Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,044
I hate to insult you but if you think that I'd post a snippet giving away the entire review, you're retarded. Does it answer your question?
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
POLL: Is your general sentiment towards POE negative or positive?
- Thread starter roshan
- Start date
Lhynn
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2013
- Messages
- 9,957
Shevek
You can make characters of the same class with different stat arrays, but you cant make characters with the same role but different stat arrays, derp.
All my characters either contribute by dpsing, or tanking. Thats p. much it.
Talents are feats, dont have a problem with those.
Skills should be class locked to at least make them somewhat special, as they are now 3 points in athletism for everyone, 1 mechanic and the rest lore experts, or all mechanics to abuse traps are p. much the only way to go. Its simplistic and meaningless for the most part, but i dont have much a problem with these, tho, just a failed idea that adds nothing. When fucking DA:O had a better skill selection you know your implementation is shit.
In BG you needed a mixed team, both martial and spellcasters brought something to the table. If you are talking active abilities for martial characters, both implementation and use of epic abilities from ToB was more interesting that whatever the game gives me, a fucking knockdown or two that are a nobrainer to use every fight cant compare to heavy damage reductions or increase in attack speed, or insta crits, etc. That could be treated as a very limited resource and that actually gave BG martial classes some tactical depth.
You try to convince yourself that the flaws the game has dont exist and that everyone is set on hating it.
You can make characters of the same class with different stat arrays, but you cant make characters with the same role but different stat arrays, derp.
All my characters either contribute by dpsing, or tanking. Thats p. much it.
Talents are feats, dont have a problem with those.
Skills should be class locked to at least make them somewhat special, as they are now 3 points in athletism for everyone, 1 mechanic and the rest lore experts, or all mechanics to abuse traps are p. much the only way to go. Its simplistic and meaningless for the most part, but i dont have much a problem with these, tho, just a failed idea that adds nothing. When fucking DA:O had a better skill selection you know your implementation is shit.
In BG you needed a mixed team, both martial and spellcasters brought something to the table. If you are talking active abilities for martial characters, both implementation and use of epic abilities from ToB was more interesting that whatever the game gives me, a fucking knockdown or two that are a nobrainer to use every fight cant compare to heavy damage reductions or increase in attack speed, or insta crits, etc. That could be treated as a very limited resource and that actually gave BG martial classes some tactical depth.
You try to convince yourself that the flaws the game has dont exist and that everyone is set on hating it.
Immortal
Arcane
Then don't.. We don't all have thick skin..
I am looking forward to your review honestly.
Shevek
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2003
- Messages
- 1,570
I made a rogue with hunting bow with high per and found it to be very useful since the bow was fast and the bonus to interrupt was flat. Similarly, I have tried rogues with more int for that passive dot they do and I used guns (since they attack slow). Yes both are dps but one is more about damage and the other is more about interuppting. Both are dps ranged rogues but the stats, talents and abilities you choose are different and how they contribute to the party is very different. There are lots of build choices like that. Still, if you wanna ignore that sorta thing and be a whiny grognard be my guest.
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2014
- Messages
- 849
Did you even read?
Lhynn
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2013
- Messages
- 9,957
And what is it that you want to interrupt? because ive found outright killing to be vastly superior to delaying, again, because of the character system anyone you want dead gets focused at range and cannot get even a single attack out, this becomes more and more common at higher levels, even on potd where the enemies have buffed defensive stats.
Numbers are poorly implemented, classes are poorly designed and attributes are boring and not very conductive to roleplaying. Everyone that isnt blinded by fanboism p. much agrees that sawyer failed at trying to outdo a system thats almost 30 years old.
"but some stuff was better done than in bg222222" yes, so? its a 15 years old game with flaws that were identified like a week after it got released. Do better, even BG1 provided a more varied combat and more flexible tactics than poe, faulty as the character system was, at least it allowed for that.
Last edited:
Shevek
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2003
- Messages
- 1,570
Naw, interupting is great. Having a couple guys in the party who can do it is great (especially from range). At higher levels and in potd, interrupt is even more important.
Lhynn
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2013
- Messages
- 9,957
Hmmmm let me think... sacrificing 30% of damage or attack speed to make your attacks interrupt instead of killing does sound more tempting every time you suggest it. Its not like fights cost more health the longer they take....
Oh wait...
Shadowfang
Arcane
Shevek
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2003
- Messages
- 1,570
I dunno what to say to this. Its just full of so much bullshit.
But mah rating system!!!!!!
Thankfully it is all the same, PoE getting more positive feedback than negative.
ZagorTeNej
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2012
- Messages
- 1,980
Instead of level scaling you can just use encounter scaling (don't know if that's the right term) and replace weak monster types with (different) tougher ones that suit the habitat (depending on character's level). Meeting a vampire or two instead of ghouls or skeletons is far less jarring (if at all) than bloating ghouls' stats and level to scale to yours.
Nothing says that areas have to be static, new creatures could very well move in (and chase out the weaker ones) while you're out exploring the game world so it doesn't have that much conflict with realism and consistency.
Yeah, that could work.
Isn't supposed PoE use this kind of scaling? I remember talking about this during the development.
Gord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,049
Wizards in particular are very useful as a crowd control class during combat, priests can provide healing and buffs, druids have a few useful debuffs on top of their damage spells, etc.
I do agree though that the necessity and usefulnes especially of (de-)buffs needs to be increased in coming patches.
Anyway I found a mixed team in PoE both more useful and more fun to play than simply using 2 fighters for tanking and giving the rest of my team some guns, which in several fights I encountered wouldn't have worked.
And if one absolutely would have wanted to: 90% of the fights in BG and most other IE games (which had the most boring fighter class ever) could be played by hasting your chars and clicking the enemy to death. No strategy necessary.
Last edited:
Playing Devil's advocate here:
I have a lot to criticize PoE for, but I also think that much of the criticism of PoE I've seen is unfair. Before pointing out some flaw in PoE let's pause and check - did the IE games not have the same flaw? You don't give a fuck about NPCs stories and that's bad for PoE? Well I wasn't all that captivated by NPCs' stories in the BG/IWD games either, but that wasn't a problem. Trash combat wasn't a problem either, although I agree that combat was much more interesting in the IE games.
One indisputable upside of PoE are the roleplay opportunities, why doesn't anyone mention that?
The itemization being meaningless is something I can't argue with, for me it's plain as day. But what else can I expect with a combat system that is so convoluted and hard to read. x1.35 damage vs x1.25 damage aren't something that will make you jump with joy and feel excited about an item, unless you are Josh Sawyer I suppose. So maybe the problem isn't with itemization itself, but with the over-balanced ruleset, wouldn't you say?
I voted ambivalent.
On the other hand, you can skip most of that combat. I know, you are probably not in the habit of skipping content (same as me), but what if it was meant to be skipped? It's like fleshing out the game with extra combat instead of extra npcs in cities, although I'd certainly prefer the npcs in cities.
Ambivalent. It's a mostly competent game, but several questionable design decisions keep it from becoming anything more.
Obsidian had only really proven themselves making smaller scale, tightly packed storyfag adventures with a general sense of weirdness/mystery around them. Them ignoring their strengths and instead pitching a not-D&D BG clone in not-FR was the first misstep. They have no real idea how to handle a larger scale, more open game and it shows when you start encountering copy-paste trash mobs, fetch quest cities, useless wastes of time and resources like the stronghold (seriously fuck strongholds and all the KS retards who insist on forcing them in every game), and everything else that contributes to the general feeling of dullness that plagues the game. Combined with the no fun allowed approach to designing game mechanics, this problem becomes even greater.
Now this would have been excusable if they delivered high quality storyfaggotry, but even here, the game isn't particularly great. The driving force behind the main plot, you going mad, is so weakly signaled in game that you forget why you even bother chasing mystery man around. Is that five second clip of spooky scary green rocks that shows up every other rest really supposed to represent growing insanity? Companions are mostly pleasant to have around, but that's it, and I can't force myself to give a fuck about any side character. The feeling seems mutual for the NPCs, because they are completely out of fucks to give about me being a supposedly rare and feared death godlike, said by local superstition to be a herald of doom.
I do like the amount of detail that went into worldbuilding and I gottaSawyer for bothering with cultures and regional differences and other such details that fantasy hacks generally ignore, but it is disappointing to see all that effort going into not-generic-fantasy shit. At least they have guns. I fucking love me some early firearms.
7/10, pls make a MotB-like expansion
Machtervoz pretty much sums my opinion word for word.
I sign under each word here.
I have a lot to criticize PoE for, but I also think that much of the criticism of PoE I've seen is unfair. Before pointing out some flaw in PoE let's pause and check - did the IE games not have the same flaw? You don't give a fuck about NPCs stories and that's bad for PoE? Well I wasn't all that captivated by NPCs' stories in the BG/IWD games either, but that wasn't a problem. Trash combat wasn't a problem either, although I agree that combat was much more interesting in the IE games.
One indisputable upside of PoE are the roleplay opportunities, why doesn't anyone mention that?
The itemization being meaningless is something I can't argue with, for me it's plain as day. But what else can I expect with a combat system that is so convoluted and hard to read. x1.35 damage vs x1.25 damage aren't something that will make you jump with joy and feel excited about an item, unless you are Josh Sawyer I suppose. So maybe the problem isn't with itemization itself, but with the over-balanced ruleset, wouldn't you say?
I voted ambivalent.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 99,628
It makes me plenty excited when I realize what it means for the damage output of my arbalest. Percentages are awesome.
Last edited:
That's my point, I prefer the math to be done for me, hence integers. It's less flexible but easier.
I don't know if level scaling would make that much of a difference, to be honest, because the difficulty is kind of uneven as it is and so few enemies possess any unique abilities that would make a difference in combat. The two end bosses (the adra dragon and Thaos) are huge difficulty spikes compared to literally 99% of the other encounters in the game, including the countless pushover trash mob armies that you slaughtered right before meeting them, and even though you can easily just left-click your way through most of the game because you're so powerful, those encounters may require a few tries even for a level-capped party. That is mostly because of the fact that the enemies have super-high defenses (and I guess also a nasty AoE attack or two) compared to the other enemies you face, which is also the thing that makes them unique in the context of the game. Suddenly all those priest spells that you never used after Act I become useful again since you need to take down those defenses somehow, and that provides a unique challenge that suddenly makes combat fairly interesting again, even if that's just for one encounter before it's back to trash mobs agan (or the game ends).
The other fights, though? I suppose that you could increase the enemies' endurance, accuracy and damage a bit, give them a bit better defenses and so on, maybe even replace them with tougher monsters, but would it really change the combat in a meaningful way? Even mobs that were supposedly my level provided no kind of a challenge at all after I got a full party, and very few enemies required you to change your tactics in any meaningful way. The lack of hard counters is a real shame, as few spell effects are strong enough to really change the nature of a battle, defensive spells are a joke and everything dies as long as you whack it with a sword long enough. You might want to cast a buff or two if you're underleveled, maybe even a healing spell, but all battles start to feel the same after a while.
I really don't think level-scaling should be even required in a game where you can only go as high as level 12. It's not like a difference of a couple of levels should turn a battle from a challenge to a piece of cake, and Thaos is a good example of that, as I think someone said that he was basically balanced for level 8 characters of something, yet he can still provide at least some problems for higher-level parties as well. Baldur's Gate 2 (despite having some scaling) is of course another good example, because beholders, vampires, illithids, umber hulks, spiders, trolls, mages, liches and so forth have abilities (and weaknesses) that make them different from other enemies, meaning that they can very well fuck up even an overleveled party who just game into the fight without proper preparation. In PoE, only the two aforementioned bosses, the teleporting shades (mostly in Act I) and maybe the enemies that used dominate/charm had the same kind of an effect whereas everything else just became a big mess of sameyness, something you can beat with the same tactics every time.
The other fights, though? I suppose that you could increase the enemies' endurance, accuracy and damage a bit, give them a bit better defenses and so on, maybe even replace them with tougher monsters, but would it really change the combat in a meaningful way? Even mobs that were supposedly my level provided no kind of a challenge at all after I got a full party, and very few enemies required you to change your tactics in any meaningful way. The lack of hard counters is a real shame, as few spell effects are strong enough to really change the nature of a battle, defensive spells are a joke and everything dies as long as you whack it with a sword long enough. You might want to cast a buff or two if you're underleveled, maybe even a healing spell, but all battles start to feel the same after a while.
I really don't think level-scaling should be even required in a game where you can only go as high as level 12. It's not like a difference of a couple of levels should turn a battle from a challenge to a piece of cake, and Thaos is a good example of that, as I think someone said that he was basically balanced for level 8 characters of something, yet he can still provide at least some problems for higher-level parties as well. Baldur's Gate 2 (despite having some scaling) is of course another good example, because beholders, vampires, illithids, umber hulks, spiders, trolls, mages, liches and so forth have abilities (and weaknesses) that make them different from other enemies, meaning that they can very well fuck up even an overleveled party who just game into the fight without proper preparation. In PoE, only the two aforementioned bosses, the teleporting shades (mostly in Act I) and maybe the enemies that used dominate/charm had the same kind of an effect whereas everything else just became a big mess of sameyness, something you can beat with the same tactics every time.
Gord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,049
I agree with most of that.
To make encounters more challenging and interesting, the enemies need to be given some of the more interesting spells/abilities (whether unique or not) and be teached to use them in a sensible way. Imagine a fight against a buffed enemy mage that used some of the spells the players would use (Slicken, AoE Confuse, Blind, etc.), probably with help from a priest who is debuffing your party, while some fighters try to engage your chars. This would be much more challenging than all the encounters with mages currently in the game.
Generally the most challenging (and fun) fights are those that forced me to change my tactics - Shades with their teleport ability, Ogre Druids because they use strong AoE spells and to some extend fights with larger groups of Darguls and Fampyrs (due to them charming my guys and rushing the squishies).
I would also like to see some resistances increased, though, and counter it with increased effects for buffs and debuffs. That would at least make many priest and druid spells more useful in act 2 (and parts of act 3).
A horse of course
Guest
:jewishjoke:
Negative. Could not bring myself to finish the game.
On the other hand, it inspired me to buy Enhanced Editions of BG1, BG2 and IWD1.
Dis is all I ever needed.
On the other hand, it inspired me to buy Enhanced Editions of BG1, BG2 and IWD1.
Dis is all I ever needed.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.