Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Janise]

but if PoE is your first isometric CRPG the IE games will indeed be innumerable steps up in almost every possible way

not a chance in hell, poe is popular for the same reason oblivion is - its SHIT
men is not a learning animal, and baldurrrr gay is too hard even on easy for the majority of players

they roflstomp poe on '''normal''' like shoot their dual wielded pistols and afterwards charging with their rogue swashbuckler in melee and then find fitting helmets for their godlike outfit
while in bg theyll get eaten by wolves...

 

[Prime Junta]

Ehhh.

PS:T > BG2 > Pillars > IWD > BG1.

I'm quite sure that if you handed BG1 or IWD to someone fresh from Pillars, they would be disappointed.

(The PS:T / BG2 order will depend on how highly you value originality and writing. BG2 had unquestionably better encounters and just plain more stuff to do and ways to express yourself. I value PS:T's strengths so far that despite its flaws, for me it's >>>> anything else out there.)

 

[Lacrymas]

not a chance in hell, poe is popular ...

Depends on how you look at it, BG1 eventually sold 2M copies, while PoE is at 1M. I'm pretty sure BG1 continues to sell even to this day, so I think it's fair to say it has sold more than 2M copies up to now, but we'll see if Pillars will continue to sell in 20 years time.

PS:T > BG2 > Pillars > IWD > BG1.

My first instinct was to "retadred" this ....lovely post, but I'll bite. Why do you think Pillars is better than IWD and BG1?

 

[Janise]

because he is
dumb
lying
shilling
scum

"poe 11/10"
"poe is boring"
"future classic"

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm quite sure that if you handed BG1 or IWD to someone fresh from Pillars, they would be disappointed.

It's subjective, of course. If it's a player who will whine about why can't he have a dwarf paladin, yeah, he will probably be disappointed.

Going on a tangent - personally, I think those limitations and arbitrary mess in the rules have their charm, and sometimes help the player imagine his character better, even if it's a fairly stereotypical character - a dwarven warrior, an elven ranger, a halfling thief, whatever. I don't see the stereotypes as bad in this case, because 1) they were not as much of a stereotype yet, at the time these rules were published, and 2) if you're going to play a fantasy classic, it seems normal to go for stereotypes. And 3) Is it really so much better now, in the school of "you can be anything you want to be"? Browsing through PoE's forums for years, I don't see people discussing or pondering over characters, but rather over character builds. Does it help the actual role-playing when you allow everyone to do everything? I think it rather makes it more difficult, the roleplaying, because the player loses those same helping wheels which are seen as "limitations to roleplaying" - and instead you get no roleplaying, hardly anyone has a sense of their player character or tries to see the game events through this character's eyes. This makes one of the ways to enjoy an RPG more difficult to reach. For roleplaying done right, I have to point to D:OS 2, or what we've seen of it so far, which I think is enough.

I would always rate BG and BGII above PoE, because they have a trait that's important to me in an RPG - they are big enough to allow me to become lost. I mean I can dig deep into some area's side quests or into a dungeon and just reach a point where I would say "Hold on, the party is getting into stuff that's over its head right now, I should go back a bit". It's this same quality that made even Witcher 3 grow on me (I vocally expected it to be DAI-like garbage), plus the serious approach to the world and characters.

Compared BG and BGII, PoE is much more constrained in terms of where you can go, so we can write off the wanderer/knight-errant/Don Quixote style of playing, where you just explore and go on quests when you find them. You can't really do that in PoE. And don't bring up the four forested maps + Anslog's Compass from Act I, because they are small enough to fit into two outdoor BGII areas.

What other motivation to play then - the encounter design? It only gets good in the expansions, so they are something that could make me return to PoE for a second big playthrough. From self-observation, what could get me back into replaying PoE is the powergaming options - building a character, levelling him up, etc. Same motivation could get me to return to IWD.

Other motivation - to re-live the story and writing? That's least likely, for reasons we all know. In the end, PoE's parts add up to more than their sum, true, but they don't add up to anything near the sum of BG's parts, even less BGII's parts.

Edit: I don't know whose alt Janise is, but m8, it's too obvious.

 

[Quillon]

BG1 eventually sold 2M copies, while PoE is at 1M. I'm pretty sure BG1 continues to sell even to this day, so I think it's fair to say it has sold more than 2M copies up to now, but we'll see if Pillars will continue to sell in 20 years time.

BG games came out when this type of RPG was mainstream, now its a niche.

 

[Sizzle]

The IE games (especially BG2) have a (still) sizeable modding scene, this also contributes to their popularity and success.

 

[Lacrymas]

In the end, PoE's parts add up to more than their sum, true, but they don't add up to anything near the sum of BG's parts, even less BGII's parts.

I don't think this is true, it's actually the opposite. PoE is less than the sum of its parts, kinda like D:OS1. They just don't complement each other very well and it's a janky experience from start to finish. You have a very expansively imagined world, but it's very boring to explore in practice. You have a very well patched together character building system, but everything feels a bit samey with a different flavor, the difference comes from the archetypes rather than the classes. Ranged DPS, Melee DPS, Tank (I'm generous in including this, it's just a Melee DPS without the DPS part), Support (this includes all the spellcasting classes who are not built to DPS), that's it. My priest of Skaen plays in the exact same way as my barbarian, even down to the sneak attacks, because there's no reason not to pick those up. The majority of encounter design is also abysmal, so whoop-di-doo. The awful 3D models contrast horribly with the competent, if generic, 2D backgrounds, they don't create a unified art direction, feels like two different games in one. The smaller and less numerous maps aren't populated with anything, so the content is even sparser and more claustrophobic than in BG1.

The inclusion of 2 Big Cities, while good on paper, creates a schizophrenic picture in which the game doesn't know what to do pace-wise. DB is also too close to the start, so there is no mystery or anticipation for its arrival, unlike BG1. PoE reveals all its secrets in the first 30 minutes of the game, there is nothing more to see or to look forward to after that, even from a gameplay perspective, as well as from an artistic one. I've been playing the same way from start until level 12, the biggest change in the entire party was access to DAoM pots and the cipher's Amplified Wave. I can go on and on, and on. PoE is sterile and lifeless, created out of obligation to adhere to KS promises and some misplaced desire to be both BG and not-BG, with seemingly no understanding of how BG was made or what it even is, fueled only by surface thoughts/memories of it. It also suffers from a hefty scoop of lack of creative talent in many areas.

BG games came out when this type of RPG was mainstream, now its a niche.

This isn't true, if you do even some very basic and cursory research on the topic, you'll find out that RPGs were a dying/dead genre before BG1 came out, it actually is cited as the spark to reignite the interest in RPGs.

 

[Quillon]

This isn't true, if you do even some very basic and cursory research on the topic, you'll find out that RPGs were a dying/dead genre before BG1 came out, it actually is cited as the spark to reignite the interest in RPGs.

There wasn't other types of RPGs that are played much more than IE-type RPGs, take the percentage of people who plays third action console RPGs vs Iso-Top Down RPGs today and compare it to Diablo vs BG. If you were a gamer 20 years ago chances were 50/50 you played BG or at least half the older skooool people I know played BG, you can't say the same about PoE in the current year

 

[Lacrymas]

There wasn't other types of RPGs that are played much more than IE-type RPGs, take the percentage of people who plays third action console RPGs vs Iso-Top Down RPGs today and compare it to Diablo vs BG. If you were a gamer 20 years ago chances were 50/50 you played BG or at least half the older skooool people I know played BG, you can't say the same about PoE in the current year

Yeah, after BG came out, sure, but before that it was a dead genre, so BG's popularity at the time wasn't affected by how mainstream the genre was. Consoles did exist back then, too and there weren't only 2 genres of game in the world. It's just that BG was a good game. PoE's popularity is riding on the IE games'.

 

[Quillon]

Ok, for the third time I'll say and hope you won't pretend to not understand; If PoE was as good as how great the BG is to you, there is no way in hell it would get the same attention nowadays, people have a lot more options today. BG games were Witcher 2 and 3 in terms of worldwide reception maybe even more popular and PoE was PoE

 

[Lacrymas]

What you are saying makes no sense at all, it's not even a logically constructed sentence. If PoE was as good as BG (I don't know why you included "to me" at the end, I'm not the only one who praises BG) it won't get the same attention? That doesn't sound ass backwards to you? Unless you mean people like shit more, then sure. Also, again, people didn't have 2 options back then, here's an incomplete list of released games in 1998. You'll notice a lot of different things. 1998-9 were insanely good years for gaming, releasing titles that were instantly regarded as classics and are still played to this day, including BG1. Unless you mean there were no isometric RPGs then, which also isn't true. Fallout 1/2 were available, along with the other isometric RPGs released even earlier, but then-contemporary ones are sparse, due do the "dead genre" thing.

 

[Quillon]

Last time: Iso RPGs was mainstream back then, now they are niche.

And BG is better than PoE for you and some others, popular opinion I see is PoE is in between BG1 & 2.

 

[Lacrymas]

Last time: Iso RPGs was mainstream back then, now they are niche.

They WEREN'T! No idea why you refuse to read. It was an almost dead genre, just a rudimentary research on the topic will tell you that BG1 was the one which revitalized the genre and made it more played, not mainstream, at least not in the contemporary sense. The eventual selling of 2M copies had nothing on the more popular games. Compare StarCraft's eventual selling of almost 10M copies, Starcraft sold 1.5M copies in its first year, the best-selling game of that year. I can't even find the numbers for the first year of BG1. Not to mention that it's the age of the internet, this is the time where more people have access to all genres, so you have a bigger reach for your game. Maybe BG had an advantage of all the nerds playing AD&D back then and those people have now moved on, so that's why it became comparatively more popular than PoE1, but that's a hard thing to prove. The only way I can follow your logic is that when BG1 made iso RPGs more played people bought it more, but yeah, sure, that's obvious. BG was more popular because it made its own genre more popular. PoE is not the most popular iso RPG currently, btw, it's D:OS. We are currently in the same kind of renaissance that BG1 sparked in the late 90s, so their situations are similar, but history has shown us that all kinds of renaissances are an attempt to make the lightning strike twice and it never quite works out, but we are going into way too deep waters for this kind of conversation.

....popular opinion...

Popular opinion =/= right opinion.

 

[Prime Junta]

My first instinct was to "retadred" this ....lovely post, but I'll bite. Why do you think Pillars is better than IWD and BG1?

I'll try to keep this brief.

First, IWD. I'll go metaphorical on you, if you want me to elaborate, I can do it later.

IWD is a loaf of bread.
Pillars and BG1 are three-course meals.

The bread served with Pillars or BG1 isn't as good as IWD, but if you're hungry, you will find either of them more satisfying.

Second, BG1. Honestly, if you feel it's better than Pillars, I have to think you have some major nostalgia goggles on.

Aesthetically Pillars is a clear win -- BG1 is functional but pretty crude. Just take some screenshots and look at them side by side. Do you really prefer BG1?

BG1 dungeons are, for the most part, pretty primitive. They're mazes of narrow corridors mostly filled with kobolds. Or, later on, other beasties. Repetitive mobs in any case. Durlag's Tower is good, but it's not in the base game -- and WM is a much bigger, better integrated, more beautiful, and more satisfying experience than TotSC.

BG1 companions are sparsely written and pretty thin gruel compared to Pillars'. They do have quests, but these are simple, straightforward affairs. They don't have much dialogue, and there's barely any intra-party banter (if indeed there is any at all). Honestly, is Kivan more interesting than Sagani? Dynaheir than Aloth? Minsc than Edér?

BG1 quests are, again for the most part, straightforward go-there-do-that. Some are straight-up bring-me-umpteen-bandit-topknots. Pillars' aren't the best in the world either, but there is a lot more to most of them than that.

BG1 maps are, for the most part, pretty empty. Most of what you can do there is grind mobs for XP and find the occasional treasure.

With character- and party-building, Pillars wins hands down. AD&D from levels 1-8 or so is very, very thin gruel compared to the Pillars classes from 1-12, or 16 if you include the expansions.

What, in your view, does BG1 do better than Pillars? 'Cuz honestly, I can't think of a damn thing.

 

[Fry]

Not relevant to the argument.

The BG games may or may not have "revived" what was a niche genre anyway. The point is, continued sales of the IE games in 2017 have more to do with nostalgia than the quality of those games in isolation. If you gave someone (say a 15 year old kid) copies of BG2 and PoE, which would they like better? Assuming you could actually convince them to play those old skool games, that is.

 

[Harry Easter]

Not relevant to the argument anyway.

The BG games may or may not have "revived" what was a niche genre anyway. The point is, continued sales of the IE games 2017 have more to do with nostalgia than the quality of those games in isolation. If you gave someone (say a 15 year old kid) copies of BG2 and PoE, which would they like better? Assuming you could actually convince them to play those old skool games, that is.

Good question ... I guess Pillars of Eternity, because it looks a bit later and you have races like Godlikes, who weird enough to get kids interested, while in BG1 you have the standard races, where the half-elves doesn't even look different from the elves.

 

[Starwars]

 

[Quillon]

They WEREN'T! No idea why you refuse to read. It was an almost dead genre, just a rudimentary research on the topic will tell you that BG1 was the one which revitalized the genre and made it more played, not mainstream, at least not in the contemporary sense.

Omg. I don't care if it was almost dead genre, they weren't anymore; those games were the best RPGs could offer back then in most ways, they were fucking state of the art and had the attention of today's 3rd action console RPGs, you can't say the same for PoE; which is not in the same situation as BG games were so direct comparison to how many sold isn't fair. PoE would have sold even less if there weren't easy "on sale" deals that people buy & never play nowadays.

And I'm not saying popular opinion = right opinion, I'm saying your opinion is in the minority in Codexia as far as my observations

 

[AwesomeButton]

The empty spaces in BG maps also serve a purpose. I don't think cramming a small map with trash mobs makes it more interesting than placing 1-2 trash mobs, and letting the player explore. Same applies to the companions argument. I can't get over the absurdity of the claims that an NPC with more dialogue is instantly better than an NPC with less dialogue.

 

[Prime Junta]

The empty spaces in BG maps also serve a purpose. I don't think cramming a small map with trash mobs makes it more interesting than placing 1-2 trash mobs, and letting the player explore. Same applies to the companions argument. I can't get over the absurdity of the claims that an NPC with more dialogue is instantly better than an NPC with less dialogue.

The space isn't the issue. The fact that there's no compelling reason to go there is.*

As to companions, more isn't always better and certainly not past a certain point... but come on. The BG1 companions are barely even there.

*Beyond game-y ones like grinding for XP.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There are a lot of XY coordinates where you have no compelling reason to go. But knowing this space exists breathes more life into those locations which are important.

On the contrary, the aim for economy of content makes encounters and areas feel like props, and the viewer is not being fooled/immersed in the feeling that he is visiting a fantasy world.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'll go "chronologically" -

Second, BG1. Honestly, if you feel it's better than Pillars, I have to think you have some major nostalgia goggles on.

I played BG1 after PoE, so no nostalgia goggles here. My first IE game, however, was PS:T, I played it before PoE, but I wasn't comparing the two at all.

Aesthetically Pillars is a clear win -- BG1 is functional but pretty crude. Just take some screenshots and look at them side by side. Do you really prefer BG1?

BG is more aesthetically complete, it has a coherent art direction for everything. The honestly cruel-to-the-eyes 3D models of Pillars are horrendous. In terms of creativity both are forests and generic towns, but BG1 has more things to see - the statue of Ellessime, the big cathedral of Lathander in Beregost, Beregost itself being more of a living town than any in Pillars, the lakes and waterfalls are more like lakes and waterfalls than the spoon-big ones in PoE, Nashkel's carnival, the different districts of Baldur's Gate have more character than anything in DB or Twin Elms. Maybe these are my preference, but I don't think anyone can say that PoE has a unified art direction with those 3D models.

BG1 dungeons are, for the most part, pretty primitive. They're mazes of narrow corridors mostly filled with kobolds. Or, later on, other beasties. Repetitive mobs in any case. Durlag's Tower is good, but it's not in the base game -- and WM is a much bigger, better integrated, more beautiful, and more challenging experience than TotSC.

Firewine Bridge and Ulcaster's School are pretty primitive, yes, the Thieves' Maze is horrendous. The dungeons in base PoE are just as shit, so whatever, Eothas' temple is just rooms after rooms. Od Nua is a horrible experience. Yes, BG1 doesn't have anything resembling Raedric's Hold, but PoE doesn't have anything resembling Durlag's Tower.

BG1 companions are sparsely written and pretty thin gruel compared to Pillars'. They do have quests, but these are simple, straightforward affairs. They don't have much dialogue, and there's barely any intra-party banter (if indeed there is any at all). Honestly, is Kivan more interesting than Sagani? Dynaheir than Aloth? Minsc than Edér?

I wouldn't say Sagani, Aloth and Eder are interesting at all. They just interrupt the flow and whine and bitch, and moan throughout the whole experience. If we are comparing only PoE and BG1, I prefer BG1's very sparsely written ones. That may just be a preference, but if we compare Kotor 2's to both BG1 and PoE's, I'd prefer Kotor's.

BG1 quests are, again for the most part, straightforward go-there-do-that. Some are straight-up bring-me-umpteen-bandit-topknots. Pillars' aren't the best in the world either, but there is a lot more to most of them than that.

Both BG's and PoE's are on the same level of interest, but at least BG1 doesn't suffocate you with lore dumps with each one. Just 2-3 sentences and that's it. Much prefer BG1's in this regard.

BG1 maps are, for the most part, pretty empty. Most of what you can do there is grind mobs for XP and find the occasional treasure.

They are big and it makes the experience big and vast, it creates breathing room and symbolizes the bigness of the forest, even if they are somewhat empty. PoE also has a lack of quests and interesting things to see in the maps, but they are much more samey than BG1's.

With character- and party-building, Pillars wins hands down. AD&D from levels 1-8 or so is very, very thin gruel compared to the Pillars classes from 1-12, or 16 if you include the expansions.

Yes, PoE has more character-building options, but I have more fun playing BG1's classes because they offer a type of variety that PoE doesn't. I can't really explain why atm, it's more of a contextual thing than an isolated bubble. I already mentioned that PoE's variety comes from archetypes rather than classes. Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Tank, Support.

What, in your view, does BG1 do better than Pillars? 'Cuz honestly, I can't think of a damn thing.

A much more unified, disciplined and restrained construct with plenty of replay value and charm. A complete adventure that doesn't feel like patchwerk. A more creative, joyous and artistic "food for the mind". Yes, most of those things are immaterial and hard to define, but at one point you go into things that can't be verbally explained. It's not about feelings, it's a wholly intellectual categorization, but it's hard to put into words. It also takes into account who I am as a person and what my aesthetic tastes have become over the years.

 

[AwesomeButton]

(the insert quote system is broken for me for some reason)

In the end, PoE's parts add up to more than their sum, true, but they don't add up to anything near the sum of BG's parts, even less BGII's parts.

I don't think this is true, it's actually the opposite. PoE is less than the sum of its parts, kinda like D:OS1. They just don't complement each other very well and it's a janky experience from start to finish

For me it's like I said, my thinking is - I don't particularly like any of its elements - the combat, the story or the characters, quests, character-building options... yet I did spend a couple of hundred hours playing through it and the expansions, so there has to be something that makes it worthwhile, hence, better than the sum of its parts.

 

[FreeKaner]

One thing about BG2 and perhaps BG1 that's definitely better than PoE is the initial part of PoE. The railroading to Caed Nua before it lets you go anywhere else but Gilded Vale feels very linear, discouraging and even boring. It actually made me drop the game first time around when I played it and is Bethesda tier.

Compared to BG2 where you get out of a dungeon/prison (with really hilariously bad dialogue), once you are out you are free to be lost. I feel just removing the part where you have to repair the southern wall in Caed Nua would improve the experience in PoE quite bit, so we are not gated by maerwald from rest of the content of the game.

Which of course then goes back to a general issue of pacing and lack of narrative direction in PoE in general.