I really like it, but somehow it is less than the sum of its parts to me too. I think a lot of it for me is they just tried to make the game too epic. It's like each act has a new and not all that related storyline. Just arriving to find out the lord is insane and needing to depose him, or settling the animancy controversy could have been the main plot by themselves. That said the parts themselves are still good enough that I like the game, but I do have the strange feeling that it's just missing 'something' to make it a classic for me.
Where Pillars of Eternity fails, what I and a number of other people have argued, is that the starting premise for the game doesn't give the player motivation to keep going.
How to achieve player motivation to keep going? What elements should be fleshed out?
It doesn't take much. Off the top of my head, here are a couple possibilities:
1. Have one of your companions (Calisca, for instance) survive the ritual at the end of that first dungeon, and have them tell you something to the effect of "I know where we need to go to get answers / I know someone we can meet." Or heck, they don't have to survive, as long as they give you that "Go see so-and-so" information. That has the added benefit of making those prologue characters more meaningful, even if their importance is just to give the player somewhere to go. (Obviously if you kill both of them, or if neither of them survive, then you wouldn't get that information--the information could come in the form of a journal you find near the ritual site, though, or someone else who saw what happened from afar and tells you whom you should seek out.)
2. When the ritual happens, one of the cultists sees you, and you flee (through one of those storybook cutscenes). The cutscene can then communicate where you ought to go to find safety.
3. During your conversation with Calisca at the caravan (the one that establishes your own backstory), have Calisca give you the name of a contact. That gives the player some direction even if they're completely lost as to what's going on. It gives them the touchstone of "I don't know where to go, but Calisca said I should talk to Charlie, so at least I have that."
Any one of those solutions would be enough to keep me engaged in the story.
The first hour of gameplay is like the first chapter of a book. It needs to grab the reader, it needs to make them care about the protagonist enough to keep reading. The people who have trouble getting through the first part of this game are losing interest because the first hour doesn't provide that hook to get the player invested in the story.
The player's time is valuable. As a designer, writer, storyteller, your job is to convince the player that the experience you're creating is worth the investment of their time.
That's why the Imoen kidnapping in BGII is effective. From the outset, you're told that the stakes are high and you need to keep moving. Whether or not there's an actual timer is irrelevant. What's important is that you're made to believe that time is of the essence.
You are setting up a strawman here. You are accusing people of criticising PoE for "not being exactly like Baldur's Gate" and for "being too different to Baldur's Gate". But if you had actually read what people where saying, the big criticism of PoE is that it's plot is unengaging and poorly paced. This isn't simply a matter of "perception". The reason we are here having this discussion now is that 16 years ago Baldur's Gate came out with an engaging well paced plot.
You are right, PoE does attempt to combine elements of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. But it actually falls short of ALL of them, not just Baldur's Gate.
Baldur's Gate: We don't feel engaged in this Hero's Journey. There is a lack of personal involvement, there is no one to avenge, the world isn't in imminent danger, the villain doesn't care about the hero, and the threat to sanity doesn't feel real.
Icewind Dale: The combat isn't fun, and the music and art are bland.
Planescape: Torment: The game attempts to tackle the question "If god did not exist, would it be necessary to invent him?", but this is forgotten about for long stretches of the game, and it really isn't as interesting as "what can change the nature of a man?" anyway.
@Ballad I totally agree with you that it's hard to get into the game. From what Shandyr said, it sounds like the later parts of the game are worth experiencing. So if it's something that matters to you, maybe it's worth struggling through the parts that aren't compelling.
For the record, I agree that BG2 does have pacing problems, but they appear as a result of having "too much stuff to do", as in you appear in a city you're meant to explore, given multiple opportunities for side quests that are all very interesting. But at no point are you left thinking "What is it I'm supposed to do to advance the plot?"
As for the main quest's urgency being artificial...eh. If that bothers you, then pretty much every game out there is going to bother you for the same reason. Skyrim, Zelda, Final Fantasy, The Witcher...Almost every game that features a story gives you a story hook, a sense of urgency, without punishing you for taking too long. It's the illusion of urgency that matters, not urgency itself. If Baldur's Gate 2's lack of urgency is jarring, that's not because false urgency is bad; it's because the false urgency in Baldur's Gate 2 was poorly implemented.
It's my second playthrough ! I stopped the first one because I lost interest in the story, exactly as some of you explained here.
I bought white march recently so I gave it another shot. I forced myself to feel "hooked" to the story and I finished chapter 2 (I think ? That audience about animancy thing). I thought it was the perfect time to go to stalwart, from a rp perspective, so now i check what's going on in the white march.
But, I have to "force" myself to rp the game, the narration doesn't make it natural at all, and to me that's the real weakness of PoE, some days I don't have the energy to force myself to get inside a story so I just don't play
I said Baldur's Gate was well paced, not Baldur's Gate 2. I agree that there are some issues with BG2 pacing, but in that case, the strength of Irenicus as a villain compensates: you get the sense that if you don't go after him he will come after you.
Currently I'm enjoying playing Grim Dawn, I haven't played Baldur's Gate for a while, as I like to play a wide varity of different games. I can't bring myself to go back to PoE though, even though I bought the expansion pack and haven't touched it.
There is so much that I did like about PoE that it surprises me sometimes that I just can’t ever seem to build up enough enthusiasm to go back and actually finish the game. I loved the art style and feel of the world.
Two points that have already been mentioned here by others, are always very important to me as well.
First, an illusion of urgency. For me, this means just that, “illusion of urgency” as I absolutely despise timers in a rpg. An example of a timer that ruined an otherwise intriguing quest for me was the party ball in Dragon Age Inquisition. I would have loved exploring every part of that place, talking to every NPC, but that damned timer…
Baldur’s Gate gave me reasons to feel the urgency. Assassins want my head, they even killed my father trying to get it. My little sister needs my help. Then it gave me reasons to delay my heading straight there, I need to figure out how to survive in this unfamiliar world that I have been forced into, I need coin, other people need my help.
The story needs to feel personal. The story in Baldur’s Gate always felt very personal to me. Many other things were happening in the world, but the main story revolved around the PC. I just never got that same feeling with PoE.
One other thing about PoE that struck me was that the NPCs sometimes talked so much in “philosophical tones” that after a while I started to feel a bit like a bored parishioner in church, zzzzzzzzzz… I say this as someone who loves Planescape Torment.
I enjoyed PoE very much at first, but I was easily distracted away from it by an idea for a run through an older game that I like better before I was even a third of the way through. I had every intention of going back to it, but so far, I just can't get interested enough. There's always another game I'd rather play.
I've thought a lot about why I can't get back into it. The ideas in this thread are very insightful, and I think I agree with most of the criticisms explained here. I would add that there are a lot of things about the raw game mechanics that put me off, such as the splitting of "hit points" into vitality and endurance. (Frankly, I hate it. Vitality is way too hard to restore, and resting is very often not possible because a lot of the game's areas throw wave after wave of enemies at you.) The lack of interesting loot is also a thing for me.
That said, I'm not quite ready to give up on it to the point of saying I'll never go back to it. I'd still like to give it another chance at some point. But it does utterly fail to get me to want to play it instead of at least a dozen other games that keep pulling me back in again and again, no matter how many times I play them.
My excuse for not finishing PoE is a lot more trivial. My laptop is just so old that it overheats itself and shuts down after 5-10 minutes of playing It drives me nuts...
My excuse for not finishing PoE is a lot more trivial. My laptop is juwt so old that it overheats itself and shuts down after 5-10 minutes of playing It drives me nuts...
See? This is what I'm talking about. If the game were good enough, you'd be happy to sacrifice your computer to the cause of playing the game five minutes at a time!
My excuse for not finishing PoE is a lot more trivial. My laptop is juwt so old that it overheats itself and shuts down after 5-10 minutes of playing It drives me nuts...
See? This is what I'm talking about. If the game were good enough, you'd be happy to sacrifice your computer to the cause of playing the game five minutes at a time!
(I kid, of course. )
Funnily enough it does not behave like that when I play BGEE
Ha, and I thought I was the only one who bought the game but never finished it. I was quite hyped about it when it came out but the interest fell off surprisingly soon. I never got much further over the first town. At that point I never felt a lack of urgency (I'm sick and I need to find a cure) but the dealbraker for me was combat. Prolonged, bland, boring, the engagement mechanic didn't clicked with me at all. I would actually like to get to know more about the story and the world, but with most of the gameplay time filled with such combat? Unfortunatelly, pass.
I did play PoE a bit before my laptop started to go rogue and I wasn't hooked up either. I definitely will try it again when (if) I change my computer. Interestingly enough I like Wasteland 2 more (and that is why I can't wait for TToN).
I personally really like POE, but I have to admit that I have a bit of hard time staying engaged in the first chapter. I actually love showing up at the first town and finding out things are really bad there. The Keep mission to depose the ruler is one of my favorite quests in the game. There are at least 3 different ways to tackle with as many routes, and the finally fight is pretty brutal. My problem comes after that, getting the Stronghold is kinda boring and low stakes in comparison.
The reason I don't replay it is because it's a huge game and I don't want to invest that much into it, I can blast through games I replay more regularly much more quickly because I've got most of the stuff memorized - but when it first came out I went hard and beat it in 55 hours or so over the course of 3-5 days, they all blur together because I hardly slept. I didn't really have any complaints whatsoever. But then again I like most things because I choose to consciously overlook things that irritate me unless it's simply objectively too bad to have any fun lol. Except snakes, I draw the line at snakes.
I found the endless paths to be pretty neat honestly. Why is it there? Who knows (you find out)! It's so big it's go its own ecosystem! What could possibly be at the bottom? Does it have a bottom?
You find out all that. For something that was just a "gives us facebook likes" stretch goal + optional filler it was great. Some of the levels were pretty interesting as well + the art style in a lot of parts really got me going. I liked that the giant statue was cut through the whole thing. I don't know if playstyle influences one's enjoyment though - I know some people like to progress through it a little bit at a time - I waited until right before the end (durlag's tower style) and just did the whole thing in one go and really liked it.
Huh, I thought I'd be in a minority of people who were dissappointed in PoE, guess not.
As much as I was looking forward to PoE I too found the story a little lack luster, though the art style and concept kept me intrigued for a while longer than most it seems, but as I progressed through the game the intrigue dwindled fairly rapidly and the annoying mechanics became increasingly more offputting. The endurance/vitality thing was ridiculous (what is wrong with plain old health? If it aint broke...). I think I managed to get a good ways through the game but I never finished it I would guess that I was around 75% the way through and I eventually just got bored and havn't gone back since.
There were a few things that PoE did that I really liked such as the storybook scenes and the fact that you actually have tangible spellbooks that you can peruse for new spells off fallen magi but unfortunately these little gems of game design weren't enough to compensate for the lack of compelling narrative.
My very first impression of Pillars was that it was too self-conscious of having made all that fan-money, and of being the "spiritual successor" of the first magnificence of PC gaming - Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Neverwinternights 2 etc.
I've taken Obsidian as a rigthly irrelevant and playful developer, always.
I missed that with Pillars, but hope they still have it.
This said: having had the Keep upon publishing, and having obviously had it upon later versions - I noticed keep featured including a big battle, because the fans were strongly hankering for more meaningful keep.
I think that was just great and responsive.
I cannot say I was that thrilled with PoE. but I think it is a matter of someone too self-conscious losing their charms by trying to have them.
I frankly do not mind having paid all of it, if Eternity 2 is a real Obsidian title!
By this I mean the charm, the humour, the subversion - and bringing Sand back as romanceable char, obviously!
While playing PoE I couldn't shrug off the feeling some stuff were there just because "hey Baldur's Gate did that!" starting with using real time with pause. There's also the fact I played Divinity: Original Sin first and really liked it so I had a point of comparison in the "try to be old school RPG" category.
Some of the things people are saying on here chime entirely with my experience of the game.
I was looking forward to it, and I pre ordered it, and I played it, and.....
And I got to the tree with the people hanging from it and I stopped playing. There was no sudden bolt of lightening and a solemn declaration that 'I don't like this game. I'm not playing it again'. Just... that I stopped.
I found other things to do. When I had a bit of time to play a game, I loaded up something else. And as time went on, I became less and less interested in going back to it. And I havn't since, and if I'm honest, although I keep telling myself I will give it another go at some stage, I don't think I will.
And I don't know why. I havn't really thought about why I found the game disappointing - for me, it just was. And I don't worry about it, or fret, or look for answers. I just moved on.
I think the lack of the dnd license really hurts the game. They decided they could improve on too many things and a lot of the results end up feeling counterintuitive to DnD veterans. Things like engagement, the core abilities, monsters, etc can feel like odd choices.
They should not have tried to "reinvent the horse" . They should have just used pathfinder or openrpg or something and focused their efforts on story, playability, and other areas.
They had to start from scratch as well though. Designing the entire world and so on, unlike Forgotten Realms. That didn't help matters much, but overall I thought they did a decent job, although I agree with some of the criticism here.
I hope they do better with nr 2.
I actually did enjoy some of the stuff they did with the classes, particularly for Paladins and priests. Barbarian and fighter.. not so much. While I think Cipher is the most interesting.
Comments
1. Have one of your companions (Calisca, for instance) survive the ritual at the end of that first dungeon, and have them tell you something to the effect of "I know where we need to go to get answers / I know someone we can meet." Or heck, they don't have to survive, as long as they give you that "Go see so-and-so" information. That has the added benefit of making those prologue characters more meaningful, even if their importance is just to give the player somewhere to go. (Obviously if you kill both of them, or if neither of them survive, then you wouldn't get that information--the information could come in the form of a journal you find near the ritual site, though, or someone else who saw what happened from afar and tells you whom you should seek out.)
2. When the ritual happens, one of the cultists sees you, and you flee (through one of those storybook cutscenes). The cutscene can then communicate where you ought to go to find safety.
3. During your conversation with Calisca at the caravan (the one that establishes your own backstory), have Calisca give you the name of a contact. That gives the player some direction even if they're completely lost as to what's going on. It gives them the touchstone of "I don't know where to go, but Calisca said I should talk to Charlie, so at least I have that."
Any one of those solutions would be enough to keep me engaged in the story.
The first hour of gameplay is like the first chapter of a book. It needs to grab the reader, it needs to make them care about the protagonist enough to keep reading. The people who have trouble getting through the first part of this game are losing interest because the first hour doesn't provide that hook to get the player invested in the story.
The player's time is valuable. As a designer, writer, storyteller, your job is to convince the player that the experience you're creating is worth the investment of their time.
That's why the Imoen kidnapping in BGII is effective. From the outset, you're told that the stakes are high and you need to keep moving. Whether or not there's an actual timer is irrelevant. What's important is that you're made to believe that time is of the essence.
You are setting up a strawman here. You are accusing people of criticising PoE for "not being exactly like Baldur's Gate" and for "being too different to Baldur's Gate". But if you had actually read what people where saying, the big criticism of PoE is that it's plot is unengaging and poorly paced. This isn't simply a matter of "perception". The reason we are here having this discussion now is that 16 years ago Baldur's Gate came out with an engaging well paced plot.
You are right, PoE does attempt to combine elements of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. But it actually falls short of ALL of them, not just Baldur's Gate.
Baldur's Gate: We don't feel engaged in this Hero's Journey. There is a lack of personal involvement, there is no one to avenge, the world isn't in imminent danger, the villain doesn't care about the hero, and the threat to sanity doesn't feel real.
Icewind Dale: The combat isn't fun, and the music and art are bland.
Planescape: Torment: The game attempts to tackle the question "If god did not exist, would it be necessary to invent him?", but this is forgotten about for long stretches of the game, and it really isn't as interesting as "what can change the nature of a man?" anyway.
Anyway, I feel that with last several comments this thread is quickly going off-topic.
@Ballad I totally agree with you that it's hard to get into the game. From what Shandyr said, it sounds like the later parts of the game are worth experiencing. So if it's something that matters to you, maybe it's worth struggling through the parts that aren't compelling.
For the record, I agree that BG2 does have pacing problems, but they appear as a result of having "too much stuff to do", as in you appear in a city you're meant to explore, given multiple opportunities for side quests that are all very interesting. But at no point are you left thinking "What is it I'm supposed to do to advance the plot?"
As for the main quest's urgency being artificial...eh. If that bothers you, then pretty much every game out there is going to bother you for the same reason. Skyrim, Zelda, Final Fantasy, The Witcher...Almost every game that features a story gives you a story hook, a sense of urgency, without punishing you for taking too long. It's the illusion of urgency that matters, not urgency itself. If Baldur's Gate 2's lack of urgency is jarring, that's not because false urgency is bad; it's because the false urgency in Baldur's Gate 2 was poorly implemented.
It's my second playthrough !
I stopped the first one because I lost interest in the story, exactly as some of you explained here.
I bought white march recently so I gave it another shot.
I forced myself to feel "hooked" to the story and I finished chapter 2 (I think ? That audience about animancy thing).
I thought it was the perfect time to go to stalwart, from a rp perspective, so now i check what's going on in the white march.
But, I have to "force" myself to rp the game, the narration doesn't make it natural at all, and to me that's the real weakness of PoE, some days I don't have the energy to force myself to get inside a story so I just don't play
I said Baldur's Gate was well paced, not Baldur's Gate 2. I agree that there are some issues with BG2 pacing, but in that case, the strength of Irenicus as a villain compensates: you get the sense that if you don't go after him he will come after you.
Currently I'm enjoying playing Grim Dawn, I haven't played Baldur's Gate for a while, as I like to play a wide varity of different games. I can't bring myself to go back to PoE though, even though I bought the expansion pack and haven't touched it.
Two points that have already been mentioned here by others, are always very important to me as well.
First, an illusion of urgency. For me, this means just that, “illusion of urgency” as I absolutely despise timers in a rpg. An example of a timer that ruined an otherwise intriguing quest for me was the party ball in Dragon Age Inquisition. I would have loved exploring every part of that place, talking to every NPC, but that damned timer…
Baldur’s Gate gave me reasons to feel the urgency. Assassins want my head, they even killed my father trying to get it. My little sister needs my help. Then it gave me reasons to delay my heading straight there, I need to figure out how to survive in this unfamiliar world that I have been forced into, I need coin, other people need my help.
The story needs to feel personal. The story in Baldur’s Gate always felt very personal to me. Many other things were happening in the world, but the main story revolved around the PC. I just never got that same feeling with PoE.
One other thing about PoE that struck me was that the NPCs sometimes talked so much in “philosophical tones” that after a while I started to feel a bit like a bored parishioner in church, zzzzzzzzzz… I say this as someone who loves Planescape Torment.
I've thought a lot about why I can't get back into it. The ideas in this thread are very insightful, and I think I agree with most of the criticisms explained here. I would add that there are a lot of things about the raw game mechanics that put me off, such as the splitting of "hit points" into vitality and endurance. (Frankly, I hate it. Vitality is way too hard to restore, and resting is very often not possible because a lot of the game's areas throw wave after wave of enemies at you.) The lack of interesting loot is also a thing for me.
That said, I'm not quite ready to give up on it to the point of saying I'll never go back to it. I'd still like to give it another chance at some point. But it does utterly fail to get me to want to play it instead of at least a dozen other games that keep pulling me back in again and again, no matter how many times I play them.
(I kid, of course.
I found the endless paths to be pretty neat honestly. Why is it there? Who knows (you find out)! It's so big it's go its own ecosystem! What could possibly be at the bottom? Does it have a bottom?
You find out all that. For something that was just a "gives us facebook likes" stretch goal + optional filler it was great. Some of the levels were pretty interesting as well + the art style in a lot of parts really got me going. I liked that the giant statue was cut through the whole thing. I don't know if playstyle influences one's enjoyment though - I know some people like to progress through it a little bit at a time - I waited until right before the end (durlag's tower style) and just did the whole thing in one go and really liked it.
As much as I was looking forward to PoE I too found the story a little lack luster, though the art style and concept kept me intrigued for a while longer than most it seems, but as I progressed through the game the intrigue dwindled fairly rapidly and the annoying mechanics became increasingly more offputting. The endurance/vitality thing was ridiculous (what is wrong with plain old health? If it aint broke...). I think I managed to get a good ways through the game but I never finished it I would guess that I was around 75% the way through and I eventually just got bored and havn't gone back since.
There were a few things that PoE did that I really liked such as the storybook scenes and the fact that you actually have tangible spellbooks that you can peruse for new spells off fallen magi but unfortunately these little gems of game design weren't enough to compensate for the lack of compelling narrative.
My very first impression of Pillars was that it was too self-conscious of having made all that fan-money, and of being the "spiritual successor" of the first magnificence of PC gaming - Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Neverwinternights 2 etc.
I've taken Obsidian as a rigthly irrelevant and playful developer, always.
I missed that with Pillars, but hope they still have it.
This said: having had the Keep upon publishing, and having obviously had it upon later versions - I noticed keep featured including a big battle, because the fans were strongly hankering for more meaningful keep.
I think that was just great and responsive.
I cannot say I was that thrilled with PoE. but I think it is a matter of someone too self-conscious losing their charms by trying to have them.
I frankly do not mind having paid all of it, if Eternity 2 is a real Obsidian title!
By this I mean the charm, the humour, the subversion - and bringing Sand back as romanceable char, obviously!
Obsidian Entertainment = Clunky Crap Company
I was looking forward to it, and I pre ordered it, and I played it, and.....
And I got to the tree with the people hanging from it and I stopped playing. There was no sudden bolt of lightening and a solemn declaration that 'I don't like this game. I'm not playing it again'. Just... that I stopped.
I found other things to do. When I had a bit of time to play a game, I loaded up something else. And as time went on, I became less and less interested in going back to it. And I havn't since, and if I'm honest, although I keep telling myself I will give it another go at some stage, I don't think I will.
And I don't know why. I havn't really thought about why I found the game disappointing - for me, it just was. And I don't worry about it, or fret, or look for answers. I just moved on.
They should not have tried to "reinvent the horse" . They should have just used pathfinder or openrpg or something and focused their efforts on story, playability, and other areas.
I hope they do better with nr 2.
I actually did enjoy some of the stuff they did with the classes, particularly for Paladins and priests. Barbarian and fighter.. not so much. While I think Cipher is the most interesting.