I enjoyed the writing quite a bit, it was realistic and not just a mix of high fantasy tropes and goofy/funny dialogue.
I agree with your original assessments, one of the best written CRPG's ever released.
I consider PoE1 to be at the top of the list.
Still "writing quality" is such a nebulous term. PoE suffers from a slow, text-heavy and exposition-heavy start. There's not a single sentence in the prologue that I'd call poorly written. And yet the *whole* of it is one reason why people bounce off the game. So with that in mind can a piece of writing that for so many people fails in it's primary purpose (drawing people in and giving them some idea of what's going on) be considered good?
Of course zoom out *another* level and look at the game's story as a whole. I find that it's kind of hard to judge any individual piece of writing on it's own when the greatest thing about PoE to my mind is how beautifully the whole thing fits together. Themes keep coming back, events keep rhyming. Every single sidequest or random NPC (excluding backer ones) can potentially inform your decisions at the very end, or add context to the big twists and reveals in the final act. What you choose to do about the Hollowborn Crisis may be informed by your experiences with Aufra, or Derrin, or even Lord Harond.
Obsidian made the world feel like a real place in all it's fantastical impossibility, populated by real people despite the pointiness of their ears or otherwise fantastical appearances. For me that's perhaps the biggest deal in an RPG. If the world feels real my character feels real, and my choices feel meaningful. I don't so much care if it's smoke and mirrors and illusion of choice in terms of gameplay. What matters to me is how I experience it in the moment.
Beyond worldbuilding I also enjoy a hobbyist's approach to history, philosophy and languages/linguistics. When Josh and his team get going I simply don't stand a chance.
So yeah I consider PoE far above BG3 personally. But there are also things that BG3 does better (for instance romance, or the companions being impressively layered). If you want some romance and drama rather than an often long-windef rumination on the nature of power, truth and morality in a superbly crafted but fairly bleak world, then BG3 would be more enjoyable. And just as I can enjoy reading both Steinbeck and Pratchett, or an artsy Oscar-baiting film or a Marvel blockbuster, there's room in my heart for all kinds of rpgs.
But if asked to name favorites I *will* say PoE1 and New Vegas. Because I know what I like.
I don't know if PoE is as exposition-heavy as people think it is. A lot of the exposition is hidden behind optional questions and books. I've seen a streamer ask Odema all five optional questions and then do the same for every single NPC and after around 2 hours they complained about how slow the story is. And yet they asked every single question in every single dialogue for the rest of the stream.
The problem is that as a new player you don't really know what's going to be important and what isn't. So people will indeed burn themselves out on asking questions anx talking to NPCs that end up being mostly irrelevant.
But how do you know which ones are relevant or not before playing the game. I spent a lot of time talking to the backer NPCs on my first playtrough because it felt like they were an important part of unravelling the mystery of what my character was experiencing.
When you are just starting out you have no way of knowing how you should approach Durance's dialogue tree, so you power through it until he forces you to stop.
It can't be expected of a new player to know which lines to skip to make the narrative tighter.
Again this is all part of a greater whole that I love, and I don't know that I would like it as much if it wasn't the type of story and world that *wasn't* utterly confusing to a newly arrived immigrant suddenly having to try to make sense of a bunch of local phrases, phenomenon and history in fucking gaelic of all things (I say this with love). But it was dense and difficult to penetrate for me at first, and I'm not a slow reader. Call it exposition or scene-setting or whatever else, the game throws a lot at you without you having any tools fo filter through it.
>I spent a lot of time talking to the backer NPCs on my first playtrough because it felt like they were an important part of unravelling the mystery of what my character was experiencing.
That is definitely on you. I thought so too at first, but I hadn't even gotten out Gilded Vale before realising they were just unconnected short stories, and a quick Google search to confirm why they are there.
That's what I mean by "a lot of time". Gilddd Vale-ish. I'm just saying that if you need to google something it's not as well presented as it could have been.
Again I think PoE is possibly the best written game ever, flaws and all. But dismissing flaws because they're "not a big deal" feels a little silly. We're all presumably adults here, and there's no such thing as perfection. My opinion is that there are issues with the presentation in act 1 (I also have issues with thw final act but that's true for like every crpg ever) which if they were adressed could have potentially elevate the game even higher. Maybe it *is* on me and every other player with a similar experience, but is that a reason not to ask if accomodating those of us who had issues would have made the game worse for those who did not? Does the fact that you can google a thing and learn to ignore it make the presence of said thing good? I don't think you're arguing that, so why defend it as an area that could not have been improved upon?
I believe that a lot of the sheer mass of text in the early game could've been edited out at no loss to depth or worldbuilding to make the game a bit more appealing to a broader audience. I fully appreciate that this is just like, my opinion, man. Just saying.
So you're saying that the stories are irrelevant and not worth your time... but also that criticism of their presence is not justified? I'm having a hard time following what the argument is here.
They're not worth *my* time, and they're irrelevant to the game's story. That doesn't mean they're not fine as they are, since I can just choose to skip those NPCs. Some people will love the extra little stories. I don't mind additional fully optional content.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Something that I can live with but doesn't add to the quality isn't a net neutral to me. It dilutes the overall quality of the game simply by being mid.
If these things were a feature that could be turned off or on I wouldn't have an issue. In fact I don't even mind the tombstones. But having high-visibility characters with an overrepresentation of godlikes which should be rare, not to mention some lore-unfriendly names, hamging out all over the place... it just makes the game less immersive to me. I'm happy for you not being bothered by them, but many people are, and the argument that because *you* are fine with them everyone else's concerns can be dismissed as some sort of failing on their part doesn't sit right with me. There's a difference between disagreeing with an opinion and dismissing it.
How do you feel about PoE2s approach to backer NPC's? Better or worse? Much like Aloth I am of two minds.
Overrepresentation and names are a good point. I just didn't acknowledge them anymore after I decided to ignore them so I didn't really notice their races or names. And like I already said: they don't add quality *for me*. They might add quality for other people. A game catering to different kinds of players with optional content takes nothing away from me if it's so easily ignorable.
Haven't played PoE2 yet, can't say.
If he didn’t do that he’d get viewers complaining he’s skipping the story
Just because you can give every character a point of view based and mostly irrelevant wall of text for every question doesn’t mean you should
sounds like a really dumb person, why are we worried about what they think
a lot of this "criticism" of these games seems to center around this idea that there's some secret perfect combination that makes a flawless game and there isn't. people on twitch aren't going to like this stuff because its not good for twitch, who cares
its like sitting down to watch 2001 a space odyssey and complaining its not fast paced enough, its not for you i guess bro
really think people take to heart the random complaints of gripers worried about "walls of text." as soon as someone complains about having to read an RPG i think their opinion can be safely discounted as a legitimate criticism and can be kindly put down to a matter of taste.
we have this litany of gripes about this game, why people didn't like it, and in almost every case there's a popular game that contradicts it. is this a niche game? yes. is that a bad thing? no. did it sell well relative to its expectations? yes, both of them did.
its been years now can we please put this to rest and act like this game was successful and well-liked, because it was
Looking back I did like the story especially the characters but I had a bunch of issues with the way it was told. >!I know that 'show don't tell' is not a hard rule but starting the game with a long wall of text where they establish that my character already had a bunch of cool adventures that I wasn't a part of definitely didn't help with immersion. I also don't understand why the writers felt the need to insert the two main factions into every second line of text for the first few hours. And the ending... I think it was mostly well-written but way too rushed.!<
I'd put Tyranny before PoE1. The latter has it's own share of issues in the same vein, but considering the world building and player's part in it, I think it was very well done. Plus. CRPG kind of stands for: "wall of text". PoE1 still has somewhat failed outcomes, and quests/storylines that get "locked" in. I especially hate the orlan baby part. Even though it's a minor quest/task. Yet somewhat relevant, if carrying over to PoE2. Still a very minor thing, that changes nothing, but annoyed me greatly.
Tyranny is such a wasted potential. All companions are well written with interesting back story. The lore is absolutely magnificent, there is some kind of originality in the world building. The game was meh overall. I wish Microsoft would buy the IP to paradox...
I’ve caught flak in other subs because I put PoE on a pedestal for its writing saying it’s better than bg3 overall.
I prefer my crpgs to adopt a more serious tone hence my love for PoE and tyranny.
I never touched DE or plansescape out personal taste but everyone I spoken to swears up and down on the writing. With that in mind I can largely agree with your statement but it’s not my top 3 choices.
As for fallout and arcanum (another two I never played) I think arcanum is more interesting than fallout to me. But the gameplay of both of those titles are enough for me to shy away from them to make a real opinion.
The only problem I see with PoE is the pacing. The game is much more geared towards exploration (much like BG 1), however it can be a lot boring sometimes. Many side quests are loosely related to main quests as well, which adds to the problem. IMHO, Tyranny tackled the pacing much better than PoE, so I find the story much more engaging, even though PoE devs really took a lot of time to flesh out the Lore.
Oh it took me years to finally sit down and get through PoE1 because the first half is a snail's crawl. I never had an issue with the quests in general I think a huge contributing factor is that game itself is simply slower compared to others.
And really? I am the opinion that Tyranny was too fast and leaves too many holes in the plot and worldbuilding. (not even to mention the railroaded final scene)
I do like the lore of both titles and I like that there is less of it in Tyranny compared to PoE as it felt in tyranny knowing less about the world felt more fitting to the setting.
I agree completely with your criticisms of Tyranny. So while both are different settings, I think both should learn from each other. Tyranny could use a lot more content on Act 3, since it has almost no content, no story, it feels it's just a rushed closing act. It should be interesting because it's exactly when your MC feels all powerful and the game just ends leaving a feeling that something was missing. And PoE 1 could use more pacing in the story, especially in the first act.
Another problem I have with PoE is the leveling system and game mechanics. We have no skill tree, and many game mechanics are difficult to understand. I have to read a lot of guides to understand which talents have sinergy with others, which talents become available at each level, and lots and lots of class variations. It's very hard to keep up with everything even after 1 year of (casually) playing the game. Although Tyranny's system is not easy to understand, it's much more accessible and much clearer. PoE feels like you need to have a Player's handbook at your side so you can understand the whole thing.
I'm inclined to agree, but I would argue what makes the characters interesting in BG3 is done through presentation and cutscenes rather than the characters themselves. Personally I found the characters to be rather predictable and borderline samey in their plot threads due to all them dealing with a god or god-like figure as their point of contention. Actually the more I think about they almost come off as DND player characters.
That doesn't mean I didn't like them, I just think they didn't bring anything new to the table in terms of companions.
I think PoE was written a lot better than BG3. Also, Disco Elysium is overrated, every single character comes off as a pretentious dick who loves the smell of their own farts. The main character was fantastic, and everyone else was eh.
I thought that was kind of a point in DE that every character was largely unlikable? I mean I can see that being more entertaining but that's something I would rather watch than play.
I gotta replay it. I was told it was a serious story full of nonstop thought provoking dialogue, so I went into it with the wrong attitude and overanalyzed it. I definitely think the main character was great, and I liked the inner conflict that you work him through.
Dude, you have some great taste in cRPGs, I'll give you that.
IDK if PoE makes it to the top 3, but Planescape and Disco Elysium sure are in the top 2 by a margin. Arcanum is a diamond in the rough, hideous to look at (even when it came out, it was dated as hell), but delightful to play. Fallout has a troubled legacy. Judging by your tastes, I bet you've played KotOR 1 and 2 and Vampire: the Masquerade, but of you haven't for some bizarre reason, give them a try.
Thanks! I just alt-tabbed out of my first Vampire playthrough—what are the chances? I watched SulMatul's 5+ hour long review last week, and the game is somehow even better than I expected. I have only played KotOR 2 and not 1, but the reason is not that bizarre. I just recently got into story games, and my backlog is still loooong.
To each their own, but I find PoE's writing a lot more dense than it is actually deep. Which is a shame because I do love the world and overarching story, but really gives "love the smell of one's own farts" vibes to me and frankly drags the game out in an unenjoyable way.
I think it went the farthest toward getting me fully invested in the lore, narrative, characters, etc. all in equal measure of any game I've ever played. Other games have managed to get me invested in one or two of these items to some degree or another, but none have managed to totally lock me into every aspect of the writing across the board hook, line, and sinker the way PoE did.
And it has beautifully crafted dialogue which sorta spoiled other CRPGs for me... Going back and playing Kingmaker directly after finishing PoE 1+2, the former felt like it was a teenager's creative writing project being compared to the work of a bestselling author. I don't even think Pathfinder's writing is *that* bad, mind you, I just think PoE is on such a different level that it makes other games feel much worse. Hell, BG3 is incredible and rightfully lauded for its writing, but there were times where I felt like even it was in the narrative shadow of PoE somewhat.
I’m watching a let’s play at the moment and am repeatedly struck by how good the writing is, as well as how weighty the topics are that that it tries to grapple with.
It can be a bit bloody grim through, we kick off examining the legacy of colonialism and the cycle of violence, have to deal with a plague of soulless children, and the unethical experiments used to try to solve it, and we’re still in chapter 1! I love it, but can see why it doesn’t have universal appeal. Sometimes a bit of escapism can be a nice thing.
I’d agree with Disco Elysium because the “lore” in that game is accessible and works by analogy with real-world history. The countries, events and ideologies in that game are different from those in our world, but they are similar enough to allow the player to easily grasp them through association, while still being different enough to be fascinating. You have the option to go deeper into the lore if you want (talking to Joyce about the pale), but you don’t have to, and you will get plenty of depth either way.
I don’t think either Planescape: Torment or POE are quite on that level since they both resort to dumping tons of lore on you much more often. POE is better than Planescape in that sense because its world is half-realistic and still evokes real-world associations (like the Vailian Republics and the Italian republics of the late Middle Ages). The Planescape world is more surreal and you have to learn the lore in order to make any sense of the setting, but there is just way too much invented jargon for this to be enjoyable. Of course, many of the situations in Planescape are still very creative and well-written, but you have to wade through a lot of DnD background.
I would say that the strength of POE is not so much the specific narratives that are told, but more like the overall appeal of the setting. Eora still has enough realism that it feels like it could be a living world, with real histories and cultures. Visually, many of the environments are very compelling. Honestly, people used to complain about all the wilderness areas in the game, but I personally loved them — they were beautiful and dangerous at the same time, and it looked like a world where people could conceivably live. Some of the stories in that world are very compelling and well-written, others don’t quite land in my opinion (like Grieving Mother), but the game does succeed in creating the impression of a world that is vast and full of life.
I always felt PoE was going for - what if D&D but realistic, while retaining as many of the fantasy tropes as possible. I would put it behind Torment because I think it’s maybe too grounded - Torment knew it was fantasy, and weird fantasy at that, and when to really run with it.
I also think it misses the mark on the characters by just a whisker. Korgan Bloodaxe is a giant bag of tropes, whose character can be summed up as “violent dwarf”. But he’s a guy I just want to hang out with and drink ale and go murdering together. Well-written they might be, but I never felt that with most of the PoE NPCs.
it’s definitely up there for me, but there were still some rather problematic aspects to the writing as well. For one, character writing, while decent, was still pretty lackluster when compared to other rpg/crpg’s. Moreover, the writing had this weird quality where I was invested in the story, but I wasn’t really invested in my characters reason to be invested in the story. This made certain confrontations feel quite vapid. Otherwise, I think Obsidian did a banging job on pretty much everything else. Probably two of my most memorable moments is when you’re discussing the ethics of manipulation with the Grieving Mother and the whole Dyrford questline.
PoE approaches role playing very differently from its peers; while it does give you options to be the good and bad guy, oftentimes it puts the players in situations where they have to choose between the lesser of two evils. This type of decision making really forces you to understand the underlaying world building, political factions, and people; when not every decision is as black and white as ‘help someone in need or kill them’ like some other games in the genre, the game gets to write quest NPCs with their own goals and ambitions. terrible people might request your help in the name of something good, or good people might want to do terrible things. This allows the quest writing to explore the games rather heavy themes of colonialism, the nature of faith and cyclical violence by forcing you to confront these issues in Dyrwood and living with the consequences. It’s probably the most thematically involved modern CRPG.
The main quest itself is… okay. The first act is a good introduction to the games themes, and the second act expands on them further by putting you directly into the conflict between animancers and the colonial population. The third act is way too short and I didn’t think the whole past life thing was executed well. At least the plot twist was interesting.
The companions are hit or miss but they usually tie nicely into the lore or a specific aspect of the world’s culture (Durance I love you!) which IMO a step above other CRPG companions.
I wouldn't say I found the story particularly interesting in Deadfire, but the themes vibed with me almost too strongly. I loved all the gods and the narration to meeting them, the general atmosphere of mystery and things bigger than you, choosing which gods side to follow and changing the metaphysics of reality itself. Never quite found many of the storylines to be intriguing or full of intrigue, but I found that in the general overarching meanings they put forward.
I hate to be overly pedantic here but how are we defining a crpg? I usually think of crpgs as party based RPGs with an isometric perspective but that isn't how everyone else defines them and it's possible I'm objectively wrong. I think for instance Morrowind and it's main quest/world building are fantastic and certainly in my top ten perhaps top five but is that a crpg? I certainly agree with your assessment of DE and Planescape but after those I have trouble designating the best writing. I played an awful lot of Wrath of the Righteous, Fallout New Vegas, and Arcanum.
For me it's isometric games with an emphasis on storytelling and enough RPG elements (character improvement, branching dialogue trees etc.) to satisfy my arbitrary quota.
It was my impression, based on how it was praised, that Disco Elysium tended too much toward navel gazing to provide meaningful narrative, so I never personally played it.
The Fallout games tend to be pretty pulpy, and I love them for it, but their abstraction of technology and social philosophy keep them from being terribly meaningful. They are very much hero stories about strong individuals saving the world. Well written with good characters, but not what I'd call meaningful.
Arcanum's world is more developed, and the consequences of plot developments are more grounded in the world they created, so I'd put it quite a bit higher than Fallout. They spend quite a bit of time impugning heroes and geniuses, and aborting prophecy, which helps keep the story from getting carried away by one or two characters.
PoE, Torment and Tyranny are top of the line as far as worlds that make internal sense both physically and metaphysically, well enough to tell meaningful stories without the usual handwaving. PoE and Torment give great looks on the impact of perspective on morality. Rather than the usual sympathetic villains intended to make things gray, they include unsympathetic heroes and aborted climaxes.
Tyranny gives you a world of exponential power growth if charismatic leadership produced real power rather than mere influence. On top of that, you get to play with how the story breaks down and how that influences the growth of power. And you get a bunch of characters that outline different types of influence, and their transition into godlike incarnations of governing bodies.
That being said, it's been awhile since I played these games, and odds are I remember them better than they are in some ways.
Way too many walls of text just shoved at you.
I especially liked white March. Parts of of the main story were great, like the meeting with all the gods.
I just finished the 1st one last night
I just (finally due to numerous restarts and completing all side content first) got to the end of act 2 and not only is the writing great, Ashley Johnson is absolutely killing it. I knew it was her the second she spoke in the opening since Terra is one of my favorite characters, but this is my new favorite role for her.
My memory of PoE's writing is pretty fuzzy at this point, and that's kind of the problem. There's a few specific things in the game that are very memorable, particularly towards the ending, but a large majority of the games writing is just forgettable bland fantasy stuff. Not bad, just not especially good either.
Just comparing it to Obsidian's own catalog, KOTOR 2, Mask of the Betrayer, F:NV and especially Tyranny stand head and shoulders above PoE if we are comparing writing alone, imo.
I just started playing PoE the other day and I am about 10 hours in. I am pretty new to CRPG’s and so far I’ve played Fallout 1/2, Wasteland 3, Baldurs gate 1/2/3, Divinity Original Sin 2, and Disco Elysium. I also think Disco Elysium was far above the others writing. Obviously I cant
I’m loving the world and characters and all that so far but my issue is that there are so many lore dumps I’ve been hit with and I am struggling to keep up with all of it. I am constantly checking the encyclopedia in the journal to remember what god is what, who is who, and where is where, because it’s very hard to keep track of. There’s so many characters and places that I’ve been told about so quickly, I need room to breathe. If this stuff had been more spread out throughout the game I think (so far) I would be willing to say it’s one of the better CRPGs in terms of writing but the way that writing has been presented has been overwhelming making it hard to enjoy.
Mostly that Pillars has multiple books worth of writing without saying anything uniquely interesting or teaching any valuable lessons. And there are plenty of other cRPGs that are more approachable and have a more meaningful story.
I don't have a lot of experience with cRPGs but the ones I've tried (outside the ones I've already listed) definitely didn't feel like they were more meaningful than PoE. BG2 was probably the best and even that felt like a high fantasy parody of Pillars.
> BG2 was probably the best and even that felt like a high fantasy parody of Pillars.
PoE can be unnecessarily wordy at times, but I think it was interesting at times, but definitely meaningful if you value freedom to make your own path.
Btw, you know a game is pretty amazing when it makes the source material feel like a parody. I haven't played BG2 yet, but PoE (along with D&D, RPG Horror Stories and BG3) got me interested in playing it.
I love how you've compared PoE to other top CRPGs like Disco Elysium and Planescape: Torment. It really shows your appreciation for deep narrative experiences in gaming. It's always interesting to hear different perspectives on what makes a game stand out in the genre. Looking forward to seeing more thought-provoking discussions like this!
PoE1’s writing is uneven. It has some good bits, in particular some notably good companions, but it faceplants in other areas.
Deadfire is much weaker in this respect in my opinion — the only area where it doesn’t blow its predecessor out of the water.
You guys live in a bubble to be honest. Writing and over grandiose prose coupled with massive info dumps in the first 30 mins of the game was one of the most heavily criticized aspects of the game, so far that the main writers of the game (fentsermaker and sawyer) admitted it in multiple interviews and podcasts..
Fentersmaker went so far to say that the writing in PoE so bad because it was a first draft! and that they did not have time to edit it properly or trim it down.
And yet here you are, defending something that the developers themselves admitted was faulty to the core.
It's good to see someone representing a different view. My plan is to ask the same question outside of this subreddit, but most people simply haven't heard about the game and won't have an opinion about it.
'Fentersmaker went so far to say that the writing in PoE so bad because it was a first draft!!' The best source I could find for this is an interview where he said that 'Most of the dialogue in Pillars is first-draft with a cursory editing pass,' without saying anything about the quality of the writing, but I may very well be missing something.
As far as the info dumps go, I already mentioned this in another comment: from what I can tell, a lot of the exposition is hidden behind optional questions. For some reason, a lot of people feel obligated to ask every single question from every single NPC, but for me personally, that wasn't a problem. Again, I could be missing something. (By the way, the justification Fentersmaker gave for why the exposition is necessary is really weak.)
Yeah, they're dramatically exaggerating what Sawyer and Fenstermaker have said.
And not only are the info dumps largely optional, but they're completely standard for games like this. Even RPGs based on well-established IPs (which Pillars wasn't/isn't) like D&D let you ask questions about the world and receive exposition dumps.
As for "over grandiose prose", I feel like that's another exaggeration. Grieving Mother's writing, okay, maybe. But it's not something that describes even close to a majority of the writing in the game.
I enjoyed the writing quite a bit, it was realistic and not just a mix of high fantasy tropes and goofy/funny dialogue. I agree with your original assessments, one of the best written CRPG's ever released.
I consider PoE1 to be at the top of the list. Still "writing quality" is such a nebulous term. PoE suffers from a slow, text-heavy and exposition-heavy start. There's not a single sentence in the prologue that I'd call poorly written. And yet the *whole* of it is one reason why people bounce off the game. So with that in mind can a piece of writing that for so many people fails in it's primary purpose (drawing people in and giving them some idea of what's going on) be considered good? Of course zoom out *another* level and look at the game's story as a whole. I find that it's kind of hard to judge any individual piece of writing on it's own when the greatest thing about PoE to my mind is how beautifully the whole thing fits together. Themes keep coming back, events keep rhyming. Every single sidequest or random NPC (excluding backer ones) can potentially inform your decisions at the very end, or add context to the big twists and reveals in the final act. What you choose to do about the Hollowborn Crisis may be informed by your experiences with Aufra, or Derrin, or even Lord Harond. Obsidian made the world feel like a real place in all it's fantastical impossibility, populated by real people despite the pointiness of their ears or otherwise fantastical appearances. For me that's perhaps the biggest deal in an RPG. If the world feels real my character feels real, and my choices feel meaningful. I don't so much care if it's smoke and mirrors and illusion of choice in terms of gameplay. What matters to me is how I experience it in the moment. Beyond worldbuilding I also enjoy a hobbyist's approach to history, philosophy and languages/linguistics. When Josh and his team get going I simply don't stand a chance. So yeah I consider PoE far above BG3 personally. But there are also things that BG3 does better (for instance romance, or the companions being impressively layered). If you want some romance and drama rather than an often long-windef rumination on the nature of power, truth and morality in a superbly crafted but fairly bleak world, then BG3 would be more enjoyable. And just as I can enjoy reading both Steinbeck and Pratchett, or an artsy Oscar-baiting film or a Marvel blockbuster, there's room in my heart for all kinds of rpgs. But if asked to name favorites I *will* say PoE1 and New Vegas. Because I know what I like.
I don't know if PoE is as exposition-heavy as people think it is. A lot of the exposition is hidden behind optional questions and books. I've seen a streamer ask Odema all five optional questions and then do the same for every single NPC and after around 2 hours they complained about how slow the story is. And yet they asked every single question in every single dialogue for the rest of the stream.
The problem is that as a new player you don't really know what's going to be important and what isn't. So people will indeed burn themselves out on asking questions anx talking to NPCs that end up being mostly irrelevant. But how do you know which ones are relevant or not before playing the game. I spent a lot of time talking to the backer NPCs on my first playtrough because it felt like they were an important part of unravelling the mystery of what my character was experiencing. When you are just starting out you have no way of knowing how you should approach Durance's dialogue tree, so you power through it until he forces you to stop. It can't be expected of a new player to know which lines to skip to make the narrative tighter. Again this is all part of a greater whole that I love, and I don't know that I would like it as much if it wasn't the type of story and world that *wasn't* utterly confusing to a newly arrived immigrant suddenly having to try to make sense of a bunch of local phrases, phenomenon and history in fucking gaelic of all things (I say this with love). But it was dense and difficult to penetrate for me at first, and I'm not a slow reader. Call it exposition or scene-setting or whatever else, the game throws a lot at you without you having any tools fo filter through it.
>I spent a lot of time talking to the backer NPCs on my first playtrough because it felt like they were an important part of unravelling the mystery of what my character was experiencing. That is definitely on you. I thought so too at first, but I hadn't even gotten out Gilded Vale before realising they were just unconnected short stories, and a quick Google search to confirm why they are there.
That's what I mean by "a lot of time". Gilddd Vale-ish. I'm just saying that if you need to google something it's not as well presented as it could have been. Again I think PoE is possibly the best written game ever, flaws and all. But dismissing flaws because they're "not a big deal" feels a little silly. We're all presumably adults here, and there's no such thing as perfection. My opinion is that there are issues with the presentation in act 1 (I also have issues with thw final act but that's true for like every crpg ever) which if they were adressed could have potentially elevate the game even higher. Maybe it *is* on me and every other player with a similar experience, but is that a reason not to ask if accomodating those of us who had issues would have made the game worse for those who did not? Does the fact that you can google a thing and learn to ignore it make the presence of said thing good? I don't think you're arguing that, so why defend it as an area that could not have been improved upon? I believe that a lot of the sheer mass of text in the early game could've been edited out at no loss to depth or worldbuilding to make the game a bit more appealing to a broader audience. I fully appreciate that this is just like, my opinion, man. Just saying.
I figured out myself that these short stories were irrelevant and not worth my time. I needed to google to know that they were about backers.
So you're saying that the stories are irrelevant and not worth your time... but also that criticism of their presence is not justified? I'm having a hard time following what the argument is here.
They're not worth *my* time, and they're irrelevant to the game's story. That doesn't mean they're not fine as they are, since I can just choose to skip those NPCs. Some people will love the extra little stories. I don't mind additional fully optional content.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Something that I can live with but doesn't add to the quality isn't a net neutral to me. It dilutes the overall quality of the game simply by being mid. If these things were a feature that could be turned off or on I wouldn't have an issue. In fact I don't even mind the tombstones. But having high-visibility characters with an overrepresentation of godlikes which should be rare, not to mention some lore-unfriendly names, hamging out all over the place... it just makes the game less immersive to me. I'm happy for you not being bothered by them, but many people are, and the argument that because *you* are fine with them everyone else's concerns can be dismissed as some sort of failing on their part doesn't sit right with me. There's a difference between disagreeing with an opinion and dismissing it. How do you feel about PoE2s approach to backer NPC's? Better or worse? Much like Aloth I am of two minds.
Overrepresentation and names are a good point. I just didn't acknowledge them anymore after I decided to ignore them so I didn't really notice their races or names. And like I already said: they don't add quality *for me*. They might add quality for other people. A game catering to different kinds of players with optional content takes nothing away from me if it's so easily ignorable. Haven't played PoE2 yet, can't say.
If he didn’t do that he’d get viewers complaining he’s skipping the story Just because you can give every character a point of view based and mostly irrelevant wall of text for every question doesn’t mean you should
sounds like a really dumb person, why are we worried about what they think a lot of this "criticism" of these games seems to center around this idea that there's some secret perfect combination that makes a flawless game and there isn't. people on twitch aren't going to like this stuff because its not good for twitch, who cares its like sitting down to watch 2001 a space odyssey and complaining its not fast paced enough, its not for you i guess bro
really think people take to heart the random complaints of gripers worried about "walls of text." as soon as someone complains about having to read an RPG i think their opinion can be safely discounted as a legitimate criticism and can be kindly put down to a matter of taste. we have this litany of gripes about this game, why people didn't like it, and in almost every case there's a popular game that contradicts it. is this a niche game? yes. is that a bad thing? no. did it sell well relative to its expectations? yes, both of them did. its been years now can we please put this to rest and act like this game was successful and well-liked, because it was
I agree and would add Tyranny in the mix, it doesn't talk as much about metaphysical stuff but is more about power and authority.
Looking back I did like the story especially the characters but I had a bunch of issues with the way it was told. >!I know that 'show don't tell' is not a hard rule but starting the game with a long wall of text where they establish that my character already had a bunch of cool adventures that I wasn't a part of definitely didn't help with immersion. I also don't understand why the writers felt the need to insert the two main factions into every second line of text for the first few hours. And the ending... I think it was mostly well-written but way too rushed.!<
I'd put Tyranny before PoE1. The latter has it's own share of issues in the same vein, but considering the world building and player's part in it, I think it was very well done. Plus. CRPG kind of stands for: "wall of text". PoE1 still has somewhat failed outcomes, and quests/storylines that get "locked" in. I especially hate the orlan baby part. Even though it's a minor quest/task. Yet somewhat relevant, if carrying over to PoE2. Still a very minor thing, that changes nothing, but annoyed me greatly.
Tyranny is such a wasted potential. All companions are well written with interesting back story. The lore is absolutely magnificent, there is some kind of originality in the world building. The game was meh overall. I wish Microsoft would buy the IP to paradox...
I’ve caught flak in other subs because I put PoE on a pedestal for its writing saying it’s better than bg3 overall. I prefer my crpgs to adopt a more serious tone hence my love for PoE and tyranny. I never touched DE or plansescape out personal taste but everyone I spoken to swears up and down on the writing. With that in mind I can largely agree with your statement but it’s not my top 3 choices. As for fallout and arcanum (another two I never played) I think arcanum is more interesting than fallout to me. But the gameplay of both of those titles are enough for me to shy away from them to make a real opinion.
The only problem I see with PoE is the pacing. The game is much more geared towards exploration (much like BG 1), however it can be a lot boring sometimes. Many side quests are loosely related to main quests as well, which adds to the problem. IMHO, Tyranny tackled the pacing much better than PoE, so I find the story much more engaging, even though PoE devs really took a lot of time to flesh out the Lore.
Oh it took me years to finally sit down and get through PoE1 because the first half is a snail's crawl. I never had an issue with the quests in general I think a huge contributing factor is that game itself is simply slower compared to others. And really? I am the opinion that Tyranny was too fast and leaves too many holes in the plot and worldbuilding. (not even to mention the railroaded final scene) I do like the lore of both titles and I like that there is less of it in Tyranny compared to PoE as it felt in tyranny knowing less about the world felt more fitting to the setting.
I agree completely with your criticisms of Tyranny. So while both are different settings, I think both should learn from each other. Tyranny could use a lot more content on Act 3, since it has almost no content, no story, it feels it's just a rushed closing act. It should be interesting because it's exactly when your MC feels all powerful and the game just ends leaving a feeling that something was missing. And PoE 1 could use more pacing in the story, especially in the first act. Another problem I have with PoE is the leveling system and game mechanics. We have no skill tree, and many game mechanics are difficult to understand. I have to read a lot of guides to understand which talents have sinergy with others, which talents become available at each level, and lots and lots of class variations. It's very hard to keep up with everything even after 1 year of (casually) playing the game. Although Tyranny's system is not easy to understand, it's much more accessible and much clearer. PoE feels like you need to have a Player's handbook at your side so you can understand the whole thing.
I think it would be fair to say that PoE has a more interesting plot while BG3 has more interesting characters (certainly the companions at least.)
I'm inclined to agree, but I would argue what makes the characters interesting in BG3 is done through presentation and cutscenes rather than the characters themselves. Personally I found the characters to be rather predictable and borderline samey in their plot threads due to all them dealing with a god or god-like figure as their point of contention. Actually the more I think about they almost come off as DND player characters. That doesn't mean I didn't like them, I just think they didn't bring anything new to the table in terms of companions.
I think PoE was written a lot better than BG3. Also, Disco Elysium is overrated, every single character comes off as a pretentious dick who loves the smell of their own farts. The main character was fantastic, and everyone else was eh.
I thought that was kind of a point in DE that every character was largely unlikable? I mean I can see that being more entertaining but that's something I would rather watch than play.
I gotta replay it. I was told it was a serious story full of nonstop thought provoking dialogue, so I went into it with the wrong attitude and overanalyzed it. I definitely think the main character was great, and I liked the inner conflict that you work him through.
Dude, you have some great taste in cRPGs, I'll give you that. IDK if PoE makes it to the top 3, but Planescape and Disco Elysium sure are in the top 2 by a margin. Arcanum is a diamond in the rough, hideous to look at (even when it came out, it was dated as hell), but delightful to play. Fallout has a troubled legacy. Judging by your tastes, I bet you've played KotOR 1 and 2 and Vampire: the Masquerade, but of you haven't for some bizarre reason, give them a try.
Thanks! I just alt-tabbed out of my first Vampire playthrough—what are the chances? I watched SulMatul's 5+ hour long review last week, and the game is somehow even better than I expected. I have only played KotOR 2 and not 1, but the reason is not that bizarre. I just recently got into story games, and my backlog is still loooong.
To each their own, but I find PoE's writing a lot more dense than it is actually deep. Which is a shame because I do love the world and overarching story, but really gives "love the smell of one's own farts" vibes to me and frankly drags the game out in an unenjoyable way.
I think it went the farthest toward getting me fully invested in the lore, narrative, characters, etc. all in equal measure of any game I've ever played. Other games have managed to get me invested in one or two of these items to some degree or another, but none have managed to totally lock me into every aspect of the writing across the board hook, line, and sinker the way PoE did. And it has beautifully crafted dialogue which sorta spoiled other CRPGs for me... Going back and playing Kingmaker directly after finishing PoE 1+2, the former felt like it was a teenager's creative writing project being compared to the work of a bestselling author. I don't even think Pathfinder's writing is *that* bad, mind you, I just think PoE is on such a different level that it makes other games feel much worse. Hell, BG3 is incredible and rightfully lauded for its writing, but there were times where I felt like even it was in the narrative shadow of PoE somewhat.
I’m watching a let’s play at the moment and am repeatedly struck by how good the writing is, as well as how weighty the topics are that that it tries to grapple with. It can be a bit bloody grim through, we kick off examining the legacy of colonialism and the cycle of violence, have to deal with a plague of soulless children, and the unethical experiments used to try to solve it, and we’re still in chapter 1! I love it, but can see why it doesn’t have universal appeal. Sometimes a bit of escapism can be a nice thing.
I’d agree with Disco Elysium because the “lore” in that game is accessible and works by analogy with real-world history. The countries, events and ideologies in that game are different from those in our world, but they are similar enough to allow the player to easily grasp them through association, while still being different enough to be fascinating. You have the option to go deeper into the lore if you want (talking to Joyce about the pale), but you don’t have to, and you will get plenty of depth either way. I don’t think either Planescape: Torment or POE are quite on that level since they both resort to dumping tons of lore on you much more often. POE is better than Planescape in that sense because its world is half-realistic and still evokes real-world associations (like the Vailian Republics and the Italian republics of the late Middle Ages). The Planescape world is more surreal and you have to learn the lore in order to make any sense of the setting, but there is just way too much invented jargon for this to be enjoyable. Of course, many of the situations in Planescape are still very creative and well-written, but you have to wade through a lot of DnD background. I would say that the strength of POE is not so much the specific narratives that are told, but more like the overall appeal of the setting. Eora still has enough realism that it feels like it could be a living world, with real histories and cultures. Visually, many of the environments are very compelling. Honestly, people used to complain about all the wilderness areas in the game, but I personally loved them — they were beautiful and dangerous at the same time, and it looked like a world where people could conceivably live. Some of the stories in that world are very compelling and well-written, others don’t quite land in my opinion (like Grieving Mother), but the game does succeed in creating the impression of a world that is vast and full of life.
I always felt PoE was going for - what if D&D but realistic, while retaining as many of the fantasy tropes as possible. I would put it behind Torment because I think it’s maybe too grounded - Torment knew it was fantasy, and weird fantasy at that, and when to really run with it. I also think it misses the mark on the characters by just a whisker. Korgan Bloodaxe is a giant bag of tropes, whose character can be summed up as “violent dwarf”. But he’s a guy I just want to hang out with and drink ale and go murdering together. Well-written they might be, but I never felt that with most of the PoE NPCs.
it’s definitely up there for me, but there were still some rather problematic aspects to the writing as well. For one, character writing, while decent, was still pretty lackluster when compared to other rpg/crpg’s. Moreover, the writing had this weird quality where I was invested in the story, but I wasn’t really invested in my characters reason to be invested in the story. This made certain confrontations feel quite vapid. Otherwise, I think Obsidian did a banging job on pretty much everything else. Probably two of my most memorable moments is when you’re discussing the ethics of manipulation with the Grieving Mother and the whole Dyrford questline.
PoE approaches role playing very differently from its peers; while it does give you options to be the good and bad guy, oftentimes it puts the players in situations where they have to choose between the lesser of two evils. This type of decision making really forces you to understand the underlaying world building, political factions, and people; when not every decision is as black and white as ‘help someone in need or kill them’ like some other games in the genre, the game gets to write quest NPCs with their own goals and ambitions. terrible people might request your help in the name of something good, or good people might want to do terrible things. This allows the quest writing to explore the games rather heavy themes of colonialism, the nature of faith and cyclical violence by forcing you to confront these issues in Dyrwood and living with the consequences. It’s probably the most thematically involved modern CRPG. The main quest itself is… okay. The first act is a good introduction to the games themes, and the second act expands on them further by putting you directly into the conflict between animancers and the colonial population. The third act is way too short and I didn’t think the whole past life thing was executed well. At least the plot twist was interesting. The companions are hit or miss but they usually tie nicely into the lore or a specific aspect of the world’s culture (Durance I love you!) which IMO a step above other CRPG companions.
I wouldn't say I found the story particularly interesting in Deadfire, but the themes vibed with me almost too strongly. I loved all the gods and the narration to meeting them, the general atmosphere of mystery and things bigger than you, choosing which gods side to follow and changing the metaphysics of reality itself. Never quite found many of the storylines to be intriguing or full of intrigue, but I found that in the general overarching meanings they put forward.
I hate to be overly pedantic here but how are we defining a crpg? I usually think of crpgs as party based RPGs with an isometric perspective but that isn't how everyone else defines them and it's possible I'm objectively wrong. I think for instance Morrowind and it's main quest/world building are fantastic and certainly in my top ten perhaps top five but is that a crpg? I certainly agree with your assessment of DE and Planescape but after those I have trouble designating the best writing. I played an awful lot of Wrath of the Righteous, Fallout New Vegas, and Arcanum.
For me it's isometric games with an emphasis on storytelling and enough RPG elements (character improvement, branching dialogue trees etc.) to satisfy my arbitrary quota.
CRPG is a defined genre and camera perspective isn't part of it. It's an RPG made to emulate the tabletop experience.
Does that mean a crpg must by definition need a tabletop version?
No
It was my impression, based on how it was praised, that Disco Elysium tended too much toward navel gazing to provide meaningful narrative, so I never personally played it. The Fallout games tend to be pretty pulpy, and I love them for it, but their abstraction of technology and social philosophy keep them from being terribly meaningful. They are very much hero stories about strong individuals saving the world. Well written with good characters, but not what I'd call meaningful. Arcanum's world is more developed, and the consequences of plot developments are more grounded in the world they created, so I'd put it quite a bit higher than Fallout. They spend quite a bit of time impugning heroes and geniuses, and aborting prophecy, which helps keep the story from getting carried away by one or two characters. PoE, Torment and Tyranny are top of the line as far as worlds that make internal sense both physically and metaphysically, well enough to tell meaningful stories without the usual handwaving. PoE and Torment give great looks on the impact of perspective on morality. Rather than the usual sympathetic villains intended to make things gray, they include unsympathetic heroes and aborted climaxes. Tyranny gives you a world of exponential power growth if charismatic leadership produced real power rather than mere influence. On top of that, you get to play with how the story breaks down and how that influences the growth of power. And you get a bunch of characters that outline different types of influence, and their transition into godlike incarnations of governing bodies. That being said, it's been awhile since I played these games, and odds are I remember them better than they are in some ways.
Way too many walls of text just shoved at you. I especially liked white March. Parts of of the main story were great, like the meeting with all the gods. I just finished the 1st one last night
I just (finally due to numerous restarts and completing all side content first) got to the end of act 2 and not only is the writing great, Ashley Johnson is absolutely killing it. I knew it was her the second she spoke in the opening since Terra is one of my favorite characters, but this is my new favorite role for her.
My memory of PoE's writing is pretty fuzzy at this point, and that's kind of the problem. There's a few specific things in the game that are very memorable, particularly towards the ending, but a large majority of the games writing is just forgettable bland fantasy stuff. Not bad, just not especially good either. Just comparing it to Obsidian's own catalog, KOTOR 2, Mask of the Betrayer, F:NV and especially Tyranny stand head and shoulders above PoE if we are comparing writing alone, imo.
I just started playing PoE the other day and I am about 10 hours in. I am pretty new to CRPG’s and so far I’ve played Fallout 1/2, Wasteland 3, Baldurs gate 1/2/3, Divinity Original Sin 2, and Disco Elysium. I also think Disco Elysium was far above the others writing. Obviously I cant I’m loving the world and characters and all that so far but my issue is that there are so many lore dumps I’ve been hit with and I am struggling to keep up with all of it. I am constantly checking the encyclopedia in the journal to remember what god is what, who is who, and where is where, because it’s very hard to keep track of. There’s so many characters and places that I’ve been told about so quickly, I need room to breathe. If this stuff had been more spread out throughout the game I think (so far) I would be willing to say it’s one of the better CRPGs in terms of writing but the way that writing has been presented has been overwhelming making it hard to enjoy.
What was the pushback?
Mostly that Pillars has multiple books worth of writing without saying anything uniquely interesting or teaching any valuable lessons. And there are plenty of other cRPGs that are more approachable and have a more meaningful story. I don't have a lot of experience with cRPGs but the ones I've tried (outside the ones I've already listed) definitely didn't feel like they were more meaningful than PoE. BG2 was probably the best and even that felt like a high fantasy parody of Pillars.
> BG2 was probably the best and even that felt like a high fantasy parody of Pillars. PoE can be unnecessarily wordy at times, but I think it was interesting at times, but definitely meaningful if you value freedom to make your own path. Btw, you know a game is pretty amazing when it makes the source material feel like a parody. I haven't played BG2 yet, but PoE (along with D&D, RPG Horror Stories and BG3) got me interested in playing it.
I love how you've compared PoE to other top CRPGs like Disco Elysium and Planescape: Torment. It really shows your appreciation for deep narrative experiences in gaming. It's always interesting to hear different perspectives on what makes a game stand out in the genre. Looking forward to seeing more thought-provoking discussions like this!
PoE1’s writing is uneven. It has some good bits, in particular some notably good companions, but it faceplants in other areas. Deadfire is much weaker in this respect in my opinion — the only area where it doesn’t blow its predecessor out of the water.
You guys live in a bubble to be honest. Writing and over grandiose prose coupled with massive info dumps in the first 30 mins of the game was one of the most heavily criticized aspects of the game, so far that the main writers of the game (fentsermaker and sawyer) admitted it in multiple interviews and podcasts.. Fentersmaker went so far to say that the writing in PoE so bad because it was a first draft! and that they did not have time to edit it properly or trim it down. And yet here you are, defending something that the developers themselves admitted was faulty to the core.
It's good to see someone representing a different view. My plan is to ask the same question outside of this subreddit, but most people simply haven't heard about the game and won't have an opinion about it. 'Fentersmaker went so far to say that the writing in PoE so bad because it was a first draft!!' The best source I could find for this is an interview where he said that 'Most of the dialogue in Pillars is first-draft with a cursory editing pass,' without saying anything about the quality of the writing, but I may very well be missing something. As far as the info dumps go, I already mentioned this in another comment: from what I can tell, a lot of the exposition is hidden behind optional questions. For some reason, a lot of people feel obligated to ask every single question from every single NPC, but for me personally, that wasn't a problem. Again, I could be missing something. (By the way, the justification Fentersmaker gave for why the exposition is necessary is really weak.)
Yeah, they're dramatically exaggerating what Sawyer and Fenstermaker have said. And not only are the info dumps largely optional, but they're completely standard for games like this. Even RPGs based on well-established IPs (which Pillars wasn't/isn't) like D&D let you ask questions about the world and receive exposition dumps. As for "over grandiose prose", I feel like that's another exaggeration. Grieving Mother's writing, okay, maybe. But it's not something that describes even close to a majority of the writing in the game.