Sorry, guys... the ship was too boring for me to continue

[theBalthazar]

I get it, apparently people wanted an interactive stronghold and it's a cool idea being able to travel with your stronghold and adventure with it, combat with it, upgrade it, buy crew for it - but once the novelty of those wear off and it's seen for what it is - unless enough time and energy is put in that it becomes it's own thing - it's going to be too shallow, too gimmicky, too different and generally off-putting.

 

 

Yes there is the cool idea to travel AND battle ship. Few people pretend to mix the things.

 

I LIKE the idea of free travel with ship. MORE, than caed nua. Caed Nua was only really useful with free rest with boost. But the portative-stronghold idea is a different thing than the textual battle mini-game between two ships.

 

Frankly guys, I sincerely hope Obsidian will change deeply battleship with DLC. For me It is the priority.

Edited May 21, 2018 by theBalthazar

[SonicMage117]

I LIKE the idea of free travel with ship. MORE, than caed nua. Caed Nua was only really useful with free rest with boost. But the portative-stronghold idea is a different thing than the textual battle mini-game between two ships.

I too, hate when people try to excuse or justify the poor ship combat/mechanics with the lie of "Ships were intended as a stronghold, not for combat" especially when Obsidian stated different so many times.

Frankly guys, I sincerely hope Obsidian will change deeply battleship with DLC. For me It is the priority.

I hope so as well, as underwhelming as it is, Obsidian should place ship combat and mechanics of ship in general as high a priority as balancing the game. Such a huge piece of marketing for reaching consumers, should also reflect in the efforts of the actual game. Just saying.

[Phyriel]

 

I get it, apparently people wanted an interactive stronghold and it's a cool idea being able to travel with your stronghold and adventure with it, combat with it, upgrade it, buy crew for it - but once the novelty of those wear off and it's seen for what it is - unless enough time and energy is put in that it becomes it's own thing - it's going to be too shallow, too gimmicky, too different and generally off-putting.

 

 

Yes there is the cool idea to travel AND battle ship. Few people pretend to mix the things.

 

I LIKE the idea of free travel with ship. MORE, than caed nua. Caed Nua was only really useful with free rest with boost. But the portative-stronghold idea is a different thing than the textual battle mini-game between two ships.

 

Frankly guys, I sincerely hope Obsidian will change deeply battleship with DLC. For me It is the priority.

 

 

I'd want extra options for traveling in case I wanted to sell my ship and not use it at all ;p Then i'd have to find some maps in dungeons for uncharted territories so I could hire some ship to get me there etc. 

[Phyriel]

 

I LIKE the idea of free travel with ship. MORE, than caed nua. Caed Nua was only really useful with free rest with boost. But the portative-stronghold idea is a different thing than the textual battle mini-game between two ships.

I too, hate when people try to excuse or justify the poor ship combat/mechanics with the lie of "Ships were intended as a stronghold, not for combat" especially when Obsidian stated different so many times. 

 

 

 

There are no excuses here on my side even tho I justify a lot of it with valid arguments, apparently its only "poor" if you expect more than a mini game from it. I don't, I consider it just a mini game with a bonus (especially that you got option to just go straight into regular combat with your chars which is bread and butter of this game) and I find it does the job it ought to do as a mini game just right. 

 

I never saw Obsidian stating that they will make in depth naval simulator (which for many would also be not fit into rpg game where they want rather to rpg than play strategy game).

Edited May 21, 2018 by Phyriel

[adreeasa]

Exploring deserted islands to get some fruit .... which will be eaten by the time i finish with the exploration by the crew. Fighting the same ship boarding battle over and over  ( because the ship battles are even more trash ) until it becomes a chore. Fighting some random bounty target on a small map arena without any setup or relevance. Tons of ship bounties becuase you MUST LOVE the ship system, right ?

 

They took a potentially great RPG  with nice improvements from the first one and just stuck it in a pirate simulator which fails even more than Pirates of the Carribean ..... and i mean the last ones of the series.

 

I know we must all strive to innovate and stuff, but they just threw it out the bloody window.

[Phyriel]

I agree on one part tho but thats another topic entirely... a lot of islands are ****ing boring holy ****. Seriously they packed like 10+ islands that have nothing on them. A pond with 21 water and some gay rice farm to vendor your crap? wtf is the purpose of jam packing the world map with empty zones. Imagine in poe 1 if you had a full zone size of i dunno... district of Defiance Bay with just some berries on a bush and a wandering generic "Lonesome Merchant" that sells flint and tinder + camping supplies. People would flip the table having extra loading screens just to explore empty zone... this is what those empty ****ing islands do to me. 

[whiskiz]

I agree on one part tho but thats another topic entirely... a lot of islands are ****ing boring holy ****. Seriously they packed like 10+ islands that have nothing on them. A pond with 21 water and some gay rice farm to vendor your crap? wtf is the purpose of jam packing the world map with empty zones. Imagine in poe 1 if you had a full zone size of i dunno... district of Defiance Bay with just some berries on a bush and a wandering generic "Lonesome Merchant" that sells flint and tinder + camping supplies. People would flip the table having extra loading screens just to explore empty zone... this is what those empty ****ing islands do to me. 

 

Is that another topic entirely, though?

 

I feel like the whole naval gimmick is half the reason why the islands/playable areas are small, boring and whatever else.

 

I feel like the time and resources they put into the whole naval thing, is one of the big reasons the rest of the game isn't fleshed out.

 

People complaining of no dungeons and boring and small/empty islands - you really think the playable areas would still be the same without it? If this was a completely land based adventure with all time and resources dedicated to it instead?

Edited May 21, 2018 by whiskiz

[theBalthazar]

especially that you got option to just go straight into regular combat with your chars which is bread and butter of this game

 

 

Gwent is not an example of invasive mini-game and he is not preponderant/disturbing in the game. Fast and interresting to play. Perfect.  

 

A mini-game is not by essence "boring" because "I'm waiting so much of this one". No, I only NEED an interresting phase, even with extremely poor means. You can create mini-game extremely interresting. Even Pazaak was more interresting.

 

My suggestion doesn't need MORE ressources than Obsidian can have. Textual : OK. Only few images on background : OK. Passive and active : need only coding time, it is textual at the end.

 

For auto-boarding, yes you can do THAT but you lose some things. In the sea, you are always stalked. Yes you can change your flag, but it boring when thinking to an other mission.

 

A good idea would have been to PREVENT player when he reach of point where there is a boat. (like an instant and auto stop of your ship + a message "If you approach, the foe ship will attack you". and after that you can choose). Because if not, you are always disturbs when you do not want to fight a ship.

Edited May 21, 2018 by theBalthazar

[SonicMage117]

I feel like the time and resources they put into the whole naval thing, is one of the big reasons the rest of the game isn't fleshed out all that well (either)

You feel this because it's true. The development of the game, compared to the first, was hell. Unfocused and a bit tragic. This is what happens when a game is too ambitious for it's own good. Some devs are talented enough to pull it off, Obsidian still needs time to grow and learn from their mistakes (regardless of people who may say "but Obsidian is made of vets from the 90's", which is irrelevant considering the downfalls of Deadfire).

Edited May 21, 2018 by SonicMage117

[Wormerine]

I agree on one part tho but thats another topic entirely... a lot of islands are ****ing boring holy ****. Seriously they packed like 10+ islands that have nothing on them. A pond with 21 water and some gay rice farm to vendor your crap? wtf is the purpose of jam packing the world map with empty zones. Imagine in poe 1 if you had a full zone size of i dunno... district of Defiance Bay with just some berries on a bush and a wandering generic "Lonesome Merchant" that sells flint and tinder + camping supplies. People would flip the table having extra loading screens just to explore empty zone... this is what those empty ****ing islands do to me.

 

Sounds like majority wilderness PoE areas. The thing is, those are not zones. Do don’t get loading screen to participate in scripted interaction or pick up resources. On the other hand, having a whole map with nothing interesting to do and couple trash fights in PoE1 was dull.

[Wormerine]

Is that another topic entirely, though?

 

I feel like the whole naval gimmick is half the reason why the islands/playable areas are small, boring and whatever else.

 

I feel like the time and resources they put into the whole naval thing, is one of the big reasons the rest of the game isn't fleshed out all that well (either)

 

People complaining of no dungeons and boring and small/empty islands - you really think the playable areas would still be the same without it? If this was a completely land based adventure again?

I think the decision came from wanting to keep the feeling of exploration, while not wasting resources on prerendered locations with no content to them. Bg1 and PoE1 have lots of prerendered maps with little content in them. Most of wilderness areas lack meaningful content beyond couple bushes to loot, some trashmobs and maybe a single nod of a larger quest. They used the world map to export loot to over world map, and those key encounters (be it bounties or such) are made in instances. I would hope that the world map allowed for more content per cost than a handful of prerendered wilderness maps.

 

However, I still saw many complaints about the lack of prerendered large wilderness maps.

 

WM still remains to me as the best PoE content to be had. It might be an advantage of smaller scope story.

[whiskiz]

 

Is that another topic entirely, though?

 

I feel like the whole naval gimmick is half the reason why the islands/playable areas are small, boring and whatever else.

 

I feel like the time and resources they put into the whole naval thing, is one of the big reasons the rest of the game isn't fleshed out all that well (either)

 

People complaining of no dungeons and boring and small/empty islands - you really think the playable areas would still be the same without it? If this was a completely land based adventure again?

I think the decision came from wanting to keep the feeling of exploration, while not wasting resources on prerendered locations with no content to them. Bg1 and PoE1 have lots of prerendered maps with little content in them. Most of wilderness areas lack meaningful content beyond couple bushes to loot, some trashmobs and maybe a single nod of a larger quest. They used the world map to export loot to over world map, and those key encounters (be it bounties or such) are made in instances. I would hope that the world map allowed for more content per cost than a handful of prerendered wilderness maps.

 

However, I still saw many complaints about the lack of prerendered large wilderness maps.

 

WM still remains to me as the best PoE content to be had. It might be an advantage of smaller scope story.

 

 

The maps had little content in them in PoE 1? I mean, the game is an RPG - it's about exploration, combat and story. Saying there was little content is saying you want to do more of a variety of things than what this genre is about or maybe even what can be expected of a single game (this size and budget) that is properly fleshed out - either that or the problem was it wasn't done well enough.

 

Can't help you with the former, to solve the latter - encounters should be more than just "trashmobs" the fact that it's all people saw as the majority of combat of PoE 1 was the biggest design flaw.

 

Each fight should be more meaningful, more varied, alot more challenging, more fun and making things per-encounter as well as level scaling is a great start for all of that - now it just actually needs to be balanced (and not classed as a low priority to Obsidian, /facepalm) so people aren't facerolling and the ignorant players don't blame the new per-encounter system for it being so easy and ruining it for half the playerbase. (Yes i said half the playerbase and not just the 10% that play PotD, fite me.)

 

Secondly, loot could definitely have had a little more variety to it in PoE 1. Trash mobs, trash loot. When you fight the same stuff over again, need to save half your characters abilities and auto attack 80% of fights or tediously and needlessly go rest every so often, when you get the same loot over and over and over and over, then yeah i agree.

 

Thirdly the exploration could have been a bit better - bigger maps mostly, not these little 2x2 with sprinkled fights.

 

But me? Give me 20 diff fights in a big rando map, but let me actually use all the awesomeness of my characters in each and every fight and balance it so each one is an epic battle still and somewhat varied - In terms of enemies, strategy to win the fight and loot and i'm happy.

 

I could do that all day, with deep and meaningful story sprinkled all over.

 

Or you know, instead of expanding on the first game with the great experience and knowledge you got form it, to make the next one even better - throw it all out the window and throw in pirates and ships an stuff!

Edited May 21, 2018 by whiskiz

[CENIC]

My biggest complaint about the ship system is that I spend WAY too much money feeding and paying my crew. I dunno how I'm supposed to afford to buy new ships like this!

 

I'm already happily using the mod for Close to Board. Hopefully there will be one that removes crew expenses too...

 

I was one of the people who felt like the stronghold was "tacked on" in the last game, but this was NOT what I wanted instead!

Edited May 21, 2018 by CENIC

[Jorian Drake]

Yeah i'm not sure why they felt the need to turn the classic/traditional RPG into Pirates of the Carribean...

Because in the Deadfire region it makes much more sense to have a ship than a castle, and this IS the pirate spot like the Caribbeans are /were on Earth. I don't see how this differs from classic/traditional RPG to begin with, and I actually like that you don't have to travel for days back and forth between your stronghold and your active location. I honestly hope the next game will also have a mobile stronghold like a wagon/caravan (think Banner Saga) or maybe an airship.

 

You can change your ship and its style/colors too, which is a bonus as you couldn't change PoE1 stronghold's architectural style or even place flags and such to make it prettier. (THe only thing I AM annoyed about is that PoE2 ignores whatever ending you had for the stronghold, as it just gets destroyed no matter what)

 

I agree on one part tho but thats another topic entirely... a lot of islands are ****ing boring holy ****. Seriously they packed like 10+ islands that have nothing on them. A pond with 21 water and some gay rice farm to vendor your crap? wtf is the purpose of jam packing the world map with empty zones. Imagine in poe 1 if you had a full zone size of i dunno... district of Defiance Bay with just some berries on a bush and a wandering generic "Lonesome Merchant" that sells flint and tinder + camping supplies. People would flip the table having extra loading screens just to explore empty zone... this is what those empty ****ing islands do to me.

Well, the Caribbeans also had a lot of smaller islands which were often barely visited, had nothing on them, and sometimes were picked by pirates exactly because of that to become a pirate den.

 

It seems not many people here ever played the Age of Pirates or Mount & Blade series or Risen 2. PoE2 has a lot in common with these just in isometric view. That the main character doesn't have to go to every merchant, craftsman, or tavern directly to fix the ship, improve it or to hire crew after talking to all of them one by one makes PoE2 already have a simplified system, although I wish we could buy extra treasure/island location maps from merchants. I'm also surprised we aren't allowed to design our own flag ingame, to pick colors and symbol/pattern for it.

 

...

I was one of the people who felt like the stronghold was "tacked on" in the last game, but this was NOT what I wanted instead!

 

I'm personally pretty happy with the outcome, sure it could be further improved, but I hope PoE3 will have even more options for designing/expanding your home base (be it a castle or something else). At the very least PoE2 already addressed the weakest parts of PoE1, which were to always having to walk a lot to return to your base and it being pretty empty and lifeless.

 

To those who really dislike the game or the pirate ship theme: The game gained a lot of positive reviews and praise, currently no other notable pirate themed game is released either which should make profits even better, from a business perspective the choice of location, style, theme, and methods of the game were a very good decision by the devs.

 

You know what I really do miss? It is the minor banter/reaction from your char/companions if you madly click on them, like in Baldur's Gate or PoE1 this was the first thing I tried arriving in the game. Them being annoyed by your pestering was fun and Pallegina's orgasm-like reaction was hilarious. I might use a voice pack mod just to get some of those back.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jorian Drake

[whiskiz]

 

Yeah i'm not sure why they felt the need to turn the classic/traditional RPG into Pirates of the Carribean...

Because in the Deadfire region it makes much more sense to have a ship than a castle, and this IS the pirate spot like the Caribbeans are /were on Earth. I don't see how this differs from classic/traditional RPG to begin with, and I actually like that you don't have to travel for days back and forth between your stronghold and your active location. I honestly hope the next game will also have a mobile stronghold like a wagon/caravan (think Banner Saga) or maybe an airship.

 

You can change your ship and its style/colors too, which is a bonus as you couldn't change PoE1 stronghold's architectural style or even place flags and such to make it prettier. (THe only thing I AM annoyed about is that PoE2 ignores whatever ending you had for the stronghold, as it just gets destroyed no matter what)

 

I agree on one part tho but thats another topic entirely... a lot of islands are ****ing boring holy ****. Seriously they packed like 10+ islands that have nothing on them. A pond with 21 water and some gay rice farm to vendor your crap? wtf is the purpose of jam packing the world map with empty zones. Imagine in poe 1 if you had a full zone size of i dunno... district of Defiance Bay with just some berries on a bush and a wandering generic "Lonesome Merchant" that sells flint and tinder + camping supplies. People would flip the table having extra loading screens just to explore empty zone... this is what those empty ****ing islands do to me.

Well, the Caribbeans also had a lot of smaller islands which were often barely visited, had nothing on them, and sometimes were picked by pirates exactly because of that to become a pirate den.

 

It seems not many people here ever played the Age of Pirates or Mount & Blade series or Risen 2. PoE2 has a lot in common with these just in isometric view. That the main character doesn't have to go to every merchant, craftsman, or tavern directly to fix the ship, improve it or to hire crew after talking to all of them one by one makes PoE2 already have a simplified system, although I wish we could buy extra treasure/island location maps from merchants. I'm also surprised we aren't allowed to design our own flag ingame, to pick colors and symbol/pattern for it.

 

...

I was one of the people who felt like the stronghold was "tacked on" in the last game, but this was NOT what I wanted instead!

 

I'm personally pretty happy with the outcome, sure it could be further improved, but I hope PoE3 will have even more options for designing/expanding your home base (be it a castle or something else). At the very least PoE2 already addressed the weakest parts of PoE1, which were to always having to walk a lot to return to your base and it being pretty empty and lifeless.

 

To those who really dislike the game or the pirate ship theme: The game gained a lot of positive reviews and praise, currently no other notable pirate themed game is released either which should make profits even better, from a business perspective the choice of location, style, theme, and methods of the game were a very good decision by the devs.

 

You know what I really do miss? It is the minor banter/reaction from your char/companions if you madly click on them, like in Baldur's Gate or PoE1 this was the first thing I tried arriving in the game. Them being annoyed by your pestering was fun and Pallegina's orgasm-like reaction was hilarious. I might use a voice pack mod just to get some of those back.

 

 

I like how your reasoning and arguments are "Cause lore"

 

Wish i could close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and live content in a nice and simple lore bubble, haha.

Edited May 21, 2018 by whiskiz

[adreeasa]

Then perhaps the game should have been called Deadfire : Pirate's life. We went in expecting something and got a big YYYARRRR. It's not bad, but it's not what we paid for, at least in my case.

[Masticator]

I like it. The thrill of finally getting my Junk outfitted with 5 double bronzers (that sounds dirty but it's not) and just outright destroying enemy ships was pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, it's also sometimes fun to outclass a large ship than you with a smaller ship. But I admit the sheer destructive power of 5 double bronzers is pretty cool.

 

I like the exploration aspect of this game, it's one of the better aspects of the game.

[Jorian Drake]

I like how your reasoning and arguments are "Cause lore"

 

Wish i could close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and live content in a nice safe and simple lore bubble, haha.

It isn't just 'cause of lore', other than that what really matters for a company, the commercial, business side of the choices were right as well. It just happens that this time the lore and market opportunity overlap.

[illathid]

I love the naval combat. The only change I would really make is to add random events that could effect both parties, as right now it's pretty easy to get into a groove.

[Wormerine]

My biggest complaint about the ship system is that I spend WAY too much money feeding and paying my crew. I dunno how I'm supposed to afford to buy new ships like this!

I'm already happily using the mod for Close to Board. Hopefully there will be one that removes crew expenses too...

I was one of the people who felt like the stronghold was "tacked on" in the last game, but this was NOT what I wanted instead!

Really? The only food I bought was from those super cheap farms you find around the world. All the rest of the food you find when exploring. By the end of the game I was traveling with over 1000 food and water in consumption space with over 700fruit in storage. A fully manned gallon costed me under 50 gold per day, which is low.

 

While the cost of ships might seem like much early on, once you collect higher loot, it’s a non issue. I upgraded everyweapon I wanted to highest level and was still left with over 400000 gold. And galleon was the first purchase I did.

[Wormerine]

I love the naval combat. The only change I would really make is to add random events that could effect both parties, as right now it's pretty easy to get into a groove.

Smarter AI and better equipped enemy ships would be welcome too. It’s too easy to “stunlock” enemies into shuffling crew and brace for impact withn one successful salve.

[whiskiz]

 

I like how your reasoning and arguments are "Cause lore"

 

Wish i could close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and live content in a nice safe and simple lore bubble, haha.

It isn't just 'cause of lore', other than that what really matters for a company, the commercial, business side of the choices were right as well. It just happens that this time the lore and market opportunity overlap.

 

 

 

True, the casual majority market does seem to not care and still enjoy it, so the marketing and general business direction were a success.

 

It's nothing to be proud of though - relying on people to help fund your projects and keep you going, like kickstarting PoE 1, then once you release the game and are no longer financially dependent, going mainstream and leaving those kickstarters behind, because they aren't the majority market for the biggest potential profits.

 

Get them to help you get started, then leave them in the dust while selling out to chase even more money.

 

Nice 1.

Edited May 21, 2018 by whiskiz

[illathid]

 

I love the naval combat. The only change I would really make is to add random events that could effect both parties, as right now it's pretty easy to get into a groove.

Smarter AI and better equipped enemy ships would be welcome too. It’s too easy to “stunlock” enemies into shuffling crew and brace for impact withn one successful salve.

 

 

True. Although Josh said they'd be doing this in one of the upcoming patches so I didn't think to mention it.

[Purudaya]

If you bought Deadfire and are upset that there's a lot of ship/pirate content, I don't know what to tell you. It was clear as day that this would be an aspect of the game. The problem isn't that the ship mechanics exist, it's that they need to be improved.
 

 

 

I like how your reasoning and arguments are "Cause lore"

Wish i could close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and live content in a nice safe and simple lore bubble, haha.

It isn't just 'cause of lore', other than that what really matters for a company, the commercial, business side of the choices were right as well. It just happens that this time the lore and market opportunity overlap.

True, the casual majority market does seem to not care and still enjoy it, so the marketing and general business direction were a success.

It's nothing to be proud of though - relying on people to help fund your projects and keep you going, like kickstarting PoE 1, then once you release the game and are no longer financially dependent, going mainstream and leaving those kickstarters behind, because they aren't the majority market for the biggest potential profits.

Get them to help you get started, then leave them in the dust while selling out to chase even more money.

Nice 1.

Except Obsidian didn't do that. They crowdsourced the sequel and even gave backers of the original a discount iirc. After PoE1 was released, they could have left the game as it was after a few patches – instead, they listened to customers' criticisms and added significant content to the stronghold for free, added new skills, revamped stealth, etc. etc.

Given what Sawyer has said in recent Q&As, there seems to be no reason to assume that the same won't happen with Deadfire. The community's biggest complaints – difficulty, the relationship system, and ship combat – are already confirmed as being addressed. If they put similar effort into the ship stronghold as they did for Caed Nua, we can probably assume a significantly improved outcome vs. release.

Isometric RTWP CRPGs do not have mass market appeal – you can't "sell out" to "casuals" the same way you could with an indie shooter or adventure game. Casual players aren't typically interested in games that involve learning buckets of lore and passing dialogue checks, they're interested in crushing candy and blasting zombies. If the developers were aiming to leave the fanbase behind in an attempt to appeal to a casual demographic, they wouldn't be focusing their first major patch on making the game significantly *harder.*

There's a lot of things about Deadfire-at-release that I don't like (and much more that I do like), but that doesn't always have to mean that it's some insidious plot by the developers to screw the fans and cash in somehow. Given the developer's track record, it makes more sense to assume that they had good intentions for the fans and fell short in some areas than that they had bad intentions and don't care.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Purudaya

[CENIC]

 

My biggest complaint about the ship system is that I spend WAY too much money feeding and paying my crew. I dunno how I'm supposed to afford to buy new ships like this!

I'm already happily using the mod for Close to Board. Hopefully there will be one that removes crew expenses too...

I was one of the people who felt like the stronghold was "tacked on" in the last game, but this was NOT what I wanted instead!

Really? The only food I bought was from those super cheap farms you find around the world. All the rest of the food you find when exploring. By the end of the game I was traveling with over 1000 food and water in consumption space with over 700fruit in storage. A fully manned gallon costed me under 50 gold per day, which is low.

 

While the cost of ships might seem like much early on, once you collect higher loot, it’s a non issue. I upgraded everyweapon I wanted to highest level and was still left with over 400000 gold. And galleon was the first purchase I did.

I don't like selling uniques, so maybe that's my problem.