Review RPG Codex Review: Darth Roxor on Disappointment, thy name is Pillars of Eternity

[Sensuki]

For those that didn't know, when you move your recovery is slowed by 50%

It's not stated anywhere in the game, but we found it in the game code.

If you previously just used a ranged attack it's slowed further again.

ALL Movement is punished during combat, whether by recovery slow or disengagement attack.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Anyway, about "Goddamn Descartes" and epistemology...

[Lie 2] No, this time I'm not joking.........dice roll..............

I'm gonna print this and hang it on my wall

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I constantly move around my guys and react to whats happening. I move around my Chanters to use invoactions, eg. to break engangement of certain characters (so I can use them for whatever) or to charm enemies where necessary (eg. to release pressure from my tank). I use my second tank to block off dangerous enemies or take out who broke through my lines, I use my Chipher to fuck up enemy spellcasters as quickly as possible. A lot of spells need repositioning for their aoe's and then you gotta make sure the mages/druids don't get engaged, etc. etc.

 

[Athelas]

For those that didn't know, when you move your recovery is slowed by 50%

It's not stated anywhere in the game, but we found it in the game code.

If you previously just used a ranged attack it's slowed further again.

ALL Movement is punished during combat, whether by recovery slow or disengagement attack.

You should probably mention that recovery time used to be completely halted during movement in the earliest beta iterations.

Little did we know that even the mere ability to move around freely in a video game was something not to be taken for granted.

 

[Sensuki]

I constantly move around my guys and react to whats happening. I move around my Chanters to use invoactions, eg. to break engangement of certain characters (so I can use them for whatever) or to charm enemies where necessary (eg. to release pressure from my tank). I use my second tank to block off dangerous enemies or take out who broke through my lines, I use my Chipher to fuck up enemy spellcasters as quickly as possible. A lot of spells need repositioning for their aoe's and then you gotta make sure the mages/druids don't get engaged, etc. etc.

Targeting spells and moving to target spells is not a reaction. Invocations are "hey I can cast an invocation now" ... *move to cast spell, if you have to*.

 

[Blaine]

Josh was bound and determined to ensure kiting was close to impossible (or at least counterproductive), and anyone whose ass isn't sewed onto their head knew there would be aggravating ramifications. Sure enough, there are.

I found that equipping my Priest, Chanter, even my Wizard with a one-hander and a shield to pull out when things got rough was often a far superior choice to using ranged weapons, not only for survivability's sake but also in terms of damage. Against ghosties and phantoms, just making everyone melee them, especially with flaming weapons, was so much easier and the autoattack damage was dealt out much, much more quickly.

In most hard fights that aren't trash fights, at least on non-scrub difficulties, I found that this was a superior approach to using ranged weapons at all.

 

[Kz3r0]

You should probably mention that recovery time used to be completely halted during movement in the earliest beta iterations.

Little did we know that even the mere ability to move around freely in a video game was something not to be taken for granted.

Sawyer is a true gentleman of a bygone era:

 

[Hatred]

I prefer : Sawyer is a true Hipster who should be gone.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I constantly move around my guys and react to whats happening. I move around my Chanters to use invoactions, eg. to break engangement of certain characters (so I can use them for whatever) or to charm enemies where necessary (eg. to release pressure from my tank). I use my second tank to block off dangerous enemies or take out who broke through my lines, I use my Chipher to fuck up enemy spellcasters as quickly as possible. A lot of spells need repositioning for their aoe's and then you gotta make sure the mages/druids don't get engaged, etc. etc.

Targeting spells and moving to target spells is not a reaction.

Reaction as in reactive to a specific combat situation

 

[Sensuki]

Josh was bound and determined to ensure kiting was close to impossible (or at least counterproductive), and anyone whose ass isn't sewed onto their head knew there would be aggravating ramifications. Sure enough, there are.

Kiting is actually very easy - you just get one fast guy to run around while everyone else shoots enemies. That works really easy. Incredibly boring way to play though.

 

[Blaine]

Sawyer is a true gentleman of a bygone era:

A lot of people have opined that Josh badly wanted to make a turn-based game.

They're right, but that's not entirely accurate. This is the sort of turn-based game Josh apparently had in mind:

I had this comparison in mind weeks ago while playing PoE, because that's exactly what it felt like.

 

[Bubbles]

I found that equipping my Priest, Chanter, even my Wizard with a one-hander and a shield to pull out when things got rough was often a far superior choice to using ranged weapons, not only for survivability's sake but also in terms of damage. Against ghosties and phantoms, just making everyone melee them, especially with flaming weapons, was so much easier and the autoattack damage was dealt out much, much more quickly.

Swapping between Arquebuses does much more burst damage than weapon and shield, and for longer battles the -accuracy from shields sucks for casters.

 

[Blaine]

Swapping between Arquebuses does much more burst damage than weapon and shield, and for longer battles the -accuracy from shields sucks for casters.

I equipped my characters with a wide variety of weaponry, plenty of which I knew to be sub-optimal, and refrained from using techniques like bandoleers full of arquebuses. The game would have been too boring for me to tolerate if I'd used only ideal approaches to maximizing damage and etc.

 

[Athelas]

Shooting your enemies with guns isn't just the most effective way to kill them, it's also more fun. The game's quite realistic in that regard.

 

[Infinitron]

Earlier, a bunch of people were saying ranged weapons are overpowered (and accusing the lead designer of being an amateur for allowing that), now a guy is saying they're inferior

Earlier, the reviewer was saying battles are slow, when a linchpin of Sensuki's Treatise Against Sawyerity is that they're over too quickly

It's almost as if this game is way too complex for any one person's gameplay style to characterize it with absolute confidence

 

[Blaine]

Shooting your enemies with guns isn't just the most effective way to kill them, it's also more fun. The game's quite realistic in that regard.

It's kind of a moot point once your Rogue really comes into its prime, though.

People are disagreeing, therefore none of their criticisms are correct (P.S.: Thanks for the free review copies, Obsidian! Sorry Roxor's review made it out first!).

I did find ranged weapons useful for opening volleys, and for autoattacking most trash mob groups to death while they clustered around my tank(s), often for no reason. Perhaps had I loaded my party up with Arquebuses instead of also using Crossbows and even Hunting Bows, I'd feel differently. I'm not a powergamer.

If there's a proper Rogue in the party, setting him up to knock the enemies down like dominoes is far more effective than ranged weapons in my experience, and this especially applies to difficult encounters.

 

[Sensuki]

Earlier, a bunch of people were saying ranged weapons are overpowered (and accusing the lead designer of being an amateur for allowing that), now a guy is saying they're inferior

Earlier, the reviewer was saying battles are slow, when a linchpin of Sensuki's Treatise Against Sawyerity is that they're over too quickly

It's almost as if this game is way too complex for any one person's gameplay style to characterize it with absolute confidence

Or some people could just have no fucking idea what they're talking about / are bad at the game ?

Some people think the game is good, but then people say the game is bad?

Maybe it's mediocre!?!?!

 

[mastroego]

Earlier, a bunch of people were saying ranged weapons are overpowered (and accusing the lead designer of being an amateur for allowing that), now a guy is saying they're inferior

Earlier, the reviewer was saying battles are slow, when a linchpin of Sensuki's Treatise Against Sawyerity is that they're over too quickly

It's almost as if this game is way too complex for any one person's gameplay style to characterize it with absolute confidence

Good Lord, Infinitron, will you ever run out of ways to praise your protegés from every possible angle?
I'd be more willing to accept such an attitude if you didn't show too often the opposite one towards little studios.

 

[Infinitron]

Or some people could just have no fucking idea what they're talking about / are bad at the game ?

Some people think the game is good, but then people say the game is bad?

Maybe it's mediocre!?!?!

Sorry, I didn't mean for my rhetorical sophistry to upset you.

What about my earlier reply to you? I think you're too eager to damn the entire system because Sawyer has let you down, so he clearly can't be right about anything. Why not try to say, do some modding and create reactive encounters using PoE's system?

If you get inflicted with blindness and see a bunch of melee guys advancing towards you, you have to react to that by running away from them. In PoE, enemies generally keep on doing their thing when they get hit with afflictions, as if nothing happened. Don't you see how this could be completely changing your view of the game? What if you had to go and chase them instead, running into their allies' defensive formations? There's so many things to take into account here before you go around deciding the core system is junk.

 

[Athelas]

I don't see what's so controversial about what Infinitron's saying. The game isn't completely devoid of complexity.

 

[Irenaeus]

Earlier, a bunch of people were saying ranged weapons are overpowered (and accusing the lead designer of being an amateur for allowing that), now a guy is saying they're inferior

Earlier, the reviewer was saying battles are slow, when a linchpin of Sensuki's Treatise Against Sawyerity is that they're over too quickly

It's almost as if this game is way too complex for any one person's gameplay style to characterize it with absolute confidence

Agree. The game is really complex and some people (Blaine, Sensuki, other retards) are thinking they are the hottest shit just because they figured a way to beat the monsters (one guy even took 159 hours to do that). I feel like talking to fifth graders.

 

[Sensuki]

Sorry, I didn't mean for my rhetorical sophistry to upset you.

What about my earlier reply to you? I think you're too eager to damn the entire system because Sawyer has let you down, so he clearly can't be right about anything. Why not try to say, do some modding and create reactive encounters using PoE's system?

If you get inflicted with blindness and see a bunch of melee guys advancing towards you, you have to react to that by running away from them. In PoE, enemies generally keep on doing their thing when they get hit with afflictions, as if nothing happened. Don't you see how this could be completely changing your view of the game? What if you had to go and chase them instead, running into their allies' defensive formations?

No thankyou (about the modding). The biggest letdown is the combat but the narrative also really let me down too, like unexpectedly so. The narrative is the reason why I stopped playing. It sucks.

I have not ran away when blind once.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I genuinely remember zero times when I had to fight Wizard-on-Wizard with counterspells and counter-counterspells, or anything even remotely close to that.

Yeah, I haven’t finished the game, but the only fight with a wizard that stuck in my memory is the one in Act 2, the undead necromancer that killed the last party that challenged him. That's because of how much of a disappointment that was: I just bashed him in the ground in 5 seconds flat with my two fighters while he was trying to protect himself with some useless buffs. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the way I handled all mages I've seen so far.

 

[Irenaeus]

The narrative is great. The whole story is leagues ahead anything I've seen in a videogame so far.

 

[Irenaeus]

I genuinely remember zero times when I had to fight Wizard-on-Wizard with counterspells and counter-counterspells, or anything even remotely close to that.

Yeah, I haven’t finished the game, but the only fight with a wizard that stuck in my memory is the one in Act 2, the undead necromancer that killed the last party that challenged him. That's because of how much of a disappointment that was: I just bashed him in the ground in 5 seconds flat with my two fighters while he was trying to protect himself with some useless buffs. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the way I handled all mages I've seen so far.

Sounds like a stupid mage for not having meatshields of his own to stop your fighters.