Pillars of Eternity Retrospective
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- A retrospective on Obsidian Entertainment's isometric rpg, Pillars of Eternity.
One of the most high profile kickstarter games ever made, Pillars of Eternity aimed to combine nostalgia with modern game design, but divided rpg fans in the process.
This video shouldn't contain any spoilers.
Also, although the topic never came up in the video, it should be noted that Durance is best boi and i'll not have anyone saying otherwise.
I don’t even play video games, this dude just helps me fall asleep.
Its 4.30 am.....
i am NOT having the same experience)
@@WasteOPaint sucks to suck
His critic is only partially valid. 12:01
" Hard to work out what choices are actually bad"
This not valid criticism it is a good game design. The game is bad when choices are obvious and if they are hard then the game is actually good. Obvious choices are in fact a recipe for a bad game.
18:29 Does he really want that the game plays by itself?
12:35 That is something that should be in games!! Tough decisions! If the decision is not obvious for the player, then the game is well designed. There are no useless skills.
18:10 Babysitting? Do you want the game that plays by itself?
4:36 Sorry but this is still very easy to workout!
5:58 That was not the plan, to begin with.
@Tevyn Monismith Pillars of Eternity is my all-time favorite CPRG I love the world of Eora.
Never played a CRPG before pillars, so I have / had no actual nostalgia.
But I absolutely adored this game from the beginning. The writing, the combat, the scenes everything.
Same here. Never played a crpg before and pillars is now one of my favorite games
Ok now is time to move to the gods icewind and baldurs
Try out Divinity Original Sin 2.
you absolutely need to play Baldur's gate then ! don't worry, you'll get used to the graphics....Baldur's gate was not built on a kickstarter budget ! it is so massive in every aspect ! this game is just awsome. And i just started Baldur's gate 2 a couple of months ago, i'm not nostalgic or anything, it's just amazing.
@@jessyruel3006 add Icewind Dale, Baldurs 2, Arcanum and Temple of elemental evil and you got the holy saints of CRPG
Honestly, I'd say the best part of Pillars of Eternity is how the mystical and fascinating worldbuilding ends up intertwining so thoroughly with the main plot. The main actions and events of the plot aren't anything complicated or super surprising, but the references and implications to the world as a whole really had me riveted once you start to see things unfold.
this is a perfect description. well said.
Can't wait to see what Obisidan are doing with "Avowed!" (a first-person RPG they're developing, set in the POE world of "Eora")
And the worst bit is all the cringily named backer NPCs that ruin immersion.
@@Jajalaatmaar Which you can fully ignore and wont even see their names unless you specifically want to.
@@TaigaGaoo Nobody told me that at the start.
Hey NeverKnowsBest, your videos are top quality. Please keep making them.
Yeah, but what does he know! :D
I hate his videos!
12:35 That is something that should be in games!! Tough decisions! If the decision is not obvious for the player, then the game is well designed. There are no useless skills.
18:10 Babysitting? Do you want the game that plays by itself?
4:36 Sorry but this is still very easy to workout!
5:58 That was not the plan, to begin with
I think one of the main things that got me invested was the fact that you're dropped naked into this fully existant world, with a very full and detailed background and political history. Games like Skyrim encourage this kind of solipsism where everything just exists for you to go and fuck with it-- in pillars you're immediately told that the ruins are illegal to trespass in and that your residency in this new land is effectively void because the local governor is a shit. This world feels like a real one and I love how seriously they take it because it pays you back for being invested/bothering to explore and talk and learn
Well said
I actually like how text heavy Pillars of Eternity is and the quantity of lore exposition.
Ice
Yeah man. Whoever wrote the lore knows his occultism/history. Eothas is Mithras and Woedica is Boudicca for example.
@@Obese_Pterodactyl I believe that would be chris avellone, who also did Icewindale
Played tides of numanera first. Now that was text heavy... Like too text heavy. PoE on the other hand feels alright, but im still in the beginning so it might change 😅 but it doesnt seem as much as ToN.
This dude is complaining about monologues in a dnd like game lol
I hope you will cover Pillars 2 and Tyranny as well. I think there is a lot to analyze about how in many ways the future games improved upon the foundation set here in Pillars 1, but at the same time Obsidian's flaws in design really become more noticeable. Pillars 2 especially left me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth the first time I completed it.
I think Tyranny was a massive step forward in story telling and pacing. Tyranny kept me engaged in not only the main plot, but with what was going on around me at any given location. Step back was the balancing and uniqueness of builds. You either invested heavily in lore and spellcraft, or you were objectively inferior.
Poe 2 was almost entirely a step backward from Poe 1. The multiclassing and ability to make limited changes to your companion class was a massive step forward, everything else was vastly inferior to Poe 1. The most notable backslide was in the characters and their interactions. The lack of Chris Avellone was noticeable, even returning companions became more one-note, and with Pallegina, half a damn note. The seriousness of the story and world from Poe 1 was left behind, and they brought in a flood of bathos to undercut nearly everything.
@@FunkStyles I agree with pretty much everything you said. There was only one thing I kind of disliked about tyranny, and that was the decision to have the main factions souncompromisingly thematic, even to the point of colour schemes. It just felt a little cartoonish and I was often tempted to choose gear that better resembled my favoured factions overall aesthetic. I liked the factions though, and I think their kind of simplistic designs may have been due to time/money constraints.
@@FunkStyles Let me correct you there: Tyranny *could've been* a massive step forward in story telling and pacing, but falls flat on its nose pretty quickly after the first chapter. This is sad because the world of Tyranny is light years above PoE in every single regard.
If you take away the disappointing main story, I think Pillars 2 was excellent. The side quests, party building, and combat were a big step in the right direction.
@@Wft-bu5zc I thought the main story was a breath of fresh air. There are no other games or movies where you do the thing they did there, won't spoil.
Well, Im new to crpg:s with Pillars, and can't say that storytelling or the fighting system put me off, I love the game a lot more than Divinity thanks to its storytelling and its setting :)
Pillars of Eternity was a fun game for sure, but if you liked this one, you will LOVE Pathfinder Kingmaker
Having played both extensively, Pathfinder Kingmaker feels like the developers took the strengths and concepts of Pillars of Eternity, and improved upon the significantly. Encounters are still a little samey at times, but the curveballs that do get tossed at you are always very exciting.
If you get the game, I would recommend getting the "Beneath the Stolen Lands" DLC alongside it.
@@perryborn2777 It does look like what I like, Id probably give it a try if they finish a switch port as I dont like to game on my computer
@@jimhultqvist2539 I believe Owlcat games(the makers of Pathfinder Kingmaker) said that they will not be porting the game to the Switch anymore😞
@@andrewvincent7299 Too bad, guess Ill give it a miss then 'til they changes their minds :)
Yeah I'm going to try it out soon
Man, how come you didnt mention with a single word the outstanding soundtrack of the game!
At this point these essays feel like freshmen college presentations. Full of holes and minor errors but still professional.
It was same with DA retrospective, dunno how you can ignore one of the fundamentals of atmosphere in any medium.
Well, you've been listening to it throughout this 35 minutes long video, does that count as a mention? 😅
Soundtrack is freaking a game in itself here, grandeur, epic and mysterious. I absolutely love it.
Because it doesn't factor into any of the design issues he's talking about. It would just be, "oh and another thing, the soundtrack's nice."
I dare anyone... ANYONE to try what Obsidian did: to try to please the most nagging and annoying generation of RPG players and to create a product that would still be interesting enough for newer generations and casual players. All while making a real effort to keep their promises and deliver a complete game without micro-transactions. I say great job!
@@TheVerinen2 Mediocrity is doing something half way out of fear or convenience. What you are describing is a marketing strategy. Good or bad... Time will tell, but mediocre projects look veeery different.
I’ve been playing CRPGs for over 20 years and I love this game
I just started replayin this again in preparation for bg3 and to quell my dota adiction.
Yep they did so damn good. I played the first two baulders gates when I was too young so didn't get far, getting to play this is like my first play through of baldurs gate for someone older. Also if you look closely the story and setting is much like baldurs gate, defiance bay is baldurs gate, white march is icewind Dale etc etc
@@rojo40- Heh! Nice job calling it out. Venality robs all genius from human endeavor; nowhere more than art. As much as I hate Ayn Rand’s philosophy she was correct in this regard. That which is created to appeal to the greatest number, created with profit as the inspiration, created by consensus, created to meet the prevailing popular sentiment of the day, will forever be mediocre. It is the empty Middle Way of a philosophy promoted by corporations wherein the desire for enlightenment has been replaced by greed, and temperance by maximized returns. The influence of players like EA and Ubisoft, and the potential for unreasonable wealth for a few, have left a stamp on the gaming industry. Building marketing strategy into the creation of a game is playing a different game than marketing a game that was created for people to play.
The quality on display here with this vid is up with the best of the best. Your videos are extremely well put together, insightful and entertaining, thank you so much.
This review is perhaps colder than it really needed to be, especially in hindsight.
I play cRPGs, it is sort of what I build systems for, retro and modern, table top applications and - often - retro games.
When I first played PoE, I was overwhelmed - the absolute barrage of dialogue and unspoken nuance left to text, world building which deliberately opposed expected genre trope, and a system that felt enough like the Infinity Engine but went deep into the aether of percentile mathematics...
I knew there was something, so I came back. And it changed.
Suddenly the depth of worldbuilding made more sense, the 'real time with pause' (rtwp) combat was a reward if you had managed to navigate BG2 or Icewind Dale. The surprises of class building with such vague signposts along the way. The digitally painted 2.5d backdrops. Everything was a step forward, but... it rewarded a certain crowd, and - NO - it isn't Baldur's Gate or Planescape.
There are days when I would tell you that my favorite engine is the Infinity Engine. That might be true. I have spent years doctoring it through mods - and I have created something in the process created behemoths of retrogaming. My current 'Extended Edition Trilogy' looks like a modern RPG in complete GB size - but, I assure you, it will take you a lot longer to finish.
Pillars has never made me want to mod it too deeply - I have played with IE mods, wished for more out of graphics mods, added portraits... But the game, as is, is expansive.
Play the same character through both games. Run the side content.
I swear by this game. I believe it did what it set out to do - maybe not for everyone, but for those who wanted 'more'.
Easily one of my favorite RPGs.
I'm sure some people really agree with this review, but as an older gamer (played AD&D, and 3.0 when it was new) I really don't. I really enjoy PoE, I find the story really involved and intricate, I enjoy the graphics design and the combat system. I find the characters to be really full and well thought out, I'm very attached to my party and if one of them dies, I will load the last save and try again so I can keep them. I think that the combat system makes more sense (and I still play D&D to this day, along with other ttrpg systems) with the way it lays it out because it feels much less like a slog to get to a place where the characters feel competent and useful.
Maybe it's just me, and I'm the weird one out, but I really like this game, I like the amount of detail they got into it with the story, and the way it sets itself up. But I just don't agree with the things they don't like, because those are all the things I DO like.
I think there's two key things that I myself experienced and a lot of other people did.
1) The world is amazing once you get into it, but it does a poor job of introducing itself. Dyrwood feels quite generic, while at the same time, stuff like the Biawac and Watchers and Souls and Animancy and the Leaden Key can be a bit jarring when it's all thrown at you so fast. One could summarize the story of POE as "You get caught in a storm, start having weird visions, and chase after a person you see in these visions." That is NOT very compelling. If you go deeper, it's a huge exploration of the idea of dieties and society ... which is not exactly the sort of story everyone wants to get into. I know I didn't. The Gods have always been the LEAST interesting part of the world of Pillars to me. But Obsidian chose to make them the central crux of the story in BOTH games.
2) There's something about the combat design of these games, and I don't know if it's the genre or just Obsidian themselves, but it balances on a razor's edge. Without changing the difficulty setting at all, you can have encounters that are so easy they're tedious, and also have encounters that are so hard they are infuriating. And it really only seems to be those two things, never a happy medium. Meanwhile you have experienced vets who go around beating the game as a solo character, on the hardest difficulty, claiming it's too easy. It is utterly bizarre. But the end result is, a huge chunk of the players just end up not enjoying the game, because combat is a HUGE part of the game, and it's not well balanced.
I really enjoy it to and i dont think the setting is generic, i think its just the right amount of familiar to still be relatable even if it has magic and gods.
The only thing I didn't like was the way we earn XP, other than that the game was awesome.
You're not alone man, I just finished another playthrough last week of the first one, starting poe2 this week.
You guys should try Pathfinder: Kingmaker with the (utterly amazing) turn-based combat mod. Many people agree that the game is actually much more fun with the mod. That game is the closest thing to older DnD/tabletop feel in a nice, polished AA (or "AAa") crpg.
Seeing this 6 years later, I now understand that I have been placing stats and using equipment completely wrong in the game.
16:50 “doorways are incredibly overpowered.”
Just thought I’d highlight that. It made me laugh.
Doorways are the best tanks in the game. They block spells, enemy flankers, provide cover for units to dip out of sight to heal, help cluster enemies up, have no limit to how many enemies they can bind. They clearly need a nerf!
Strategy is overpowered.
the doorway is the 7th party member
Doorways have always been a CRPG veteran’s greatest alley.
Dragon Age origins had a lot of indoor encounters with small rooms filled with enemies. I have many blissful memories of casting a repulsion glyph (that knocks enemies back when they try to come near it) and then casting a firestorm in the room, laughing maniacally as they get flung back into the inferno every time they try to run for their life. Dread the doorway, for it is a pathway to many dark powers.
As someone that didn't grow up with crpgs and is fairly new to them, I have to say I really enjoy this game. I honestly disagreed with many of your negative points- especially the story and lore ones. The lore is abundant and to me its there to simply add depth and ground the world. I remember at one point after closing a lore book thinking: this place feels real. I don't care if it's relevant to the player or not. Why should all the history in this world be relevant to a single person. And the effects of the incoming insanity of the watcher: why would the character start Going insane just a few days after becoming one. The watcher you meet was really old. The main character is insuring a safe future for himself/herself. Makes sense to me. Self preservation is natural to us humans. Welp, good video
Surprised you haven't done one of these retrospectives for Tyranny.
Yes please!
OMG, being a kickstarter myself and a fan of olden RPG's like BG, I totally agree.
Plus, dice roll and DnD rules are only an abstraction aimed at recreating an experience (battle). Nostalgia alone shouldn't be a reason to keep fossil game mechanics. You should innovate on things like battle fluidity and mechanics etc.
Yes, I think Dragon Age Origins was when old style CRPG reached their higher point. After that the genre got much more simplified for the sake of appealing to the masses instead of showing the people what made this games so great in the first place. After that it came a wave of bringing back the old school but without the awareness to realize which mechanics and styles were left in the past for good.
@delosombres That's actually what I'm asking for, some innovation in the battle mechanics that generally make it better.
If I had to pick on thing, I really really liked the pantheon. I think the presentation might have been strongest there. Having played some of PoE2, I feel like the gods of Eora and their personalities and crazy schemes are one of the things that draw my interest the most.
Pretty spot on with the criticism here. That said, I still find PoE really enjoyable. It wasn't top 10 cRPGs of all time or anything like that, but overall it was a solid game. Gameplay was fun and I found the story interesting personally.
In response to the end of the video about Obsidian signing up with Microsoft, I think it's pretty simple why they'd do that. Kickstarter isn't reliable. One Kickstart success doesn't mean the next game would be successfully funded. There's also the issue of how the community starts to perceive a company that attempts to kickstart multiple games. Some people would view it as greedy for them to ask the community to fund their next project after the success that PoE had.
What 10 are better then?
@@BudMasta baldurs gate 2, fallout, fallout 2, diablo 2, neverwinter nights, kotor, planescape torment, dragon age origins, vampire the masquerade: bloodlines, shadowrun: dragonfall. Easily arguable? Pathfinder: kingmaker, wasteland 2, shadowrun: hong kong, disco elysium, pretty much any ultima.
@@IAmAnEvilTaco fallout is turn based, so is fallout 2, Diablo is an arpg, never winter nights was an mmo.
Bud Masta neverwinter nights was a crpg. Neverwinter is an mmo. And it wasn’t specified as real time with pause. Even then, neverwinter nights 1 and 2, for sure. 2 was the first obsidian game worth mentioning.
@@IAmAnEvilTaco "2 was the first obsidian game worth mentioning."
The Sith Lords would like to know your location.
Just want to say these videos you make are really exceptional. I never find game reviews that are this deep, well considered, and apt. Excellent work man.
Thank you so much. Being an older gamer and having played nearly everything since „Secret of the Silver Blade“ I couldn ´t love this game. After playing for about 30h I found myself just not enjoying the game. And I didn ´t know why. Your essay helped a ton. Nice work!
I couldn't get into PoE because of the writing. I feel like their writers lacked good/brutal editors to rein them in. They had lots of written _content_ but never provided good emotional hooks to give the reader enough motivation to slog through it all. Having massive backstory and lore is meaningless if you forget to give the audience a reason to _want_ to read it.
I feel like PoE2 fixed that issue.
the writting is excatly what kept me playing PoE
the combat on the other side... I really do not like “pause/upause” mechanics, think that's way too complex and require way too much time to finish a fight.
Played PoE2 anyway,
Now they released the turn-based combat system, and god, replaying it is just another experience.
@@heitorcruz7895 Just... What? Why?
What kind of Stockholm Syndrome nonsense (hyperbole, joking) is this?!
You need to read through like 10,000 words of lore to understand what the fuck is going on with Eder, and there's no hook connecting him to the protagonist other than "I happened to be standing there when you started your quest."
Just... Yeah. We disagree on that. :P
100% agree. Overindulgent is the word that kept coming to mind when I played this game. Whoever wrote it thought that they were writing the best thing ever. Even if it had been voiced it would have still been too much. A lot of people aren't bothered by endless exposition; however, I am. I can't stand it in any medium that I am consuming.
@@darrell9616 Sounds like you came down even stronger than I did. :P
I have no problem with a deep backstory. Delving into a deep backstory can be a lot of fun. Brandon Sanderson is a favourite author of mine, and I _enjoy_ reading the Coppermind wiki to pick up all the little tidbits of lore and backstory I may have missed in the books themselves.
*But* that's because Brandon (with varying degrees of success) gives me a hook for his characters so I care about them, then I care about the world, then he gives me action so it's exciting. Once excitement and a reason to care are established, delving into the backstory, world and lore is fun.
Failure to do that - as PoE failed to do it - makes reading the backstory work, a chore you have to do to excavate a reason to care. It's exactly backwards for what storytelling should be.
This pretty much highlighted my issues, it was needlessly complicated and exposition heavy so that I could play it once, but won't go back to it again. Improvements have been made in later games, but it never really felt like your story so much as you were a participant in the author's story that never really made clear sense.
As much as I adore pretty much mostly everything about POE, (I genuinely love reading, it's a great way to spend an evening), but I must admit the fact that the Watcher doesn't quite have the same gravitas of responsibility as the Grey Warden from Dragon Age Origins is a bit of missed opportunity. That was a role that had legitimate madness, conflicting worldly opinions and a grim fate.
Your tolerance for bad writing is commendable.
"The godlike (no capitalization?) are children of the kith ("civilized" races) who have been blessed with physical aspects associated with the gods (though some do not consider it a blessing)(?). These aspects may take many forms and often come with mystical powers(?). Aberrant head shapes are typical(?), and godlike(?) are unable to wear protective headgear as it is near-impossible to find anything that fits(?). Because(?) of their unusual nature and their inability to reproduce, godlike are often viewed with fear and wonder(How the fuck are the two related?)."
This type of writing is juvenile, illiterate, and bewilderingly bad... Terry Pratchett this is not... this is 11 year old territory.
Then there is the dumpster fire of mechanics.
PoE is the reason why board games and tabletop are better than video games. Also why editors are a good thing.
Pillars is proof that late-stage capitalism celebrates only mediocrity. It's never clever, it's never well written, its mechanics are childish, awful, and do not give players true tactical depth of character design.
@@adelahogarth2761 I tend to have a relatively high tolerance for what I'm willing to let go. It varies from subject to subject, but overall I'm forgiving for the most part, unless mortally offended by an act most grievous.
However, I must admit, I actually prefer the writing in the sequel, Deadfire has more engaging and colourful writing, it flows better like a merry jig but retains the sense of reverence. The lore, for instance like what simultaneous "fear" and "wonder" of Godlikes refers to, certain cultures fear certain types of Godlikes; Death Godlikes are almost universally reviled and feared for their association with mortality and Berath in particular, whereas Moon Godlikes are hailed with wonder by many in the Deadfire as they are seen as a sign from the sea Goddess, Ondra. Little things like that are why I'm actually glad I played Deadfire first then the first game, I ended up really appreciating Deadfire more as an improvement over the first game. Much of the lore, especially in regards to the various cultures, ideas like Animancy and the races of the world, get healthy attention in the sequel.
I did read your full comment as by the way, and I found much frustration and anger. But I'd definitely say it may be down to personal taste and one's tolerance for "bad writing", as it's something so personal to every person that finding a truly objective definition almost seems unfair to me. It's like a person's handwriting, a genuine part of their own self-expression which is why I find it so hard to throw writing under the bus as it were. Unless, as I mentioned previously, it is utterly grievous and incomprehensible. I don't think Pillars is incomprehensible as such, it's very dense, but as a result the little details often go overlooked, seemingly by the writer's own hubris; often demanding further clarification from the reader's own ability to "read between the lines" and detect what is inferred.
One aspect of your comment that I may need clarification for, what "late-stage capitalism" are you referring to? This just struck me as an odd aspect of your analysis that juxtaposed against the rest of it.
P. S. My to-read list is nothing but Terry Pratchett, I've heard he has a wonderful talent for sentence structure.
@@Nikelaos_Khristianos No, it's not 'dense'. It's broken. That description simply does not work. It's a small paragraph in a book, and in the same number of words Terry Pratchett could explain the basics of Discworld's 'Headology'.
It's not just broken syntax, it's juvenile writing.
If I read something like a script of Pillars I would have thought they were about 9-10 years old. The fact that it's a video game that likely cost millions of dollars to make and people *praise them for it* as opposed to pointing out the notable mockery of wasted time and money that could have been better spent funding thousands of evidently better writers and young filmmakers, is so *demoralizing* to me.
I'm not querying 'fear and wonder' ... it's a hackneyed device, but whatever. Why, exactly, would being infertile generate such a response?
Does the person who wrote it just *naturally* respond that way to infertile people? Do old women apparently not exist in Pillars? I mean I'm hurtling towards my 40s... apparently I hadn't noticed all the 'awe'. Keeping in mind this is before you even start the game. These descriptions are a jumbled mishmash of barely legible ideas.
The description of player races in a cRPG is meant to inform the player about what constitutes a facet of the avatar's mechanics. In terms of basic syntax, it's broken. In terms of informing the player what they're actually playing, it's patently fucked up.
If this was the only example even before the game began that didn't immediately deflate my expectations, there's this winner.
"The mighty Aumaua are the largest of the kith races and are commonly found in or near oceans. Though not truly aquatic, they have an affinity for water and many of their civilizations, such as Rauatai, are based on naval dominance. They are known for their unparalleled strength. "
This is fucking stupid. That's the only valid critique. It's dumb. It's not dense, it's dumb.
It's only one or two shades better than 'His power is Maximum'-meme.
It's actually the opposite of dense... it's patently juvenile, shallow, and pointless drivel. A normal person, who actually understands how you put words together, might say:
"The Aumaua are a tall and vigourous people that commonly inhabit islands and coastal regions. Gifted seafarers and ferrymen, they dominate the local waterways of their homes. Their unmatched physical prowess is of credit to their success on the high seas."
Clear, direct, succinct, informative. Like all good descriptions are.
As a gamer I might have forgiven it if the mechanics were at least decent. They weren't. They were awful and led to bland character builds. Which isn't exactly in line with my memories of cRPGs.
As for 'late-stage capitalism' -- before becoming a researcher I was a science teacher.
If a student of mine wrote prose like that, teenagers no less, I would have had to in good conscience write to the parents and inform them of immediate failures in basic syntax. That unless corrected through intense tutoring, I would have little hopes of them being taken seriously in modern society much less get a passing grade in their Y-10 or 12 finals.
They would certainly not pass my class. In good sense that education is meant to be a progressive realization of the capacity to understand, and be understood. The transformation of data into information for oneself and others.
In my students' possible defence, this could simply be a report or essay they threw together a few hours before even going to school that morning. They could have been tired during a test. Any number of reasons.
This was considered 'suitable' for a final product. Possibly the first thing your consumers will be reading. Something for the masses to consume. That people would pay money for. To consume in bulk. And apparently I'm the only one batting a fucking eye.
And as a former teacher, do you know how fucking frightening that is?
So apparently I was wrong. Pillars sold gangbusters, praised for its 'writing' specifically, and yet it's a fucking dumpster fire. It's trash. People who apparently have never picked up a novel in their lives fawning over its 'writing', and yet it is categorically trash.
It's nothing in comparison to Obsidian's *earlier* works in the same genre.
@@adelahogarth2761 no offense, but I don't particularly want to continue this discussion if you're going to be so hostile and uncouth about the subject, and to a degree just attack my points or ignore them altogether. I can understand being angry and slighted, I hope I haven't done anything to provoke such a reaction twas not my intent, but there are more effective ways of delivering your perspective. I don't find "fuck" to be a suitable adjective, regardless of the current emotional instability of the writer it seems.
I don't believe people are praising the writing for the descriptions of the races of the Dyrwood, and seeing as though these are your only examples I'm starting to wonder if you even gave Obsidian a chance and actually PLAYED this video game instead of trying to "read this game" like a book, I'm sorry but that is simply an irrefutably irresponsible thing to do if your judgement is this harsh. People are praising it for how it breathes a scene to life and paints a picture so vivid that it feels as though YOU, the player, are trudging through the Dyrwood in pursuit of the Leaden Key, not the Watcher. It's a celebration of all that's so clever about writing in CRPG's, they don't have to voice every line and because the environment descriptions are in text as well, they're able to craft worlds and characters much more lavish than other games; these are incredibly talented writers, Chris Avellone was the lead writer for Obsidian, and even when most of the studio worked at Black Isle, during the development of every Obsidian game since Planescape Torment when most of the team were under Black Isle, they know how to make CRPG's, they made some of the best RPG's the world has ever known, they're industry leaders in RPG's for a reason! Mentioned only in the same breath as CD Projekt Red.
Furthermore, the writing and voice acting for Aloth in particular is so gosh darn charming and is bearer of a large majority of the laugh out loud moments, Matthew Mercer did a wonderful job representing his split personality.
On a separate note, by "dense" I'll have you know I was specifically referring to actual in-game written text, there is quite alot of it, enough to fill several books ironically! And I only refer to the lore as dense because it can get a bit lost in its' own mythos and jargon at times, making it harder for the player to keep up at times, but that can be forgiven because they're not just writing a book, they're making a game.
Something much, much larger.
In reference to Never's video though, I actually whole-heartedly agree that this game does try to be that "Obsidian's Greatest Hits Collection" but doesn't quite hit the same magnitude of their previous works; I myself, am extremely partial to KOTOR 2 in particular for its' complex deconstruction and subversion of popular writing tropes in Star Wars. Pillars of Eternity though, built as a Kickstarter funded by fans and enthusiasts of RPG's of all kinds can only be ecstatic that a game like this can actually exist. There's no greedy publisher standing behind them rubbing their maniacal hands together in anticipation of this game's success. Just a studio grateful that they were able to keep their doors open... I'm not exaggerating, if Pillars didn't succeed Obsidian likely would've closed, hence why they've joined Microsoft's Private Division for their latest project, building games exclusively from Kickstarter is a particularly harrowing endeavour.
@@Nikelaos_Khristianos That's not an argument. You provided no evidence whatsoever.
So no, I categorically disagree. You're wrong. The description of the races is rather indicative of how the rest of the game is handled. Tragically, bewilderingly, impenetrably bad.
I spent 10 hours with this trash before deciding to ditch it because it was just one insult to one's intelligence too many. And according to statistics on GOG with the achievements tracker, so did 95% of people.
The plot is nonsense. The writing itself drivel. The characters impenetrable. What is Eothas doing again? Why is he doing it? How? Why should I fucking care? I could care less about the voice acting. Voice acting is a fragment compared to the reams of nonsense I was being told to swallow.
Basics of storytelling... no flowery prose. Get to the point. Show, don't tell. Clear, direct descriptions. Murder your darlings. The game does none of these things. And while this can be somewhat forgiven in an RPG where you might do quests out of order, the problem is the game seems to take pleasure in self-aware awfulness.
There was one bit in the game where it purposefully made it difficult for me to skip the dialogue because it was with a relatively pointless NPC, and all it as was annoying, overbloated bullshit.
As if the game makers themselves punishing the player simply because their writing is not fun to read.
I had no such problems in actually *good* cRPGs of the past...
It also doesn't seem to matter just how cliched the story is. There's a D&D 3E adventure arc just like it, albeit infinitely better, ending with module *The Bastion of Broken Souls* ... about a legendary red dragon in history basically fighting off mindless undeath by basically colonising the place where all living beings and their souls are made in the multiverse on the Positive Energy Plane.
Which I have the sneaking suspicion given their background in making D&D games, that they pilfered and re-purposed.
This leads to a calamity where people and beasts are born soulless as time goes on. Wracking every society in the Multiverse until your band of heroic adventurers put a final end to the legendary Ashardalon. The arc of modules has so many awesome twists and turns with multifaceted interested parties across the planes. From gods, to demon princes, to everything in between.
What it does do? Not populate the world with over-bloated nonsense.
One of the things that really draws my ire about this game? It's precisely for the reasons you list... this game had pedigree makers behind it who have crafted excellent stories in cRPGs.
This is not one of them. And they seemingly learnt nothing tackling other game worlds. Almost as if when they didn't feel the need to recreate a game's world from scratch, and actually concentrate on making interesting stories (which is what you should do regardless of whether a world is there or not) they shine.
I love this game, one of my all time favourites. Still playing it from time to time
You are spot on, great job. I played Baldurs Gate I and II when it came out and until today it is my favorite game (with a bit of nostalgia involved). I also played Pillars I (and II) and while i liked it you perfectly describe what is lacking in comparision.
It's likely that I'm one of the only console users in this discourse. But, having played PoE on PS4, I must say that I really enjoyed the game...up until the final 10 or so hours. And this was not due in any part to the game's mechanics or story, but to how it performed on the system. PoE has a TERRIBLE issue with loading in between locations in late game on consoles. Loading screens got to the point where they would take up to a solid minute or more and would frequently crash the game. So, as you can imagine, (since moving between EVERY area required an auto-save and load) traveling from a dungeon, to Caed Nua, to where your party hung out, and back to the action would take 10 - 15 minutes and usually involved 2 or 3 reboots. It was BEYOND frustrating and very nearly killed the entire experience for me. I finished the game, but it all but guaranteed that I'd never revisit the game on PS4 again.
I pray the the release of PoE 2 Deadfire doesn't suffer from this issue...otherwise I may not be able to finish it.
On a side note, another GREAT kick started D&D game which is often overlooked, rarely talked about and deserving of support is Torment: Tides of Numenera, which is the successor of Planescape. This goes double if you are one of those who are looking for a unique setting for your adventuring as opposed to the "Colonial feel" of traditional RPG's...as the world of Torment (for the uninitiated) is one that is set tens of thousands of years in the future. It's a world where cities are built upon, and blended with, the dozens of civilizations that came before them: dozens of different technologies that were never meant to work together frankensteined to one another to such an extent that people no longer even know what they're supposed to do. It's amazingly interesting and different.
The loading problems is still or at least was very noticeable on PC. The only solution I remember being to delete all of your older saves that are still around and just keep playing. I think that cut my loading time 4 times at least.
I find it greatly disturbing that POE sold 700k copies while Outer Worlds sold 2.5m.
Where were those statistics from? Regardless, Outer Worlds came fresh off the fallout 76 dumpster fire so it had pretty good chances, but 2.5 mil sounds like a lot despite also being around the same time that the Epic Exclusivity deals were at its peak hate
Uhhh no shit? OW plays much better
This is my first REAL experience with old school RPG and I couldn't be happier
Personally, I was just a tad too young to ever get into baldurs gate, so I just missed the ship (never got around to playing it to my own detriment.) I personally loved this game, currently going through POE2 atm. Probably the first game since the witcher 3 that I found myself completely immersed in the world.
I have Witcher 3 installed with all DLC's, but not even through the tutorial yet. Guess I have something to look forward to.
@Zach cash Being in the same situation, I enjoyed Pillars a bit more. I just keep dropping out of Playing Divinity. It's great, but the way they make their worlds I guess just doesn't mesh well with my play/exploration style. The story just loses a lot of its context when done out of order by accident. Some of the big fights didn't feel that climatic (Especially remember how brokenly hard the first major boss fight of 1 was...) and the character stories seemed bland due to being a bit too streamlined I think.
I never played Baldurs gate and Neverwinter nights and the like either but, I did play PoE, PoE2 and Tyranny and completed all of them multiple times. Personal favorite was Tyranny for sure, even though it was sadly not as successful financially :(
@Zach cash Played them both, I personally enjoy POE's world a bit more. Original Sin 1 and 2 are great games, but I'm just not a fan of the art design. Still a hell of a game though.
@@guyincognito566 I don't have problems with art, it's fine but probably not their main focus. Larian games tend to be laid back and focused on fun rather than worldbuilding, storytelling or some kind of message, the weight is mostly on the gameplay part and it works quite well but might not provide much in terms of a lasting experience.
16:50 - to be fair, I dont think there exists a game where doorways are not OP :D
Also, Im sure somebody already mentioned it, but being a Watcher is not bad - that means you see previous lives of some people. Being Awakened is bad - your previous lives overtake your current ones, and you go insane.
The story is good, but very confusing at point, and this is kind of a proof of it - there are interesting things, but they are told very confusingly. There is little motivation for the player to pursue the Bad Guy, but supposedly your character literally did not have a single good rest from the point of being Awakened right in the first half an hour of the game.
Jagged Alliance 2 please. The crouch, prone, cover, and ambush mechanics are still unmatched in isometric tactical rpgs. Individual bullet sprites traveling across the screen each time someone fired.
1999 for gosh sake. Under appreciated gem.
Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 patch has the best tactical combat of any rpg. Period.
individual bullet sprites were already a feature of the first game (1994!!) as well as a bunch of others, merc personalites/relationships, even if less complex, were already present as well, I think, also crouching, stamina, cover... JA2 refined all of that, but JA came up with most of them. In 19-90-4!
YES!!! I love when I get an update about a new video on your channel!! Can't wait to start watching!
If you're watching this right now, it's free on Epic
No thanks, I hate the CCP
@@MaQuGo119 was Epic games bought by Tencent or something?
POE2 is one of my favorite CRPGS. I have over a hundred hours in it.
I have over 200 hours in it but i havent beaten it yet because i always find myself wanting to try new character builds
Despite it's flaws, PoE is amazing; anyone that likes classic rpg's saying otherwise is just butthurt it's not a carbon copy of what they are used to.
I agree, slaying the Shaper for the first time on Hardcore makes your blood rush. And mapping is sooo addicting
@@OmnifyMyAss not this poe and shaper is ez
Excellent stuff. Been playing through Pillars myself recently and you put into words a lot of the way I was feeling about it while playing Baldur's Gate 2 at the same time - it's a lot less compelling even for people without nostalgia for isometrics who got into games like Baldur's Gate with the enhanced editions like myself. It's just lacking a unique selling point of its own, and feels like it's trying to be everything at once.
Funny enough, I have never played the older rpgs. Pillars was my first and I absolutely love both this and pillars 2.
I enjoyed Baulders Gate back in the day but they don't hold up as much as people pretend.
PoE is better than BG1 but not as good as 2
Great retrospective! I'd really love to see your thoughts on Tyranny, too
I agree with everything said in this video... also well written and spoken. Good work.
Despite its technical issues and some pacing problems, out of the modern cRPGs, I feel pathfinder is the truest to the classics.
It's 2 years later and nothing's changed, still my favorite game of all time.
Tried to get into this game twice because it has some phenomenal audio. But its so hard for me, I'm so bad at this game. I believe you wholeheartedly when you say this game is great or the greatest!
This the first video i've seen from this channel and i love how eloquent you are, not to mention you absolutely nailed the review.
My flatmate makes fun of me cause anytime he sees me playing im just reading seemingly endless texts (sometimes with short pauses inbetween)
At least u can read. He prob can’t even scratch his arse
@@j0nnyism nah, hes pretty smart actually
Late to the show here, but I find it an interesting thing that some of the points raised in the video were almost explicitly attempted to be addressed in Deadfire (PoE2). I also find it interesting as well that JE Sawyer has frequently commented that Pillars/Deadfire had design choices because players expected it (crafting, stronghold, d&d-style races and classes, six attributes), or because leadership forced them to promise it to players (ship-to-ship combat in Deadfire), and not necessarily because they wanted it; it was less of a "RPG that Obsidian wanted to make" and indeed an attempt at "RPG that every person wants" (JE Sawyer mentioned he personally likes class-less systems).
I personally really liked PoE1 and loved Deadfire (Tyranny much less so), and knowing that sales dropped off pretty badly on successive RTwP games (including games not from Obsidian) as a fan of the RTwP genre it makes me a little sad that it appears that no one is truly going to be successful enough at bridging the old and the new to make it a sustained genre instead of a brief blip of renewed interest. Perhaps such a game just doesn't exist and it was just a glorious moment in the 90s when it was actually mainstream.
I enjoyed POE 1 much more than 2. The stronghold building was more fun than the ship "combat" in POE2, and I was happy to play POE 1 to the end. POE2 got so easy at higher levels that I got bored.
Couldn't agree more- was majorly let down by POE2.
i feel like this game would benefit so much from FFXII gambit system
The sequel has that.
It still baffles me how that didn't become a staple to any real time RPG with party members.
@@bhelish I think Dragon Age Origins uses something similar. But i agree all real time rpg should implement something like it.
@@kronozord8346 DAO used combat tactics which was incredibly helpful in big battles
Gambit systems are nice, but they can be pretty unreliable. They are only useful for basic commands like when not doing anything else >attack nearest enemy. Or, health below 50% > use potion.
Pillars of eternity was the first crpg I played and I fell in love with it and its sequel dead fire to such an extent it made more modern RPGs harder to get into again, but what I realized after playing tyranny was that it was the world and story I liked the most because I was so much less forgiving to similar crpgs that weren't pillars of eternity
I don’t know why but I hated the second game. For me it seems that what happened in the first game didn’t have an impact and was abandoned.
As someone who grew up with Baldur's Gate in the late 90's, I was sooooo happy to see a revival of sorts, and Pillars DELIVERS
Pillars of Eternity feels like a game I should love and yet I don't. I ended up loving Tyranny instead.
Damoinw same lol
@@codyvandal2860 Is it bad that I think Pillars has a great story, and choice narrative?
@@wrathofthewitchqueen of course not. It's a good game. It's not perfect nor is it the best game out there but there's a lot to like about pillars despite the flaws it has.
Pillars of Eternity to me is just balanced, I found Divinity (Original Sin) hard to grasp, yet alone enjoy - been playing it since its release years ago, haven't finished it, and getting to complete POE1 one day.
Pillars 2 is a little better I feel. Not quite so stringent in its restrictions. Though the main story in POE 1 is better.
Very interesting reflection on the series. With both PoE games, I was very much looking forward to them, but only actually played them properly much later. In fact, I'm just now picking up PoE2 again after its initial release, where I got somewhere into Act 2. I can't quantify what it was about PoE2 that made this happen, as I'm very much enjoying it now I'm concentrating on it. With PoE1, though, I think the problem was the approach to world-building. I'm no stranger to RPGs and am one of those nutcases that reads the codex and bestiary in most such games when I get engaged, but even with that background I bounced HARD off the historic terminologies. The various faction, artefact, cultural and magical terms were all odd nonsense words that you had to remember, and weren't necessarily explained directly- nice to be trusted to get meaning from context, but there was just a bit too much and the story was initially somewhat unfocused. To be honest, the greatest innovation they had was the feature introduced in Tyranny, and carried into PoE2, that highlights glossary terms. With that (and a footing from playing through PoE1), I've been thoroughly enjoying the Deadfire setting. The highlights have been engaging with the different factions and people in the villages- thank goodness those immersion smashing backer NPCs are gone! Anyways, many thanks for the video, really well put together :)
Pillars was my first CRPG, and I loved it to death.
Same
I just realized, that I have watched almost all of your videos without subscribing. This is now corrected.
PS: Long videos are great, there is often much ground to cover. And the pause functionality still works people!
I usually consume this type of content when relaxing on the sofa, or playing a game that does not require my auditory attention.
Last but not least, these a great bedtime stories to nerd yourself to sleep. Its like a small documentary.
The world of PoE introduced a very introspective lore (constant cross-references to gods and nations from the get-go) and a story that assumes you're interested in the world, but the world-building misses the mark because it's neither unique, nor instantly relatable, it's somewhere in-between as a new IP. Deadfire truly proved to me just how little I cared for the world ultimately. Pathfinder Kingmaker is better in almost any level. It's perhaps a bit generic in terms of the lore, but with generic comes a certain familiarity which works in their favour vs PoE.
"Doorways is over-power in every game ever made"
-Albert Einstein
Smart guy that Einstein
I tried to get into Pillars. I loved Obsidian, but what I was confronted with from the get go sapped all my strength to continue. The game is trash.
This is Obsidian, we're talking about. People who made games like NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and Fallout: New Vegas .... and they're making a cRPG! Great storytelling and an experience with fun mechanics! Sign me up.
The reality was stuff like this abominable piece of 'writing' ...
"The godlike (no capitalization?) are children of the kith ("civilized" races) who have been blessed with physical aspects associated with the gods (though some do not consider it a blessing)(?). These aspects may take many forms and often come with mystical powers(?). Aberrant head shapes are typical(?), and godlike(?) are unable to wear protective headgear as it is near-impossible to find anything that fits(?). Because(?) of their unusual nature and their inability to reproduce, godlike are often viewed with fear and wonder(How the fuck are the two related?)."
This type of writing is juvenile, illiterate, and bewilderingly bad... Terry Pratchett this is not... this is 11 year old fanfic territory.
Terry Pratchett could take a relatively complex piece of lore like 'Headology' in Discworld, and within half a page you suddenly get what it's about, why women (Read: witches) are uniquely good at it, and what it says about the chauvinistic world at large in Equal Rites. Touched upon prior in The Colour of Magic by Rincewind describing the reason why there were no female wizards was because they'd probably be too good at the role to be described as such.
Pillars of Eternity's dialogue reads like the prose of those people who have never actually lifted up a book in their life.
Which is why it is so frightening to someone like me when everybody pretends as if the 'writing is magnificent' ...
Fuck off it is. It *provably* is not even before you get into the game.
"The mighty Aumaua are the largest of the kith races and are commonly found in or near oceans. Though not truly aquatic, they have an affinity for water and many of their civilizations, such as Rauatai, are based on naval dominance. They are known for their unparalleled strength. "
This right here? Reading these words? As much as I loved Obsidian, I knew I was not going to like this game.
Please explain to me why this is anything but *garbage and juvenile* writing. See, a *normal person* with a *functional education* would write that as;
"The Aumaua are a tall and vigourous people that commonly inhabit islands and coastal regions. Gifted seafarers and ferrymen, they dominate the local waterways of their homes. Their unmatched physical prowess is of credit to their success on the high seas."
See, that's how a normal person with a reasonable grasp of English actually writes things. It reads easily, tells you everything you need to know, and explains what role in the party they might take.
Then there is the dumpster fire of mechanics.
Only three core stats is not clever game design... Only idiots would pretend like dump stats in a game is automatically bad. No, moron... dump stats are fucking options for different builds. You twat. Someone's 'dump stat' is another player's forte. A bard with charisma, is not a fighter running a dex-build, and the fact that that charisma stat exists means they play very differently from the get go.
PoE is the reason why board games and tabletop are better than video games. Also why editors are a good thing.
Pillars is proof that late-stage capitalism celebrates only mediocrity. It's never clever, it's never well written, its mechanics are childish, awful, and do not give players true tactical depth of character design.
If PoE was such a tour de force of 'writing', more people would have fucking completed it. I love reading fantasy novels, I love role playing games, surely this should be the game for me!
Well, no... it's trash. And the simple fact that I do actually read novels, my tolerance for particularly bad writing is low. And it breaks my heart that Obsidian could be such a disappointment. Sure, I'm not expecting Terry Pratchett ... but at least adult syntax and sentence structure.
Pillars is for people who have never read a novel before. Who confuse quantity with quality. Who confuse obfuscation and flowery prose with mystique.
Thanks for reminding me what a good game this is. Learning the game mechanics was for me the most tedious part. But anyone who goes into a game on highest difficulty deserves to have their arse handed to them. I worked it all out in normal, then went higher. And as you say, don't click on the kickstarter npcs after the first time, I knew what they were and regarded them as diversions from the game, some of the vignettes were worth reading. A small price to pay for a very good game.
I still hold that you should make a video on Skyrim. There is a complete absence of well thought criticism of that game and I think with your analytical depth and tight flow you could make the *definitive* Skyrim video. Much like you did with the Witcher.
Skyrim is a game that's enticing in concept but poorly done in execution. The only reason it got so popular is that it is basically the only one of its kind, save for other games made by Bethesda, who are all equally inept, both mechanically as well as from an artistic point of view (i had to quit playing Fallout 3 at one point because the writing was simple downright atrocious), but there's really nothing else quite like them.
Of course, criticizing Bethesda for anything will bring the wrath of the entire internet upon you, that's why it is rare that anyone will do it. Hbomberguy is the only one i can remember out of the top of my head that dared tell the truth about those games and seemed able to survive the aftermath.
I'll consider it, as something for the future.
Yeah analysing how Bethesda killed this brand with this dragon thing could be interesting
Really? I've seen a fair amount of critiques of Skyrim (Superbunnyhop comes to mind) and Bethesda in general (Razorfist has been harping at the trends of their open-world games and pretty much called 2-3 games after Skyrim they'll have precious little going for them, and lo and behold Fallouot 76 is widely accepted as beyond bad). Sure, you might not find all that much in-depth critiques of all the gameplay elements, but then again with, as the late TotalBiscuit put it (paraphrased), 'a game as wide as an ocean and as deep as a paddling pool', why go deeper than the developers bothered?
I'm late, but just finishing POE 1 after 165hrs iam hooked .Definitely took some effort on my part to get into with all the text heavy lore dumps but man was it worth it in my opinion in the end
I feel like you're greatly misunderstanding the purpose of the reworked attribute system in pillars. You mention the attribute system being reworked to stop min maxing, and how it, in turn, accidentally hurts roleplaying. Although this was one of its purposes, it's not the main one. Pillars of eternities attribute systems aims to break character archetypes. Wizards dont ALWAYS have to be scrony, squishy nerds. You CAN have a wizard that is jacked and charismatic, breaking the archetype that has been established in fantasy RPGs. This benefits roleplaying greatly in my opinion. You could be a wizard, with slightly lower intelligence then most other spell casters, and in trade put points into might, and now your character is a little more unique. Furthermore, In old rpgs, if you wanted to play a character with these traits, putting points into strength would not benefit you AT ALL if you were a wizard. Making the character concept impossible to do, or at the very least not worth doing at all. Which I think hurts roleplaying. You're forced to follow the established archetype of what a wizard should be, with very little wiggle room to make it your own. After all, part of roleplaying is making interesting characters. And interesting characters have flaws. The ability to trade off points into other stats and still gain benefit from it is awesome, it gives you so much flexibility.
You may have a point, if you weren't blatantly incorrect. If any character can be anything, that means there are no roles to play. Meaningful choices are brought about by the consequences of those choices, and character building is no exception.
you could play dual-class and multiclass characters in baldurs gate just saying
This echoed a lot of my own feelings, from what I recall from what I experienced. Pillars of Eternity was my first such game (I only started, and have yet to finish, Baldur's Gate II, afterwards), and I found it at once great fun and incredibly frustrating. The Dragon Thrashed and Wailed turned into my probably most hated piece of soundtrack, while still appreciating it, to the point where even now the first few notes will typically elicit at least an instinctual wince. Between the combat and the dialog I think I started 5 or 6 different games, only to burn out around meeting Maerwald every time. I have no idea what lies beyond Caed Nua.
The real time with pause especially bothered me and typically led me to swearing off AoE spells entirely, as I'd often end up missing as enemies moved or couldn't get into a reasonable position in the first place, leading to most combat encounters devolving into boring, but annoying, moshpits.
I also ended up skipping dialog a fair bit as it was often hard to tell, initially at least, whether any bit of text was actually important/useful or another bit added for kickstarter backers. I wish they'd added an option to disable those as they made it even harder for me to remain on track and engaged. To be fair though, this may well be misremembered on my part, as it's been some time and that's what stuck with me the most.
I'll probably never start another playthrough, which is probably to my detriment, as I've learned a fair bit about the genre since and could probably come closer to understanding the rules, but the remembered frustration would make it quite difficult. But all that said, I don't regret buying the game back when it released, to a degree still simply on its own merits (the art and music, for example), and significantly more so for introducing me properly to both the genre and the tabletop RPGs from which it once came from as a whole.
I grew up playing games like Baldur’s Gate 2, but these days I find it harder to get into slow-moving games with tons of reading. I think pacing and easing the player into the experience are very important for modern gamers.
The Witcher 2 & 3 did this well. They were easy to get into, and kept things moving so they never felt boring. The conversations were interesting and well-written, but never too long.
And yet modern games don’t offer rich level of interaction that older titles two. Witcher3 is a great story driven action game. I might belong to a nieche audience, but recent revival of deep, top down RPGs is a godsend to me, in a barren wasteland of current game market.
Pretty scary when you backed the Kickstarter, still haven't found the time to actually play through the game and suddenly the world decides it's time for "retrospectives" already.
I agree with almost everything you mentioned. Especially the part about storytelling and the exposition dump. A game is a visual medium and they really needed to do more show not tell. Some of the characters had interesting stories but it felt like I had to trudge through the writing to understand what happened with the characters. Especially Durance and the grieving mother. The main storyline doesn’t even get interesting until you get to the main city and do the trial.
As for the gameplay I really think having a tactics system similar to dragon age origins and multiplayer would’ve made the game a lot more enjoyable.
I am loving your channel. Keep up the great work.
I dont like show and tell i like tell and shoe
They wanted to appeal to the fans that funded this game, Baldurs gate didn't have "show and tell" in 1998. Derp.
@@BudMasta While that makes sense, I think it had more to do with the limitations of the engine and how expensive cutscenes are
Sorry but the guy suck!
12:35 That is something that should be in games!! Tough decisions! If the decision is not obvious for the player, then the game is well designed. There are no useless skills.
18:10 Babysitting? Do you want the game that plays by itself?
4:36 Sorry but this is still very easy to workout!
5:58 That was not the plan, to begin with.
I think part of the problem with exposition dumps is mainly the type of game it is and mimics. Sure Baldur's gate for example did the "show don't tell" in a good but it can still feel very exposition heavy at times. The thing is, P&P games are exposition heavy, be it with descriptions of places for the players or narrating the combat. That's one of the trappings of this genre, trying to mimic P&P games for a videogame. For example Kotor 1 & 2 don't feel as expositiony, why... first the style, you are right in the action, you see what's happening, how the characters move and feel (this one with their voice tone for example). Here you can't really see what's happening, you need the exposition to tell you accurately how the things are going. Same goes for the storyline, you need to describe in detail what the character during a cutscene is doing because you can't really see what the character is doing.
I like CRPGs, Baldur's gate is one of my favorite games of all time, I like Fallout 1 when I played it a few years ago, Disco Elysium was one of the best RPGs I've ever played... And all of them are exposition heavy because that's how this kind of genre is. Because of it's origin in P&P games and how it's not going to detract from it, it's bound to happen. Sure show don't can still be done in text form, books do it all the time, but what we see as "show don't tell" in fantasy novels, is exposition in a visual medium.
It's super fun to not use the 'pause' during the combat, it forces your brain to think fast and you find new ways to use spells. Setting the pause button on P or any other inconvenient keyboard button it's a great way to challenge yourself.
You said that the colonial era setting isn't that unique, but I thought that it was one of the most interesting things about the story. What are you comparing it to? The way that the game's setting makes souls and animancy such a central concept, while having a culture that widely recognizes the impact of soul magic and even incorporates them into their religion, including stuff that I don't see very often, such as reincarnation being an everyday reality of the setting. I will admit to not exposing myself to a lot of fantasy, but I don't personally see things like this often at all.
Basically, what I'm saying is that Pillars of Eternity feels like a very non-European fantasy game, and that I find that really refreshing and unique in and of itself.
I actually was not a fan of the whole soul thing and the contrived deep philosophical topics they tried touch upon in the game. It just wasn't that interesting. Yes, it's not something that was done in other rpgs but that doesn't make it good. It was boring.
Plus, the colonial setting in my opinion was boring. Not because it was a colonial time period but because the world building was done so poorly and made everything so uninteresting. I honesty would have just preferred some classic high fantasy over what Obsidian tried to do which was bland and contrived. That's why I like POE's expansion The White March the best out of everything. It had an interesting story, great lore, a lot of mystery, it was high stakes, and genuinely fun. That type of story is what Obsidian should have went for instead of some boring "edgy" and contrived story that didn't know if it wanted to be Planescape or Baldur's Gate 1.
I don't recall any of the mentions of souls and the like as being obvious attempts to be deep or edgy, and I don't feel the game ever got as philosophical as they claimed it would in the Kickstarter. I'm afraid that this might be a an unreconcilable difference of tastes. How could something that is imitating classic high fantasy not be bland and contrived on its own?
Fereldan from Dragon Age: Origins had a little bit of a colonial feel. It was controlled by Orlais at one time and only recently got its independence. So I can't say it's a completely original theme. That said, I was happy enough with the setting of Dyrewood. I would have liked to have seen more political aspect of the game, rather than spiritual, but that's just my personal preference. I liked the political stuff of DA: Origins and Witcher 2 and 3.
I was always interested in crpgs and tried to get into it with icewind dale but couldn't get a hold;
I'm now 20 hours into PoE and must say I'm hooked, glad I found it!
I’m one of those who argue that Pillars of Eternity failed to reach the heights of its inspirations. This is what happens when a developer tries to please everybody. They wrote and I paraphrase, “We don’t understand why PoE2 didn’t sell well”. Ok, I can tell why I didn’t buy PoE2, that’s simple, I bought PoE1 tempted with promises that the game is going to be a proper successor of the classics. In my opinion it isn’t therefore I didn’t buy the sequel.
Anyway, to point things I didn’t like the most would be the dialogues that felt like reading Wikipedia articles… Writing in general is tedious and boring and it’s nothing like Planescape Torment which has great writing. I also fully agree with what was said in the video that the game does all the things they promised but not as well as their inspirations.
POE2 is so much better than POE1 though. The writing didn't improve much, but the environments, gameplay, and combat are a massive step up.
I am one of the old schooler RPG fans. I enjoyed the game and have played through it about 4 times. Obviously, I did enjoy the game, but the text heavy wordiness of the game is kind of a slog to go through. I tend to just spam through conversations, especially ones that I know what to say. But it's still a great game and now...I am going to have to start a 5th play through...gah!!! I blame you NKB!
I havent finished it yet because i always tempted to start a new character haha
I love RPGs but I've never been able to get into PoE, I've started 3 times the campaign with different characters and I could never become involved or interested in the plot.
iggsolo yeah same, and I was a backer
Yeah, both times I played PoE I lost interest after you reach that 'Forest Village'.
The story certainly is a weak spot.
@@teutbusnet8337 I thought the story was great but it was for sure hard to get into..
Yup, got to the town with the dead people in the tree and was like...meh, I'm done. Have played BG/BG2 all the way though few times since. PoE=BORING.
@@MoragTong_ That is literally the hardest part of the game to sit thru, give it a chance! The beginning other than that was amazing. And even that.. although boring, is really cool story/lore wise.
the feeling when you go from listening to music while you're playing, to having streams in the background while playing, to just having NeverKnowsBest videos in the background while playing FeelsWayTooGoodMan
Building your keep in this game was entirely pointless there was no benifit to arresting your enemys and never a significant battle that involved any of your upgrades
Not true. You can get useful items from stronghold's adventures, gold from taxes, ingredients, resting bonuses, bounties, etc. Imprisoning characters will get you gold from thier ransom. My keep was often attacked, and if you don't defend it properly you can lose your upgrades.
Eh. Still a better keep system than in bg2.
I backed this and have had my character in mind since they revealed all the classes+races, but only just now have gotten beyond 5 hours into the game
I kept putting it off
I'm a pleasure-delayer
am liking it so far!
wait I never knew that stats bonus didnt stack while i play. omg, I'm so bad lol
Or maybe you're just so good that you didn't realise you were making the game harder for yourself. You've got to look at the positive side of things.
Same :-s
I couldn't make myself finish Pillars of eternity, and I have tried 3 or 4 times, played it for about 15 hours till I just couldn't stand it anymore, it was tiring, sure the landscapes were nice, but that's about it, I hated how much useless information was presented to me via walls of text ,and I am not even mentioning the npc's in the game, the ones you can see memories of, I gave up reading them after 3rd or so. Now the general consensus is that the beginning of the story is slow, but supposedly after some time the game's plot get's better, the problem is the start is so slow that when you get to the point where story is supposed to take off, you don't remember or care for that matter what transpired in the beginning. Another thing lackluster is your choices, rpg's are all about choices, and what happens? Well, first 1-2 hours of gameplay are absolutely inconsequential, because there is always the "prologue reset", not only that choices further than the road don't seem to have any impact either, in this case so what if you have lot of dialogue choices if none of them matter. Companions tie into that theme of non-decision, once you step into the first village, aloth practically acts like some stray dog looking for a pack, eder joins you just because, Durance, nvm durance is great, then the eskimo dwarf hunter with a pet wolf joins you just because aswell, it's so unsatisfying.
Fastforward some time, obsidian relases Tyranny, and holy fuck that game is one of the best rpg's I played back then alongside maybe shadowrun hong kong. I thought to myself I should give Deadfire a chance, and well it's just as bad as the last one. How can a studio make pillars of eternity follow that up by excellent Tyranny and then return with deadfire, I really don't get it, maybe they did it because the Tyranny didn't sell well, but that was the consquence of relasing it as something to play while waiting for Poe 2, while it should have been advertised as the next big thing.
I loved Fallout: New Vegas and it seemed like all the people I trust who reviewed games thought positively of this game, so I really did want to love it. I've played the first 2-5 hours of this game almost a dozen times. And I never make it much further. I have fun creating a character, exploring a bit, starting to build my party, and then I put the game down for a bit and just never go back to it. Nothing compels me to pick it up again.
I never really understood why, but I think your video perfectly explains it. I had a hard time getting engaged with the combat. If I set difficulty too high, I wouldn't do well because I wasn't sure how to make the most of the confusing stats and abilities. If I set it too low, it wasn't really engaging at all, just tedious. I was interested by the story and lore, but it didn't seem like there was enough to get me to push through the walls of text.
In the end, I really appreciate the people who talk about games like this. I have a hard time enjoying them myself, but I tend to really enjoy people talking about them. Thanks!
I kind of wish they'd go back and add turn-based combat to the original like they did to PoE2.
Spencer Smith wwwwww
@@Wlerin7 you do know how advanced the pause mechanic settings are in pillars right? You can basicly switch it to turnbased if you feel for it. Just activate pause whenever one of your characters complete an action and there you go turnbased...and it is just one of 20 diffrent options to tweak in how the game pause alternativly fast/slow speed activation.
Long story short you can turn the combat pace into whatever you want....THAT is the main strength of real time with pause. It allows a game to speed past "auto attacks" or allready won fights while still allowing you to take your time for each action for when you need it.
@@Solus749 That was written before I actually tried turn-based combat in PoE2. Definitely prefer the RTwP.
@@Wlerin7 I think alot of the turn based are "better" comes from original sin 1-2 and how they handled combat. Divinity's combat however wasn't close to the same mechanically, stun, blind,prone etc are far less common and while physical/macigal armour is active a character or more or less immune to these kind of effects ( depending on what is used ofc ).
The various saves used in pen and paper and pillars appear "strange" unless you have experienced it earlier....especially to new audiences. Real time with pause have similar issues I think....it is a fine system once you get it but it can scare some people away.
I loved this game, it is easily one of my top ten games of all time and I've been gaming since the 80's.
28:10 exactly! Pillars was my first cRPG ever and not only did I struggle with real-time / pause combat but I also tried to read everything like I did in more modern RPGs like Fallout.
But here it got boring after some time. I had to invest so much time..
Edit; what helped me to play through Disco Elysium f.e, which is just as text heavy, was the voice acting and it's interesting story telling
I liked the kickstarter npcs. The little stories were stories in a story. Dont know if i got em all. But it gave u an opportunity to see what writers could come up with for a mini character in just a short few paragraphs
While there's some truth to the "wizard bending steel bars" issue with Might, I think it's important NOT to try and think of each stat is a one dimensional thing. Rather, "Might" isn't just raw physical strength, but also represents training and experience at doing things that require strength. So a wizard might not be bench pressing for 4 hours a night, but maybe they understand how bending the bars happens and can use their magic to do so. The super-intelligent barbarian isn't solving equations, but has a natural "knack" for using their abilities in a way that makes them more effective than those with less intelligence.
As an old fart who's played pen-and-paper games (not just D&D) for decades, the one-dimensional stat concept is there ONLY to make dice rolls easier. Nobody wants the DM to say "OK, make a roll against your STR + 1/2 your INT + 10% of your WIS" to see if they can bend the steel bars without dislocating their shoulders.
Honestly, I've always loved universes where Magic requires training of the body as well as the mind. Mages are essentially channels for universal energies, their body is part of that catalyst too so it only makes sense that it should also be taken care of in tandem
I like this game because it is a good mix between bg1 and bg2 in terms of areas with some quicker (but not too quick) progression. It is not as good as bg2, or planescape; but I am having a blast. It does have an identity crisis and I hate the fans in the game (I wish there was a way to make them turn into a generic commoner). Exploration and lack of grinding is refreshing (I think its xp method is superior to other RPGs as it really gives you no incentive to kill npc or confront enemies). Camp equipment initially cool but later it just becomes a chore as you can go back to refill at any moment, so no point. Money is too available so no real choices to be made in terms of acquistion of weapons and equipment. In BG2 all these systems were better balanced. Story ok, setting good but again not on par with bg2.
You hit the nail on the head there, mate. I really wanted to enjoy this RPG. It certainly had the potential for it to happen. Yet, I found myself bored with it, due to its unengaging combat and, especially, because of the ineffective storytelling. Couldn't have said it better myself.
As a side note: Pillars's worldbuilding is fantastic. The way it's delivered is not, but the world itself captivated and drew me in. Oh, and I liked the companions.
I have finished both PoE. And the biggest drawbacks for me were technical aspect and difficulty. They couldn't balance the game through the walkthrough. So if you don't like autoleveling world, the lategame becomes broken.
The dialogue choices sometimes allow you to focus on motivations other than fear of "losing it", etc. I personally focused on a more driven style, after all your soul is [spoiler averted here]. Concretely, ending the collective curse (Waidwen's Legacy) and finding the assholes responsible were motivating.
- Yes, it was too wordy in many dialogues. It was excessive to write stuff like "The smell of the ground felt like a mix of death and a warm new life. (Yada yada yada... more metaphors)... Finally the NPC speaks". Mind you, I played and read all "Torment: Tides of Numenera" before, so it was less in comparison.
I just have to say you have a brilliant way of looking deep into the games you cover. I'm playing Pathfider:Kingmaker right now and still think back to your video on that. I also played this game, but never bothered with the sequel. Your channel and your intellectual ability to describe these games are unmatched in my opinion.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my videos and think so highly of them.
The mechanics are friendly to anyone who will read the tool tips on first play through to understand the game.
Simple.
Honestly I prefer PoE storytelling to the Divinity games. The almost parody tone of many many quests and conversations in DOS makes me a lot less invested in the outcome of the world. PoE's world feels more adult and makes me feel serious about the choices I make which leads to me actually caring about what happens.
Ive given the game the investment of time it calls for, and I'm really impressed with it. Absolutely not something that should be expected to garner widespread recognition, but the kickstarters goals I believe were realised and then some. It is like Planescape: Torment mixed with Icewind Dale and brought forward to 2010s era streamlining for better AND worse. Issue is that everyone knows DnD, and DnD is made to be accessible from the get go. Here it's a brand new universe with different abstracts dominating the mechanics interaction with representations, and it takes some actual study to get into. It's a bit like going from Forgotten Realms to 40K haha
I dont feel Pillars managed to live up to its legacy, but it did light a fire that set of a CRPG revival. It set the stage for others to achieve what it wanted to instead, and that's important and valuable in itself.
I didn't like the way we earn XP in this game, basically, if you don't disarm traps you don't level up. Other than that this game was really fun and I have fond memories from the Endless Paths of Od Nua.
"As bewildering as thaco" that got me a good laugh thanks
To Hit Armor Class 0. How hard is that? While a very good system, it was not intuitive at all.
I loved it. Actually thats wrong, I still do as I am playing it. My main problem is that its a short game and stopping the main quest to do the DLCs is ... not very logical. If I want to roleplay it I have to be a follower of Wael. That said, on highest difficulty its a fun, challenging experience.
EDIT : You dont really have to learn much. You just pick what seems good and play. Sooner or later you understand what works and what does not. Everything is pretty basic in PoE1. In PoE2 on the other hand, at highest diff with scaling set to maximum with no downscaling it requires tactical play and actual comprehension of the system. In PoE1 on the other hand there is only a few major battles that require MM due to what you are talking about; the simplicity of the system.
I started to love this genre because pillars of eternity was my first rpg like this. With managing many companions at the same time. At first it was strange. I left the game. After 10 hours. Few months later picked it again and. 50+ hours later the game was finished. Heh. Sometimes you need time to appreciate good game. No. Great game such as this one. Some people just wont they dont care and it makes me sad. :c
Cipher best class btw ;D
That's me right there, I dropped it in 2017 or whatever it was. Now after the video I might give it another chance, I'm older, wiser and my English is better haha. Thanks to Disco Elysium
I was a backer of PoE back in the day. The game is balanced to a flat hell where no loot nor buffs feel half as exiting as a simple belt of giant strength in Baldur's Gate 2. Mainly because of that I never finished it but I am still glad that I backed it and it was made.
Doorways saves my numerous times. Hail the doorways of POE!
Being able to make a sub-optimal character is a good thing. It means character creation is fun and you have to use your brain for it. Where's the fun if every choice you make in character creation is guaranteed to be equally good?
One thing I'd like to point out, is that while Yes, Pillars of Eternity has a bit of a slow start, and initially not much reason to be invested in what's going on, I think that's a lot like Baldur's Gate.
Baldur's Gate 1's plot starts with you needing to run from your life in Candlekeep, and then your foster Father gets killed and you think "Oh shit things are getting serious." Then you're left Directionless, the only hint you have is to go to the Friendly Arm Inn to meet with friends of your foster father. They suggest going to another town to investigate, which... okay. But it doesn't really have anything to do with your character's interests, at least initially. Slowly you uncover the game's plot, and it loops back around to your character, and the big revelation.
And a similar thing happens in Pillars of Eternity, where you chase down Thaos, out of the desperate hope that Maybe he'll help you. You uncover more of the plot as you go, and it eventually loops back around to your character, and the big revelation happens.
I do agree that they could have portrayed your character's insanity a little better though. Maybe have more dream sequences like in Baldur's Gate 1.
Great video btw! ^.^
It's a good game,i play it.only one thing,where's the random acounter enemy.🤷
I still think its great. I grew up on the Baldur's Gate series and still love those games too.
I'm saying this before I watched this video. Pillars of Eternity is amazing. I own both DoS2 and PoE2:Deadfire.
Both are great, but Pillars of Eternity is Amazing one player rpg while Divinity is a great couch co-op rpg.
Divinity falls short on immersion and depth of characters. It's like all characters in divinity have 1 dimensional personality.
Pillars of Eternity falls short on the mechanical side of combat but nails it in every other sense.
Sorry, have to disagree. Divinity 2 has an amazing deep story line and also vastly superior mechanics that allow for creativity, and fully voiced NPCs ready to respond to a variety of player actions. Much of the character depth doesn't really become fully apparent until act 2 & 3. Personally I found Pillars of Eternity to be more of a scripted choose your own adventure novel with some barbones pnp tacked on in the most limiting & stifling way possible so that the characters couldn't do anything unexpected.
@@ziljanvega3879 I have over 200h clocked in both games, DoS falls short on characters and I have played through it three times, character conversation is ALWAYS centered around the main focus of the game, very rarely do they speak naturally about their surroundings, which is a big part of character depth, to not be one-dimensional and have only one or two facets to their personality.
For an example, Sabilles shows the same character traits throughout the game, a character with depth doesn't show most or all of their traits right away. At most she shows a bit more anger at the end, but barely anything to actually make her stand out.
I won't go into detail on character depth but if you look to find some sort of classification for character depth then you'll see most of the characters in DoS2 are 2-dimensional in their depth, at most.
Also Convoluted/complicated story-line does not equal a deep story-line. Depth requires many facets and DoS2 shows few facets, only one big Twist, and a group of smaller twists near end game. When the whole world seem to surround and cater to the main character, it hurts the games depth. And that is exactly what happens in DoS2.
Example; When you meet the demon hunter, look at the conversations you get from it, is it anything except* one sided.even after you finish your goal, the only thing Jarhan seem to be able to talk about is his hunt for demons (seems pretty one dimensional to me) And this goes for many of the characters on DoS2. Also, have you played DoS2 without any Origin character then you'll see how the game world has a certain lack of depth as well.
Btw can you give me an example of limiting/stifling mechanics in PoE2? I have not found any that limited me, I have some issued with the PoE2 UI though, it looks good but mechanically it isn't the best.
Combat was awful when PoE2 had only Real-time with pause, but they added Turn Based mode about half a year ago which was great decision for them.
Not trying to shit on DoS2 though, I love it as well but comparing their depth can't be done. DoS2 has amazing mechanics and great game-play but little actual depth (as I said once again, the definition of character-depth can't be reconciled with how the characters develop in DoS2) ,
PoE2 has great story, well fleshed out world that seem to not cater to the player nearly as much, with much more character depth, and also great game-play.
@@arioamin Character development and character depth are extremely different ideas, and they're not even related to each other. Your argument seems to hinge entirely on the assumption that development and depth are one and the same. I'd suggest you learn what you speak of before you attempt to convince others that your stance is correct.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 You could be correct but you have not provided any viable context as to why you disapprove of my argument, except "you are wrong because of *ENTER DEDUCTION* ".
Please provide context such as I did, in regards of examples and comparisons. Deductions without context cannot be replied to in a manner which is constructive.
If you do this, then I can address your deduction properly.
@@ziljanvega3879 Gonna disagree with you there. DOS 2 has an awful story. It's exceptionally cheesy with no depth. Not that I think POE has a good story either, though. DOS 2 does have superior mechanics but POE has far better world design and lore than DOS 2. Of course, neither game compares to some of the most well-built worlds such as Forgotten Realms, Witcher, and Elder Scrolls games. To me, the Divinity games really lack good environment design and immersion. I hope that doesn't show up in Baldur's Gate 3.
Really love your videos and all the thought you put into them.
You mentioned Planescape Torment in the beginning- I'd love to see a video on Torment: Tides of Numenera. The story and world building is incredible to me, and I'd love to see another perspective.
Pillars has been a solid experience thus far. It for sure has its issues with understanding the story and a ton of reading, but this game is overall very good and has done its part in reviving the genre.