How good is the story?

[Serial Toilet Paperist]

I cant fathom the gameplay of this game. But is it worth doing for the story (on lowest of the low difficulty)?
The best RPG Ive ever played is Dragon Age Origins, which was essentially what a meshup of LoTR and GoT would look in a video game form. Are Pillars of comparable quality?

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Ask two people, get three answers. The game polarizes. Some people outright hate the story, the lore and/or the writing and feel the need to make a big fuss about it. Others find the story and its development during a playthrough refreshing enough.

It's not the cliche hunt for a powerful item lost in the depths of some dungeon. You start as someone inexperienced, who travels with a caravan. Something mysterious happens to you while you observe a priest-like person operating a huge machine, giving you special powers but also threatening your life as you may turn insane eventually. You want to figure out what has happened to you and potentially undo it by tracking down that priest. At the same time you are pulled into a mystery in the region where your caravan has arrived. Due to your special ability, you take opportunities to do investigations yourself and make discoveries that should keep you interested throughout the game.

What you might avoid like the plague is reading the kickstarter backer contributed short stories, which have been integrated into the game in form of NPCs you can interact with. Those NPCs can be recognized via their slightly yellowish/golden name plates. The short stories are unrelated to the game's story and can be immersion breaking even.

[Zealot]

I loved Origins and I'll say I loved this game too.

I felt personally invested in my party members, and my player character. Lots of roleplaying options and the like - and I don't think you'll be disappointed. The writing was good across the board, and while the story didn't blow me away, it wasn't bad by any means. The journey is what really made the difference - how I changed the world, influenced what I wanted, party banter, characters interjecting on conversations, etc. Characters had their own stake in the final outcomes of the game, and they voice their thoughts and concerns accordingly.

Combat was a smidge on the heavy side, with a lot of trash mob fights, but on easy difficulty (I play on Hard because challenge) it should be straight forward and easy to resolve.

[psychotron666]

I'd say the story is far better than dragon age origins, and I liked the story of Dao, while also thinking it was the best of that franchise.

If you don't like the hectic team based real time with pause combat, if you can make it through the first, the second has a turn based mode and you can transfer character over with your choices from this game.

[Serial Toilet Paperist]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

I'd say the story is far better than dragon age origins, and I liked the story of Dao, while also thinking it was the best of that franchise.

If you don't like the hectic team based real time with pause combat, if you can make it through the first, the second has a turn based mode and you can transfer character over with your choices from this game.

Did not know about the turn based option on second one.SInce I'm an XCOM addict... You just convinced me to push through.

[Dzaïr]

It's bad for Obsidian. Good for tetris

[Cheb]

It's fantastic. Already taken over PS:T for me. Really surpasses the old games, in my opinion.

[Dmdtt]

personally i feel WM 1 & 2 are the highlights of the game for me lore/story wise. the base game is still great but it doesnt really hold a candle to the DLC.

if you decide to play the game id say the DLC is a must.

[Hengist]

Is the story good? I'm not convinced. Like a lot of things in PoE it feels like it is a collection of ideas that I can really get behind and enjoy, but not very well executed. Skipping over the introduction which is truly horrible in my opinion, I still have a hard time investing in the story, because it feels to me to lack a real hook.

I can see potential in the ideas, seeing past lives, god killing, magical plagues, but I'm honestly not sure what the story is. Which is a shame, because the game lacks the traditional gear hunt motivation. Instead of going on a quest to get some legendary artifact of impossible power, if you want to improve your gear you're mostly interested in collecting plants and various organs from slain monsters. Yay? Crafting systems are great and all, but I'm honestly disappointed that some of the most powerful things I've found at this point are booze and bar snacks bought for cheap in the local pub.

For me, there's a lack of menace or urgency, and a general lack of connection with anyone in the world. I know I said I'd skip over the introduction, but seriously. Heavy exposition, stupid go fetch it quest, rather long dialog trees and then everybody dies? Even if you managed to develop an emotional connection to any of these characters or events they're all wiped out in a cut scene in which you can do absolutely nothing?

Obviously I missed something, but I don't want to play spoiler more than I have. If anyone would be willing to enlighten me as to the hook I missed, I'd appreciate it.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Hengist:

I can see potential in the ideas, seeing past lives, god killing, magical plagues, but I'm honestly not sure what the story is.

It is summed up easily. Something has happened to you, you've become a Watcher, and this puts your life at risk because you will likely meet the same fate as other watchers before you, such as Maerwald. You want to find the mysterious figure you've observed at Cilant Lis, and while you're at it, you're pulled into the Hollowborn crisis. Not only is the mysterious one involved, with your special abilities you may be the only one to help.

Originally posted by Hengist:

Which is a shame, because the game lacks the traditional gear hunt motivation.

Why would that be? There are dungeons to explore. There are quest rewards including valuable equipment. There are soulbound items, which raise interest in unlocking all their power.

Originally posted by Hengist:

Instead of going on a quest to get some legendary artifact of impossible power, if you want to improve your gear you're mostly interested in collecting plants and various organs from slain monsters. Yay?

That doesn't sound like Pillars of Eternity.

Originally posted by Hengist:

Crafting systems are great and all, but I'm honestly disappointed that some of the most powerful things I've found at this point are booze and bar snacks bought for cheap in the local pub.

Huh? How far into the game are you?

[Hengist]

I am not far into the story. The best weapon I've found is a flail called Gaun's Share, and it seems the only way to increase in power at this point is to enchant it which requires the random plant and animal parts that I mentioned. Perhaps later there will be better gear to be found, but as of yet, I haven't found any other than a barn door masquerading as a shield as a quest reward.

I guess I was confused by the "mysterious figure" cut scene which I interpreted as something that may have happened centuries ago and thus no longer around to be found.

The cheap consumables do seem to be rather more powerful than a lot of the other options. Perhaps it's because I'm still relatively low level, but the roasted chicken dish provide over +20% Endurance (+10 Max Endurance and +2 Constitution for another +10%) for five minutes for 6 copper? None of my gear really competes with that.

Hope things pick up soon.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Hengist:

I am not far into the story. The best weapon I've found is a flail called Gaun's Share,

It's from the Temple of Eothas, so most likely you've not even completed Act 1 yet. The ingame world will open up a lot more in Act 2, giving you access to various traders and better dungeons.

[A]

Dragon age origin's plot and pacing are amazing enough that it's mass effect 3's plot. POE doesn't hold a candle to it not because it's bad but because they missed opportunities here and there. I'm on my first playthrough at the beginning of act III but all this mumbo jumbo of being a watcher and what my abilities can actually do have sometimes made me yawn and feel uninterested. I feel detached to what my character is capable of doing when he tries to reach out to the soul (I can't tell if when I do so is it my past life or is it me reliving someone's life before?), however, I like the setting and the world they have made, not to mention the flavor texts that further add more to the world building (It's in a 16th century setting where magic also exists, pretty neat). Personally, I think the problem here is how they introduce the setting and lore to you.

I think the problem is how they thrust you into the world. Origins, at the start, confines you in a very small nuanced "world" depending on your background. They tell you what you are and what your responsibilities are, Duncan arrives and introduces you to the main plot that binds everything regardless of origin. In POE, they don't give you a general introduction to politics or the world in general. You start the game in a caravan and that's pretty much it, you try to make sense of the world by getting bits and pieces from a few people that would talk to you in the caravan, then the game thrusts you into disaster and you try to to piece it together once more. It took me a while to figure out that Dyrwood wasn't a region or anything, it's a functional kingdom that's very much like Ferelden in regard to similar history. I guess the origin stories help give you compelling motivations that allows you to play along with the plot. The game does come with an enclopedia that lets you fill in the blanks unlike Dragon age where they tend to incorporate it because the scope allows them to.

Without spoiling too much, the game has several instances of court intrigue and such, they may or may not be involved with the main plot but the case is that they don't let you get involved that much that provides real ramifications that could affect the next act. I feel like Act II could be better than what was presented if they let you get involved early on instead of reserving it in the last part to serve as macguffin for transitioning to act III.

For what it's worth, I believe that the game deserves a second playthrough at least. Considering that the first playthrough has you trying to follow and understand both the plot and the lore. On a second playthrough however, you are more or less familiar with familiar with both plot and lore therefore allowing to connect the dots easily.

[*****id]

I found the story often hard to follow because there is a lot of exhibition dump and the writing is swamped with proper names. Consider the following two sentences; Pillars' story is told in the style of the 1st more so than the 2nd:

Ajeera of Glandun was kidnapped during Koriden but found later in Gweth by the royal blades and thus returned to the Rasdaes.

The princess of the riverlands was kidnapped during the new year festival but found later in the capital city by her guards and thus returned to her family.

Many games prevent this kind of mental burdening by often mixing the role and the proper name (emperor Mengsk, princess Zelda) so you have an easier time remembering who is who. Pillars is very dialogue heavy, so it's easy to get lost and often I found myself exhausting the dialogue options just for gameplay reasons, having fallen too far behind in understanding about what my character was actually conversing about. This is compounded by the fact the topics discussed are at times esoteric in nature and the story progress brings in dreams, visions, history and lore in addition to what's currently happening to the protagonists. Oh and doesn't help either that some characters talk like rambling madmen.

The story of Pillars actually has some real merit, but I neeed to look up sources outside of the game during and after playing to fully apprehend and enjoy it.

[Hengist]

Perhaps I'm missing something. When you encounter one of the people that prompts a "cut dialogue" past life flashback or however that Watcher thing is described, can you then engage such person to advance the story?

So far any person that triggers a flashback or whatever that's all they do. You can't talk to them, it just triggers the flashback. Or if there's a way to make something else happen I haven't discovered it.

[mckracken]

story is OK, very cliche (typical ye olde adolescent power fantasy of becoming or killing Gods etc) for the genre tough and straight up makes no sense at all and contradicts itself for the ending...

What is BAD in parts is the writting. Purple and flowery, overdetailed and bloated.