored pretty fast, or join the cult of roleplayfags. Unlimited resting in BG1 allowed you to actually do something other than click on mobs by allowing you to have some actual use for your lvl 2 wizard. At least, with things like Per Encounter abilities, Sawyer understood that low level doesn't work unless you give the player something to do other than "click on mob".
What you said about "learning" is also only somewhat true for greenhorns. RPG veterans don't need to start at the typical level of power of an ad&d2 lvl 1 character to be able to play well even in a new system.
As usual with this odd crowd, the real question is not why they enjoy this thing (that is very reasonable to enjoy), but why they would pursue such within the confines of AD&D, which is poorly suited for it.
Well Blaine did add "and equivalent". I myself not against playing a wizard who can die to a fucking house cat. It doesn't mean I prefer having no tactical options against having some or many of them. Or that I don't like playing weak characters at all.
And I liked the pacing of IWD1 at low levels a lot, so it worked well there.
And I liked the pacing of IWD1 at low levels a lot, so it worked well there.
Globbi
Augur
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Having lots of normal items or even blank slots is fine as long as you can look forward to some really cool epic artifact. Having whole party with every single piece of gear epic is actually pretty bad, but fine in a fantasy world like FR or PoE - it's not better for the system than having pure boring normal items, but a bit better for lore. Having whole party with mostly normal items, deciding who should wear a single decent belt with nice bonuses and then who should wear the epic belt of giant strength changing him vastly is cool.
Everything being +1 or 'fine' is seriously the worst because you get no excitement for loot, nothing to boast about your character, everything is plain. The most "interesting" weapons in this game have spells cast on hit, but they might as well not have them, it's not more noticeable in use than 'fine' enchantment. When I found a sword against ghosts in area with ghosts I thought it was cool, for 5 seconds, until I noticed it's still not better than my fine weapons, and it's just a single sword that might give me at best a few points of damage in a bigger fight.
All the rings/cloaks of +5 deflection or +5 all defenses might as well not exist, or stats should be included in level progression. You just end up improving all party members very slightly evenly. DR against certain type is an interesting idea, but done very badly, since it can be pretty good if metagamed but otherwise useless. You just get it as additional stats on some random character and forget about it. No one ever thinks: "this area has lots of slicing enemies, let's get this sick slicing protection for my tank", especially since enemy types change quite often and a quite a bit have multiple damage types.
Increased AOE on items sounds cool, but it's too boring with 110% - sometimes it's useful, most of the time doesn't change anything. It could have been made 200% but as an activated ability (possibly without recovery after using) that would disable movement for next 30 seconds and also the armor with this skill would be artifact that can't be further improved. Some people would use it all the time, others would prefer just a better magical armor to not root your mage in place with low defenses.
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