General thoughts on BG2:EE and Hexxat & Dorn
Elzarath
Member Posts: 173
Hi everyone, I just want to start by saying this isn't a bashing the good people of Beamdog & Overhaul thread, just my thoughts.
BG2:EE:
Yay full evil party! Yay thief! The new locations I've seen are awesome. Helmite Camp, Resurrection Gorge and the new tombs (although they seem to follow the same quarter circle design?). I can't remember the correct spelling but the Shou something tomb music was really good, as was the Helmite Camp. Overall they've been a couple bugs and only 1 game breaking (Azothet constant spawns).
Hexxat:
Am I doing this right? She seems to die all the time, often fails hide in shadows and frequently misses backstabs? I've currently got her equipped with sword and shield and decent armor and rings, etc.
Should I make her ranged? Because aside from her utility (trap disarm, lock pick, trap set) she's quite useless and frustrating that she constantly dies. Side note - was basic thief trap damage changed? Or is it Hexxat specific? It seems to do small amounts of poison over time damage. I remember it as just doing a decent amount of damage once off.
Her initial meeting in Copper Coronet I found just painful. The slowed speech, dodgy voice work. I think that's more my personality than a design flaw but man I had to force myself to keep going with it to see if it improved. And it kinda did. In the big twist though *Hexxat* showed so much personality in those two lines just after opening the tomb, was kinda annoyed she changed completely (being a different person and all). I thought it would just remove her rigid thinking or stupidity curse or whatever she was under. Her dialogue is ok but I'm not buying that everyone wants to sleep with her.
Her new locations and music are awesome but it shame it's a 'teleport via this thing' and not a location on the map. That'd be epic scouring the countryside for the entrance to a tomb, maybe even having an extra level attached to the tomb itself so there was an element of dungeon exploration.
Dorn:
This guy. So I really don't understand him. His personality that is. Again I think it's more me than a design flaw but sometimes I feel like his dialogue responses and options we're unexpected or cheesy. Going to Resurrection Gorge and he talks about 'boots are made for walking..' Stop! Stop it right now. What is this? We already have Dynaheir saying it and once is plenty.
Beyond that the encounter at Helmite Camp you are waylaid by enemies and must face off with... Simon & Garfunkel...?! Dear god. I know I lack imagination sometimes too but come on man. At least call him Sir Lancelot or something. This plus 'boots' just ruined it for me. Aside from losing everything that makes a blackguard special (I know it's plot related, but he contains their essence, not destroys it) there's Kagain. Who hits harder and more consistently (for me, not in terms of raw number crunching). And he has higher HP!
While Hexxat's initial voice work was unimpressive I like the rest of it, whereas Dorn started strong then everyone on his quest line starts sounding a bit too budget.
Also I hear there's a secret NPC! Bonus Round! Too bad it's an uninspiring tribute to another developer / game. I think the concept is great and very meaningful, but he should have been a cameo, not an NPC and have a better name. Honestly surprised he wasn't called Yogi.
I know I mentioned my imagination sometimes lacking but couldn't the new NPC be something.. more..? I don't mean 25 in every stat but what about a monster / creature? An Orog / Ogre? Or Yuan-Ti? Or another unplayable race? I think it was some lost potential.
Overall I've mostly enjoyed what I've seen / experienced but the EE NPCs themselves are a bit lackluster. To be fair I haven't tried Neera or Rassad in BG:EE or BG2:EE (although Neera's brief bridge encounter seemed cool). Big pluses for the new environments and music, but the writing is bit of a let down.
What do you guys think of BG2:EE? Am I just an asshole and criticise too harshly? Any tips for Hexxat or play style she excels at? Let's discuss!!
BG2:EE:
Yay full evil party! Yay thief! The new locations I've seen are awesome. Helmite Camp, Resurrection Gorge and the new tombs (although they seem to follow the same quarter circle design?). I can't remember the correct spelling but the Shou something tomb music was really good, as was the Helmite Camp. Overall they've been a couple bugs and only 1 game breaking (Azothet constant spawns).
Hexxat:
Am I doing this right? She seems to die all the time, often fails hide in shadows and frequently misses backstabs? I've currently got her equipped with sword and shield and decent armor and rings, etc.
Should I make her ranged? Because aside from her utility (trap disarm, lock pick, trap set) she's quite useless and frustrating that she constantly dies. Side note - was basic thief trap damage changed? Or is it Hexxat specific? It seems to do small amounts of poison over time damage. I remember it as just doing a decent amount of damage once off.
Her initial meeting in Copper Coronet I found just painful. The slowed speech, dodgy voice work. I think that's more my personality than a design flaw but man I had to force myself to keep going with it to see if it improved. And it kinda did. In the big twist though *Hexxat* showed so much personality in those two lines just after opening the tomb, was kinda annoyed she changed completely (being a different person and all). I thought it would just remove her rigid thinking or stupidity curse or whatever she was under. Her dialogue is ok but I'm not buying that everyone wants to sleep with her.
Her new locations and music are awesome but it shame it's a 'teleport via this thing' and not a location on the map. That'd be epic scouring the countryside for the entrance to a tomb, maybe even having an extra level attached to the tomb itself so there was an element of dungeon exploration.
Dorn:
This guy. So I really don't understand him. His personality that is. Again I think it's more me than a design flaw but sometimes I feel like his dialogue responses and options we're unexpected or cheesy. Going to Resurrection Gorge and he talks about 'boots are made for walking..' Stop! Stop it right now. What is this? We already have Dynaheir saying it and once is plenty.
Beyond that the encounter at Helmite Camp you are waylaid by enemies and must face off with... Simon & Garfunkel...?! Dear god. I know I lack imagination sometimes too but come on man. At least call him Sir Lancelot or something. This plus 'boots' just ruined it for me. Aside from losing everything that makes a blackguard special (I know it's plot related, but he contains their essence, not destroys it) there's Kagain. Who hits harder and more consistently (for me, not in terms of raw number crunching). And he has higher HP!
While Hexxat's initial voice work was unimpressive I like the rest of it, whereas Dorn started strong then everyone on his quest line starts sounding a bit too budget.
Also I hear there's a secret NPC! Bonus Round! Too bad it's an uninspiring tribute to another developer / game. I think the concept is great and very meaningful, but he should have been a cameo, not an NPC and have a better name. Honestly surprised he wasn't called Yogi.
I know I mentioned my imagination sometimes lacking but couldn't the new NPC be something.. more..? I don't mean 25 in every stat but what about a monster / creature? An Orog / Ogre? Or Yuan-Ti? Or another unplayable race? I think it was some lost potential.
Overall I've mostly enjoyed what I've seen / experienced but the EE NPCs themselves are a bit lackluster. To be fair I haven't tried Neera or Rassad in BG:EE or BG2:EE (although Neera's brief bridge encounter seemed cool). Big pluses for the new environments and music, but the writing is bit of a let down.
What do you guys think of BG2:EE? Am I just an asshole and criticise too harshly? Any tips for Hexxat or play style she excels at? Let's discuss!!
1
Comments
Now, Hexxat. Do you know that she gets a massive stat boost when not wearing the cloak? Maybe that's behind your "dies a lot" issue. Her stats are medicore at day and outdoors where she needs it, and the cloak functions like anti-steroids. If you take it off indoors and at night, she becomes a beast. If she fails stealth a lot, you probably didn't put any points in Move Silently and Hide In Shadows. There are a couple of items that will boost stealth, too. She's meant to be a utility thief at first, to fill the obvious gap for evil parties, so her main focus is on disarming traps and lockpicking. She needs a few levels to shift into the direction you want; backstabber or trapper.
What really bothers me about her is that she can't dress herself. Her cloak is neat on paper, but it's really annoying to equip and unequip all the time. For simpliciation, I'd prefer it if her stats just dropped at day/outdoors and went up indoors/at night.
I did like the surprise that the "Hexxat" you first meet isn't really Hexxat. It fits a vampire to dominate/control a human, and the voice for the "stupid" version was... well, bland on purpose, I assume, and definitely interesting (makes curious about her background). I personally don't see her as dating material - I'm not into women, so who am I to judge if she's attractive to a lesbian player? However, I think she's fine the way she is, personality-wise, because she is feminine and ladylike (no butch dyke in flannels stereotype) and therefore doesn't appeal to a specific fetish or preference. This is a problem I see with Dorn - he is clearly written to appeal to guys who like, simplified, "big bad biker daddies" and I'm not one of them. So my only m/m romance option is almost the opposite of "my type" and the writing leaves zero room to interpret the character differently. Judging by personality alone, Hexxat is more my type than Dorn, sadly.
Dorn... I liked him best out of the BG1EE NPCs. His quest made sense, his trust issues and backstory made sense, it gave nice loot and his romance was subtle; easy to interpret as a platonic bromance. In BG2... he's over the top in every category except loot. His romance goes from "not sure if I even trust you" to "come on, let's slaughter babies and by the way, you're a hot piece of ass". Umm. Questwise, there isn't much going on compared to Neera and Rasaad (whose quest has my very favorite piece of loot ever). So yeah, I'm quite disappointed here, too.