Hopefully POE3 will do a better job of side quest/main story pacing and integration

[Suen]

... imagine how much better the narrative flow would've been if a faction fleet had surrounded Hasongo and you had to complete quests/favors in order to get through, or if the shoals at Ashen Maw did gradual hull damage, forcing players to turn around after realizing that they needed to earn money for a stronger ship. That would have created both an in-game motivation to complete side content while also mitigating the urgency problem: it's no longer about whether you should prioritize going to Ashen Maw, but whether you are able to go there yet. 

It's probably beyond the current capabilities of our talented modders, but I'd donate good money towards a mod that does something like this.

I'd like to see it implemented in a official Enhanced Edition.

But who knows if it's still feasible at this point in the development (the team could be busy with some other stuff, not be affordable, etc). 

[Verde]

Yeah great ideas!

[Palas]

I think it's quite difficult to get an open world RPG and a good and dense mainstory.

 

The Elderscrolls never got it well, but they had so much fantastic side and factionquest. Deadfire feels a bit like that.

 

As i said before in anthother thread: sidequests and mainstory are fun in Deadfire (ok, sidequests were imo the better of the two) but they feel quite separated. Eothas makes 3 station and tell you the last two of it.

 

I think the game would feel more constant and organic, if the story gave us more reason to do the side- and especially the factionquest. Like Eothas don't tell you where he go and you must more search him. Or there were more stones in the way to follow hin and only a faction could help. Or the good old "you need the seven crystals of power to open the gate to Ukaizo".

 

Yeah you could go first the critical path until ashen maw, then doing some work for one faction, and going then to Ukaizo. That would be a way, that make storywise sense, but you would miss many sidequests and fun that way.

 

I think deadfire is one of the better, maybe best, rpg's in the last years, but for true perfection for a BG like game, it lacks imo in clinging main- and sidequest together.

 

I hope PoE3 will do this better.

 

But overall tnx Obsidian for this game, it's only sad, that it's "only" near perfection.

[anameforobsidian]

This is the nature of open world RPGs and always has been.  Fallout 1 literally threatens to kill all the npcs if you don't follow the main plot.  Fallout 2 has you go what, three mandatory places and then an endgame dungeon.  Skyrim's quest has almost nothing to do with the other quests in the game, and is a tiny portion of the amount of time you can spend in the game.  There's a trade off between linearity and open worlds; I suspect that the only way to solve it is by throwing tons of money at the problem.

 

 

And Baldur's Gate, well... I think the Baldur's Gate series were some of the best rpgs, but I think people are remembering them poorly:

 

BG I:  "My father's dead.  I should probably investigate anomalous metallurgy."  The hook getting you to Nashkel was particularly weak.

 

BG II:  "Hey you, get 20,000 gold!  Here's the first 3/4s of the content, do whatever you want."  I tried using that hook in a pnp campaign and the players were mutinous.  I wasn't exactly hurrying to rescue Imoen; I killed two dragons, an elder brain, several liches, and a demilich before getting to her the first time.  The point here is that the sidequests weren't integrated at all into the main story; that's why they're sidequests.  The reason Baldur's Gate II succeeds is that it's so massive there's enough space to have two quite large games in there.

[269811510]

The main problem of POE2 is not about structure or open world.The biggest problem is that the story is just bad writen.

[269811510]

Another big problem is that POE2 just don't have enough content.We can finish all quests within 40 hours.That's really hurt.If they can put as much quests and companions as BGII into POE2, the game of course will be great successful.

[misterjimmy]

Big, dense CRPGs have a bright future

https://goo.gl/ZBT91i

 

I strongly disagree this article.It's seem they want make more  DoS2 clones in the future,because this game sold so well. Co-op, full voice acting and so on.

Edited June 28, 2018 by misterjimmy

[Jelei]

Big, dense CRPGs have a bright future

https://goo.gl/ZBT91i

 

I strongly disagree this article.It's seem they want make more  DoS2 clones in the future,because this game sold so well. Co-op, full voice acting and so on.

I really, really hope not. I haven't played DoS2, but I played a bit of DoS1 and... It wasn't bad. But it wasn't good either. I can't stand voiced protagonists. Full VO is I think one of the worst decisions that was made for PoE2. Co-op, please no.

 

What I really loathed in DoS was that "emergent gameplay". Meaning have random barrels everywhere and make combat something that revolves around using the barrels to maximum effect. Oh please no never that again. I have a deep, deep hatred towards barrels nowadays just because of the few hours I put in DoS.

[bronzepoem]

Big, dense CRPGs have a bright future

https://goo.gl/ZBT91i

 

I strongly disagree this article.It's seem they want make more  DoS2 clones in the future,because this game sold so well. Co-op, full voice acting and so on.

Poor Josh...It seems he still don't know what's wrong about POE2.The question is not how to find new players,but how to keep old fans. 

POE2 have a lot of great new stuff. I love those new system,they are great. But it lose the most important part of RPG, the basic line: an epic main story.

Environment driven is good thing. I like DOS2 too.But surely I won't pay money on POE for that reason.

Edited June 29, 2018 by bronzepoem

[269811510]

By the way，remove map loading is MUCH important than environment driven.

[misterjimmy]

 

Big, dense CRPGs have a bright future

https://goo.gl/ZBT91i

 

I strongly disagree this article.It's seem they want make more  DoS2 clones in the future,because this game sold so well. Co-op, full voice acting and so on.

Poor Josh...It seems he still don't know what's wrong about POE2.The question is not how to find new players,but how to keep old fans. 

POE2 have a lot of great new stuff. I love those new system,they are great. But it lose the most important part of RPG, the basic line: an epic main story.

Environment driven is good thing. I like DOS2 too.But surely I won't pay money on POE for that reason.

 

Combat system already balance in POE1 3.0 patch, He can just improve them, not the rewrite anything.

[bronzepoem]

 

 

Big, dense CRPGs have a bright future

https://goo.gl/ZBT91i

 

I strongly disagree this article.It's seem they want make more DoS2 clones in the future,because this game sold so well. Co-op, full voice acting and so on.

Poor Josh...It seems he still don't know what's wrong about POE2.The question is not how to find new players,but how to keep old fans.

POE2 have a lot of great new stuff. I love those new system,they are great. But it lose the most important part of RPG, the basic line: an epic main story.

Environment driven is good thing. I like DOS2 too.But surely I won't pay money on POE for that reason.

Combat system already balance in POE1 3.0 patch, He can just improve them, not the rewrite anything.

 At first,the balance of POE1 was terrible too.But it still sold really well.So balance is not a big issue.Anyway,the combat system of POE2 have more fun than POE1.

The true problem of POE2 is the weakness of main plot.

[aktivb]

I'd much prefer it if they just completely abandoned the notion of 'the epic main quest'.

 

There's plenty of non-epic reasons to be in a region such as Deadfire without it being 'god ending the world'. Soldier/emissary of one of the factions, missionary looking to convert the heathens, soldier of fortune/opportunist/powermonger looking to grab bucks/power in a resource-rich unstable region, local resisting foreign influence, etc etc.

 

There's plenty of non-epic conclusions to such an adventure without it being '(not) stopping the end of the world', it could just have you consolidate your power within a faction and establish it as the dominant power in the region, or establishing a peaceful power balance. I would have been fine with this game concluding on securing Ukaizo for your faction, without there being some god to talk down for the 'epic finish'.

 

It would make the 'main story' more open as well, you could be a missionary becoming an untouchable pirate king, or an exiled stowaway becoming the benevolent leader of the Deadfire Rauatai Protectorate, etc etc. I don't mind a linear game/story, but if they're going down the route of reactive world and emergent storytelling, I'd prefer if they committed to it completely.

 

Would make it much less marketable and hookable of course, which is why I expected the 'epic main story' to be present, played the game like it wasn't, and appreciated that it got out of the way as much as it did.

[Tick]

I'd much prefer it if they just completely abandoned the notion of 'the epic main quest'.

 

There's plenty of non-epic reasons to be in a region such as Deadfire without it being 'god ending the world'. Soldier/emissary of one of the factions, missionary looking to convert the heathens, soldier of fortune/opportunist/powermonger looking to grab bucks/power in a resource-rich unstable region, local resisting foreign influence, etc etc.

 

There's plenty of non-epic conclusions to such an adventure without it being '(not) stopping the end of the world', it could just have you consolidate your power within a faction and establish it as the dominant power in the region, or establishing a peaceful power balance. I would have been fine with this game concluding on securing Ukaizo for your faction, without there being some god to talk down for the 'epic finish'.

 

It would make the 'main story' more open as well, you could be a missionary becoming an untouchable pirate king, or an exiled stowaway becoming the benevolent leader of the Deadfire Rauatai Protectorate, etc etc. I don't mind a linear game/story, but if they're going down the route of reactive world and emergent storytelling, I'd prefer if they committed to it completely.

 

Would make it much less marketable and hookable of course, which is why I expected the 'epic main story' to be present, played the game like it wasn't, and appreciated that it got out of the way as much as it did.

I'm not inherently for the epic main quest thing, but I actually really liked the one in poe2. I just wish it gave either more agency or more content, or something.

 

But otherwise it builds on the sort of pro autonomy /positive nihilism from the last game, and any themes involving the Gods and society, which is fantastic. Breaking the wheel is a step toward breaking away from the gods /not needing them anymore. Potentially.

[Zelse]

Par for the course in RPGs, really.

 

Geralt! Your beloved daughter is being purseud by the Wild Hunt! You must save her! Please potter around the countryside saving peasant villages from goblins for 85 hours!

 

I agree that ideally every side quest would have a reason for you to do it in the context of the main quest. The alternative is to have a main quest where the stakes aren't so urgent that you feel you have to do the next step right away, but people didn't seem to like that in the previous game

The difference between TW3 and this one is:

 

In TW3 your journey naturally takes you thru these places and you just happen to help the locals with their complex problems as you travel dilligently towards your ultimate goal.

 

In Deadfire you have to deliberately pick up quests in the main city and travel to islands in random places on the world map with literally nothing else on it to fight some random dude without any backstory.

Some of the more relevant sidequests are so far off the areas of the map that are relevant to the game that i literally wouldnt have found them if i hadnt played with the uncovered world map. (although i think most of these are in some minor way tied to other irrelevant sidequests e.g. the "Imp God", if you get ALL 4 pirate bounties from that one lady then the treasure map actually sends you to that island... but jesus christ its way off the main road..)

[Verde]

It's not just the urgency of the main quest...its the horrendous integration of sidequests and continuity in the open world.

 

Let's say you're on your first playthrough and do Ashen Maw before the Last Sanctuary. Well isn't a little ridiculous that the Prince says "we are one step closer to finding Ukaizo!" When you literally just told the Queen and the peanut gallery it's past Ondra's Mortar and I will take them there? You think on of the main faction quests with direct ties to the end of the game would have some reactivity. Oh did I mention the slaughter at Brass Citadel...but no one cares? Not the Queen, not even the RDVC themselves as I didn't take a hit to overall rep.

 

Such is the risk with open world. Ask anyone who found the Observatory before talking to Arkemyr, one of the most bugged quests in the game. You can't even finish it if you do it out of order. Now do that quest later after all you find out and let me know how silly you sound feigning ignorance to the Circle.

 

It's a huge undertaking to do open world and I think the decision to do full VA is counter productive. Plus the squabbling Gods is top tier cringy but I won't get into that.

 

I'd love to see them implement a non epic main story like the above poster suggested that *could* turn into something epic. Imagine that sort of freedom.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Verde

[Tarlonniel]

I would've loved to see the game take place "after the end." That is, you wake up after Eothas has already gone and done his thing, and the entire game is spent running around the Deadfire investigating the mystery of this living colossus, and what it was after, and how to follow it through the storms. Then you get to Ukaizo and have to figure out what, exactly, the smoking mess of machinery it left behind used to be, and at the end it all comes together with the "Oh, crap, that was the Wheel" realization. More of a murder mystery than anything else.

[Grimo88]

I don't understand this criticism. It's just the same structure as the old Fallout games. I missed this kind of structure. 

 

It's a huge improvement of the unwieldy 3-act structure of PoE1 

[Verde]

I don't understand this criticism. It's just the same structure as the old Fallout games. I missed this kind of structure.

 

It's a huge improvement of the unwieldy 3-act structure of PoE1

I disagree. POE1 had one of the best main quests in recent memory.

[Tick]

 

I don't understand this criticism. It's just the same structure as the old Fallout games. I missed this kind of structure.

 

It's a huge improvement of the unwieldy 3-act structure of PoE1

I disagree. POE1 had one of the best main quests in recent memory.

I don't think they're criticizing the main story itself, just the style of the mechanics that presents it. Unless that's what you meant?

 

Also Grimo, I actually really like the direction they took too (at least in concept).I think the issue is more the execution. Doing quests out of a certain order can make things not less or no sense, or miss out on something, because the game doesn't expect you to do it the way you did it, and the rest of the world feels weirdly detached from what's going on with Eothas for a lot of the game.

 

*that said *, the Eothas issue is a really common issue with a lot of games. And Deadfire does integrate it *some. *

[Grimo88]

 

 

I don't understand this criticism. It's just the same structure as the old Fallout games. I missed this kind of structure.

 

It's a huge improvement of the unwieldy 3-act structure of PoE1

I disagree. POE1 had one of the best main quests in recent memory.

I don't think they're criticizing the main story itself, just the style of the mechanics that presents it. Unless that's what you meant?

 

Also Grimo, I actually really like the direction they took too (at least in concept).I think the issue is more the execution. Doing quests out of a certain order can make things not less or no sense, or miss out on something, because the game doesn't expect you to do it the way you did it, and the rest of the world feels weirdly detached from what's going on with Eothas for a lot of the game.

 

*that said *, the Eothas issue is a really common issue with a lot of games. And Deadfire does integrate it *some. *

 

 

I liked the main quest too! What I meant was the structure - Act 1 with its very limited scope, which ballooned out in 2, then petered out in 3. What I'm saying is, I like this self-guided adventure structure punctuated by main plot a lot more. 

 

I definitely take your point about doing quests out of order (looking at you Berkana's Observatory) but at least they prevented that in the crit path by gating some of the faction quests behind chapters. 

[Tick]

 

 

 

I don't understand this criticism. It's just the same structure as the old Fallout games. I missed this kind of structure.

 

It's a huge improvement of the unwieldy 3-act structure of PoE1

I disagree. POE1 had one of the best main quests in recent memory.

I don't think they're criticizing the main story itself, just the style of the mechanics that presents it. Unless that's what you meant?

 

Also Grimo, I actually really like the direction they took too (at least in concept).I think the issue is more the execution. Doing quests out of a certain order can make things not less or no sense, or miss out on something, because the game doesn't expect you to do it the way you did it, and the rest of the world feels weirdly detached from what's going on with Eothas for a lot of the game.

 

*that said *, the Eothas issue is a really common issue with a lot of games. And Deadfire does integrate it *some. *

I liked the main quest too! What I meant was the structure - Act 1 with its very limited scope, which ballooned out in 2, then petered out in 3. What I'm saying is, I like this self-guided adventure structure punctuated by main plot a lot more.

 

I definitely take your point about doing quests out of order (looking at you Berkana's Observatory) but at least they prevented that in the crit path by gating some of the faction quests behind chapters.

Yeah! Very much agree on both points.

[wingedchocolatecake]

It would have been interesting to have the whole Eothas ordeal play out right from the get go, and the rest of the game presented to the player as an open-world experience in which they deal with the aftermath of the destruction of the wheel and so on. The player could also assist the factions in dealing with Eothas's destruction. 

[Verde]

On my third playthrough and I'm just forgetting about Eothos while adventuring around.

[Rheios]

This is the nature of open world RPGs and always has been.  Fallout 1 literally threatens to kill all the npcs if you don't follow the main plot.  Fallout 2 has you go what, three mandatory places and then an endgame dungeon.  Skyrim's quest has almost nothing to do with the other quests in the game, and is a tiny portion of the amount of time you can spend in the game.  There's a trade off between linearity and open worlds; I suspect that the only way to solve it is by throwing tons of money at the problem.

 

 

And Baldur's Gate, well... I think the Baldur's Gate series were some of the best rpgs, but I think people are remembering them poorly:

 

BG I:  "My father's dead.  I should probably investigate anomalous metallurgy."  The hook getting you to Nashkel was particularly weak.

 

BG II:  "Hey you, get 20,000 gold!  Here's the first 3/4s of the content, do whatever you want."  I tried using that hook in a pnp campaign and the players were mutinous.  I wasn't exactly hurrying to rescue Imoen; I killed two dragons, an elder brain, several liches, and a demilich before getting to her the first time.  The point here is that the sidequests weren't integrated at all into the main story; that's why they're sidequests.  The reason Baldur's Gate II succeeds is that it's so massive there's enough space to have two quite large games in there.

I couldn't disagree more. Most of the issue can be solved by either adding a breath-holding/night before the battle period, or staggering some gates on areas as other people said. You need to justify them, but honestly? I'll suspend my disbelief to support that narrative if a decent explanation is attempted. I think it'd be fair to critique a bad one, but I'd hope people would appreciate an attempt more than just waving a hand over it as if that discards it. (Fallout 1 also removed the timer in the first patch because it was controversial even internally, and Skyrim fails to give you a moment where you know Alduin can't be pinned down. Meanwhile Fallout 4 burns you through the main personal quest and *does* give you the quiet time at least, albeit with no real payoff and a general malaise as a result since they stop all tension unless you're really into that faction fight. At least the final tension of confront Thaos with everything kept the flame alive even with Pillars slowed down a bit.)

 

BG I you don't just decide to investigate anomalous metallurgy for ****s and giggles, both 2 shady ass companions you meet who are also outwardly friendly to you *and* the caretakers your foster father sent you to find in the exact case something happened to him are going down there. You can ignore them both but then every sixth fight your damn sword is breaking and Imoen's probably turned to stone if you wander afield. There's no reason not to seek safety (particularly after the attack and father dying) in numbers and if everyone's just heading south then you do too. Either the shear frustration of your weapons breaking all the time until you find some magical ones, or the literal lifelines / potion gifting allies you meet first thing, heading to Nashkel is more than enough reason to at least *go* with them and there's danger crawling up your ass every which way that you head down there. Forlorn wandering / becoming a farmer and turning off the game options aside, its a pretty strong motivation to stick with the people introduced almost like a beloved aunt and uncle, or at least the first helpful and dangerous allies you meet, imo.

 

Its the 20,000g and the fact that you *know* you're going into a dangerous as hell Wizard's stronghold. Half the questing, to me, was preparation for either buying off wizards, or a fight against a literal wizard army that I just saw contain Irenicus, a dude who captured me single-highhandedly, apparently. Additionally your table may have just been the wrong one for it, just like I don't think *everyone* would like BGII if they played it. That's RPGs after all, but I think it'd work well on me if the motivation was well given. Granted you're right, the sidequests aren't directly part of main story save in that they become part of it, if you do them to meet the justifications presented - albeit loosely.  Plus there's not a lot of urgency to get to Imoen, as far as you know she's in limited danger, you just want her free of the wizards too and maybe to stab Irenicus in his face if the wizard's are amicable to the concept. Or maybe even if they aren't.

Also, pretty sure you're wrong about the Elder brain, you've met her by the time you're in the Underdark. You're just missing a piece of your soul at that point, iirc. 

 

Honestly, the same reason Imoen and the raising money via quests thing works in BGII until you get your soul stolen (and then the quests are mostly about getting the frig out of the underdark a.s.a.p and there's just a few options to do that) could have worked for POE2, if they just explained that Eothas was actively being slowed by the souls he'd absorbed fighting him and/or effective godly interventions and he was stuck/buried in an unknown place that the gods didn't want him to stay (maybe by a heart of adra where he continued to interrupt the flow of souls and maybe continued to absorb them slowly making him a ticking time bomb with an unknown fuse length save that it was long) and you needed to find the now darkening luminous adra to pinpoint him, and have acquired the resources to fight him. Then you could have gotten there, *that* could have prompted a fight with some of the more militant Gaunites who had found him through dreams, and their deaths and faiths coupled to burn his fuse and he continued his quest.  You'd have to provide more a reason to go to Magran's place afterward maybe (unless they made Magran's explosion be what seals him, but also drops him next to where they don't want him which causes other timing issues) but pretty much anything actually pinning Eothas down for a bit and giving you a 'bulk up now that you have some realistic time, you might be fighting a god' would be welcome.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Rheios