I was a priest of skaen and had durance in my party. I found that priests have enough variety in their spellcasting that it was handy to have a second one around. But I can understand why someone wouldn't want two priests.
I too have just made my first dip into this world when Steam had it on sale for 50%, creating a Dwarf (Boreal) Barbarian Explorer. Companions are similar - Eder, Aloth, Kana, and Durance - with one slot remaining. Playing on Normal myself. The expansion is set in a much colder climate, so I created my Dwarf with that in mind - paler skin, being Boreal and an Explorer fit very nicely with the Barbarian class. I've also picked a weapon I normally would not have in previous BG games - the pike! It has extra reach too, much like the halberd. When I was able to choose being more specialized in a weapon (I had enjoyed using it so much up to that point) my little pike master was born
The game is very enjoyable for time spent, roughly 8 hours of play, and I too have opened up the path to Defiance Bay. I've only really been following the main plot of the story, receiving only a small number of side quests that I've yet to even look into. I'm pretty sure I haven't even received any information about challenging Raedric myself, but have read the name a number of times through dialog.
Surely I have missed a lot in areas as I did my best to wind my way around the trouble spots. I had lost one fellow running into the cave from the caravan, and a female companion I met in the caravan died when I got out of the cave
Being all alone made me very cautious and if I was able to make it across the region with little to no difficulty and continue along the road, I did so until reaching Gilded Vale where I felt somewhat safer.
Whether I return to those earlier areas remains to be seen. If I were to compare PoE with BG, there is a possibility I won't explore those areas at all. PoE world exploration pushes you down the map while following the plot. BG pushes you slightly up, then down, then right back up again so returning to those areas feels more natural to me. Perhaps that will change in PoE after Defiance Bay? I have yet to get past this point myself, but at this stage of the story and my character's mindset, there is no reason to go back to any of the areas beyond Gilded Vale.
If you don't bring Durance along for not aligning with your party views and main, understandable, but he is a hoot!
As for my companions, I do like Durance and Edér the most, but between those two, Edér takes the lead thus far. Aloth is my least favorite. The Elf is just ... there. When he suddenly does talk, no one in the party really takes a serious interest in listening to what he has to say, and his words fade to a silent mumble as he returns to the back of the group. As for Kana, the portrait seems off to me, especially when he speaks. I just don't hear all those sharp teeth in his personality - I'm not even sure that makes any sense?! But I really do like the Chanter, and the ability to mix and match chants is smart thinking on the development teams part.
Guess if I had restartitis I'd really considering playing a Chanter myself. Who doesn't like to sing!
Combat has been straight forward enough, yet different enough, to catch my excitement as soon as one had been tossed my way. With Durance and Aloth in the party, it opened up so many possibilities. As a player, I think defense first, offense second, and having a number of spells from Durance to improve the dynamics of the party while in combat. So far though, I've made use of the same spell combinations from battle to battle, becoming familiar with a specific few. Much like I did while learning BG at its time, I'm afraid I will get stuck in a rut with what works, vs. branching out and trying something different. If combat continues to be successful with these spells, against future foes, will there be any reason to branch out at all?
And to end my rambling, the gripes. The HUD/GUI should have a toggle to hide completely, for a full in-game experience, much like the H key in Neverwinter Nights. If you pressed it, everything on the screen was removed, but you could still open up your journal or map by pressing its represented key and only that would appear. Shame POE does not have something like this.
D:OA had it, but after every transition into a new area, the HUD/GUI would reappear, even if you had it off in the previous area.
Neverwinter Nights 2 allowed it, but did not allow individual information to appear if the HUD/GUI was hidden. So you'd hide it by pressing H, then press J for journal and nothing would appear. You had to press H again to see the journal.
I guess that's really more of a personal gripe
Otherwise, I've nothing negative to add because my enjoyment of the game has been just that.
@Sylvus_Moonbow , I'm glad to have a friend who is starting the game at roughly the same time as I am. You may get ahead of me pretty quickly, though, because of my restartitis. I've got my choices down to either my priest or my paladin, but as I get my priest caught up with where my paladin was, I find myself liking all the spells but missing all the combat toughness. Which to choose, which to choose? I can't have it both ways in PoE like with a Neverwinter Nights "Codzilla".
As our first game experiences diverge, we'll have to be careful not to spoil each other.
My thing with Durance is that I see that he's a well-developed character, but I found his initial conversations about testing everything with fire and needing to be literally burned in punishment to remember lessons to be... well, rather disturbing. I'm not a fan of crazy religious fanatics - I've had too much of that in real life.
I noticed that all Amaunans have the shark teeth, and that they are a marine people, so I think they may be PoE's more civilized and benevolent equivalent of the Sahuagin. I like Kana a lot - he's one of my favorites so far, next to Eder, and I also really like the dwarf ranger whose name I've already forgotten. I didn't notice that business about Kana's teeth ought to make him sound inhuman, but I'm not very picky with suspension of disbelief in this kind of game.
I do like Aloth, too, but as you say, he doesn't seem to have as much written for him as some of the others.
It's Saturday morning as I write this, and I'm looking forward to having all day today to play, and tomorrow as well. I'm glad you posted - you got me in the mood to get started playing.
Hello, friends, I've played my priest today and almost caught up with where my pally was, up to the meeting of Durance.
I'm finding that I like him quite a bit more while roleplaying a priest with him. I discovered a lot of other dialogue options that I hadn't found the first time, and I am now seeing him as more of a colleague in theology, with a rival viewpoint, than as a fanatic, and therefore, as more of a friendly foil and philosophical theological sparring partner, than as someone who makes me uncomfortable.
I think that pressing forward as a priest rather than as a pally is going to be the right decision for me. And, for all those Durance defenders who have posted, thank you, and I'm now in the right mindset to keep him on and to try to see how we develop our relationship as fellow priests, although devoted to different deities. (I'm a devotee of Eothas.)
The first time he tries to set me on fire or to suggest that I allow him to do so as a "test" or as a "punishment", though, he's out! lol
I finished the game about a month ago, and I still haven't started a second play through. I feel like with so few companions there's not much of a point; I already met everybody. Though at the end it said I failed durance's quest so there might be a lot I missed. I have some comments about he end to. [spoiler] uhh... What? There aren't any gods? Then who are all these gods I'm talking to? I don't understand. Though I did accidentally skip through half the final custance pressing return cause I didn't know it moved automatically. I guess I should have done more side quests, because I had to change the difficulty to easy to beat the boss battle after trying for 5 days in a row. Though this happened to me my first run of SoA, so I guess I can't blame them for that. I like my games to be story driven. Evidently I left the big city to early because I missed a bunch of quests in there. Though I had no idea that going to talk to King whatshisface would burn the entire city to the ground. This still seems over the top. I did most of cad Neua(sp? The keep) and finished Kanas quest but Towards the end combat just started to feel frustrating rather than challenging. Something about the combat system feels... Numb, and uninspired. I still can't put my finger on it. I remember getting VERY annoyed with undead raedric, and have I got to eventually stop and do some more side quests before I could cheese the life out of him. Also, no follow up/explanation for this? Wtf. That one evil overlord just pops out of the gave and there's no explanation? Maybe I'm missing something. Also Fampyrs are not a thing. You're trying to hard. [/dpoiler]
@meagloth, sorry, but I can't open that spoiler, for obvious reasons. I've never even finished Act I yet.
What is the "je ne sais quoi" that makes us keep replaying BG over and over, and does PoE have it? I don't know yet. My impression so far is that the npc's I've met are so good at what they do, I won't want to play it much after I finish this first run.
But why is that? Could it be because in BG, there are a lot of class and kit choices that are only available to Charname? I've not seen anything like that in PoE. In fact, it doesn't look like it has anything like that.
As I finish tonight's play session, I learned a very, very hard lesson.
I had spent thousands of copper upgrading my stronghold. Then, I found out the hard way that I was nowhere near strong enough to defend it, either automatically, or especially not manually. So, I lost my entire investment, other than having rebuilt the inn so I could rest there. I wonder if I'll lose that, too? So, the bitter lesson I learned was to not start spending copper on rebuilding my keep until my party is strong, probably *very* strong, in order to be strong enough to defend it.
So, here's the end of my Fall Break, and my total hours spent playing PoE is about 50.
I have restarted multiple times, and have never left Act I.
I'd say I have a new gaming obsession. I just went and bought White March parts I and II (part II is a pre-order) for $25.00.
After all this, I just restarted again with a new paladin. I decided that Durance is good enough and tolerable enough to handle most of the healing and protection.
My reason for starting all over after a week of play? I was disappointed that enchanting my Priest of Eothas' flail with fire damage did not make it light up with fire on-screen. (What, they couldn't make their flail sprite light up with emitter effects?)
I want to build a 2-hand wielding Kind Wayfarer, Moon Godlike paladin who looks and acts like a Jedi Knight, or maybe a Green Lantern, or maybe a nephilim.
I didn't think based on just reading about it online that I was going to like this game. Yet, here I am. I thought based on just reading online that I *would* like Divinity:OS. I didn't, after paying full price for it.
The moral of my story is that you really just have to buy a game and try it yourself to know if you will like it. (I am going to give D:OS another chance after their EE is released, since I get it for free.)
I think I'm going to be playing with PoE for a loooong time. I don't know how long my "glow" with it will last, but at least for the first week, it has definitely become another BG for me. I haven't been this excited about a new game in what seems like forever.
I didn't think based on just reading about it online that I was going to like this game. Yet, here I am.
PoE faced a lot of criticism just due to how ambitious its goals were. Even a lot of game journalists tend to fall into the mistake of rating games based on expectation instead of quality. And those of us who have played the heck out of BG or PS:T may have developed expectations that are pretty much impossible to meet.
That is not to say I think PoE is a perfect game, but it's certainly a lot better than a lot of online opinions make it out to be.
Thank you a lot, @BelgarathMTH and @Sylvus_Moonbow , for sharing your thoughts and feelings about PoE. It's very interesting for me on a personal level to check how your feelings evolve while you play this game.
To me, PoE was a great game. I've been in this game for 100 hours and haven't finished the Act 2. When I followed its development progress I both was excited and was scared to have a disappointment. When the game was released I was fully into it. I liked every piece of the game. I liked the dialogue choices based on your scores, I liked abilities, I liked the walls and walls of text in the game.
But as I progressed in the game, I somehow began to lose my affiction. A new ideas for a no-reload run in BG called for me. I continued playing PoE but began to think more and more about things from BG I missed there.
And this is how I left this game. I still consider it to be the best since the last IE game was released. But in the end, I understood that my heart had only one and true love in terms of games, and it was not PoE.
I'm glad that people enjoy this game, because for me that was the cRPG that I was waiting for since the early 2000's. I'm really happy that I made several important decisions about how should I approach the game. I really wanted to restart a couple of times, because I noticed that my character was lacking, but I resisted it and in the long run that was a good choice.
I wanted to immerse myself as much as possible, so I made my PC that would "feel" like myself, or the vision of myself in the game world. That's why after some time, I really liked him, I'm no perfect human and neither was he. I made an intelligent fighter, focused on lore, with mercenary background, a wanderer exploring both the world and his worldview.
Another thing I decided not to do is to reload to "check" different results of dialogues. That's why I took it slow making sure I responded the way my character would and accept the consequences. One example that I remember: I got a mission from one of the factions in Defiance Bay, but I accidently met them in the wilderness while exploring and they were really aggressive. I didn't want to fight them, but they really didn't like me, so yeah I had to eventually. I don't know if there's the option that will not start the fight, I accepted my choice.
That's why I progressed through the game very slowly and carefully. I was really into that world. The wild areas are just awesome, I missed these since BG1, there could be more though. I talked to everyone (yes, even read each backer NPC story) and tried to discover as much as possible. I think it took my more than 150 hours to finish the game, but that was time really well spent.
The one thing that I didn't enjoy as much as other aspects was of course the combat. The movement restriction and enemies having unlimited spells was a bit annoying. It's not bad after getting used to it, but definately the weakest aspect of the game for me and I liked combat in Planescape: Torment for example.
Overall I really enjoyed the game, I still haven't tried the expansion, since it's more combat focused. I also noticed that after finishing it a couple months ago, I didn't play through it again yet. That's very different from Baldur's Gate where I constantly want to go back and go through it again. In my case, I think it's because I didn't enjoy the combat as much as the rest of the game, but I'm thinking about replaying it sometime in the future.
I might very well restart ... just to get my Barbarian's INT up to make use of the AOE from Carnage - something I missed understanding upon character creation - but don't let that comment think the game has been combat difficult. Lemon Featherheart still has 12% AOE range, but with an 18 INT, that rises to high 40% AOE range. So when she goes crazy dwarf woman using Carnage, she deals splash damage to those within that % AOE range.
With that kind of splash damage, Lemon can wear skimpy armor, showing off her belly button and soft layers of skin. She looks great splashed in blood fellas!
Also, I'm learning Lemon is an excellent secondary combat participant. She's not a tank, and has found a lovely place behind Edér reaching with her pike, yet during a level up, I thought it was a good idea to take Wild Sprint being a Barbarian from the white north and all. Well, what good is it for Lemon to arrive first in combat, without her shield Edér? Opps
She is sneaky though, and scouts a lot. Her time out in the wilds has taught her well.
Unlike @BelgarathMTH, I've made it out of ACT 1, but have done very little in the Defiance Bay except for sleep at the inn and browse the merchant square.
But back to the fortune. Where is it? What I've always enjoyed about Baldur's Gate is the high magic, finding those blue items that one could not learn the properties of sometimes until reaching a town, village or city. The scattered number of generic armor and weapons never go into personal inventory or the stash, I simply leave it behind. Are there even arrows in this game or are they unlimited?!
For starters, I just can't be bothered picking everything up, then selling it.
Can I craft? I'm certainly picking up a lot of that junk too. The guide has a whole list of reagents and requirements for crafting, but is there an in-game quest that makes it apparent to the player of its importance? Meet up with a blacksmith who can show you some crafting tips with the right reagents after noticing you still use an everyday normal weapon? Or a brewery looking to experiment and get into the magical side of the business to sell potions and mixtures, who could show you a few things that become helpful in your day to day adventuring life from the reagents you've acquired?
I have found crafting in many games that offer it, that it's just there. "Hey! This game has crafting! See page 22 in the manual" but little and too few, go into the depths of making it a plot or side-quest device to engage the player of the importance and FUN of crafting.
So ... I've done no crafting and have about 1,000 coin to my name
I have also stopped clicking on ANYONE or ANYTHING with a yellow name. Pure annoyance. Same with a few gravestones I've found in the wilderness.
Take away one-liner NPC commoners and yellow named backers, and you suddenly have a very pretty looking world ... that's quite empty.
During my game, I've been playing with developer commentary on, which triggers and talks about the area you're in. It's a nice pause for me in the game, to sit back and just look at the surroundings while listening to the level design. Love it when it matters ... not so much when it does not.
An example? Aedelwan Bridge. It was made along the lines of wanting something cool for an entrance into Defiance Bay, so what's cooler than a big long bridge?
How about, a big long bridge that you can actually do something at? Take away those yellow named backers and one-liner NPCs and you have one well paid area designer making a long bridge stroll to an iron gate. With the high number of refuges coming in, a number of them could have been on the bridge waiting entry, some wagons, a merchant complaining his goods inspection is taking too long ... gosh! SOMETHING!
If an area offers nothing for a player to do, don't make it. Give me a loading screen that says, "Passing through the gate into Defiance Bay will take 30 minutes" and remove Aedelwan Bridge altogether
And Defiance Bay is way too clean for my tastes, it's just not gritty enough. Especially when you start reading about what's been happening in the city.
@Sylvus_Moonbow , I've made a few thousand coin doing junk running (transporting and selling junk). That junk has surprisingly high coin value that begins to add up, and the limitless stash makes it easier to do than in most games. It probably doesn't sound like much item by item, but there's so much quantity that junk running can be a good way to make a living, especially for funds to upgrade the keep.
My keep was generating quite a bit of income before it got destroyed. I think my mistake might have been building an extra keep structure before building a barracks and hiring some guards. At least that's what I plan to try next to get my keep defensible and generating income before I get too invested. Part of the challenge is being able to defend it during the early phases of building, apparently, and loss due to raids is pretty devastating.
I always figured that higher value items would come more in the end game, but I also heard that the game has a weakness in not having super exciting loot to be found. You might enjoy this spoiler-free review I found by someone named "Angry Joe". (He's not really angry, he's quite funny, and he does like PoE.
I've also noticed that there's a lot of empty area, but I've also heard the same criticism applied to BG1. So yeah, I see some of the weaknesses, too, but I'm still having a lot of fun with it. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying your barbarian.
I had an evening to play tonight, Wednesday 10/14/15. I had a blast. I also am thinking that PoE is *exactly* like BG1.
I am starting to have a very easy time with Act I battles that were initially very hard. I don't see it quite so much as a matter of metaknowledge of what's coming, but rather as increasing player skill combined with metaknowledge of what character builds and abilities are effective.
I have learned to *completely turn off* the party AI. The AI will screw you. Derp. Every BG player knows that. I did learn to leave on the AI for Eder only, and that was just so he would use his Knockdown talent in every combat without my having to remember to order it. The rest of the party will just stand there until I tell them to do something, but that's exactly the way I play BG. Exactly.
Chanter's "phrases" are way more valuable than "invocations". I have learned to leave Kana chanting, but with AI turned off, such that he doesn't waste his invocations unless *I* decide that the party needs one. We almost never do.
Arcane casters have *exactly* the same utility as in BG. Leave the AI off. You almost *never* need an arcane spell. *You* need to decide the times that you need an arcane spell, not the AI, which will waste your best spells on Xaurips or other trash mobs. The arcane caster in the party is also the best choice to build "thief" skills, i.e. "mechanics" in this game. I chose Aloth for that, since he is very, very rarely needed in combat.
You'll really want his arcane power in those rare cases, however, since there a few, a *very* few enemies with huge damage resistance to melee. Aloth will be able to win the day for you with "magic missiles" in those very rare cases.
The "mage-thief" is a long-standing tradition in D&D games. Imoen, Jan, Nalia... Again, I'm not really seeing any difference between PoE and BG here.
People complain about how shadows target and teleport to "weak" arcane party members. Did it ever occur to them to leave arcane party members behind when shadows are the dominant monster type in an area? I had Aloth go into stealth and stay far behind the party in every shadow-filled area, and all the shadows became pushovers, since mages are a liability to the party against shadows, and the rest of the classes own them. Just get rid of mages against shadows. Easy-peasy.
Speaking of stealth, the party members who need it the most are the front-liners. Everybody in the party needs stealth ranks, but the frontliners need it the most. Building that way will increase ease and flow of the game markedly. I like to turn on fast speed mode, and keep the entire party in stealth mode at all times while exploring. The frontliners can sneak up on enemies and establish aggro before the enemies even know that the party is there. That makes it easy to keep the all-important party formation.
Umm, I could go on and on here.
TLDR: I'm still having a great time with this game. I think it's pretty much exactly like BG. The more I restart, the more I begin to master the mechanics. I also really like that all the RP elements are completely optional, just like in BG. I can RP to my heart's content, but I can also left-click skip through pretty much every conversation and ignore all the RP, in favor of combat, if I want, again, exactly like in BG.
That's really great for me, since the combat in RPG's is what really "turns me on." I only like enough RP to give some story motivation for all the combat.
I have learned to *completely turn off* the party AI. The AI will screw you. Derp. Every BG player knows that. I did learn to leave on the AI for Eder only, and that was just so he would use his Knockdown talent in every combat without my having to remember to order it. The rest of the party will just stand there until I tell them to do something, but that's exactly the way I play BG. Exactly.
This is something I have never understood on these forums, Party AI is must for me in both BG and PoE. I only ever use the standard attack and the backstab thief one in BG, but in PoE everybody is set to the most aggressive they can be, without using abilities. I cast all the spells, but I really don't have the time to constantly make people attack something new, once they have killed their current target or worst yet, give them a new command once they have finished casting and then just standing around idle. Later on I give the AI more control, letting tanks use knockdown and monks use everything, just a shame there is no script for a minor blights splash nuker mage. Thing is your commands always override the AI so I don't see the downside to using it. Really once working AI was introduced into PoE the game became faster and a hell of a lot easier.
I'm interested to find out how the party AI affects combat in PoE, as I haven't yet had a chance to find out. I ought to start a new game one of these days and see what sorts of goodies all the patches and the expansion have brought to the game.
Well I don't have a more recent play update for any of you, but I will add that I'm with @BelgarathMTH too when it comes to AI. I enjoy micro managing the entire party during combat, as I can remain focused on the battle one attack after the other, vs. AI handling a few combat rounds, then return to control the party and wonder what happened during those missing rounds.
It really depends on how one likes to play, and having the option for one or the other is a great step forward in making that happen. I do like how one can turn on/off AI for individual party members, so that's a bonus too. More choices for everyone, and we can all get our gameplay closer to how we like it to be.
In the end, it's full control over the party for this brave warrior as I search for adventure, fortune and fame in my travels!
@SmilingSword , the reason I initially turned the AI off (for everyone but Eder) was that it was overriding my commands. For example, I would order a party member to break off an attack in order to reposition and make room for another party member that was blocked, and that party member would just turn right around and resume attacking its target, ignoring my command to reposition into a better formation.
However, I understand that different players have different styles and tolerance for micromanagement. I happen to prefer micromanaging, because I can manage group combat better than the computer, and win more battles with fewer reloads. My goal is to eventually be able to do a no-reload, or at least a minimal reload game.
One of the nice things about PoE (and BG, for that matter) is that it gives the players choices, and accommodates many play styles.
I guess the PoE party AI is decent, for people who prefer the computer to handle most of the combat, and who don't mind reloading when it messes up. I would even say that it's a bit better AI than the one in BG.
Perhaps in my excitement last night, I worded my impressions a bit too strongly. My team really started to do well, and I felt in control and like I knew what I was doing for the first time. It was a very fun play session for me.
Alright brave warriors, Lemon Featherhair is back!
First off, I'd like to correct myself from a comment I made in a previous post regarding a gripe. It's as if tiny elves worked endlessly to correct this for me while I slept, and voila, it was resolved! Really though, it's flapping lips before looking/reading the manual first.
So last night as I explored Defiance Bay, I changed Select All to ~ key, and scrolled around to see what other functions had been pre-mapped by Obsidian. When I saw one particular keybind, I sang like Kana! YOU CAN HIDE THE HUD! And it works very similar to NWN. CTRL-H makes everything vanish, but you can still use keys to bring up the journal, character screen, inventory and when done, back to a nice full screen of beauty! I am a very happy brave warrior today after finding that.
SO ... sorry Obsidian for my ignorance but THANK-YOU for this function! YAY!
Defiance Bay has been explored, but only as needed. There are a large number of refugees in Ondra's Gift, so I guess they're all in the city and don't need to be standing around on Aedelwan Bridge. It's the first area that I found myself gasping at upon entry, with its thick rolling bands of mist and that awesome sunken boat in the harbor!
Currently, I've three quests on the go in Defiance Bay - main plot and two side quests - and Lemon Featherhair roughed up some kid because he wouldn't tell her a secret.
Now I've liked Defiance Bay and I haven't. It seems very underwhelming when I compare it to the scope of Baldur's Gate. What I enjoy a lot about Baldur's Gate is the large number of locations I could decide to call homebase, for it offers a wide variety of establishments to visit. Inns, taverns and containers to leave items behind. I know the dynamics of the inventory has changed in POE to avoid this requirement, but in Baldur's Gate, it really did feel like a vibrant city.
Defiance Bay has The Salty Mast, The Charred Barrel and Goose and Fox. Baldur's Gate has the Elfsong Tavern, Blade & Stars, Low Lantern, Ye Olde Inn, Blushing Mermaid, Splurging Sturgeon, Three Old Kegs, Keexi Tavern, Drakon Tavern, and Helm and Cloak - PLUS 4 no-named tavern/inn locations.
I'm also not a fan of a single market square, instead of a market square and shops scattered about. It's the illusion of a big, grand city that I feel has been lost.
But what I've liked is the richness - despite it being too clean for my taste - although Ondra's Gift does a nice job of doing otherwise. As the developer said upon entering that district, every city needs a slum-like area!
Tiny details of fountain descriptions, or looking through windows adds to the ambience, as well as some NPCs not being around at night, but can be found during the day.
I'll have more time on the weekend to adventure for fortune and fame, and see how more exploration of Defiance Bay pans out.
On a related note, Josh has posted some interesting tidbits regarding White March 2. They'll be a lot more to do with one's Stronghold with a number of Minor Adventures. The journal names might be a spoiler, so click with caution.
I always think I would like PS:T because Charisma is my favorite stat and I've heard Charisma is actually important. I own it on GoG but my backlog for games is still way too huge. I'll get to it someday @_@
Yeah, I can't get into the idea of playing PS:T, although I have it on GoG, because everything I've ever read about it (lots and lots of reading, very little and/or weak combat) makes me think I won't like it. *Sometimes* I'm in the mood for a *moderate* amount of dialogue and role play with my games. But it's absolutely critical that the game have in-depth combat and character building for me to enjoy it.
It's interesting, though, that PoE seems to be pleasing both the PS:T crowd and the BG crowd. I think they struck a pretty good balance between dialogue/story and combat, especially since a lot of each is optional in the game.
If Beamdog makes a PST:EE, that might be the shove I need to get me to finally play it.
I got pst on gig about a year ago, and just had a really hard time getting into it. I think part of it was that it's hard for me to really find time to just sit down and get into a game for hours on end; pay attention span just has a hard time with it.(then even if I can I come up apon a difficult puzzle, get frustrated, and give up) Also.... The graphics. Ohhh, the graphics. Everything was just so ugly. I had a really hard time dealing with that. Computer generated portraits are not ok.
Comments
Hail and well met, brave warrior! RAWR!
TL:DR - RAWR!
I too have just made my first dip into this world when Steam had it on sale for 50%, creating a Dwarf (Boreal) Barbarian Explorer. Companions are similar - Eder, Aloth, Kana, and Durance - with one slot remaining. Playing on Normal myself. The expansion is set in a much colder climate, so I created my Dwarf with that in mind - paler skin, being Boreal and an Explorer fit very nicely with the Barbarian class. I've also picked a weapon I normally would not have in previous BG games - the pike! It has extra reach too, much like the halberd. When I was able to choose being more specialized in a weapon (I had enjoyed using it so much up to that point) my little pike master was born
The game is very enjoyable for time spent, roughly 8 hours of play, and I too have opened up the path to Defiance Bay. I've only really been following the main plot of the story, receiving only a small number of side quests that I've yet to even look into. I'm pretty sure I haven't even received any information about challenging Raedric myself, but have read the name a number of times through dialog.
Surely I have missed a lot in areas as I did my best to wind my way around the trouble spots. I had lost one fellow running into the cave from the caravan, and a female companion I met in the caravan died when I got out of the cave
Being all alone made me very cautious and if I was able to make it across the region with little to no difficulty and continue along the road, I did so until reaching Gilded Vale where I felt somewhat safer.
Whether I return to those earlier areas remains to be seen. If I were to compare PoE with BG, there is a possibility I won't explore those areas at all. PoE world exploration pushes you down the map while following the plot. BG pushes you slightly up, then down, then right back up again so returning to those areas feels more natural to me. Perhaps that will change in PoE after Defiance Bay? I have yet to get past this point myself, but at this stage of the story and my character's mindset, there is no reason to go back to any of the areas beyond Gilded Vale.
If you don't bring Durance along for not aligning with your party views and main, understandable, but he is a hoot!
As for my companions, I do like Durance and Edér the most, but between those two, Edér takes the lead thus far. Aloth is my least favorite. The Elf is just ... there. When he suddenly does talk, no one in the party really takes a serious interest in listening to what he has to say, and his words fade to a silent mumble as he returns to the back of the group. As for Kana, the portrait seems off to me, especially when he speaks. I just don't hear all those sharp teeth in his personality - I'm not even sure that makes any sense?! But I really do like the Chanter, and the ability to mix and match chants is smart thinking on the development teams part.
Guess if I had restartitis I'd really considering playing a Chanter myself. Who doesn't like to sing!
Combat has been straight forward enough, yet different enough, to catch my excitement as soon as one had been tossed my way. With Durance and Aloth in the party, it opened up so many possibilities. As a player, I think defense first, offense second, and having a number of spells from Durance to improve the dynamics of the party while in combat. So far though, I've made use of the same spell combinations from battle to battle, becoming familiar with a specific few. Much like I did while learning BG at its time, I'm afraid I will get stuck in a rut with what works, vs. branching out and trying something different. If combat continues to be successful with these spells, against future foes, will there be any reason to branch out at all?
And to end my rambling, the gripes. The HUD/GUI should have a toggle to hide completely, for a full in-game experience, much like the H key in Neverwinter Nights. If you pressed it, everything on the screen was removed, but you could still open up your journal or map by pressing its represented key and only that would appear. Shame POE does not have something like this.
D:OA had it, but after every transition into a new area, the HUD/GUI would reappear, even if you had it off in the previous area.
Neverwinter Nights 2 allowed it, but did not allow individual information to appear if the HUD/GUI was hidden. So you'd hide it by pressing H, then press J for journal and nothing would appear. You had to press H again to see the journal.
I guess that's really more of a personal gripe
Otherwise, I've nothing negative to add because my enjoyment of the game has been just that.
As our first game experiences diverge, we'll have to be careful not to spoil each other.
My thing with Durance is that I see that he's a well-developed character, but I found his initial conversations about testing everything with fire and needing to be literally burned in punishment to remember lessons to be... well, rather disturbing. I'm not a fan of crazy religious fanatics - I've had too much of that in real life.
I noticed that all Amaunans have the shark teeth, and that they are a marine people, so I think they may be PoE's more civilized and benevolent equivalent of the Sahuagin. I like Kana a lot - he's one of my favorites so far, next to Eder, and I also really like the dwarf ranger whose name I've already forgotten. I didn't notice that business about Kana's teeth ought to make him sound inhuman, but I'm not very picky with suspension of disbelief in this kind of game.
I do like Aloth, too, but as you say, he doesn't seem to have as much written for him as some of the others.
It's Saturday morning as I write this, and I'm looking forward to having all day today to play, and tomorrow as well. I'm glad you posted - you got me in the mood to get started playing.
I'm finding that I like him quite a bit more while roleplaying a priest with him. I discovered a lot of other dialogue options that I hadn't found the first time, and I am now seeing him as more of a colleague in theology, with a rival viewpoint, than as a fanatic, and therefore, as more of a friendly foil and philosophical theological sparring partner, than as someone who makes me uncomfortable.
I think that pressing forward as a priest rather than as a pally is going to be the right decision for me. And, for all those Durance defenders who have posted, thank you, and I'm now in the right mindset to keep him on and to try to see how we develop our relationship as fellow priests, although devoted to different deities. (I'm a devotee of Eothas.)
The first time he tries to set me on fire or to suggest that I allow him to do so as a "test" or as a "punishment", though, he's out!
Okay, back to playing for a few more hours.
[spoiler] uhh... What? There aren't any gods? Then who are all these gods I'm talking to? I don't understand. Though I did accidentally skip through half the final custance pressing return cause I didn't know it moved automatically.
I guess I should have done more side quests, because I had to change the difficulty to easy to beat the boss battle after trying for 5 days in a row.
Though this happened to me my first run of SoA, so I guess I can't blame them for that. I like my games to be story driven.
Evidently I left the big city to early because I missed a bunch of quests in there. Though I had no idea that going to talk to King whatshisface would burn the entire city to the ground. This still seems over the top.
I did most of cad Neua(sp? The keep) and finished Kanas quest but Towards the end combat just started to feel frustrating rather than challenging. Something about the combat system feels... Numb, and uninspired. I still can't put my finger on it. I remember getting VERY annoyed with undead raedric, and have I got to eventually stop and do some more side quests before I could cheese the life out of him. Also, no follow up/explanation for this? Wtf. That one evil overlord just pops out of the gave and there's no explanation? Maybe I'm missing something. Also Fampyrs are not a thing. You're trying to hard. [/dpoiler]
What is the "je ne sais quoi" that makes us keep replaying BG over and over, and does PoE have it? I don't know yet. My impression so far is that the npc's I've met are so good at what they do, I won't want to play it much after I finish this first run.
But why is that? Could it be because in BG, there are a lot of class and kit choices that are only available to Charname? I've not seen anything like that in PoE. In fact, it doesn't look like it has anything like that.
As I finish tonight's play session, I learned a very, very hard lesson.
I have restarted multiple times, and have never left Act I.
I'd say I have a new gaming obsession. I just went and bought White March parts I and II (part II is a pre-order) for $25.00.
After all this, I just restarted again with a new paladin. I decided that Durance is good enough and tolerable enough to handle most of the healing and protection.
My reason for starting all over after a week of play? I was disappointed that enchanting my Priest of Eothas' flail with fire damage did not make it light up with fire on-screen. (What, they couldn't make their flail sprite light up with emitter effects?)
I want to build a 2-hand wielding Kind Wayfarer, Moon Godlike paladin who looks and acts like a Jedi Knight, or maybe a Green Lantern, or maybe a nephilim.
I didn't think based on just reading about it online that I was going to like this game. Yet, here I am. I thought based on just reading online that I *would* like Divinity:OS. I didn't, after paying full price for it.
The moral of my story is that you really just have to buy a game and try it yourself to know if you will like it. (I am going to give D:OS another chance after their EE is released, since I get it for free.)
I think I'm going to be playing with PoE for a loooong time. I don't know how long my "glow" with it will last, but at least for the first week, it has definitely become another BG for me. I haven't been this excited about a new game in what seems like forever.
That is not to say I think PoE is a perfect game, but it's certainly a lot better than a lot of online opinions make it out to be.
To me, PoE was a great game. I've been in this game for 100 hours and haven't finished the Act 2. When I followed its development progress I both was excited and was scared to have a disappointment. When the game was released I was fully into it. I liked every piece of the game. I liked the dialogue choices based on your scores, I liked abilities, I liked the walls and walls of text in the game.
But as I progressed in the game, I somehow began to lose my affiction. A new ideas for a no-reload run in BG called for me. I continued playing PoE but began to think more and more about things from BG I missed there.
And this is how I left this game. I still consider it to be the best since the last IE game was released. But in the end, I understood that my heart had only one and true love in terms of games, and it was not PoE.
I wanted to immerse myself as much as possible, so I made my PC that would "feel" like myself, or the vision of myself in the game world. That's why after some time, I really liked him, I'm no perfect human and neither was he. I made an intelligent fighter, focused on lore, with mercenary background, a wanderer exploring both the world and his worldview.
Another thing I decided not to do is to reload to "check" different results of dialogues. That's why I took it slow making sure I responded the way my character would and accept the consequences. One example that I remember: I got a mission from one of the factions in Defiance Bay, but I accidently met them in the wilderness while exploring and they were really aggressive. I didn't want to fight them, but they really didn't like me, so yeah I had to eventually. I don't know if there's the option that will not start the fight, I accepted my choice.
That's why I progressed through the game very slowly and carefully. I was really into that world. The wild areas are just awesome, I missed these since BG1, there could be more though. I talked to everyone (yes, even read each backer NPC story) and tried to discover as much as possible. I think it took my more than 150 hours to finish the game, but that was time really well spent.
The one thing that I didn't enjoy as much as other aspects was of course the combat. The movement restriction and enemies having unlimited spells was a bit annoying. It's not bad after getting used to it, but definately the weakest aspect of the game for me and I liked combat in Planescape: Torment for example.
Overall I really enjoyed the game, I still haven't tried the expansion, since it's more combat focused. I also noticed that after finishing it a couple months ago, I didn't play through it again yet. That's very different from Baldur's Gate where I constantly want to go back and go through it again. In my case, I think it's because I didn't enjoy the combat as much as the rest of the game, but I'm thinking about replaying it sometime in the future.
Where is the fortune I do ask?
TL:DR - GRRR RAWR!
I might very well restart ... just to get my Barbarian's INT up to make use of the AOE from Carnage - something I missed understanding upon character creation - but don't let that comment think the game has been combat difficult. Lemon Featherheart still has 12% AOE range, but with an 18 INT, that rises to high 40% AOE range. So when she goes crazy dwarf woman using Carnage, she deals splash damage to those within that % AOE range.
With that kind of splash damage, Lemon can wear skimpy armor, showing off her belly button and soft layers of skin. She looks great splashed in blood fellas!
Also, I'm learning Lemon is an excellent secondary combat participant. She's not a tank, and has found a lovely place behind Edér reaching with her pike, yet during a level up, I thought it was a good idea to take Wild Sprint being a Barbarian from the white north and all. Well, what good is it for Lemon to arrive first in combat, without her shield Edér? Opps
She is sneaky though, and scouts a lot. Her time out in the wilds has taught her well.
Unlike @BelgarathMTH, I've made it out of ACT 1, but have done very little in the Defiance Bay except for sleep at the inn and browse the merchant square.
But back to the fortune. Where is it? What I've always enjoyed about Baldur's Gate is the high magic, finding those blue items that one could not learn the properties of sometimes until reaching a town, village or city. The scattered number of generic armor and weapons never go into personal inventory or the stash, I simply leave it behind. Are there even arrows in this game or are they unlimited?!
For starters, I just can't be bothered picking everything up, then selling it.
Can I craft? I'm certainly picking up a lot of that junk too. The guide has a whole list of reagents and requirements for crafting, but is there an in-game quest that makes it apparent to the player of its importance? Meet up with a blacksmith who can show you some crafting tips with the right reagents after noticing you still use an everyday normal weapon? Or a brewery looking to experiment and get into the magical side of the business to sell potions and mixtures, who could show you a few things that become helpful in your day to day adventuring life from the reagents you've acquired?
I have found crafting in many games that offer it, that it's just there. "Hey! This game has crafting! See page 22 in the manual" but little and too few, go into the depths of making it a plot or side-quest device to engage the player of the importance and FUN of crafting.
So ... I've done no crafting and have about 1,000 coin to my name
I have also stopped clicking on ANYONE or ANYTHING with a yellow name. Pure annoyance. Same with a few gravestones I've found in the wilderness.
Take away one-liner NPC commoners and yellow named backers, and you suddenly have a very pretty looking world ... that's quite empty.
During my game, I've been playing with developer commentary on, which triggers and talks about the area you're in. It's a nice pause for me in the game, to sit back and just look at the surroundings while listening to the level design. Love it when it matters ... not so much when it does not.
An example? Aedelwan Bridge. It was made along the lines of wanting something cool for an entrance into Defiance Bay, so what's cooler than a big long bridge?
How about, a big long bridge that you can actually do something at? Take away those yellow named backers and one-liner NPCs and you have one well paid area designer making a long bridge stroll to an iron gate. With the high number of refuges coming in, a number of them could have been on the bridge waiting entry, some wagons, a merchant complaining his goods inspection is taking too long ... gosh! SOMETHING!
If an area offers nothing for a player to do, don't make it. Give me a loading screen that says, "Passing through the gate into Defiance Bay will take 30 minutes" and remove Aedelwan Bridge altogether
And Defiance Bay is way too clean for my tastes, it's just not gritty enough. Especially when you start reading about what's been happening in the city.
Well, back to the adventure!
RAWR!
My keep was generating quite a bit of income before it got destroyed. I think my mistake might have been building an extra keep structure before building a barracks and hiring some guards. At least that's what I plan to try next to get my keep defensible and generating income before I get too invested. Part of the challenge is being able to defend it during the early phases of building, apparently, and loss due to raids is pretty devastating.
I always figured that higher value items would come more in the end game, but I also heard that the game has a weakness in not having super exciting loot to be found. You might enjoy this spoiler-free review I found by someone named "Angry Joe". (He's not really angry, he's quite funny, and he does like PoE.
I've also noticed that there's a lot of empty area, but I've also heard the same criticism applied to BG1. So yeah, I see some of the weaknesses, too, but I'm still having a lot of fun with it. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying your barbarian.
Also, that Joe guy needs to make an effort in his dress if he's shooting videos like that. Damn.
I am starting to have a very easy time with Act I battles that were initially very hard. I don't see it quite so much as a matter of metaknowledge of what's coming, but rather as increasing player skill combined with metaknowledge of what character builds and abilities are effective.
I have learned to *completely turn off* the party AI. The AI will screw you. Derp. Every BG player knows that. I did learn to leave on the AI for Eder only, and that was just so he would use his Knockdown talent in every combat without my having to remember to order it. The rest of the party will just stand there until I tell them to do something, but that's exactly the way I play BG. Exactly.
Chanter's "phrases" are way more valuable than "invocations". I have learned to leave Kana chanting, but with AI turned off, such that he doesn't waste his invocations unless *I* decide that the party needs one. We almost never do.
Arcane casters have *exactly* the same utility as in BG. Leave the AI off. You almost *never* need an arcane spell. *You* need to decide the times that you need an arcane spell, not the AI, which will waste your best spells on Xaurips or other trash mobs. The arcane caster in the party is also the best choice to build "thief" skills, i.e. "mechanics" in this game. I chose Aloth for that, since he is very, very rarely needed in combat.
You'll really want his arcane power in those rare cases, however, since there a few, a *very* few enemies with huge damage resistance to melee. Aloth will be able to win the day for you with "magic missiles" in those very rare cases.
The "mage-thief" is a long-standing tradition in D&D games. Imoen, Jan, Nalia... Again, I'm not really seeing any difference between PoE and BG here.
People complain about how shadows target and teleport to "weak" arcane party members. Did it ever occur to them to leave arcane party members behind when shadows are the dominant monster type in an area? I had Aloth go into stealth and stay far behind the party in every shadow-filled area, and all the shadows became pushovers, since mages are a liability to the party against shadows, and the rest of the classes own them. Just get rid of mages against shadows. Easy-peasy.
Speaking of stealth, the party members who need it the most are the front-liners. Everybody in the party needs stealth ranks, but the frontliners need it the most. Building that way will increase ease and flow of the game markedly. I like to turn on fast speed mode, and keep the entire party in stealth mode at all times while exploring. The frontliners can sneak up on enemies and establish aggro before the enemies even know that the party is there. That makes it easy to keep the all-important party formation.
Umm, I could go on and on here.
TLDR: I'm still having a great time with this game. I think it's pretty much exactly like BG. The more I restart, the more I begin to master the mechanics. I also really like that all the RP elements are completely optional, just like in BG. I can RP to my heart's content, but I can also left-click skip through pretty much every conversation and ignore all the RP, in favor of combat, if I want, again, exactly like in BG.
That's really great for me, since the combat in RPG's is what really "turns me on." I only like enough RP to give some story motivation for all the combat.
Really once working AI was introduced into PoE the game became faster and a hell of a lot easier.
It really depends on how one likes to play, and having the option for one or the other is a great step forward in making that happen. I do like how one can turn on/off AI for individual party members, so that's a bonus too. More choices for everyone, and we can all get our gameplay closer to how we like it to be.
In the end, it's full control over the party for this brave warrior as I search for adventure, fortune and fame in my travels!
RAWR!
However, I understand that different players have different styles and tolerance for micromanagement. I happen to prefer micromanaging, because I can manage group combat better than the computer, and win more battles with fewer reloads. My goal is to eventually be able to do a no-reload, or at least a minimal reload game.
One of the nice things about PoE (and BG, for that matter) is that it gives the players choices, and accommodates many play styles.
I guess the PoE party AI is decent, for people who prefer the computer to handle most of the combat, and who don't mind reloading when it messes up. I would even say that it's a bit better AI than the one in BG.
Perhaps in my excitement last night, I worded my impressions a bit too strongly. My team really started to do well, and I felt in control and like I knew what I was doing for the first time. It was a very fun play session for me.
First off, I'd like to correct myself from a comment I made in a previous post regarding a gripe. It's as if tiny elves worked endlessly to correct this for me while I slept, and voila, it was resolved!
So last night as I explored Defiance Bay, I changed Select All to ~ key, and scrolled around to see what other functions had been pre-mapped by Obsidian. When I saw one particular keybind, I sang like Kana! YOU CAN HIDE THE HUD! And it works very similar to NWN. CTRL-H makes everything vanish, but you can still use keys to bring up the journal, character screen, inventory and when done, back to a nice full screen of beauty!
SO ... sorry Obsidian for my ignorance but THANK-YOU for this function! YAY!
Defiance Bay has been explored, but only as needed. There are a large number of refugees in Ondra's Gift, so I guess they're all in the city and don't need to be standing around on Aedelwan Bridge.
Currently, I've three quests on the go in Defiance Bay - main plot and two side quests - and Lemon Featherhair roughed up some kid because he wouldn't tell her a secret.
Now I've liked Defiance Bay and I haven't. It seems very underwhelming when I compare it to the scope of Baldur's Gate. What I enjoy a lot about Baldur's Gate is the large number of locations I could decide to call homebase, for it offers a wide variety of establishments to visit. Inns, taverns and containers to leave items behind. I know the dynamics of the inventory has changed in POE to avoid this requirement, but in Baldur's Gate, it really did feel like a vibrant city.
Defiance Bay has The Salty Mast, The Charred Barrel and Goose and Fox. Baldur's Gate has the Elfsong Tavern, Blade & Stars, Low Lantern, Ye Olde Inn, Blushing Mermaid, Splurging Sturgeon, Three Old Kegs, Keexi Tavern, Drakon Tavern, and Helm and Cloak - PLUS 4 no-named tavern/inn locations.
I'm also not a fan of a single market square, instead of a market square and shops scattered about. It's the illusion of a big, grand city that I feel has been lost.
But what I've liked is the richness - despite it being too clean for my taste - although Ondra's Gift does a nice job of doing otherwise. As the developer said upon entering that district, every city needs a slum-like area!
Tiny details of fountain descriptions, or looking through windows adds to the ambience, as well as some NPCs not being around at night, but can be found during the day.
I'll have more time on the weekend to adventure for fortune and fame, and see how more exploration of Defiance Bay pans out.
On a related note, Josh has posted some interesting tidbits regarding White March 2. They'll be a lot more to do with one's Stronghold with a number of Minor Adventures. The journal names might be a spoiler, so click with caution.
RAWR!
It's interesting, though, that PoE seems to be pleasing both the PS:T crowd and the BG crowd. I think they struck a pretty good balance between dialogue/story and combat, especially since a lot of each is optional in the game.
If Beamdog makes a PST:EE, that might be the shove I need to get me to finally play it.
Also.... The graphics. Ohhh, the graphics. Everything was just so ugly. I had a really hard time dealing with that. Computer generated portraits are not ok.