Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's new CRPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate

May actually pick the game up then. I tried playing the first game and dropped it as I couldn't stand the combat. I get some people have nostalgia for it(I loved BG2) but I can't go back to it heh.

Didn't watch the entire video, can we start previous saves, but change it to turn based? May have to go on and finish.

Update on this. Patch 5.0 just released and the turn based option is now out of beta and fully functional in Pillars of Eternity 2. They also updated\changed the boat combat system and added an "ultimate" mode, which is basically max difficulty + every additional difficulty option turned on.

New Features

• Ship Combat UI update - A new UI has been added that pops up when you encounter a ship, allowing for some immediate options. This bestows the ability to interact with ship combat for players that continue to enjoy it, while allowing a way to quickly choose a different options to avoid them such as boarding or parley.
• Turn-based mode leaving Beta - Thank you to our players that have tested turn-based mode! This will now be set to live with the 5.0.0 patch.
• The Book Of Woedica: Unfortunately, The Book of Woedica contains a bug that doesn't allow for Woedica's VO to be heard unless the player opens the book on the World Map due to technical limitations. We apologize for this inconvenience!
  • A Note from Narrative Designer Paul Kirsch:
    • After Deadfire's launch and public reception, leadership and the writing team closely scrutinized some of the narrative issues which could have presented better or required some clarification. We distilled the most prevalent issues down to a couple of core factors: a lack of clarity regarding the metaphysics of Eora, and missing connectivity between Deadfire's "god plot" and "faction plot," for lack of a better term.
    • Shortly before launching The Forgotten Sanctum, those of us still attached to the project had some availability to address these concerns. A handful of developers pooled their efforts to execute on a plan that seeks to address these story problems through modestly-scoped, unobtrusive changes to the core game experience. What follows behind the Spoiler gate is a broad outline of the solutions we pursued. We hope you enjoy them. Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing!
    • Spoiler

      [*] Upon leaving Neketaka for the first time, a mysterious figure will deliver a book to the player.
      [*] The player may open and interact with the book at any time.
      [*] Doing so initiates a conversation with Woedica through our Scripted Interaction interface.
      [*] She and the Watcher can discuss the motives of the gods, the mechanics of reincarnation, and why the Watcher and factions matter on a grander scale than the player might otherwise assume.
      [*] Woedica responds to a number of player choices, world events, and quest states. This means that the book can be consulted a number of times in a given playthrough to unlock new conversation branches.
      [*] Woedica responds to players who empowered her in PoE1 and Steel Garrote / Priest of Woedica players.
      [*] Players who have confided in Woedica will find the god conversation on Ukaizo expanded to include an extra one-on-one with Woedica.
      [*] Eothas' Ukaizo conversation has been expanded to include some faction-related discussion.
      [*] Steel Garrote / Priest of Woedica players have extra dialogue options in Oathbinder's Sanctum.
      [*] The intro / outro of a few original god conversations have been shortened.
• Expanded Eothas Dialogue - The end game with Eothas has had many new voiced lines added to address some pressing questions from the players.
• The Ultimate Challenge - The Ultimate Challenge is now available for those adventurers that dare try to brave it. Those that manage to best the challenge may even find themselves with physical rewards!
  • The Ultimate Challenge requires the following to be enabled/completed:
    • Triple Crown - Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, Path of the Damned
    • Level Scaling (Only scale upwards)
    • Solo
    • All 11 God Challenges - Wael, Woedica, Hylea, Rymrgand, Ondra, Skaen, Abydon, Magran, Berath, Galawain, and Eothas.
    • All DLCs - Beast of Winter/ Seeker, Slayer Survivor/ Forgotten Sanctum.
    • All major enemies and boss battles completed.
  • The Ultimate Challenge requires the following to be disabled:
    • Console Command Cheats
    • Mods
    • Beraths Blessings
• Anarchist Path - Changes have been added to the Anarchist path to allow for more of the game to be experienced before the player can attempt to finish the game.

On sale now (May 16) for $32.99 standard and $44.99 for Obsidian edition with all DLC. Just picked it up since I am out of games.

Planning to switch off between separate RTTB combat save game and a TB combat game save.

Turn based combat feels so...slow? I don't know man it feels like a slog just to get to the first port town. It will make a long game REALLY FUCKING LONG.

Ignoring DOS1/2 since I haven't played those, I'd recommend POE1 then 2. They are both really good, whereas Tides of Numenara is a bit of a mess.
I've tried re-playing some of the older ones in the last few years and it's fairly hard going.

Rajaah said:

Asked a similar question in the Souls thread, and this is probably the best thread for this question. Any suggestions on an order to play these in? I've got a lot of CRPGs on my radar and no idea where to start. I've started with Pillars 1 but I'm curious which ones are easier/better for beginners etc.

New
-Pillars of Eternity 1
-Pillars of Eternity 2
-Divinity: Original Sin
-Divinity: Original Sin 2
-Torment: Tides of Numenera

Old
-Baldur's Gate 1
-Baldur's Gate 2
-Icewind Dale
-Neverwinter Nights
-Fallout
-Fallout 2
-Planescape Torment

I'll take any easiest-to-hardest order, or suggestions on which ones are beginner friendly, etc. Also, if any of these "aren't worth it" and should be dropped from the list, but I highly doubt that. The only one I've played at all is Pillars and it makes total sense to me so I'm inclined to do that one first.

Click to expand...

I don't really know which game I'd recommend based on difficulty, but what I will tell you is that if you play modern Iso-RPGs first, you're going to find it very, very difficult to go back and enjoy absolute classics like BG I/II, Torment, and Fallout I/II. Those games are absolutely amazing, but they don't have many of the features, polish, and visual fidelity of modern RPGs. So, unless you're one of the people (like myself) that just have a massive hardon for these types of games, start with the old games and work forward or you're going to end up feeling disappointed working backwards. If you just 'kinda like' these types of RPGs you should stick to the games released in the last 5-6 years.

Anyway, I'll expand your list some.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister -- Indy project made a on a shoestring budget, quality isn't as good as the others, but still an amazing job. Especially with the budget they had. I think it took me about 40 hours to finish it. This would likely be near the bottom of the play list if you're new to these types of games.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker -- 2nd best game in the entire genre. Easily 150 hours long.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous -- Best game in the genre, another easy 100 hours. Both of the PF games can be very daunting to people without knowledge of the tabletop rules, but there are a massive variety of difficulty settings so you can just enjoy the game without getting buttfucked by its difficulty because you don't understand the game system.

Tyranny -- You get to be the 'bad' guy in this one. Great narrative. 40-50 hours.



The ones below are not fantasy, but still very, very good RPG games of the exact same concept.

Wasteland 2 -- (modern spiritual successor to Fallout I/II) -- Great game, but long. Some people complain too long because there are areas with too little content, but I never felt that way.

Wasteland 3 -- Massive improvement to 2. Well worth playing.

Encased -- It's in my Steam library, but I've yet to play it. It's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi game in the vein of Wasteland. Reviews are very good.

ATOM RPG -- This is also an indie project. It's similar to the Wasteland series, but not a clone. It's a good game, but It's probably the least polished game on the list and would also be near the bottom of the list after you've finished all the others. However, recently an expansion was released that may have elevated its quality, but I can't speak to that.

There are more, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.


You have YEARS worth of GREAT games to play with the ones in your compiled list and the ones I pointed out. I've finished all the games on your list and mine except: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous which I am playing through now, and Encased.

New
-Pillars of Eternity 1 -Pillars of Eternity 2
Great story. Large games, but never completed them fully.

-Divinity: Original Sin -Divinity: Original Sin 2
One of my all time favourite game series. Story isn't as good as PoE 1 and 2, but the combat in DoS 1 and especially DoS 2 is so good. Low brow humor at times, typical for Larian Studios, but fantastic combat. No random encounters. Every encounter is hand crafted and on the tactical difficulty it is tactical. Can make the ground wet, add lightning, fire on it creates steam with lightning, oil + fire, sneaking with barrels placing them next to bosses. So good. Can't mess up in terms of builds since you can respec at will (at least in 2, been a while since I played 1).

-Torment: Tides of Numenera
Could never get into this. Hardly played it.

Old
-Baldur's Gate 1 and -Baldur's Gate 2
If you've never played BG1-2 then they should be a the top for story reasons since BG3 is coming. That said, Sakkath isn't wrong in saying that some of them are hard going depending on what QOL stuff you are used to.

-Icewind Dale
Think you can skip this. It was fine in the day, but similar to BG 1 - 2, but not in the same league in terms of story.

-Neverwinter Nights
Fun back in the day, but this one (for me) really is hard to get into. I did finish this and NN 2, but could never get back into them.

-Fallout and -Fallout 2
Fallout 1 - 2 are probably the easiest. No RPG mechanics really to mess up up. Straight forward leveling systems and gear upgrades is what gets you through. Great games, but again, hard to get into today. (ATOM RPG (called that on steam) is a newer homage to the Fallout games made by an indie studio.)

-Planescape Torment
Fantastic in terms of story, and not really "hard" mechanically. Very story heavy game. Iconic classic that still stands as one of the best story games ever made.

-----
Not sure on "what to play first". I'd personally recommend
- Finish PoE 1 and PoE 2 since you're already playing and like them.
- Play DOS. First one can be skipped (while still fun). DoS 2 is superior in every way. Combat mechanics in these are heavily influenced in BG 3. DoS 2 is also my favourite CRPG, so I'm biased.
- Torment- ToN. Can safely skip this.

- Old games list I'd put on the bottom. More something to visit once you've done the "new". PT, Fallout games, BG games.