PoE: The White March 2 - Review Roundup

[Myrthos]

Here are some reviews for Pillars of Eternity: The White March - Part 2.

PCWorld, 4/5

For those of you who skipped the spoilers: I (with some caveats) like it. The White March has its issues—pacing problems in the first half, an over-reliance on huge groups of enemies in the second, and three companions who aren’t given enough time to breathe before their quests are over—but it’s a solid expansion with some incredible moments sprinkled throughout. I still think it’s a better piece of content if you encounter it organically during your first Pillars of Eternity run, but both halves combined are a pretty good argument for end-gamers to dive back in. For a short while, at least.

PC Invasion, 8/10

The White March does what most expansions should, and works within the existing game parameters to provide refined extensions of what's on offer in the main title. It puts more thought into making each combat encounter more of a tactical challenge, and, in its quest design, exhibits some of the main strengths of Pillars of Eternity in offering different options of approach. Choices made during the opening chapter (and the rest of the game) have a reasonable impact on the climax too. It feels a touch strange to wrap-up the final, substantive part of Pillars of Eternity without it being the game's actual ending, but that's the nature of the mid-game expansion model. Though it won't radically alter anybody's existing opinion on the game, those who voted it as Best PC Exclusive of 2015 in our Reader Awards will be well sated.

Softpedia, 4/5


Invision Community, 8/10

The Escapist, 4/5

Gamewatcher, 9/10

More information.

 

[rjshae]

Well the game remains over-engineered, but I still enjoyed it and I look forward to completing it with all the add-ons.

 

[azarhal]

The Escapism reviewer mention that he has problem finding CC abilities. Orly? Almost all status effects are a form of CC (speed/deflection/accuracy reductions) and all the classes have a few abilities that apply them. Finding Blinding Strike among 4-5 active abilities on a Rogue shouldn't be that hard.

 

[joxer]

Deflection… Accuracy… That isn't considered as cc if I'm understanding what defelection should be. Both are basically improving/reducing dodge chance and that's it.

cc aka crowd control would be slow/speed one's movement, stun, root (you can still hit/fire but can't move), disarm (where you can move but cannot attack or defend), forced behavior (charm one not to attack you, taunt one to attack you and not someone else, fear to make one to start fleeing), silence where a person can use weapons but no skills/spells/abilities, stasis where a person is invulnerable/untargetable but also cannot attack anyone, displacement where you can zone one's position (knock them far away or get them close to you with some teleport spell or something) and you mentioned it - blind. I think I didn't forget anything, but dunno.

 

[Hexprone]

I've been holding off on my second playthrough of Pillars until the full version of the expansion was released, so I guess the hour is now at hand.

Hopefully it'll get me off the shameful MMOG kick I've gotten sucked into in the last few weeks!

What class tho? I'd always planned to use one of the classes there wasn't already an NPC for, but with the expansion there's now an NPC for every class. Hm, what's going to be the class that gives the most different play experience from Cipher?

 

[Cantello]

I already finished PoE and am not planning on re-playing it completely. Are the extensions something for me, i.e. can I go into the additional areas and have fun with a higher-level party?

 

[joxer]

Yea, I wish they made it as separate post end part, then I'd have played PoE on the release day...

 

[Hexprone]

Deflection… Accuracy… That isn't considered as cc if I'm understanding what deflection should be. Both are basically improving/reducing dodge chance and that's it.

Although this is true, defense (including deflection) has a much more predictable effect on damage mitigation in PoE than dodge abilities have in most games. Buffing deflection and debuffing accuracy doesn't just give an additional small % chance to avoid an attack. Rather, it moves the break point between different categories of hit -- a graze (-50% damage), a normal hit, or a crit (+50% damage).

If your deflection is sufficiently higher than an enemy's accuracy, then that enemy will never land a crit on you, and will miss completely more than half the time. So an accuracy debuff has a comparable effect on damage coming in to what crowd control does in other games.

Here's a handy chart what I googled:

 

[azarhal]

Deflection… Accuracy… That isn't considered as cc if I'm understanding what defelection should be. Both are basically improving/reducing dodge chance and that's it.

I'm talking in relation to PoE. Accuracy debuff is similar to blinding the opponent because it reduce their to-hit chance (Blind apply a -25 accuracy debuff for example). Deflection debuff makes stuff easier to interrupt and hits. Interrupts slow down attack rate (a + 0.5 seconds to casting a spell each time you trigger an interrupt can be very useful).

Outside of that it's not like the game is lacking in prone, stuck, stunned, paralyze, charmed, dominate, petrified (you don't want to be hit by that), either.

What class tho? I'd always planned to use one of the classes there wasn't already an NPC for, but with the expansion there's now an NPC for every class. Hm, what's going to be the class that gives the most different play experience from Cipher?

From a story point of view, anything else. You might want a Priest, Paladin or Chanter for more class-specific stuff from what I heard though.

From a gameplay point of view depends how you played it. I think you can ignore all the spellcasters (Druid, Wizard, Priest) though.

I already finished PoE and am not planning on re-playing it completely. Are the extensions something for me, i.e. can I go into the additional areas and have fun with a higher-level party?

Yes, but you will have to go there with a save pre-last dungeon because the content is not post game. They offer a level scaling option for higher level party and have level 14 and 16 optional content too.

 

[Saxon1974]

I would wait for a couple more patched since they added a bunch of stuff.

 

[Sacred_Path]

Although this is true, defense (including deflection) has a much more predictable effect on damage mitigation in PoE than dodge abilities have in most games. Buffing deflection and debuffing accuracy doesn't just give an additional small % chance to avoid an attack. Rather, it moves the break point between different categories of hit -- a graze (-50% damage), a normal hit, or a crit (+50% damage).

If your deflection is sufficiently higher than an enemy's accuracy, then that enemy will never land a crit on you, and will miss completely more than half the time. So an accuracy debuff has a comparable effect on damage coming in to what crowd control does in other games.

Here's a handy chart what I googled:

:lol:

thanks so much. That chart shows neatly how wrong things went with PoE. Do people philosophize about BG2's armor class system nowadays? No, because there's a great game apart from the combat system there, while PoE is a boring combat simulator and an exercise in futility as they made player choice rather meaningless.

 

[azarhal]

thanks so much. That chart shows neatly how wrong things went with PoE. Do people philosophize about BG2's armor class system nowadays? No, because there's a great game apart from the combat system there, while PoE is a boring combat simulator and an exercise in futility as they made player choice rather meaningless.

You can make the same chart for BG2 (or any D&D games). Accuracy = THACO (or To-Hit for 3e+) and Deflection = AC to calculate the % of misses, hits and crits. The only difference with PoE is that the grazes are going to be misses, the numbers will be in d20 instead of d100 and crits will stay at 5% (unless you have a crit range different than 19-20).

I actually did such a chart while comparing PoE to D&D back in beta...

 

[Sacred_Path]

You can make the same chart for BG2 (or any D&D games). Accuracy = THACO (or To-Hit for 3e+) and Deflection = AC to calculate the % of misses, hits and crits. The only difference with PoE is that the grazes are going to be misses, the numbers will be in d20 instead of d100 and crits will stay at 5% (unless you have a crit range different than 19-20).

I actually did such a chart while comparing PoE to D&D back in beta…

My point is that PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT. At least not nowadays. Granted, we don't know yet wether PoE can stand the test of time. But when figuring out intricacies about the game's armor system is about the most interesting thing about a game, I doubt it can generate the same nostalgia as BG2.

 

[azarhal]

My point is that PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT. At least not nowadays. Granted, we don't know yet wether PoE can stand the test of time. But when figuring out intricacies about the game's armor system is about the most interesting thing about a game, I doubt it can generate the same nostalgia as BG2.

Seems like you need to go look at other gaming forums/websites a bit more. Dragon Age Origins wiki has in-deep page explaining all the formulas in the game and it gets brought up all the time when talking about builds. Morrowind and Oblivion does as well. I even remember huge threads about build for NWN. Powergamers only care about game's mechanics and they were always around, PoE is no different about that.

The only thing that changed is that their seems to be a lot more min/maxers/powergamers around these days.

 

[Sacred_Path]

Obsidian set out to make an IE style game, not the next Dragon Age franchise. NWN's great modules notwithstanding, I find these to be hardly the type of games I would like to see PoE associated with.

 

[Pongo]

I don't see any problem here really. As Azarhal says, rpgs often have these kind of background mechanics, you can don't need to understand them backwards to have a good time with the game. But if you want to powergame (not for me....) then the option is there for you.

 

[Drithius]

Although I dislike RTwP, one thing I do like in PoE is the substance behind the mechanics. Since it was brought up, Dragon Age Origins was a good game but the lack of depth when compared to traditional D&D was a definite negative for me.

The problem with PoE is not the complex mechanics, but rather the devs obsessing over them to the exclusion of creative storytelling. I call it the Sawyer Complex.

 

[Sacred_Path]

The problem with PoE is not the complex mechanics, but rather the devs obsessing over them to the exclusion of creative storytelling. I call it the Sawyer Complex.

Yes, that's pretty much what I was getting at.

 

[Pongo]

Yes, that's pretty much what I was getting at.

Ahhh I see... Fair enough!

 

[Korplem]

Do you find the story of PoE to be worse than the story of BG1?