My main thing is story and character. What's better in that department, Poe or kingmaker?
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Larian Studios teasing something new on their site, logo metadata contains reference to Baldurs Gate 3 [see threadmark]
- Thread starter Tovarisc
- Start date
My main thing is story and character. What's better in that department, Poe or kingmaker?
Everythingyoujustsaidwaswrong.gif
Except for the ship stuff but whatever
Honestly it's not just combat that irks me about PoE1. Like I've played other RtwP games that I've liked. PoE1 also has a terrible inventory system IMO, also items and stats have bad readability. It's not really apparent at a glance what is better than what or where I would even look to see what weapons are good against what enemies/armors. The awkward shuffle that happens when an enemy dies that your party was targeting. I know it's a D&D staple, but I def think the system in place for spells and having to rest to reset your spell slots also feels bad, casters feel gimped IMO unless you come stocked with camping supplies. Also my friend was explaining to me that Dex helps I think it's AoE spells, like in what world would I ever be pumping Dex for a mage =P
I'm not trying to rag on the game, just been my honest experience with it after a couple days. Obsidian is def one of my fav devs, I just think for me after 4-5 hours with PoE1, feels like a relatively clunky oldschool RTWP cRPG and for me it's only redeeming factors seem to be it's extensive backlore, customization and some of the chars I've met (Eder and Durance I think are there names seem cool so far, but it's hard to settle in with them when I have so many other problems with the game that distract me.)
Sorry for the rant I know this is a Larian thread. I'm super stoked for Larian's take on BG3, they've been top tier lately and I welcome anything from them.
I have not played Kingmaker but everything I've read says that now that the game it out of the honeymoon phase you are better off waiting for them to fix stuff before jumping in. On the other hand, Pillars 1 and 2 are feature complete and mostly bug free.
Pillars 1 and 2 have good worldbuilding, which to me means your characters exist in an ecosystem that seems to go beyond yourself and your personal quest. That's their strength. Characters aren't the strong suit, unfortunately, but there are few standouts in each game.
Dex has nothing to do with AoE spells btw. Dex controls your action speed and how fast you execute your actions and how long the delay is between actions.
Pathfinder's all fixed up already and they're putting out a free enhanced edition upgrade in the next month or two
I was unaware. Suppose it's time to jump in then, if you get a chance. I have heard that Pathfinder is pretty great, FWIW.
Yeah the inventory system isn't the best, I agree with you there. The rest of what you're saying though kind of directly is what I'm talking about with regards to learning the Ruleset. Knowing the ruleset and systems would really help to overcome most of these issues I think. PoE is generally praised for its tooltips, but if the readability isn't working for you I can't really argue with that. But I think if you improved your understanding of the ruleset that would help with being able to understand what that info is presenting and what to look for.
PoE's direction with Attributes is different than a lot of other games, and kind of fundamental to understanding how things work, every Attribute affects something important. There's no inherent dump stat for any given class. There are some obvious important ones and the game highlights them, but really it matters what kind of character you want to play. The system is designed so you can go with unconventional builds and have it work. While DEX isn't necessarily a critical stat for a mage it can be very useful as it directly reduces you action and recovery times, which can be lengthy for some spells. So it's generally advised to have a few extra points in it. The beauty with PoE's system is you could create a mage that doesn't pack a very large punch or cover a wide area, but is able to cast off spells and attacks very fast. DEX doesn't affect AoEs, that's INT which increases duration and size. And Might is really important as that increases your damage. Those two are generally considered the most important, with Dex being behind them.
Attributes
A character's attributes are the six primary statistics defining his or her nature, and are determined during Character Creation. Each attribute represents a particular aspect of the character, and has a significant impact on his or her capabilities in combat and during interactions. Attributes...
pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com
Also as you advance in levels there are skills you can get that provide per encounter options for some spells, as well equipment and skills that increase your number of per rest spells. But if you dislike it that much you should check out the IE Mod, it has a ton of useful things in general, but also allows you to change up a number of the core systems in the game, including turning all Spells into per encounter rather a mix of Per Encounter and Per Rest.
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Kingmaker barely has a story. It's basically like a glorified tabletop collection. Lots of mini stories and generic adventuring, so think of it kind of like the base campaigns of the Neverwinter Nights games. It doesn't start off too bad, but in chasing that emulation, they strained against their budgets. Intro has characters intereacting a lot for instance, but because the potential party size balloons very quickly, they won't do it much 10 hours in because they didn't have the budget to account for all those variables.
Story and character are much more of a focus in PoE.
Yeah the inventory system isn't the best, I agree with you there. The rest of what you're saying though kind of directly is what I'm talking about with regards to learning the Ruleset. Knowing the ruleset and systems would really help to overcome most of these issues I think. PoE is generally praised for its tooltips, but if the readability isn't working for you I can't really argue with that. But I think if you improved your understanding of the ruleset that would help with being able to understand what that info is presenting and what to look for.
PoE's direction with Attributes is different than a lot of other games, every Attribute affects something important. There's no inherent dump stat, really it matters what kind of character you want to play. While DEX isn't necessarily a critical stat for a mage it can be very useful as it directly reduces you action and recovery times, which can be lengthy for some spells. It doesn't affect AoEs, that's really INT which increases duration and size. And Might is really important as that increases your damage.
Attributes
A character's attributes are the six primary statistics defining his or her nature, and are determined during Character Creation. Each attribute represents a particular aspect of the character, and has a significant impact on his or her capabilities in combat and during interactions. Attributes...
Yea I wasn't quite sure if he said Dex helps AoE spells, just that it helped with something to do with spells (probably just able to spam some more quickly.) I think for me even ontop of all the things I was having issues with I could maybe overlook them if the story was truly pulling me, but it just hasnt caught me, we'll see once I hit Defiance Bay, maybe it will. I just wish them game FELT better to play, combat and even just walking around just doesn't feel all that nice or smooth to me.
I'm not saying I agree with you, but this is a wonderfully acerbic bit of writing.
I will be integrating "tirefire of blandness" (my favourite Harry Potter movie, btw) and "on the visible spectrum of Boring Asshole" into my everyday use.
Pillars 2 really shit the bed with the main story. The first game took ages to get interesting but the sequel doesn't even get started.
Bioware tier companions like Aloth who only returned because he shares a VA with Eder.
The combat and some of the sidequests are the only redeeming features
Bioware tier companions like Aloth who only returned because he shares a VA with Eder.
The combat and some of the sidequests are the only redeeming features
Spot on. I'm pretty sure the people who complain about D:OS2's story and writing then say how much better it is in PoE, are downright trolling.
Many of Obsidian's good writers left some time ago including Avellone and John Gonzalez. It's no surprise that the best written parts in PoE1 are Avellone's companions.
Don't listen to people who say Kingmaker has no story or character development. They are wrong. It has exactly that, in droves. And the writing which does not remind you of watching a paint dry, unlike Deadfire.
The main story is woven into a lot of sidequests, you being a ruler is an important part of the plot, companions range from normal but okayish to quirky and awesome, the villains have some comprehensible motivations. Chris Avellone was one of the writers, and it shows.
It's perfectly playable now that they fixed the gamebreaking bugs.
Edit: Oh, and Enhanced Edition with the latest patch will arrive on june 6.
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PoE gets shat onwaayy more than it deserves. PoE2 is the best CRPG since BG2, and Kingmaker is great - But it's a league below PoE.
What is this, have you even played the game for more than an hour (which is roughly how long the intro is)? The game is ALL ABOUT story, and the story is frickin' great too, because it's almost entirely based on a series of highly regarded campaign books (that were actually expanded with another chapter in the game that added important story content that had to be cut from the original P&P releases) and Chris Avellone was involved as well (which really shows). If anything the party interactions and ESPECIALLY the quest chains for the story companions leave anything PoE2 has in that regard in the dust (even though I'd say that PoE2 is still a decent game and quite an improvement over PoE1, excluding White March). The quest chains are paced throughout the entire storyline however and are influenced by it in turn, which on the other hand of course means you can't just finish them in the first few hours after you picked up a character and be done with them, if that is what you were looking for.
I've played the game for over 150 hours and the story is still gripping with regular plot twists keeping you on your toes and I can't recommend the game enough for anyone looking for a CRPG successor to Baldur's Gate with well done gameplay and a huge focus on a well written story and storytelling in general. There is a reason Kingmaker still has so many players after all this time (more than PoE2 does on Steam, actually) and the rather rough launch (though the constant patching really helped, there is only a few minor bugs left now and the Enhanced Edition is coming in a few days with another large number of fixes)... and it definitely isn't just because it looks pretty.
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I don't think Chris Avellone being involved in anything is a solid gold badge of quality anymore.
As someone who beat both Kingmaker and POE2 I honestly liked POE2's story more. (It didn't help that I wasn't that fond of Kingmaker's story tbh and I liked more of deadfire's characters than Pathfinder's.) Don't even get me started on the rampant stupidity that is the "True" ending in Pathfinder.
Plus I hate feeling rushed and that timed main quest bs was just annoying generous time or not.
Plus I hate feeling rushed and that timed main quest bs was just annoying generous time or not.
Pathfinder has a very good mainline story imo. They actually do really interesting things with the villain who was barely characterized in the original module.
Ugh. Both of these games have issues with the story, and both of these games have major pacing problems. I personally thought the story in Pillars was decent, but you'll want to ignore most of the backer NPCs, since all they do is spit out volumes of purple prose. I think someone at Obsidian forgot that it's content, not volume that matters when telling a story. Kingmaker feels way more episodic, and the constant kingdom management breaks up the story even more to where the main plot is just kind of hanging out in the background for long periods. Also, if you care about gameplay, there's at least one essential mod for Kingmaker if you are going to play any kind of offensive caster. The debilitating area of effect spells last way too long after combat has ended.
I like Pillars 2 more than the first, but it's not optimized in the slightest (or maybe it is, and Unity just sucks in general), and the constant loading gets ridiculous after a while.
I've finished the game, and agree with the person you were responding to. It's not a gripping story, and it's way too disjointed. Now if maybe the kingdom management didn't exist, it would feel more cohesive, but in its current form, it doesn't at all. I don't know why so many people keep saying it's the spiritual sequel to Baldur's Gate either when the only thing they have in common is a vaguely similar ruleset, a few decent party members and being RTwP. They feel nothing alike aside from that. I just replayed both Baldur's Gate games too for like the sixth time after finishing Kingmaker.
The best thing I can say about Kingmaker is that the class customization is probably second to none in the genre.
Obviously just my opinion:
OS2 > Deadfire > Kingmaker > OS > POE
But, I prioritize how long the combat can keep me engaged first, story and characters second. It doesn't matter to me how good a story is, if in a 50+ hour game I'm bored out of my mind during the later half of it.
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When he's been hanging out at the codex, yeah, it's quite obvious that he's not really on the cutting edge of social issues. I don't expect anything particularly egregious from his work though.
He has definitely been hanging out too long on RPG Codex.
I'm genuinely legitimately shocked that he would say this. It's like a dog whistle. Probably new thread worthy.
Something that recontextualises it a bit:
Meant to say "doens't condemn" people making explicit poltical stuff, rather than "doesn't condone" it.
Unfortunately, he then goes on to say:
So, uh, not any better overall.
In the article, Avellone has this really baffling "a game should just be a game" position on video game writing. And the actual phrases he uses are... dogwhistles, even in their most favourable read.
Easily Kingmaker. If you play Kingmaker first, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about if you play PoE after. The writing in PoE 2, in particular, is really bad.
A turn-based rpg (if we assume they're going with TB) sounds like the perfect fit for a streaming service, but exclusivity sounds totally insane. I'd hope Larian and everyone else involved realizes locking this game to an untested streaming platform would piss off just about everyone.
No.
If you've watched the video you'll see that he goes into subject.
Ah, good. Are there any hints what it'll be about or just the announcement news?
Would be nice to post the rest of the quote:
Check the full article, it's interesting.
Avellone's strength is in always pushing for shades of grey in his storytelling. He's not saying there shouldn't be political subtext at all, he's saying it should be in line with the game first and foremost.
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They've actually fixed everything by now. The "Enhanced Edition" of Kingmaker will be out on June 6, you can safely grab it if you waited until now.
I personally felt that Kingmaker is the only game out of the recent CRPG renaissance which is a worthy heir to BG2. That said, PoE 1 is better than PoE 2, in my opinion, due to the latter having much weaker story and characters.
I don't blame people for expecting the worst, but there's also a lot of blatant moral grandstanding on social media.
Its getting hard to tell who truly gives a shit or not.
I love how it's pretty much already confirmed it's happening!
So excited for this. I wonder if you still play as the same Bhaalspawn as 1 and 2 or it's an entirely different thing. At the end of Throne of Bhaal you literally ascended to Godhood so it would be bizarre to see you back as a weakling. Would be cool to see some returning characters like Imoen, Minsc or Edwin. Bonus points for Cespenar in your HQ. The Black Hound concept seemed cool back then as it's own separate thing story wise but as an evolution to the mechanics of BG2. I'll be happy nonetheless as BG 2 is my favorite game of all time.
I really don't care whether it's turn based or RTWP but Larian has been really amazing with TB in the OS games so my bet is that it will be turn based.
So excited for this. I wonder if you still play as the same Bhaalspawn as 1 and 2 or it's an entirely different thing. At the end of Throne of Bhaal you literally ascended to Godhood so it would be bizarre to see you back as a weakling. Would be cool to see some returning characters like Imoen, Minsc or Edwin. Bonus points for Cespenar in your HQ. The Black Hound concept seemed cool back then as it's own separate thing story wise but as an evolution to the mechanics of BG2. I'll be happy nonetheless as BG 2 is my favorite game of all time.
I really don't care whether it's turn based or RTWP but Larian has been really amazing with TB in the OS games so my bet is that it will be turn based.
Not trying to derail this thread, but boy I wish Divinity Original Sin 2 wasn't a top down RPG but a traditional behind the camera view.
The hype around this game when it came out was through the roof and the concepts and stories sounded AMAZING, something on par with the Witcher 3. I got it from Gamefly knowing it was top down and hoping to get past that but I just couldnt. Never been into top down action games and I couldn't make it past 2-3 hours.
I know having the games camera behind the character is a huge change and requires a ton of work but I would love to see Larian do a traditional behind the character RPG but I doubt that'll ever happen.
The hype around this game when it came out was through the roof and the concepts and stories sounded AMAZING, something on par with the Witcher 3. I got it from Gamefly knowing it was top down and hoping to get past that but I just couldnt. Never been into top down action games and I couldn't make it past 2-3 hours.
I know having the games camera behind the character is a huge change and requires a ton of work but I would love to see Larian do a traditional behind the character RPG but I doubt that'll ever happen.
Why did I only see this thread now?
While I love Baldur's gate, I was hoping Waterdeep would be the main hub instead, considering how prominent it is in 5e. Although the new campaign that is coming out will take place in Baldur's gate, perhaps they want to ride that hype.
While I love Baldur's gate, I was hoping Waterdeep would be the main hub instead, considering how prominent it is in 5e. Although the new campaign that is coming out will take place in Baldur's gate, perhaps they want to ride that hype.
Really depends what era you started playing these games, I guess - like most here I grew up with Fallout 1/2, Baldurs Gate 1/2, Planescape Torment etc; so top-down is a bit of a nostalgia fest as well.
Fun fact: The Witcher 1 even had a top-down view, because it was built on the same engine as Bioware's Neverwinter Nights (the Aurora Engine).
Over-the-shoulder was its default and the rest of the games focused on that, but it was there in 1.