Pillars of Eternity 2 praise/criticism/gameplay and story analysis thread [SPOILERS ALLOWED]
EDIT: I started this discussion without realising that the Project Eternity megathread also covers PoE2 related things. However, seeing that the existing thread is strictly no spoilers, I decided to rebrand this thread as a [SPOILERS ALLOWED] discussion of the game to avoid overlap. So fire away, fellow Principi!
Original post:
I started playing PoE2 a week ago and I'm completely sucked in. It is as if the rest of the world has faded into obscurity. I find myself playing every chance I get, and when I'm not, it is all I can think about. I simply can't think remember the time I've been so excited about a new CRPG. Seriously, this game is that good.
PoE2 has definitely caught me off guard. I usually find modern games, even the critically acclaimed ones, to be lacking in comparison to the Infinity Engine classics. In one of my past threads, I bitched about how no game except Baldur's Gate seems to do it for me anymore. On top of that, I didn't really enjoy the first Pillars of Eternity all that much. I found it heavy, clunky and lacking in that ephemeral hard-to-trace something that separates a good game from a truly great one. As such, when PoE2 was announced, I was completely indifferent. I didn't back it and wasn't looking forward to playing it. I definitely didn't expect it to blow me away. Rarely have I been so glad to be proven wrong.
It seems like Obsidian really did their homework, because everything that annoyed me about the first installment seems to be either improved, changed or removed in the second. The double health bar, annoying stacking rules, unnecessarily verbose gold plated NPCs that added nothing to the story - all gone. The story companions, which I found dull and hard to relate to in the first game are much more fleshed out here. They banter, joke and involve themselves in conversations much more readily than in the first game. There are even romances now, which I honestly didn't expect. Overall, there seems to be a lot more humour around, in and out of conversations. Whereas PoE1 felt at times grim and overly serious, PoE2 is much more easygoing and lighthearted.
The colonial setting is a perfect change from the cookie-cutter medieval countryside of PoE1. The world of Deadfire reminds me of the Monkey Island games more than anything in the fantasy CRPG canon, and I mean this in a good way. I appreciate that Obsidian went for something fresh and quirky rather than clinging to more conventional, epic-writ-large high fantasy tropes. The ship is also a vast improvement over the original stronghold. Investing in upgrades and hirelings actually makes sense now. In fact, it is vital for getting ahead in the game, just as it should be.
The new multiclass system. Where do I even begin? It's brilliant, so much more intuitive and streamlined, yet so much more varied and complex than anything the first game had to offer. I've tried several multiclass builds and combos and they all seem to have their place, even the more unorthodox ones. And there's kits, too! Obsidian has really outdone themselves here. I'm currently playing a Herald (Troubadour/Shieldbearer) and it's exactly as fun as I'd imagine a D&D bard/paladin type of character to be, both rp and gameplay wise. I also appreciate that you get to multiclass story companions, too.
The combat, too, seems significantly improved from the first game. I'm playing on PotD with the latest difficulty patch [1.1 beta] and so far, the game has successfully kept me on my toes. Encounters are more varied and often require you to come up with creative solutions and strategies to handle. There's just something so satisfying about aiming your pistol at a barrel of gunpowder and have it demolish the enemy backline in a big bwoosh. I dig how spells and abilities are replenished after each battle, as this encourages a more all-out playstyle over carebear tactics. Also I like that there seem to be less filler encounters in dungeons, meaning the battles you fight are fewer but more challenging.
Excuse my rambling. The point I'm trying to make is that this game delivers. Do yourself a favour and give it a try, even if you, like me, didn't particularly enjoy the first game. In closing, I want to say that for the first time in a long, long while, I'm playing a game that doesn't make me wish I was playing BG instead. And this means a lot coming out of a grizzled BG-veteran's mouth.
Original post:
I started playing PoE2 a week ago and I'm completely sucked in. It is as if the rest of the world has faded into obscurity. I find myself playing every chance I get, and when I'm not, it is all I can think about. I simply can't think remember the time I've been so excited about a new CRPG. Seriously, this game is that good.
PoE2 has definitely caught me off guard. I usually find modern games, even the critically acclaimed ones, to be lacking in comparison to the Infinity Engine classics. In one of my past threads, I bitched about how no game except Baldur's Gate seems to do it for me anymore. On top of that, I didn't really enjoy the first Pillars of Eternity all that much. I found it heavy, clunky and lacking in that ephemeral hard-to-trace something that separates a good game from a truly great one. As such, when PoE2 was announced, I was completely indifferent. I didn't back it and wasn't looking forward to playing it. I definitely didn't expect it to blow me away. Rarely have I been so glad to be proven wrong.
It seems like Obsidian really did their homework, because everything that annoyed me about the first installment seems to be either improved, changed or removed in the second. The double health bar, annoying stacking rules, unnecessarily verbose gold plated NPCs that added nothing to the story - all gone. The story companions, which I found dull and hard to relate to in the first game are much more fleshed out here. They banter, joke and involve themselves in conversations much more readily than in the first game. There are even romances now, which I honestly didn't expect. Overall, there seems to be a lot more humour around, in and out of conversations. Whereas PoE1 felt at times grim and overly serious, PoE2 is much more easygoing and lighthearted.
The colonial setting is a perfect change from the cookie-cutter medieval countryside of PoE1. The world of Deadfire reminds me of the Monkey Island games more than anything in the fantasy CRPG canon, and I mean this in a good way. I appreciate that Obsidian went for something fresh and quirky rather than clinging to more conventional, epic-writ-large high fantasy tropes. The ship is also a vast improvement over the original stronghold. Investing in upgrades and hirelings actually makes sense now. In fact, it is vital for getting ahead in the game, just as it should be.
The new multiclass system. Where do I even begin? It's brilliant, so much more intuitive and streamlined, yet so much more varied and complex than anything the first game had to offer. I've tried several multiclass builds and combos and they all seem to have their place, even the more unorthodox ones. And there's kits, too! Obsidian has really outdone themselves here. I'm currently playing a Herald (Troubadour/Shieldbearer) and it's exactly as fun as I'd imagine a D&D bard/paladin type of character to be, both rp and gameplay wise. I also appreciate that you get to multiclass story companions, too.
The combat, too, seems significantly improved from the first game. I'm playing on PotD with the latest difficulty patch [1.1 beta] and so far, the game has successfully kept me on my toes. Encounters are more varied and often require you to come up with creative solutions and strategies to handle. There's just something so satisfying about aiming your pistol at a barrel of gunpowder and have it demolish the enemy backline in a big bwoosh. I dig how spells and abilities are replenished after each battle, as this encourages a more all-out playstyle over carebear tactics. Also I like that there seem to be less filler encounters in dungeons, meaning the battles you fight are fewer but more challenging.
Excuse my rambling. The point I'm trying to make is that this game delivers. Do yourself a favour and give it a try, even if you, like me, didn't particularly enjoy the first game. In closing, I want to say that for the first time in a long, long while, I'm playing a game that doesn't make me wish I was playing BG instead. And this means a lot coming out of a grizzled BG-veteran's mouth.
Post edited by Ballad on
5
Comments
I agree with the OP, its a lot of fun and mechanically, is pretty much better in every way. Everything I found tedious in the original is gone. I can't speak for the full story or companions however. Currently some companions trigger all their dialogue too quickly, and I have abandoned my current run to try a different character concept. I'm waiting for the big bug patch to restart.
The only thing that bugs me is, having not completed POE 1, I really don't understand my personal history choices at the start of the game, and the references to those choices in dialogue is going right over my head. I thought about actually finishing POE 1 just so I'd understand, but I can't be bothered.
Given all the lore you describe, where do clerics get their powers in the PoE setting? And mages and ciphers, for that matter? Is there something in the end of Durance's story that says anything about that? What if the main character is a cleric of Eothas? (I was playing that, once.)
The companion quests in Pillars are fairly involved. Their epilogues are different based on how you finish some of their quests, but also based on whether you even choose to finish them. For instance, if you don't convince Durance his goddess was a fraud conspiring with the other false one, he simply commits suicide by burning himself on a pyre after being met with silence despite his zealotry.
I think the three major works of J.R.R. Tolkien make a good example of this. They are all based on the same lore, but they all approach and reference it in a completely different way.
I really like The Hobbit, because despite being 'an introduction to a very complex world', the lore is completely hidden within the narrative. We experience the world mostly through the eyes of Bilbo. Though there is a universal narrator that occasionally hints at a larger whole, nothing is ever explained in full, merely hinted at. It is a tremendously effective way of storytelling, because it gives the reader a sense of depth and complexity without killing the flow of the story with heavy tangents of lore. Subsequently, it piques our curiosity, making us want to know more.
The Silmarillion, on the other hand, is all about lore and nothing but. The stories and characters are only there to punctuate the lore universe, to glue bigger and smaller bits of the big picture together. There is a sense of emotional distance and inevitability and it reads more like a history textbook than a fantasy story.
The LotR books are a mixture of the two. The main focus is on the story, but occasionally the narration breaks off for several pages to explain the history of a specific location or the mythos behind a particular event. Very little in the world is left open for the reader to wonder about. Even when there is something that the characters do not understand, the narrator makes sure that the reader gets the long and short of it.
The LotR approach seems to have become the golden standard in subsequent works of fantasy, crpgs included. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I sometimes wonder if writers, especially devs of new intellectual properties, are a bit too anxious to give off everything at once, fearing that any open ends might be treated as weak writing or plot holes by the community. Maybe the first PoE would've been easier to digest if it didn't push the lore so hard but chose to leave it in the cracks instead. But I digress.
So, like I said in the other thread, I didn't much care for the first PoE, but the second one seems improved in about every way. I've actually managed to finish 3 playthroughs.
First run was a Swashbuckler (Fighter/Rogue) and I sided with the Principi.
Second was an Assassin/Cipher. That was probably the most fun, really high risk high reward fighting style. Did the Principi again but sided with Furrante and the slavers this time.
Third time an Orlan Wizard/Druid. Just a stupid amount of spells, and with the druid shape shifts, you can even melee it up when out of spells or against an enemy they're not working on. Fun, but the Wizard spells probably didn't add that much to the druid. I sided with the Huana, and was definitely surprised how nasty things got with them.
When I get the urge to play it again, I think I want to get cozy with the Vailians next time. I never really did that much that they liked in any of the runs.
Baldur's Gate has similar issues with it's lore books if the player as no prior knowledge of Forgotten Realms.
Again, I think you're right. In my case, me not enjoying PoE1 was a clear case of expectations vs. reality. I was eager to dive into a fantasy adventure and didn't want to sift through masses of unfamiliar lore for the story to make sense. One of the great things about Deadfire is how it puts you right in the action, letting you come back to the lore after you've had your fill of buccaneering.
Just a question to others, has anyone faced any lag with the opening cinematic? (It freezes sometimes with me, though from what I've seen in the trailer video, it's not that graphic intensive.) Maybe it's just my PC, but I'd like to be sure.
I'm still enjoying it immensely. For awhile there I even wondered if I'd ever want to play the BG games after such a step up in overall quality, but I'm actually hankering to play them again, if only for one or two final runs.
Some observations: one, the difficulty. I've heard people complain that the game is too easy. I've been playing on the classic setting, without level scaling, and overall it has been rather easy. That said, when you take on an area that it above your level it can be really tough. I also made the mistake of going to the final battle in my first game at level 16. I was unable to beat it after a dozen reloads or so and finally turned the difficulty down just to finish the story. So while the game was easy overall, I wouldn't attempt the endgame without reaching level 20. Maybe I'm just not good enough at POE yet, but I'm pretty sure I threw everything AND the kitchen sink at that final encounter...
I like the story - though I am getting tired of the epic scope thrust on the main character in some RPGs. It would be nice to play as an average Joe, rather than being the son of a god, or a watcher fighting for the fate of the gods... One thing about the story that's getting on my nerves, though is the divisive factions. I really enjoyed it at first, but I'm getting tired of being pulled around and of the feeling that I have to play ball with all of them. Maybe I don't have to play ball with all of them, but in my limited experience it feels like I do and I'm afraid to make choices that will permanently close roads to vital experience, quests and items. I love the companions in POE 2, but again I now find myself getting sick of the factionalization (is that even a word?). I'm tired of juggling around trying to keep everyone happy. It's realistic, perhaps, but getting tedious.
I'd love to hear how others are enjoying the game!
Oh, and does anyone else here find that Eothas reminds them of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen? I Googled this and found there are at least a couple others out there that see a similarity.
Personally, I was playing through, but every patch is changing so many things that I'm waiting for the patches to finish. So I canplay my character as I make them through to the end.