That is covered by the background option in character creation. Most of them give the protagonist a reason for being an "adventurer" before the game starts.
I'm really getting back into this game now. I'd forgotten how much fun I was having with it before, and it's starting to come back to me. I think there are some tweaks in the newer version I'm playing now that are making it more fun, as well. I'm also enjoying watching YouTube Let's Plays, especially @FatherofTwo 's. He's got an entertaining blind Let's Play of BG going, too.
I think pillars of eternity is just too well made. Baldurs Gate gets some flak for been archaic with it's numerous exceptions to the rule, incomplete documentation, illegal weapon/character NPCs etc, but I feel like a little bit of negative quality actually enhances a game. Especially when it gives me a reason to look deeper into the game mechanics, and not take everything the game tells me for granted.
They let you make your own NPCs because people wanted to be able to. Some people wanted an IWD type experience, and many people who play(ed) Baldur's Gate would make custom parties or NPCs and so they wanted that option too. Making a custom NPC is by no means necessary. They also have much "deeper" NPCs - much more like Torment in that respect (which did have 7 NPCs). So of course you're going to have fewer NPCs. I would've liked to have had 19 like BG:EE, but that wasn't in the cards for their budget. 8 + 3 is sufficient (and more than were in Torment by 4).
I should also point out that PoE's combat system was an attempt to make the game *more* like P&P. If enemies don't aggro your high DPS glass cannon characters your DM is taking it too easy on you. For the player, every fight begins with a rough analysis of who the enemy glass-cannons are, and *you* attempt to kill them. Why shouldn't the AI be afforded the same opportunity? They also do have an aggro mechanic in the game, so if your squishies are really hurt, you can just have them sit in the back and not cast or backstab to avoid drawing attention to themselves - in which case the enemies will just aggro whomever is closest to them (IE behavior).
I'm actually a big fan of non-combat shackled XP - because it encourages you to circumvent hard fights or all fights if you're good enough - if you base your XP on combat (as the old IE games did) stealth and conversational prowess become just a tool to use for combat purposes - or become downright essential if the "talk your way out of it" option gives XP rewards similar to fighting, it makes a talkey character much more appealing/essential. A game that does quest-based xp really well is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - where in many cases combat is an unnecessary drain best left avoided lol. SoD I think provided you with ample opportunities to circumvent fights too - since all the XP in the game was basically bonus XP since BG2 will put you at a certain level regardless so it was of little consequence whether you hit the XP cap or not. I know I certainly used invis 10 ft radius to avoid a lot of combat in SoD because it was so draining to my party. No need for additional XP! Arcanum is a good example of game that bases its XP too strongly on combat to the detriment of *many* potential character builds, stealth being the primary. A stealthy or talkey character in Arcanum will be chronically under-levelled and very sad at many mandatory combat portions of the game lol. Quest-exclusive XP is hardly novel or pretentious.
It's remarkable how PoE's champions leap to defend features that no one has criticised!
1) the ability to design your own party is a good feature. Unfortuately it shows up how poorly designed mechanically the actual companions are.
2) you need a computer to figure out the actual effects of Speed and armour on damage output and spellcasting. So no, combat isn't really like P&P. Engagment system is a pretty good idea though.
3) yes, I like the XP system too.
But since the game's real problems are with the story, none of these really matter.
I found my old review after reading this thread and sadly I agree with what a lot of people are saying:
"I was very disappointed with this game. Overall its a solid game with 30-50 hours of gameplay. I was hoping for a game that would stand up against Baldurs Gate but it was more like Icewind Dale/TOEE. The storyline is very linear and boring, full of dull NPCs, with uninteresting quests, tedious combat where you end up doing the same spells/abilities every time, mostly fighting beasts and ghosts, stronghold was a pointless waste of time & money, messy inventory and stat system, full of locked out dialogue options so you constantly feel like you're missing out, pick A/B/C ending. For a modern RPG that was supposed to take the best of the old infinity engine games it didn't captivate me in the way they did.
However I did really enjoy the music score, graphics, game world/areas, wilderness areas bustling with life, spell animations, Defiance Bay city, several of the bigger side quests, fast movement option, Pen & paper puzzles, multiple pet options to choose from, resting bonuses. I can understand how people would love this game but for me it just didn't pull me in. 2.5/5"
@Fardragon To be fair, just because something had been mentioned yet, does not mean its not worth discussing. A lot of this thread is pretty negative and tone, and while thats fine, there is likewise nothing wrong with people coming on to say, "This is pretty cool though." Or, "Yeah they dropped the ball there, but they got THIS part right."
I don't really consider myself a champion of PoE - I'm mostly just perturbed that on-line culture has taken to exalting self-denying behaviors. Ie, I hate fun because it gives me a sense of superiority. You can nit-pick *anything* into the ground. Baldur's Gate itself would *not* stand up at all to such withering criticism.
PoE is hardly a "bad" game. Was it perfect? Nope. Was it my all time favorite RPG? Nope. Was it good? Yes. Was it worth the 50$ I gave them over KS? Yes.
I had a couple of "insights" today that changed my whole understanding of it.
1) The experience system. PoE rewards you for avoiding violence as much as possible. There is virtually no experience for killing people and monsters. You only get significant xp for completing quests. This point didn't really sink in for me until I just played a character all the way up until the confrontation with Duke Raedric, and talked him into sending me to talk to (acutally kill) Kolsc.
Raedric's necromancer wants me to kill his priest. His priest wants me to kill his necromancer. Kolsc wants me to kill his cousin Raedric. Raedric wants me to kill his cousin Kolsc.
While standing in front of Raedric, and then going and talking to Kolsc, I had a sudden epiphany. "You know what? These people deserve each other. I want nothing to do with any of them." I then decided to kill nobody in the whole sad mess. "Let the fools fight it out amongst themselves!" So I just decided to go on with the game and move on to Defiance Bay, ignoring the whole Raedric situation.
2) The combat system. I've been playing on "hard" difficulty, with a maximum of two camping supplies in my inventory at any time. That makes magic precious. So precious, in fact, that it's practically useless except in extreme emergencies. Might and per encounter abilities trump magic in PoE to a rather extreme degree, because magic is so hard to regenerate.
There is a lesson to be learned in that, for the wise. "Magic always comes with a price." It's not something to just be thrown around at will.
3) Weapons and Armor.Everyone who enters into dangerous combat needs weapons and armor. By the time I decided to wash my hands of Kolsc and Raedric, I had everybody in my party wearing plate mail, including Aloth. Aloth is very, very effective with dual wielding, or even sword and board with bow. In fact, he's way more effective as a fighter-mage "multiclass" than as a pure mage. (Sound familiar?)
It's good to have two frontliners using "sword and board", with two "second liners" using long reach weapons like staff and spear. (Again, sound familiar?)
4) Skills. Most of them are of limited usefulness, except for a few. Everybody in the party needs to maximize stealth, for more tactical positioning options, *especially* your front liners. With all party members having good stealth, you can walk your party right up to enemies and position the party with near impunity.
Lore is useless, unless your playstyle is to use lots of scrolls. I've never been a fan of scroll use in either BG or PoE.
Pick *one* person to make mechanics a priority. I chose Aloth, who is now functioning as a "fighter-mage-thief" in my party.
Athletics are nice, but they now only give 5 endurance per Second Wind per point of skill. So, athletics is not that worth maxing, although every party member should have at least a few points in it.
The more I play, the more this game feels almost exactly like Baldur's Gate after the umpteenth playthrough, that is, very easy, while still quite enjoyable. I've gotten to the point with my party and skill building that I can usually just select all and click attack on one target at a time to get through at least 75% of the combat. Most of which I try to avoid when I can, unless there's a quest involved or a new bestiary entry to be had.
I am agreeing more and more with @Shandyr about the topic of this thread, as far as his point that a lot of BG players speak as though "BG is the *only* possible good fantasy RPG. The less like BG a game is, the less good it is. To be good, a game has to be *exactly* the same as BG, in every element." Hmmm, no.
@BelgarathMTH I would caution that NO skill is useless. Combat wise, yes, some skills are very limited. But there are many many special encounters that will check for things like lore and athletics. Dialogues often check all your skills as well.
I think the point is, in a story based game, it doesn't matter what other positive features it might have if the story doesn't grip.
Just as in a combat based game, it doesn't matter how good the other features are if the combat isn't fun.
And no PoE isn't horrible-bad. It just isn't anything like as good as it had the potential to be. I do think it's a shame that PoE appears to have made a lot more money than the similar-in-concept but vastly superior SoD.
I agree... everyone in this thread had something positive to say about the game. And everyone who stopped playing explained their reasons, there was no generic "this game sucks" or anything like that. So the fact is many people didn't like the game, for many reasons, as I'm sure there are many who do not like Baldur's Gate out there.
High lore also indirectly increases the rate at which you earn combat xp.
I did not know that. You're sure that applies to the most recent update? (They've rather drastically changed all the skills since release.) If so, thanks for the info.
Is it still true that xp is for quest completion or new bestiary entries only? I know my feedback scroll does not indicate any xp reward for kills.
It's always great to witness a thread you start get four pages worth of replies. Before I wrote the OP, I was under the impression that most Beamdoggers liked PoE very much. As such, I expected to get flamed or at least severely challenged for my opinions. So while it's relieving to realize I am not alone with my grievances, it is also quite sad in a way. Clearly, a lot of people - most of whom were the target audience for this game - were let down by Pillars of Eternity.
While people have expressed their criticism in a wide variety of ways, there seems to be a general consensus that PoE's biggest shortcoming was its lack of an immersive, gripping story (coupled with lackluster NPCs.) A lot of people (including myself) were also let down by the game's combat system, which, despite its significant innovations, provides neither real tactical challenge nor truly memorable monsters to fight.
Now, I think we can all agree that story and combat are among the most important aspects of any crpg. The fact that PoE fell short on both is perplexing, given how extraordinarily polished this game is.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more inexcusable it all feels to me. Obsidian had everything going for this game: a very successful Kickstarter campaign, which gave them plenty of time and resources to work with, a very experienced staff (including Chris Avellone) as well as a strong creative vision. They knew what they were doing, or at least so it seemed.
There are a lot of cases in the history of game development when a game has failed due to financial constraints and/or publisher pressure. That was definitely not the case here. The only explanation I can come up with is that they lost the forest for the trees. Instead of using their crowdfunding capital to assure a compelling narrative, memorable companions and gripping tactical combat, Obsidian seem to have poured it into nonessential detail, disconnected, verbose lore and largely unnecessary reinventions and changes to established crpg conventions.
I suppose the blame is also partly on us, the fans. As a supporter of their Kickstarter campaign, I, too, was swept with promises of thousands of lines of lore and a 15-level mega dungeon under your stronghold. In my blind enthusiasm, it frankly never occurred to me to press Obsidian for a strong story instead.
Even if you didn't like PoE, for whatever reason. The upside is that it, along with Wasteland 2, started an EXPLOSION of new RPGs. We had hardly *any* that weren't true indy games for about a decade outside of the Dragon Age, Witcher, and Mass effect franchises.
Now I go to GoG and almost every few weeks there's a new RPG out there that people are insisting I try.
If somebody could get around to properly reviving the shooter genre I'll have no money at all lol.
@BelgarathMTH The flipside of this is that some are checked more than others. I usually run my main character as a catch-all leveling every skill equally except mechanics. That way I can get about 80% of the various skill checks, as there are very few dialogues that require really high totals. I usually have the rest of my party specialize in a skill or two for special encounters that don't auto check for the player character. There are a surprising amount of ways to go about a lot of encounters.
I had a couple of "insights" today that changed my whole understanding of it.
1) The experience system. PoE rewards you for avoiding violence as much as possible. There is virtually no experience for killing people and monsters. You only get significant xp for completing quests. This point didn't really sink in for me until I just played a character all the way up until the confrontation with Duke Raedric, and talked him into sending me to talk to (acutally kill) Kolsc.
Raedric's necromancer wants me to kill his priest. His priest wants me to kill his necromancer. Kolsc wants me to kill his cousin Raedric. Raedric wants me to kill his cousin Kolsc.
While standing in front of Raedric, and then going and talking to Kolsc, I had a sudden epiphany. "You know what? These people deserve each other. I want nothing to do with any of them." I then decided to kill nobody in the whole sad mess. "Let the fools fight it out amongst themselves!" So I just decided to go on with the game and move on to Defiance Bay, ignoring the whole Raedric situation.
That's interesting, I did and felt exactly the same about this quest, I couldn't have used different words.
And that's not in the sense "this quest is boring and I am not interested in finishing it". It rather came after feeling immersed in that piece of world, and not wanting my character to have anything to do with it.
@Davide , yes, that's exactly what I meant. That point about how much I was into the roleplaying might have gotten lost in my large list of impressions and opinions about the game mechanics.
I am now very immersed in the lore of the PoE world. It has the most complicated and deeply well-written international politics and religion I've seen in a game. Only Dragon Age: Origins with its world of Ferelden has ever come close.
I was so into my character relating to Dyrwood, that my decision at the end not to assassinate anyone meant something to me.
It's interesting how I started out agreeing with people in this thread about being turned off to PoE, and now here I am defending it. It did manage to get me hooked in, big time. It just takes a lot of reading the books and all the descriptions in the character screens to get invested, more so than in other games.
At a certain point of reading and sometimes actually studying things, a light bulb went on for me. This world has a *history* that I can learn. My character is not the center of this world. Events move independently of what I do. And I actually like that.
@FatherofTwo brought up an interesting point in one of his video comments, as he has concurrent runs of Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity going. He said that one of his impressions was that PoE felt more "mature" (he was hesitant to use that word), "serious", and "darker" than BG. BG has a lot of rather "silly" or "goofy" humor in it. The one isn't necessarily better than the other, just quite different.
That change in tone may be one of the reasons so many BG players didn't like it.
But I'm currently feeling a shift in my attitude where I'm starting to prefer the more serious tone.
But have you actually gotten to the city yet? Or tried the Endless Dungeon of Tedium?
As for the detailed lore, sure it's there. The problem is, it's the same lore as hundreds of other Generic-Fantasylands(TM) with the names changed a little.
Here is something more about my experience with the game. For the record, I finished WM1 (except for the siege location), started WM2 and on the main quest I have to go to Twin Elms.
For sure the game is extremely well cured from the artistic point of view: the characters' animations are very well done and the artwork in general is quite remarkable.
It took me some time to become acquainted with the combat system, especially with all those status effects, but in the end it feels overall interesting and with a good variability. Here is the first point where I don't agree with many opinions given in this thread: the groups of monsters that you find have very different abilities and peculiarities, which forces you to change the needed tactics and to use different objects, potions, scrolls or PNG's abilities in order to prevail without too much pain.* I really don't feel that the combat is repetitive, and quite often there are scenic elements that can be used at your advantage, or make the combat more difficult (as it often happened in IWD).
About the story in itself, I agree that it is not THAT compelling, and I am following it with... relax. It came a moment at the beginning, after the "natural" interest given by the novelty of the game, when I was almost losing interest in it, but then I arrived to Defiance Bay. Here I think that the developers made a really good job, because you really feel that your character is thrown into the middle of something. You discover a lot of what is going on through the many side quests that are related to the politics, and you find that you have to choose a side in quite a natural way.
In general, I think that the developers put some good thoughts in designing some aspects of the game, that clearly stem from the lessons given by some previous similar games (I think about the PNGs' management for example). It is true that there isn't a full involvement with the story of the main character, but for me it just feels nice to keep exploring the world, learning the lore through the experience and by talking with your companions, and trying to complete the different quests.
* This might as well depend on the game difficulty: I chose hard and when I started WM I was asked if I wanted to improve the difficulty, considering the level of my group (I accepted).
Comments
I should also point out that PoE's combat system was an attempt to make the game *more* like P&P. If enemies don't aggro your high DPS glass cannon characters your DM is taking it too easy on you. For the player, every fight begins with a rough analysis of who the enemy glass-cannons are, and *you* attempt to kill them. Why shouldn't the AI be afforded the same opportunity? They also do have an aggro mechanic in the game, so if your squishies are really hurt, you can just have them sit in the back and not cast or backstab to avoid drawing attention to themselves - in which case the enemies will just aggro whomever is closest to them (IE behavior).
I'm actually a big fan of non-combat shackled XP - because it encourages you to circumvent hard fights or all fights if you're good enough - if you base your XP on combat (as the old IE games did) stealth and conversational prowess become just a tool to use for combat purposes - or become downright essential if the "talk your way out of it" option gives XP rewards similar to fighting, it makes a talkey character much more appealing/essential. A game that does quest-based xp really well is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - where in many cases combat is an unnecessary drain best left avoided lol. SoD I think provided you with ample opportunities to circumvent fights too - since all the XP in the game was basically bonus XP since BG2 will put you at a certain level regardless so it was of little consequence whether you hit the XP cap or not. I know I certainly used invis 10 ft radius to avoid a lot of combat in SoD because it was so draining to my party. No need for additional XP! Arcanum is a good example of game that bases its XP too strongly on combat to the detriment of *many* potential character builds, stealth being the primary. A stealthy or talkey character in Arcanum will be chronically under-levelled and very sad at many mandatory combat portions of the game lol. Quest-exclusive XP is hardly novel or pretentious.
1) the ability to design your own party is a good feature. Unfortuately it shows up how poorly designed mechanically the actual companions are.
2) you need a computer to figure out the actual effects of Speed and armour on damage output and spellcasting. So no, combat isn't really like P&P. Engagment system is a pretty good idea though.
3) yes, I like the XP system too.
But since the game's real problems are with the story, none of these really matter.
"I was very disappointed with this game. Overall its a solid game with 30-50 hours of gameplay. I was hoping for a game that would stand up against Baldurs Gate but it was more like Icewind Dale/TOEE. The storyline is very linear and boring, full of dull NPCs, with uninteresting quests, tedious combat where you end up doing the same spells/abilities every time, mostly fighting beasts and ghosts, stronghold was a pointless waste of time & money, messy inventory and stat system, full of locked out dialogue options so you constantly feel like you're missing out, pick A/B/C ending. For a modern RPG that was supposed to take the best of the old infinity engine games it didn't captivate me in the way they did.
However I did really enjoy the music score, graphics, game world/areas, wilderness areas bustling with life, spell animations, Defiance Bay city, several of the bigger side quests, fast movement option, Pen & paper puzzles, multiple pet options to choose from, resting bonuses.
I can understand how people would love this game but for me it just didn't pull me in. 2.5/5"
PoE is hardly a "bad" game. Was it perfect? Nope. Was it my all time favorite RPG? Nope. Was it good? Yes. Was it worth the 50$ I gave them over KS? Yes.
I had a couple of "insights" today that changed my whole understanding of it.
1) The experience system. PoE rewards you for avoiding violence as much as possible. There is virtually no experience for killing people and monsters. You only get significant xp for completing quests. This point didn't really sink in for me until I just played a character all the way up until the confrontation with Duke Raedric, and talked him into sending me to talk to (acutally kill) Kolsc.
While standing in front of Raedric, and then going and talking to Kolsc, I had a sudden epiphany. "You know what? These people deserve each other. I want nothing to do with any of them." I then decided to kill nobody in the whole sad mess. "Let the fools fight it out amongst themselves!" So I just decided to go on with the game and move on to Defiance Bay, ignoring the whole Raedric situation.
2) The combat system. I've been playing on "hard" difficulty, with a maximum of two camping supplies in my inventory at any time. That makes magic precious. So precious, in fact, that it's practically useless except in extreme emergencies. Might and per encounter abilities trump magic in PoE to a rather extreme degree, because magic is so hard to regenerate.
There is a lesson to be learned in that, for the wise. "Magic always comes with a price." It's not something to just be thrown around at will.
3) Weapons and Armor.Everyone who enters into dangerous combat needs weapons and armor. By the time I decided to wash my hands of Kolsc and Raedric, I had everybody in my party wearing plate mail, including Aloth. Aloth is very, very effective with dual wielding, or even sword and board with bow. In fact, he's way more effective as a fighter-mage "multiclass" than as a pure mage. (Sound familiar?)
It's good to have two frontliners using "sword and board", with two "second liners" using long reach weapons like staff and spear. (Again, sound familiar?)
4) Skills. Most of them are of limited usefulness, except for a few. Everybody in the party needs to maximize stealth, for more tactical positioning options, *especially* your front liners. With all party members having good stealth, you can walk your party right up to enemies and position the party with near impunity.
Lore is useless, unless your playstyle is to use lots of scrolls. I've never been a fan of scroll use in either BG or PoE.
Pick *one* person to make mechanics a priority. I chose Aloth, who is now functioning as a "fighter-mage-thief" in my party.
Athletics are nice, but they now only give 5 endurance per Second Wind per point of skill. So, athletics is not that worth maxing, although every party member should have at least a few points in it.
The more I play, the more this game feels almost exactly like Baldur's Gate after the umpteenth playthrough, that is, very easy, while still quite enjoyable. I've gotten to the point with my party and skill building that I can usually just select all and click attack on one target at a time to get through at least 75% of the combat. Most of which I try to avoid when I can, unless there's a quest involved or a new bestiary entry to be had.
I am agreeing more and more with @Shandyr about the topic of this thread, as far as his point that a lot of BG players speak as though "BG is the *only* possible good fantasy RPG. The less like BG a game is, the less good it is. To be good, a game has to be *exactly* the same as BG, in every element." Hmmm, no.
Just as in a combat based game, it doesn't matter how good the other features are if the combat isn't fun.
And no PoE isn't horrible-bad. It just isn't anything like as good as it had the potential to be. I do think it's a shame that PoE appears to have made a lot more money than the similar-in-concept but vastly superior SoD.
Is it still true that xp is for quest completion or new bestiary entries only? I know my feedback scroll does not indicate any xp reward for kills.
While people have expressed their criticism in a wide variety of ways, there seems to be a general consensus that PoE's biggest shortcoming was its lack of an immersive, gripping story (coupled with lackluster NPCs.) A lot of people (including myself) were also let down by the game's combat system, which, despite its significant innovations, provides neither real tactical challenge nor truly memorable monsters to fight.
Now, I think we can all agree that story and combat are among the most important aspects of any crpg. The fact that PoE fell short on both is perplexing, given how extraordinarily polished this game is.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more inexcusable it all feels to me. Obsidian had everything going for this game: a very successful Kickstarter campaign, which gave them plenty of time and resources to work with, a very experienced staff (including Chris Avellone) as well as a strong creative vision. They knew what they were doing, or at least so it seemed.
There are a lot of cases in the history of game development when a game has failed due to financial constraints and/or publisher pressure. That was definitely not the case here. The only explanation I can come up with is that they lost the forest for the trees. Instead of using their crowdfunding capital to assure a compelling narrative, memorable companions and gripping tactical combat, Obsidian seem to have poured it into nonessential detail, disconnected, verbose lore and largely unnecessary reinventions and changes to established crpg conventions.
I suppose the blame is also partly on us, the fans. As a supporter of their Kickstarter campaign, I, too, was swept with promises of thousands of lines of lore and a 15-level mega dungeon under your stronghold. In my blind enthusiasm, it frankly never occurred to me to press Obsidian for a strong story instead.
Now I go to GoG and almost every few weeks there's a new RPG out there that people are insisting I try.
If somebody could get around to properly reviving the shooter genre I'll have no money at all
And that's not in the sense "this quest is boring and I am not interested in finishing it". It rather came after feeling immersed in that piece of world, and not wanting my character to have anything to do with it.
I am now very immersed in the lore of the PoE world. It has the most complicated and deeply well-written international politics and religion I've seen in a game. Only Dragon Age: Origins with its world of Ferelden has ever come close.
I was so into my character relating to Dyrwood, that my decision at the end not to assassinate anyone meant something to me.
It's interesting how I started out agreeing with people in this thread about being turned off to PoE, and now here I am defending it. It did manage to get me hooked in, big time. It just takes a lot of reading the books and all the descriptions in the character screens to get invested, more so than in other games.
At a certain point of reading and sometimes actually studying things, a light bulb went on for me. This world has a *history* that I can learn. My character is not the center of this world. Events move independently of what I do. And I actually like that.
@FatherofTwo brought up an interesting point in one of his video comments, as he has concurrent runs of Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity going. He said that one of his impressions was that PoE felt more "mature" (he was hesitant to use that word), "serious", and "darker" than BG. BG has a lot of rather "silly" or "goofy" humor in it. The one isn't necessarily better than the other, just quite different.
That change in tone may be one of the reasons so many BG players didn't like it.
But I'm currently feeling a shift in my attitude where I'm starting to prefer the more serious tone.
As for the detailed lore, sure it's there. The problem is, it's the same lore as hundreds of other Generic-Fantasylands(TM) with the names changed a little.
For sure the game is extremely well cured from the artistic point of view: the characters' animations are very well done and the artwork in general is quite remarkable.
It took me some time to become acquainted with the combat system, especially with all those status effects, but in the end it feels overall interesting and with a good variability. Here is the first point where I don't agree with many opinions given in this thread: the groups of monsters that you find have very different abilities and peculiarities, which forces you to change the needed tactics and to use different objects, potions, scrolls or PNG's abilities in order to prevail without too much pain.* I really don't feel that the combat is repetitive, and quite often there are scenic elements that can be used at your advantage, or make the combat more difficult (as it often happened in IWD).
About the story in itself, I agree that it is not THAT compelling, and I am following it with... relax.
It came a moment at the beginning, after the "natural" interest given by the novelty of the game, when I was almost losing interest in it, but then I arrived to Defiance Bay. Here I think that the developers made a really good job, because you really feel that your character is thrown into the middle of something. You discover a lot of what is going on through the many side quests that are related to the politics, and you find that you have to choose a side in quite a natural way.
In general, I think that the developers put some good thoughts in designing some aspects of the game, that clearly stem from the lessons given by some previous similar games (I think about the PNGs' management for example). It is true that there isn't a full involvement with the story of the main character, but for me it just feels nice to keep exploring the world, learning the lore through the experience and by talking with your companions, and trying to complete the different quests.
* This might as well depend on the game difficulty: I chose hard and when I started WM I was asked if I wanted to improve the difficulty, considering the level of my group (I accepted).