|
Honestly, it's no less surreal the second time around. Just an interesting little peek into an alternate reality where PoE is a bad game that goons hate.
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2022 02:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 05:00 |
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Just an interesting little peek into an alternate reality where PoE is a bad game that goons hate.  Head over to the steam thread and ask about PoE on its own or in comparison to its sequel. Edit - oh yeah, now that the memories are flooding back, ATOM RPG has got nothing on PoE in terms of unavoidable trash fights and lovely combat systems. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Sep 24, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2022 06:54
|
|
|
I mean... nah. For one thing, I could go to the actual PoE 2 thread, which still gets a lot of posts, even now, years after the game's release. For another, using the thread search thing it was pretty easy to search the Steam thread, and there's definitely nothing like a consensus that the game is bad; in fact, the majority of the posts that I found on the first several pages of search mention people liking it. Heck, one of the posts was someone saying "don't y'all hate that one?" and a bunch of people responding by saying "no, we like it". And another person comes in explaining why they don't like it and gets a bunch of "no, you're playing it wrong" posts. (A fair number of people in the Steam thread DO hate Path of Exile, though; it's regrettable that both are called PoE.) Anyway, the first game's thread was closed around 900 pages, and the second is up over 800, and neither were mock threads or anything like that. Mostly people discussing which classes and builds they like best. Usually when goons hate something, it's pretty drat obvious and there just aren't any signs of it here. Setting goons aside for a minute: the first one has an 89 on Metacritic, and the second has an 88. Very Positive reviews on Steam for both with each having around 10k (so a reasonable sample), and frankly most of the negative reviews I read could be summarized as "it isn't literally, exactly Baldur's Gate". And I wasn't just making a joke when I referred to the first one as "award-winning". It literally won multiple awards, usually of the "Best RPG" variety, and it was nominated for more. Almost every review, positive or negative, mentions good writing (although there are sometimes exceptions for Durance and Grieving Mother, the Avellone-written characters, and the gold-background Kickstarter Reward characters). It's cool that you don't like it; I'm not going to try to talk you into liking it or anything like that. There are legit things to criticize in the game, like having too many trash mobs, and if those issues bug you more than they bug most people, you aren't going to have a good time. But it is, as far as these things can be measured, a good game that almost everyone does like. It's certainly miles above trash like ATOM. At this point, I'm mostly just saying this so that anyone who's reading the thread and hasn't tried it won't be put off, because that would be really regrettable.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2022 22:14
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:
It's Tyranny with worse story and dialogues.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2022 22:22
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:I mean... nah. Pillars had the most generic fantasy setting imaginable, yet was so in love with the sound of its own worldbuilding that proper nouns were pouring out of my ears. To reiterate, I'm a huge RPG fan and I generally don't mind exposition, but the combination of interminable  dumps about the most boring of worlds got the better of me.It had far worse combat than Wasteland 2 (my go-to comparison before going through Atom RPG), and most of it was unavoidable. Spending five minutes at a time hacking apart Wood Beetles for the coveted chance to engage a Stone Beetle was the intended experience. Not sure why we're having this discussion here, anyway. Games more similar to Atom would include Encased, Underrail, Wasteland 2-3 and Shadowrun (of which I wouldn't recommend Wasteland, would recommend Shadowrun, and haven't played the rest yet).
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2022 23:02
|
|
|
Even in your link, the hate-train peters out after, like, a couple of posters. You're right that this is the wrong place to discuss PoE, though. Underrail is another one that's essentially trying to remake Fallout 1. It's not bad if that's what you're looking for; they do have a few more options for combat in the form of psychic powers and things like that, so it's definitely less monotonous than FO1-2 combat can get by the end. The plot is serviceable, nothing special, writing is okay. It's a lot more linear than a FO style game; a good deal of gating to keep you on, a-ha, the rails. If what you want is basically "more isometric Fallout, except underground", this is a reasonable way of getting it. Encased is also in that vein, but it does have party options. The translation is a TON better than ATOM's; it's quite readable with the occasional bit of clunkiness or odd turn of phrase. It has a lot of dark humor in it, most of which lands a lot better than anything in ATOM. (There are, for instance, achievements for getting yourself killed in various ridiculous ways during the prologue.) It makes a number of references to Russia in the 70s that are beyond my ken (did look a couple up). There is a weird system set up for criming that involves having to dodge the crime victim for a while until they completely forget that you stole their gun or whatever, which seems to take about a day most of the time. I kind of get what they were going for, but it doesn't really work. Has a lot more of an open world than Underrail, including an FO-style map. I would argue that Wasteland 2 is good in the specific case that what you want is "Wasteland 1, but with a modern interface". That is absolutely not something everyone wants, and the game has a lot of antiquated RPG things in it like percentage-based chances to open locks (meaning virtually everyone just savescums) and skills that look a lot more useful during character creation than they actually end up being. Wasteland 3 is a mechanical improvement in a lot of ways; it's probably more like what 2 should have been in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2022 01:51
|
|
|
Xander77 posted:Hey - did I say it was a bad game? It sure as gently caress is, absolutely terrible, but my initial post didn't say anything about that. Phew, it's not just me. It's rare for me to not finish a game that I start playing, but I found the writing and combat and... everything, really - in Pillars of Eternity to be interminable and unbearably tedious. I just had to stop after... I can't remember. 10-15 hours or so? I'd wondered if Modern Living had eroded my attention span to the point where I couldn't enjoy games like Baldur's Gate and whatnot anymore. But maybe not? I mean I did make it through Atom RPG. Speaking of which, thanks for the dual-LP! Seeing the game through again - and seeing quite a number of things that I didn't come across in my playthrough - really brought home how average most of the gameplay is, along with how, well... gross a lot of the writing is. I think my initial impression after my playthrough was a bit too generous. It only vaguely felt worthwhile at the time, and now I don't know that it was really worth the time I spent on it. I do actually have Underrail, Encased and Wasteland 3... but I've got so many games in my queue that who knows when I'll have time to get to them. Encased is probably the one I'm most interested in, out of those.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2022 05:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 05:00 |
|
|
Greatly enjoyed reading this lp from both of you. This is the kind of game I would drunkenly buy one night then regret in the morning. For the record I've played all the fallouts, encased, the three new shadow runs, first pillars of eternity, wasteland 2 and 3, and the first Pathfinder crpg. The one that hooked me the most (not counting the first two fallouts) was encased. Combat was fine, but the writing was fantastic and the setting is unique enough even though it takes a lot from other fiction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2022 19:32
|
|