Any Chance of Pillars Of Eternity III?

[Boeroer]

Josh said in his post mortem that adding TB mode was like nothing compared to the ship combat system and full voice over. Maybe also because some efforts were already made to introduce turn based mode since PoE1. Maybe because it was easier (technically) than we think it was.  

Iirc ship combat wasn't explicitly mentioned in the original fig campaign nor was a stretch goal. No idea why somebody would be so adamant and insist on its implementation then. 

[xzar_monty]

26 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Josh said in his post mortem that adding TB mode was like nothing compared to the ship combat system and full voice over. Maybe also because some efforts were already made to introduce turn based mode since PoE1. Maybe because it was easier (technically) than we think it was. 

Really? Wow. Good to know, thanks. I know the post mortem exists but I've only watched it here and there, for a total of maybe five minutes. And as I've said before, what impressed me that Sawyer was forthright enough to take some blame and acknowledge that he made mistakes. That's really something. Laying the blame is the easiest thing in the world and everybody does it, so the opposite of that is always worth a mention.

[kanisatha]

12 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I also think the "Pirates of the Carribean" setting had an impact on sales numbers. But I have no proof whatsoever and nobody talked about it yet so maybe that's just me.

I'm with you on this. I also don't have any evidence, but my gut tells me this was a major turn-off for many hardcore cRPG fans. I would then add that reinventing the game mechanics from PoE1 was likely also a major turn-off for many who had liked PoE1.

[xzar_monty]

7 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I'm with you on this. I also don't have any evidence, but my gut tells me this was a major turn-off for many hardcore cRPG fans. I would then add that reinventing the game mechanics from PoE1 was likely also a major turn-off for many who had liked PoE1.

So, you would your argument go something along the lines of "Pirates of the Caribbean" implying a humorous tone and hardcore cRPG fans not being a humor-oriented bunch? This is a genuine question, I'm not criticizing your take. I'm very curious to know why you think the Caribbean theme might be a turnoff. And yes, it could be, no question.

As for reinventing the game mechanics: it was a slight turn-off for me in the beginning, and I did have my what the heck moment, but I think it's pretty obvious the new mechanics are better.

[Boeroer]

A bit of that as well, but I guess the somewhat lighter tone wasn't that much of a repellent. I suspect  that the lighter tone (not goofy, but lighter than PoE) was established because of feedback from PoE and because the D:OS games have it and they were/are a big success. Again, no quote on or proof for that.

Anyway - I presume what @kanisatha meant - and what I mean - is that many "hardcore" CRPG players prefer a "Lord of the Rings" setting over a "Pirates of the Carribean" setting. I use those books/movies because they show a much bigger picture than I could paint just with a few words.

In PoE we also had a post-medieval, renaissance-ish world in the background, but it wasn't very obvious because the game took place in the Dyrwood... which is, culturally speaking, very different and fairly "behind" compared to some of the more advanced nations (Old Vaillia, Rauatai and so on).
Basically in PoE it's just the guns that remind you of it. That and some rare Vaillian haute couture...
The rest is gritty, quite dark, kind of backwards and medieval: the architecture, the common people, the items - even the tone is dark like the dark times (besides Edér, Hiravias, Zahua and Aloth sometimes). I mean Durance alone puts the whole setting back for at least a hundred years for the player.

In Deadfire all that stuff (overall presentation, architecture, clothing, even the weather) is obviously fitting the more "modern" and light setting of Pirates! (Arrrr!). There are some cool things mixed in to loosen it up, but you can't know that by simply looking at screenies and stuff at the storefront.

So - if you are not into that then you might be put off even before purchasing it. You can immediately see from screenshots and videos about the game what the setting is. This may influence your decision to give it a try. Lots of gamers really have to think about on what they want to spend their money. Lots of them are young and don't earn their own money - and if they do then it's probably not enough that they just can spend 40-50 bucks just to see if the game is nice despite that non-preferred setting. I would argue that if there are second thougths about the overall setting then that's bad for such game (which is not cheap compared to many others you might want to try).

That's just my highly subjective and speculative theory though. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

That's a good theory, very sound and logical. And of course we cannot know if it's true or not, but it certainly could be.

And yes, the money question is relevant, too -- and also something I hadn't considered at all. There was certainly a time when I was in that age bracket myself and had to consider very carefully what to buy and what not to (and for the overwhelming majority of games, the only reasonable choice was not buying). Heck, there was even a time, in the ZX-81 era, when we programmed our games ourselves (though it has to be said that I only ever knew the basics).

Personally, after playing (let's say) enough cRPGS with Tolkienishly medieval settings, I was quite pleased with the world of Deadfire. And as I've said before, it's one of the very, very few games where I've taken special time and effort to appreciate the gorgeous graphics. Boy, does the game look fantastic. Normally, that's purely secondary to me, quite possibly because of my rather long experience with computer games. I mean, there certainly have been plenty of rubbish games that look nice, so "looking nice" tends to have very little inherent value.

Edited August 19, 2019 by xzar_monty

[kanisatha]

@xzar_monty, what @Boeroer laid out is exactly what I meant as well. Thanks for laying it out so well @Boeroer.

[Elric Galad]

22 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

As for the game and its development, there are two big things that make me think that something was rotten in the state of Denmark:

1) Ship combat. This is the obvious biggie. They spent a lot of time and resources on this and still explain how unhappy with it at least some of them are, and how contradictory their feelings are/were regarding the whole thing. To an outsider looking in, none of this sounds good.

2) Adding turn-based mode so long after the game came out. This is just baffling. It's a huge endeavor, and I'm not sure whether it even has a precedent.

Still, even if it feels like they wanted to go too many directions at the same time, they ended with a pretty consistent game without major flaws except… well… the ending.

Another big flaw was original difficulty level. Main story and difficulty level might have been the 2 main cause of bad reviews which lowered sales.

If one wants to point a rotten development, just have a look at the fiasco that was Tides of Numenara.

For me, PoE2 has a couple of problems, but the team managed to deliver a rather complete and consistent game. When they started to go off the road (probably because of over-enthusiasm due to PoE1 success), they managed to motivate themselves to correct the major flaws,

I sincerely hope that the Pirates setting wasn't the cause of low sales, because it would mean that RPGames are really narrow minded. It is still fantasy with the usual monsters, ruins of ancien civs and magic...

[uuuhhii]

pirate themed rpg looks like it should be easy and popular

but no

risen somehow messed it up twice

the biggest problem of poe probably are how impenetrable it can be to new player

deadfire are much easier to understand for old player

but equally impenetrable for new player

hard to imagine how obsidian could change this in a sequel

[daven]

Fair enough guys, i have looked for the article i thought I read on RPGCODEX but I can't see it. I must have misread/made it up.

Anyways, as far as i'm concerned the BG saga ended with TOB. There really is no reason to go back to that story again. Even TOB was pushing it a bit, thought I don't mind more Forgotten Realms games.

Actually... from reading these interviews with SWEN or whoever it actually sounds closer to the spirit of Neverwinter Nights with online/co op etc rather than the DND simulator that BG was.

Edited August 19, 2019 by daven
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[wingedchocolatecake]

On 8/19/2019 at 7:46 PM, uuuhhii said:

pirate themed rpg looks like it should be easy and popular

but no

risen somehow messed it up twice

the biggest problem of poe probably are how impenetrable it can be to new player

deadfire are much easier to understand for old player

but equally impenetrable for new player

hard to imagine how obsidian could change this in a sequel

As of right now, POE was the first and only RPG I have ever played. As a new player, I did not think it 'impenetrable,' rather it was incredibly lore heavy and almost dumps its entire narrative on the player at once. For me, that was part of what made me keep playing, I wanted to understand this world and its various myths and histories. 

I think Deadfire does alleviate this problem somewhat with the pop-up explanations of the gods, cities and historical events.

What I don't understand is how players of the first game didn't pick up the sequel. I think I would chalk it up to poor marketing, setting-as Boeroer said, and a less impressive story. 

 

One way Obsidian could change this would be to have a new protagonist, a fresh start, so to speak. Perhaps you could import your Deadfire save into POE3 or have choices available and have the decisions you made as Watcher of Caed Nua directly affect this new protagonist. This would make the game a little more welcoming to outsiders and new players. 

 

Or, they could have a completely new story and just mention the Watcher here and there. I don't think this will happen because of the cliffhanger ending and all.

[daven]

Orrrrrr... if anyone has played Dargon Age: Awakening, you could either carry on your Warden character or have be a new guy. It was basically the same story but there were changes based on your character. Maybe something like that could work?

[wingedchocolatecake]

5 hours ago, daven said:

Orrrrrr... if anyone has played Dargon Age: Awakening, you could either carry on your Warden character or have be a new guy. It was basically the same story but there were changes based on your character. Maybe something like that could work?

Maybe, but there'd have to be a lot of changes. Like, character reactivity. For example (and I'm assuming the Circle would return in POE3), why would the Circle of Archmagi employ some random flunky if they've already worked with the "illustrious" Watcher? The same goes for the gods. Why would they choose a random new guy if Berath already controls the Watcher? I don't think a new protagonist and the Watcher would work well in tandem. Besides, Obsidian will already have to write a crap ton of alternating dialogue based on the Watcher's reputation as a whole, which faction they chose and their reputation with companions and NPC's alike. I just don't see them doing all that and coming up with a completely new protagonist on top of that. 

 

[Tenray]

PoE2 is a great. I had alot fun playing it.

I don't think the pirate theme is bad at all, but it is just a little too stereotypical imo: everywhere are pirates, everyone is drunk and also talking like that and OFC there is somewhere a kraken hiding and a Davy Jones ship that is not being owned by Davy Jones, he got replaced by a female skeleton thingy called Lucia Rivan. I really felt SOMETIMES like playing a Pirates of the Carribbean game. It's just a little too much.

On the contrast however, PoE2 offers great combat, multiclassing, alot of really unique items, turn-based mode, cool and challenging bosses and alot alot to explore. Unfortunatelly the main path literally consists of only 4 quests, which is just too little imo (Crypt -> Hassongo -> Ashen Maw -> Ukaizo -> Done). 

Furthermore PoE1 had a really dark story, from my perspective, which I liked alot. I really liked Thaos! He was mysterious and I was actually looking forward to get somehow more involved in the Leaden Key in PoE2. As I said the pirate theme is not bad at all, but the transition from PoE1 to PoE2 was so weird for me. From a dark story into an overall alot happier atmosphere (besides what Eothas is doing ofc).

Summarized I would still say PoE2 totally deserves a 90/100 aswell as PoE1 because it does alot things better than PoE1, especially gameplay/combat/quests, but I was just hoping personally for a much darker and longer main story for the sequel. If they would have continued the dark theme and introduced more mysterious characters, like Thaos, PoE2 would have been 95+/100 easily.

[xzar_monty]

9 hours ago, Tenray said:

I don't think the pirate theme is bad at all, but it is just a little too stereotypical imo: everywhere are pirates, everyone is drunk and also talking like that and OFC there is somewhere a kraken hiding and a Davy Jones ship that is not being owned by Davy Jones, he got replaced by a female skeleton thingy called Lucia Rivan. I really felt SOMETIMES like playing a Pirates of the Carribbean game. It's just a little too much.

To an extent, you quite obviously do have a point (although not everyone is drunk by any stretch of the imagination). But hey, when you consider the average fantasy RPG, surely they're all the same in the same way? The dragons, the elves, the halflings, the dwarves, the heroes, the villains, the treasures: they're all cliches.

Edited August 22, 2019 by xzar_monty

[Tenray]

7 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

To an extent, you quite obviously do have a point (although not everyone is drunk by any stretch of the imagination). But hey, when you consider the average fantasy RPG, surely they're all the same in the same way? The dragons, the elves, the halflings, the dwarves, the heroes, the villains, the treasures: they're all cliches.

Surely, I am overexaggerating at some point and you are right all RPGs are using cliches, but why do you think some are getting rated very high and others get completely forgotten. It's about presentation!

I give you an example of how I look at this things:

Let's talk about The Elder Scrolls and the Dark Brotherhood. This is a vampire theme, super stereotypical, nothing really innovative there. BUT I haven't met a single person yet that would have denied this questline being amazing/entertaining. So after this questline was well received in the the Oblivion game, what have they done with in Skyrim ? Well, they just took it again, added some similar generic quests, some unique quests to continue the brotherhood story and everyone is going nuts again. Again great, at least that's my opinion and everyone I have talked to about that. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. One of the most important things to mention is that the Dark Brotherhood is an element Bethesda did not really advertised with in contrast to Obsidian with the pirate theme.

 

Let's now take an example from Deadfire, the Flying Dutchman cliche. A very obvious element from the pirate theme. Davy Jones aka Lucia Rivan here get's introduced. You get the story told about Lucia by the kid that survived. Furrante, Aeldys and Yseyr. All of them telling you about her, it's really cool, honestly. The introduction was perfectly fine, but when you finally are able to step onto the Flying Dutchman things are getting really disappoiting for me. All you do, after finally meeting Lucia, is: Talk to her for literally less than 5 minutes and to decide to kill her and take the ship OR if you have the skill check trade the ship for your own ... That's it. That was SO disappointing. That's an element from the pirate theme, that Obsidian did advertise with, am I right ?

I mean there is nothing behind Lucia Rivan. You do not really listen to HER story, what does she say, what is her real intention, you cannot side with her and take revenge or something like that, maybe she is looking for some kind of salvation because she is cursed and you might help her, not even a single quest that you directly get from HER. I just think you could have done alot more with the Flying Dutchman cliche. That's why I am saying it's about presentation. I like the pirate theme actually, I would have liked alot siding with her, being a part of the undead and doing some cruel quests for example. Unfortunatelly you cannot.

 

Edit:

I actually also want to mention a great example in Deadfire. Let's take the cliche of "there is drake terrifying the village and you are the hero to climb the mountain and kill it". This cliche is used for Beast of the Winter, which is btw my favourite DLC. Just look how Obsidian presented it:
- you are being introduced to some kind of cult, everyone is waiting for you and wants to hear what to do next
- you actually have no clue what is going on
- out of the nothing the drake appears and you think everyone is going crazy -> they want to get killed on purpose and are looking for some kind of salvation this way, no clue, mindblowing for personally
- you follow the drake into a cave, into the Vytmadh where he has an never-ending battle with Rynhaedr
- you replay older scenarios, which are frozen in time, SUPER cool
- and even more stuff ...

THAT is amazing presentation, let me tell you that. BW was awesome. Same applies to others DLCs. They are really great. That is a way to use a cliche and present it where the player, at least me, doesn't instantly know what is really going on and what to do. The problem is: when the DLCs are much better than the actual main game, you might get bad reponses/reviews. Even if they would buy the game NOW with all DLCs, they tend to play the main plot first before exploring the rest. That's problematic.
 

Dont't get me wrong. I really do not want to brag more about it. PoE2 is really awesome. I have played almost 800 hours by now. More than twice as much as in PoE1 because in Deadfire there is alot more to do and to explore, but some elemets are just so poorly presented, I am sorry.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Tenray

[xzar_monty]

I agree that the Flying Dutchman idea is not taken into any kind of conclusion. And I also agree that BoW is very good; for me, too, it is clearly the best of the three DLCs. I quit SSS about halfway through, because it was essentially just battle and I didn't need more of that, and I basically didn't even start FS because I had already reached max level and didn't see the point (both PoE and Deadfire suffer mightily from the fact that you max out on XP way way way too early). Actually, I found it quite interesting that arguably (but for me quite clearly) the most ambitious and multi-leveled storytelling in Deadfire happens in a DLC extension, i.e. Beast of Winter. Come to think of it, it was close to the same in PoE, too...

 

As for The Elder Scrolls: I cannot comment, I have never even seen the game.

[bringingyouthefuture]

I think turn-based has always been a better system for RPGs, though I think Obsidian did finally perfect RtWP and made it at least as good as turn-based (finally!!!).  I hated my first experience with RtWP - drove me crazy, but once I got used to it, it was okay - never like it as much until POE2's turn-based combat though.

I think Sven said they are using the same game engine for BG3 as DOS1 and2, but what they are really investing in is making co-op play even better, and also into heavy reactivity in the world.  I listened to a lot of his interviews and I think they could make a really amazing D&D game if they keep close to the D&D ruleset.   They could totally mess it up though trying to make it like a DOS game lol.

POE3 could really shake things up in the CRPG realm if they get back to the core story mood of POE, get away from open world especially from being a little boat icon moving around in an open world (the worst and its strange that no one ever mentions this but its such a letdown), and create a turn-based system as strong as other turn-based games while keeping the core RtWP mechanic available as an option.  I wonder though if in the end it is the 2-D camera environments that are also hurting POE games.  I wonder if 3D-camera movements is going to become a standard for games moving forward.  The static environments though much more refined and artistic than any that a 3-D camera game creates, still feel well static.  I mean I don't care so much as I love the story and combat the most, and neither of those are really affected by what type of camera view you have lol.  Just some thoughts.

It's funny I just am ripping through the Shadowrun games after finishing DQ11 - and I must say that even with all the fancy stuff in DQ11 - it can't even touch the amount of fun I have had playing Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall - both great games, playing Hong Kong now.  What is interesting in reading the reviews of Hong Kong, people didn't like it as much, mostly because of expectations for more innovation and new features, where the developers stuck to their guns and improved on what they had ... I wonder if as a case study this applies to POE2 - I don't think they could of just made another POE game and not have it panned for being just a very large expansion game of POE, I think they needed to innovate to keep it fresh - its just some of the choices made for the innovation were the wrong ones and they include the stuff mentioned and stuff Josh mentioned - ship combat (though I think it turned out pretty well it also let a lot of people down); I would add open world with stupid ship icon (bad); full VO (though this is another expectation these days if I remember Josh discussing this in his talk too); I would argue scope of the story - I think they went to big and tried to do too much which left them in a difficult position to try and tie everything together - now I like the big story and I don't want them to back paddle in that regards but hopefully they realize they need to be more focused on a main narrative that drives the action.

Edited August 22, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture

[Kilburn]

They should make more games IMO. So much effort in making all this infrastructure, seems a shame not to milk it a little. Look at how long they milked infinity engine. Pillars 2 combat system is miles ahead of pillars 1. 

They should just make the new ones more low budget, add a bunch of new kits, maybe a new class some new monsters is all you need. Get rid of anything that would be a time sink, ship combat, complicated reputation system, etc. which doesn't add any value to the core of the game play anyways IMO. 

[Boeroer]

So basically something like Seeker, Slayer, Survivor as a standalone game with additional classes and monsters? 

[Kilburn]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:03 PM, Boeroer said:

If it has the look and feel of D:OS I or II I'm out.

x2 on that

I tried DOS 1 briefly. What the hell is that? My god. different strokes i guess. Im a bit surprised those games sell so well.  

[Kilburn]

9 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

So basically something like Seeker, Slayer, Survivor as a standalone game with additional classes and monsters? 

I have no idea. Just throwing it out there. Maybe a dungeon crawl game like icewind dale. maybe raise the level cap with some new abilities like BG2 Xpac. whatever they want to do that would be cost efficient. 

[Wormerine]

On 8/19/2019 at 6:46 PM, uuuhhii said:

the biggest problem of poe probably are how impenetrable it can be to new player

deadfire are much easier to understand for old player

but equally impenetrable for new player

hard to imagine how obsidian could change this in a sequel

That is true, though one would need to buy the game first to know that. However, I have seen complaints in reviews on how indulged in its own lore the opening of the game is, and how difficult it is to care.

Changing it simple, in theory, but difficult to pull off: The hook, storyline and setting used need to be relatable, engaging and intriguing without any knowledge of PoE required. That's what they attempted in Deadfire, though I feel that without being in Caed Nua, and experiencing Eothas attack it is difficult to care.

I feel it would be a much better opening, if instead "tutorial island" of Port Maje, Player would start in the keep, experience being the ruler and the attack. This is were player could learn all the necessary skills, before moving on to Deadfire, and recruiting Eder and Aloth might be much less artificial.

[xzar_monty]

9 hours ago, Wormerine said:

That is true, though one would need to buy the game first to know that. However, I have seen complaints in reviews on how indulged in its own lore the opening of the game is, and how difficult it is to care.

But this is subjective, of course. I personally found PoE's opening to be superb. You get introduced to adra and the Engwithians pretty much straight away, and right after that there's something really mysterious (the Watcher thing). I thought it was just great. Back in the day, Ultima IV was a game where it took me quite a while to recognize what it was I was supposed to be doing, and that sense of mystery was lovely.

I wonder whether the reviewers you bring up expected what is called hand-holding. Would you care to provide some links so that I could check what they write? (I suppose we all agree that reviews tend to be very, very poor today, because proper computer game journalism, as serious journalism, has essentially disappeared.)

[Boeroer]

I also think that the opening and the early game of PoE is the best part.