What is so great about Pillars of Eternity that people keep praising it for?

[Dexter]

Before You hang me, listen, this is not a toxic post: "hurr hurr game bad, lol". This is geniune question.

And please no spoilers!

So far I am at Defiance Bay and I do quests here before I visit the place main quest tells me to. I got the very shiny big stone and visited House Doemenel, as the other House gave me reward I did not like. I agreed to work for them and so far dialogue and story is, poor.
I killed the robbers, got the note, got the big shiny stone and gave it to the "main guy" of the House Doemenel. I agreed to work for them and he wanted to plant note that will start war between other factions, ok, seems interesting, when I took my leave the "main guy" son talked to me: "listen, father gave you this task, this is RPG, there is second ending to the quets". Ok... what the hell... with no explanation, no dialogue, no talking, no background.

Simple, don't do it, people need to fear us from respect or whatever. What?! Give me more reason to NOT do it. Give me money. Give me more dialogue. Give me story. Something!

So far, game is nice, sure. I love cRPGs(played Icewind Dale to death and loved every second of it, same for Dragon's Age Origins) but Pillars don't bring anything good for me. It does not click.

I mainly play it because I don't have anything else to play and the story is mediocre, dialogue is wierd at times, the stats(why Might increases spell damage?) and the mechanics are ok but where is that, something. That thing people love it so much?

I had similar issue with Divinity 2 Original Sin. The balancing in the game is... questionable, either die in one turn to optional boss or exploit the teleport to kill it in one turn. Story is good and characters are great but I rarely see people mention how broken the combat is in Divinity 2, yet they are willing to praise it and share the praise to others.

So. I ask You. What do You find amazing in Pillars of Eternity?

[Du-Vu]

I thought the early game was decent but the midgame was kind of a slog.

Story- and companion-wise the main thing it does well is paying off different choices well, but that's only something you only really notice if you play it multiple times, which you may or may not want to depending on how you feel about the ending. I like it for how it feels like a followup to Mask of the Betrayer, but it's a bit of a love/hate thing going by the initial sales on Deadfire.

A lot of people who like the first game a lot are big on its old-school mechanics, so that might be some of the hype that's not happening for you.

[Dexter]

Originally posted by Du-Vu:

I thought the early game was decent but the midgame was kind of a slog.

Story- and companion-wise the main thing it does well is paying off different choices well, but that's only something you only really notice if you play it multiple times, which you may or may not want to depending on how you feel about the ending. I like it for how it feels like a followup to Mask of the Betrayer, but it's a bit of a love/hate thing going by the initial sales on Deadfire.

A lot of people who like the first game a lot are big on its old-school mechanics, so that might be some of the hype that's not happening for you.

Well, okey but example I putted and that triggered me so much to write this post is... well, poor.

I found myself to skip dialogue whenever they talk about the world(the Cleric companion) as it is yet another, mediocre fantasy world.

Maybe I expected too much

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

Simple, don't do it, people need to fear us from respect or whatever. What?! Give me more reason to NOT do it. Give me money. Give me more dialogue. Give me story. Something!

Reputation with factions and within Defiance Bay is secondary content. Role-players want choices, regardless of whether they lead to rewards.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

the stats(why Might increases spell damage?)

The term is "attribute overloading". Might governs physical strength as well as spiritual strength. If your spell caster has high MIG, you are free to play a caster with muscles, but you can also play a caster that achieves physical strength via spiritual strength.
--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV2zSjWivQ8
And, of course, you can use high MIG for intimidation, threatening during conversation.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

So. I ask You. What do You find amazing in Pillars of Eternity?

The developers have put a lot more love on developing The White March. Better story, better setting, higher motivation to be the party of adventurers that make a difference.

Overall, the multitude of character/party building options make PoE a highly (re)playable game.

[whit]

Nothing really, like most games. People praise them but then don't really play them. Only 26.5% of steam users have made it past Act II in this. It's similar with games like DOS1&2.

Hell even all the way back to games like Alien Isolation, totted for it's amazing AI...only 27% of players have completed level 6 (out of 18). The AI isn't even really off the rails until then (mid 5 or 6).

So basically, people praise a game for the first 4-8 hours and never pick them up again.

[Хэмэли]

Ты прав, но это реально крутая игра, которая продолжает историю легендарной 1ой части фильма (Чужой 1979), только истинные ценители этой вселенной будут проходить её снова и снова и получать редкие достижения!;)

[Myll]

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

Before You hang me, listen, this is not a toxic post: "hurr hurr game bad, lol". This is geniune question.

And please no spoilers!

So far I am at Defiance Bay and I do quests here before I visit the place main quest tells me to. I got the very shiny big stone and visited House Doemenel, as the other House gave me reward I did not like. I agreed to work for them and so far dialogue and story is, poor.
I killed the robbers, got the note, got the big shiny stone and gave it to the "main guy" of the House Doemenel. I agreed to work for them and he wanted to plant note that will start war between other factions, ok, seems interesting, when I took my leave the "main guy" son talked to me: "listen, father gave you this task, this is RPG, there is second ending to the quets". Ok... what the hell... with no explanation, no dialogue, no talking, no background.

Simple, don't do it, people need to fear us from respect or whatever. What?! Give me more reason to NOT do it. Give me money. Give me more dialogue. Give me story. Something!

So far, game is nice, sure. I love cRPGs(played Icewind Dale to death and loved every second of it, same for Dragon's Age Origins) but Pillars don't bring anything good for me. It does not click.

I mainly play it because I don't have anything else to play and the story is mediocre, dialogue is wierd at times, the stats(why Might increases spell damage?) and the mechanics are ok but where is that, something. That thing people love it so much?

I had similar issue with Divinity 2 Original Sin. The balancing in the game is... questionable, either die in one turn to optional boss or exploit the teleport to kill it in one turn. Story is good and characters are great but I rarely see people mention how broken the combat is in Divinity 2, yet they are willing to praise it and share the praise to others.

So. I ask You. What do You find amazing in Pillars of Eternity?

A strong player community was built even before code laid down as 77,000 donors gave money at Kickstarter. That tends to create community hype, as at that time, I think Obsidian received the most money - to that point - in Kickstarter history to fund development of a video game. So, hype was "baked in" from the beginning. That's a neutral comment in terms of game play. I can sense similarities to Baldur's Gate series as I play it, and I think some former Baldur's Gate players were hungry for that same sense as well. What I didn't necessarily care for were the walls-of-text for reading souls and all sorts of things - when it just didn't matter to me. One of the "arts" in game development is to draw a player in with a storyline that builds up - regardless of pace, but it has an ever greater draw to the player to "want more" information. However, sometimes in PoE it can feel like the Dev's are just data-dumping walls of text on you, that really don't hold much critical information to assist moving forward in the game, and they didn't excite me to "read and absorb" the written material. Having said that, if one does want to dive into walls of text, for the escapist experience of just reading random things, I guess that excites some players who do favor the game.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by whit:

Nothing really, like most games. People praise them but then don't really play them. Only 26.5% of steam users have made it past Act II in this. It's similar with games like DOS1&2.

Even The Witcher 2 (only 31% made it past chapter 1) and The Witcher 3 (only about 25% finished the game on any difficulty).

PoE very likely takes too long to complete it. Act 2 in PoE likely is massive with Defiance Bay being large enough with its multiple districts to get lost in. Dyrford village and surrounding areas on top of that. The White March unlocks in Act 2, too.

So, only role-players with strong interest in this genre endure it. Casual players and all others, who only dabble in most of the games they buy, would move on in Act 3 at last - or likely not even finish Act 1.

There's also the factor of game collectors, who only get a PoE key through bundles or who pick up the game at a large discount without any intent to play such an isometric classic CRPG for many hours. And doing that on story mode is underwhelming.

Originally posted by Myll:

A strong player community was built even before code laid down as 77,000 donors gave money at Kickstarter. That tends to create community hype, as at that time, I think Obsidian received the most money - to that point - in Kickstarter history to fund development of a video game. So, hype was "baked in" from the beginning.

The kickstarter backers also requested features and stretch goals. Ultimately, the process was repeated with PoE 2 and the Fig based crowdfunding campaign that collected even more cash. The hardcore fans that were in touch with the developers all the time created the hype again as well as take influence on the game's features - a pirates setting with isles, ships, cannons, naval warfare, a ship as a stronghold, cooldowns, multi-classing, romances, queer characters. I strongly doubt that all of them, who were fond of pirates so much, actually played the game to the end.

[Hanzy the Heretic]

I love it.
See, I did the quest you did totally different. I stumbled upon the robbers. I read that note. Through talking to various NPCs I figured the AD that signed the note was house Dom.
So I go to the other merchant house, sneak in up top, rob them blind, sneak back out.
Immediately go downstairs and talk to the head of the merchant house. To me that was funny. I just robbed them and now I am downstairs with the gem an nobody's the wiser.
I decide to go talk to house Dom before giving the gem to one or the other.
I don't like how the young whipper snapper is making demands of me and what not. Massive combat breaks out and I methodically go through the house and kill everyone. I end up keeping the gem.
The whole of defiance bay is a snake pit of warring factions and intrigue. At some point you need to decide which factions to take quests for because eventually you rep will be ruined with the others.
I am not progressing quests with the Dozens or Crucibles until I can afford the unique loot from their merchants. Then I will pick a side.
And the whole quest into Heritage Hill was awesome. I cant wait to find out more about the Leaden Key and their Grandmaster.
I like optimizing my party and finding interesting builds that syngergize with gear.
Then again I am the type who talks to every NPC, reads all the books, reads all the things in the encyclopedia.
I like the world, I like the combat. It reminds me of Baldurs Gate which I played a lot of back in the day.
The Endless Paths are fun little side thing to do.
Same as slowly restoring the keep.
Have not done White March yet going there soon.
I think the story is all all there, sometimes you gotta read between the lines, figure things out. I feel like there is a lot of freedom to decide and complete quests in many different ways.
Its all about exploring, talking, figuring things out.

I also make good use of the Notes section in the Journal to keep track of various things so I don't forget. Like you find a note during an earlier quest and that gives you access to a secret code phrase that gives access to a Merchant that only comes out at night in Ondras Gift.

I have both DOS1 and DOS2 and I also could not get into those games. Even did some DOS2 coop with 2 other friends.
I just dont like the combat in those games.
I like the visuals of PoE better than DOS as well.
Have not tried Larians take on Baldurs Gate yet...

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Hanzy the Heretic:

At some point you need to decide which factions to take quests for because eventually you rep will be ruined with the others.

Not even that, since if you don't gain enough reputation with any of the potential factions, there will be a way out of that situation and that is good stuff, too.

[Myll]

What the Dev's could have done differently in the early game of PoE's design to help bring some form of immersion to the player, is that when the Main Character gains the "Watcher" capability, and then can "Read Souls" and a new player suddenly has these options to peer in at select NPCs' souls and then "Step Back" out after reading their Soul -- Dev's didn't give a player the option to actually chat with that NPC in any form at that point, which just seems out of place. So, you can randomly walk up to NPCs and stare at them for minutes on end while reading their Souls, and they're just going to ignore you while you have a blank stare and drooling in your trance while reading their Soul? Eventually one would probably stick a knife in your gut, in this world. Just seemed odd that in the process of reading Souls, there is no option to carry on a conversation with the NPC at that point, because there's no follow-through for a new-to-game player becoming a Watcher to begin to parse the Watcher capabilities from the here-and-now interaction with said NPC. And that's where the "So What?" then starts to enter the game with walls of text - normally a video game throwing walls of text at you - in good AAA games it has additive value to build up the lore and storyline of the game. In PoE, you're just doing drive-by soul-reading of no importance, and start to wonder why it even matters for that period of time.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Myll:

Dev's didn't give a player the option to actually chat with that NPC in any form at that point, which just seems out of place.

Keep in mind that the infamous "kickstarter backer NPCs" with their slightly golden/yellowish name plates are unrelated to the story as they are only about crowdfunding campaign backer rewards, i.e. short stories contributed by kickstarter backers. One of the loading screens warns about those backer NPCs.

The Watcher's ability to establish contact with souls cannot be used freely, but is offered by the game only in special situations and with important story NPCs - the visions and whispers about Thaos and Iovara are entirely automatic. All the other Watcher abilities/talents are combat abilities. Therefore, the Watcher cannot establish soul contact with arbitrary NPCs - and the irrelevant kickstarter backer NPCs are just a gimmick.

[Myll]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Originally posted by Myll:

Dev's didn't give a player the option to actually chat with that NPC in any form at that point, which just seems out of place.

Keep in mind that the infamous "kickstarter backer NPCs" with their slightly golden/yellowish name plates are unrelated to the story as they are only about crowdfunding campaign backer rewards, i.e. short stories contributed by kickstarter backers. One of the loading screens warns about those backer NPCs.

The Watcher's ability to establish contact with souls cannot be used freely, but is offered by the game only in special situations and with important story NPCs - the visions and whispers about Thaos and Iovara are entirely automatic. All the other Watcher abilities/talents are combat abilities. Therefore, the Watcher cannot establish soul contact with arbitrary NPCs - and the irrelevant kickstarter backer NPCs are just a gimmick.

Yes, but they still could have baked in a conversation, even if a brief 2-3 option line conversation, or even a 1-line "Get lost" response.

[Titan357]

As a backer, when I first played this game I hated it. I hated everything about, and I never gave the game a fair chance, I did see the ending but I never "finished it."
I didn't like the way the attributes worked, and I didn't take time to learn how the skills and abilities worked. I thought the game was trash.

Fast forward to 2021, after being very interested in Pathfinder:Kingmaker and putting in about 70 hours in it I ended up very displeased with the game, (Ill try it again at some point though) and decided to give POE with all DLC another go since I have it and I bought but never really played POE 2 and all DLC.

I just jumped in POE-1 and tried playing again, this time I tried to learn how the game works and took my time reading and playing. This time I knew a lot more.

Don't read the cringe worthy gold backer NPC dialog stuff, its just a waste of time.
With that out of the way, let me try and address your post directly.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

I got the very shiny big stone and visited House Doemenel, as the other House gave me reward I did not like. I agreed to work for them and so far dialogue and story is, poor.

I get the feeling you don't know what it is or why its so sought after, knowing what it is and why they want it is pretty critical to understanding whats going on.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

I agreed to work for them and he wanted to plant note that will start war between other factions, ok, seems interesting, when I took my leave the "main guy" son talked to me: "listen, father gave you this task, this is RPG, there is second ending to the quets". Ok... what the hell... with no explanation, no dialogue, no talking, no background.

Again, I get the feeling you don't understand who the Doemenel's are, or the other factions either.
Honestly you seem wrapped up in a plot you don't understand. House Doemenel are akin to the mafia, the head of the house wants to frame the dozen for the murder of a Knight of the Crucible. Thus pitting them against each other, weakening them both so that they (House Doemenel) can step into the void and take even more power.

House Doemenel sided with the Aedyr empire in the war of defiance and lost a lot of standing and power and have been trying to claw it back for the last 150 years.
House Doemenel is involved with some shady stuff, everyone knows it, no one can prove it sort of deal.

You see, Abrecan Doemenel doesn't understand why his dad is trying to stay so low key, he wants to gain infamy and thinks the best way is for you to comment the murder and let everyone know it was House Doemenel who did it.

The game does't feed you this, you need to talk to more NPC's, ask questions and read what they have to say and be able to understand what you are reading and how everything fits into the puzzle.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

Simple, don't do it, people need to fear us from respect or whatever. What?! Give me more reason to NOT do it. Give me money. Give me more dialogue. Give me story. Something!

Who do you want to gain favor with, the dad or the son? Do you want to cause a fight between the Knights and the Dozens or the Knights and House Doemenel?
Do you think the dad is right and discretion and working from the shadows is better, or do you think the son is right and they should be known and feared?

There are six different ways to end this quest, and each will have an impact on the ending slides.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

So far, game is nice, sure. I love cRPGs(played Icewind Dale to death and loved every second of it, same for Dragon's Age Origins) but Pillars don't bring anything good for me. It does not click.

IWD was combat heavy and story light IIRC. Dragon age was a fair mix of the two, nothing was as complex or involved as POE though.

If you don't understand what is going on, who is who, what things are and why they are sought after I can understand why you don't enjoy this game.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

I mainly play it because I don't have anything else to play

This sounds like the PEBCAK.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

the story is mediocre, dialogue is wierd at times

Opinion, POE has a great story, its a bit darker than normal and dialog heavy, that turns some people off.
The only time I felt dialog was weird is when my character asks a question that they should know the answer too.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

the stats(why Might increases spell damage?)

The system was an attempt to avoid dump stats and have each stat be somewhat useful to each class.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

but where is that, something. That thing people love it so much?

The game has a solid story, many side quests and side places to visit, the DLC has been great so far.
The characters are interesting, the dialog between them is good and often very amusing.
You can bring a full custom party if you wish to do so as well.
Most quests have more than one way to finish them.

Not everyone is telling you the truth, not everyone or everything is what they seem to, or appear to be. Not every quest has a clear good or bad path.

My bleak walker Paladin had a very different path than my Kind wayfarer.

The amount of dialog depending on your attributes, skills, race, background and disposition is huge.

Originally posted by Majiin Vegeta:

So. I ask You. What do You find amazing in Pillars of Eternity?

I love the different classes, I especially love how Paladin works. I really enjoy the dialog and choices given to me as a player on who my character is and how he or she fits into the world.

The game has eleven classes and each class has at least two, if not three (or more) ways to build them and play them.
My bleak walker Paladin plays very different from my Kind wayfarer and both of those play differently from a fighter.

I really enjoy the art style, some of the unique items/weapons/armor look amazing. The flavor text on the items are enjoyable to read. The game has flintlock guns!

[Titan357]

Originally posted by Myll:

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Keep in mind that the infamous "kickstarter backer NPCs" with their slightly golden/yellowish name plates are unrelated to the story as they are only about crowdfunding campaign backer rewards, i.e. short stories contributed by kickstarter backers. One of the loading screens warns about those backer NPCs.

The Watcher's ability to establish contact with souls cannot be used freely, but is offered by the game only in special situations and with important story NPCs - the visions and whispers about Thaos and Iovara are entirely automatic. All the other Watcher abilities/talents are combat abilities. Therefore, the Watcher cannot establish soul contact with arbitrary NPCs - and the irrelevant kickstarter backer NPCs are just a gimmick.

Yes, but they still could have baked in a conversation, even if a brief 2-3 option line conversation, or even a 1-line "Get lost" response.

Backer NPC's ruin the game, either mod them out or ignore them. Your entire problem in that post can be broken down into less than half that space.

Please try to space your posts out a little so its not a giant block of text that is annoying to read.

The entire thing is garbage, most of the dialog is poor, and none of it adds to the game. Almost all of those NPC's look and feel very out of place, I am glad they didn't spend a second more than needed to place them in game and give them what little options they already have.

So many issues could have been avoided if the player could simply toggle them off in the options.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Myll:

Yes, but they still could have baked in a conversation, even if a brief 2-3 option line conversation, or even a 1-line "Get lost" response.

Adding those backer NPCs was a mistake, a bad decision, it doesn't work as they had hoped it would. All these NPCs and their short stories do is they confuse new players, since hardly anyone realizes the irrelevance of those backer NPCs immediately.