The Problem With Turn-Based: Not in POE

[Wormerine]

14 hours ago, takamorisan said:

Turn based and Coop for RPGs were meant to be the next step, you can see how Divinity 2 performed compared to PoE 2. The fully VA was neat but I would had used the funds to add coop mode.

There is a lot of assuming here. For example an interesting stat would be how many people who purchased div2 used multiplayer feature, and/or adventure creator.

Even if your claim were to be true, copying the other successful title, doesn't automatically lead to success. Better to carve your own niche, rather that trying to get some moment which goes to the other, time consuming popular title. 

[takamorisan]

31 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

There is a lot of assuming here. For example an interesting stat would be how many people who purchased div2 used multiplayer feature, and/or adventure creator.

Even if your claim were to be true, copying the other successful title, doesn't automatically lead to success. Better to carve your own niche, rather that trying to get some moment which goes to the other, time consuming popular title. 

The thing is, we are already in the second game of a IP, the stone have been carved. First game broke the million mark and the second according to fig investors didnt even break 200k back in Nov 18.

Something went really wrong, I'd guess its innovation department. I can even admit that TB is not necessary its more a personal prefference after testing the new feature, but online given how RPG origins DNA is ( A social game where you bond with your friends and create amusing interactions and solutions with the interaction). I can say that it was a feature lacking since it wasn't the game mechanics fault, the artwork fault or the story fault.

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, takamorisan said:

but online given how RPG origins DNA is ( A social game where you bond with your friends and create amusing interactions and solutions with the interaction). I can say that it was a feature lacking since it wasn't the game mechanics fault, the artwork fault or the story fault.

So you are proposing that an RPG won't sell well, if it doesn't have multiplayer?

PoE1 sold really well, and was singleplayer. So what was the problem with PoE2? Smaller crowdfunding profile? People not liking PoE2 that much? Critics not liking PoE2 that much? Setting that doesn't play on nostalgia? People who bought PoE1 didn't actually like it? Or didn't complete it, and didn't buy the sequel? The colour and humor of DoS is more markatable, then grim, serious and lore heavy focus of PoE?

[takamorisan]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

So you are proposing that an RPG won't sell well, if it doesn't have multiplayer?

PoE1 sold really well, and was singleplayer. So what was the problem with PoE2? Smaller crowdfunding profile? People not liking PoE2 that much? Critics not liking PoE2 that much? Setting that doesn't play on nostalgia? People who bought PoE1 didn't actually like it? Or didn't complete it, and didn't buy the sequel? The colour and humor of DoS is more markatable, then grim, serious and lore heavy focus of PoE?

Well if you are going to flood with non questions instead of arguments very well.

a)Smaller crowdfunding profile?

Compared to kickstarter and know administrative experience Deadfire had a much smoother experience

b)People not liking PoE2 that much?

Yes my post was meant to provoke this question, so why didn't enjoy?

c)Setting that doesn't play on nostalgia?

If I were to say the setting touch the nostalgia of CRPGs, unless you want to tell me that islands is a no no. And we are dealing with the whole debacle of ninjas versus pirates.

 

d)People who bought PoE1 didn't actually like it?

Would had translated on Steam reviews and user metascore, you know how people look for any excuse to start review bombing something.

e)Or didn't complete it, and didn't buy the sequel?

Well back to b) I guess?

f)The colour and humor of DoS is more markatable, then grim, serious and lore heavy focus of PoE?

Humor is subjective I can't honestly say who was the best comedian, but I don't believe people are playing RPGs for a stand up show. As for Grim, well both share the Grim torture belongs to both, murder, gallows humor and so on. Lore Heavy? I don't think so PoE 2 didn't exposure bomb you like the first game.

[Yosharian]

It's a little presumptuous to say that something is unnecessary because you don't like it.  It's not clear at all what percentage of Deadfire players, or the general gaming populace, is interested in turn-based, so it's also just speculation to say 'very few' of the playerbase is interested in it.

For example, I have been vocal about my dislike of Deadfire's voiceover narration, and frequently made requests to have the option to turn it off in the options.  I know I'm not alone in this.  However, I would never dream of asking for it to be removed for future games, because if others enjoy it (and many clearly do), then it's not a waste of resources.

Turn-based is optional, and just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's unnecessary.

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, takamorisan said:

a)Smaller crowdfunding profile?

Compared to kickstarter and know administrative experience Deadfire had a much smoother experience

Not correct. Deadfire had significantly less backers. The achieved sum was due to investors + backers. PoE1 also got funded more quickly. Due to all the nostalgic players who wanted the "spiritual successor of Baldunr's Gate". 

It may seem smoother because the team had more experience with managing a crowdfunding campaign after doing it for PoE. While I don't know who was in charge of the Kickstarter campaign for PoE (maybe nobody in particular but it was a group effort)I know that they let Katrina Garsten manage the fig campaign of Deadfire and she did a great job. But still the funding didn't went as well as for PoE - if we are looking at the number of backers. And that's the only indicator that matter in this case.

There may be several reasons why Deadfire didn't sell as well as PoE. The "questions" that Wormerine listed are all possible reasons for people to not back/buy Deadfire. There are metrics that show that a very small percentage of PoE players finished the game. There were quite a few vocal grognards even here in the forums who where disappointed with PoE in it's role as successor of Baldur's Gate. Several people said they don't like a Pirates of the Carribean theme compared to a more traditional medieval theme. Lots of people complained about the bugs in PoE - also about the constant rebalancing (or nerfing). The performance (Unity) was an issue with PoE (and still is with Deadfire). 
But: there were not that many complaints about missing multiplayer in PoE. So while this may attract more players (most of them a bit younger I guess) it can't be the only or even the biggest reason for Deadfire's lower sales numbers.  

[Wormerine]

13 hours ago, takamorisan said:

Well if you are going to flood with non questions instead of arguments very well.

Thank you for taking effort to reply to each one of them. However, I meant them to be rhetorical questions, and they were meant to be an argument: meaning, there are many elements which could contribute to Deadfire selling worse then PoE1, or in case of our argument: worse then DoS2. 

I cast the net wide, as I prefer not to claim why DoS2 sold better, as my “analysis” would be very subjective, and as a backer of Deadfire, I don’t see my personal perception as very valuable in this discussion.

I do, however, intend to put to question claim, that if PoE2 had coop, it would sell much better. Part of it is subjective (coop mode doesn’t present much value to me personally, especially as DoS2 coop mode is left untouched in my gog library) but genuinely don’t believe that a big chunk of DoS2 would automatically transfer to PoE2, nor that PoE would work well as a coop game.

Things I don’t like about DoS2 are things that make it work as a social, coop adventure. To make PoE2 work as a coop game would take substantial changes to writing, world, game design, tone and overall focus of the game. One might want to invade DoS2 market space, but as I expressed in the past, while there certainly is an overlap, I don’t believe that those two games fight for quite the same audience. Sure, both are top-down RPGs, but it’s like claiming that every first person shooter appeals to the same crowd. 

i do agree that PoE3 (if it happens) might need to innovate and dazzle in some way - there is clearly an audience for a game of this type, but for some reasons Deadfire didn’t resonate very well outside the very involved core audience (and even core audience tends to have pretty major complaints). 

All I can say for certain, is that the reception hasn’t been kind. PoE1, in spite of its shortcomings, was praised with enthusiasm, while PoE2 seems to be praised for objective reasons, but with a lukewarm attitude. 

If Obsidian is interested in continuing the IP, something has to be changed, but I don’t believe that changing genre (and I do consider a sandbox coop RPG to be a different beast then story driven single player RPG) is the right answer.

 

edit: typos

Edited May 17, 2019 by Wormerine

[takamorisan]

So much investment went into this IP both from community and developer, would be a shame to see them drop it. Devil May Cry had plenty of bad apples in their history but managed to reach its peak eventually. Hope they don't give up and go for 3, since a big question went left unanswered in PoE .

Any chance we get a word from Obsidian about future plans? I know they are done with PoE 2 now.

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, takamorisan said:

Any chance we get a word from Obsidian about future plans? I know they are done with PoE 2 now.

No. We know that beside "Outer Words" Obsidian works on two other projects. It is unlikely they will reveal anything about those two, until OW ships. One can only hope that one of those is PoE3, or at least Eora related. 

[Saito Hikari]

I want to say, I imagine another significant factor in the possible decline in sales for PoE2 especially when compared to D:OS2 is that PoE2 was already known to be launching with DLC being released later. I find there is a growing mentality in the gaming community - especially among cRPGs which have a recent but very major reputation for being a genre with games that constantly launch with bugs out the ass and being mass re-balanced later - where a significant amount of people will refuse to buy said games until all DLC is released, the bugs/balancing is ironed out, and the game is put on sale. In that time, the lukewarm reception people had to the base game may have hit those potential later sales hard, and the news that it sold poorly compared to its predecessor to the point where the series' actual future is in question basically compounds that further. It's a really nasty feedback loop that leads to a major loss in interest for those waiting to buy such games later. PoE2 launched in a really slow gaming month too, but by the time all the DLC was out, we drifted into the super packed holiday period too.

D:OS2 was heavily advertised as being complete out of the gate due to the nature of how its developers operate (they haven't launched any recent games with any paid DLC), and the previous game's combat was also considered rather revolutionary even if its narrative was left up to taste (and while PoE had a superior narrative/writing, people still found it unnecessarily wordy, and not a lot of people praise the actual gameplay). People's views on it may be subjective (the last third of the game was so disjointed design-wise that the developers released a rebalanced version of the game that overhauled it as well), but even the definitive edition released a year later was outright free to those who already had the original game.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Saito Hikari

[daven]

Oi, i'd like to thank whoever gave Divinity: Original Sin 2 a glowing review on here and convinced me to buy it when it first came out.

I played it for 15 minutes and have never put it on again. I want my 35 quid back dammit. I'll find you whoever you are...!

[xzar_monty]

Ha. I bought D:OS from Steam, found out straight away that I'm not interested and was able to get a full refund because I had played the game for less than an hour. I feel for you. (Ditto for Tyranny, by the way.)

[Boeroer]

Same - except I finished Tyranny (but cancelled the second playthrough).

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, daven said:

Oi, i'd like to thank whoever gave Divinity: Original Sin 2 a glowing review on here and convinced me to buy it when it first came out.

I played it for 15 minutes and have never put it on again. I want my 35 quid back dammit. I'll find you whoever you are...!

Haha! I feel ya, though I did soldier through for some 40 tedious hours (if my memory serves me well). At least, I have a pretty defined opinion on why I don’t like DoS2.

Now I am eyeing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. 

[xzar_monty]

36 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Now I am eyeing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. 

 

I think it's really good BUT with some astonishing faults. Ultimately, I would recommend it.

 

There are some things that I just don't understand. Like, some of the encounters are designed in such a cruel way that if my DM did that, I would leave his group pretty much straight away. Pitting the player against a way way way superior opponent without means of escape (random encounter) is just mean. Why do that? But it can seriously happen in P:K.

[Boeroer]

I guess because you can reload.

Difficult to do during a tabletop RPG.

[kanisatha]

3 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Haha! I feel ya, though I did soldier through for some 40 tedious hours (if my memory serves me well). At least, I have a pretty defined opinion on why I don’t like DoS2.

Now I am eyeing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. 

@Wormerine, P:K is getting an enhanced edition soon so you may want to wait for that.

On D:OS, I bought the first game on sale and slogged through over 350 hours on it even though I really disliked the game, and especially the combat, just so I could say I really gave it an honest chance. You cannot pay me to try D:OS2.

[takamorisan]

Pathfinder I recently finished a playthrough. I bought back when it released and it was a mess, a bug mess. Absolute appocalypse.

After waiting 8 months of patch cycles, finally managed to get in a playable state, still crashed through some bugs but nothing that could destroy a save game. Its still has that euro jank aura around it, wait for the EE that is the 100% complete game and you should be able to have fun.

[bringingyouthefuture]

I liked DOS and DOS2 way better than PK, I couldn't finish PK - it was either way too easy or annoyingly repetitive - and the storyline dragged on forever I literally just gave up after I took over Pitax - thought that was a good place to stop.  If PK was turn-based I would have enjoyed it more - even though I feel the RTwP in POE2 is far more fun than both DOS and PK.

[Saito Hikari]

4 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

I liked DOS and DOS2 way better than PK, I couldn't finish PK - it was either way too easy or annoyingly repetitive - and the storyline dragged on forever I literally just gave up after I took over Pitax - thought that was a good place to stop.  If PK was turn-based I would have enjoyed it more - even though I feel the RTwP in POE2 is far more fun than both DOS and PK.

You were actually right at endgame, there was only one (or two, depending on endgame choices) chapter left.

That said, the endgame of PK was probably the most infuriating thing I have ever witnessed from any modern game, and I wonder if the developers were bonkers with the encounter design there. Moreso than the rest of the game. Freedom of Movement was MANDATORY to have on everyone at all times, and lord help your entire party if it was dispelled and you ran out of spell cats (or ran into the annoying persistent field buff in the area that stops 50% of your spells from working because why the hell not).

[Wormerine]

30 minutes ago, Saito Hikari said:

and you ran out of spell cats

Yeah, running out of cats is always bad. Little chance of that happening in Deadfire. 

[bringingyouthefuture]

There is always more cats in dark alleys and at the bottom of a dungeon if you need em ... just don't go looking for them on Gorecci Street.

[Manveru123]

On 5/16/2019 at 11:33 PM, Wormerine said:

So you are proposing that an RPG won't sell well, if it doesn't have multiplayer?

PoE1 sold really well, and was singleplayer. So what was the problem with PoE2? Smaller crowdfunding profile? People not liking PoE2 that much? Critics not liking PoE2 that much? Setting that doesn't play on nostalgia? People who bought PoE1 didn't actually like it? Or didn't complete it, and didn't buy the sequel? The colour and humor of DoS is more markatable, then grim, serious and lore heavy focus of PoE?

That's because ninjas > pirates ofc.

[Sven_]

I think a key misconception in terms of RtWP Combat is how it's "evolved" since. Bioware back then were heavily inspired by RTS games of the day -- Warcraft 2 in particular, which they Held tournaments in the Office.  They also actually cut various Corners when translating AD&D rules (in itself in many ways as argued way more simple than lots of "modern" systems since) into that inherently real-time Environment -- with all characters eventually all acting out at once, and attack rolls et all being resolved simultaneously. Some of PoE/2 feels like it was actually meant to be a TB game from the go, and certainly several key system Designers have already voiced their preferences towards TB. That's not the Right way to Approach the RtWP "conundrum". Given that even the more hardcore can find Combat resolutions a tad "cluster****y" depending on the Encounter (I do and dub it the "Where did this Status effect suddenly come from" effect), it makes you wonder how the General audience would respond.

I'm curious how Pathfinder may pan out in the late game, but given the plenty of stuff at Play, including multiple attacks of opporunity per round, AOEs, CC abilities, and attack bonuses gifting each character multiple attacks per "round" later on; the Combat log may implode depending on the Encounter design, and not merely that. (It's a good game, btw. Could turn into my favourite of the "nu" RtWP wave actually -- on Occasion despite it being RT, rather than because of it).

Edited May 24, 2019 by Sven_

[Boeroer]

Implode? So there will be a vacuum in the combat log?