On the road to... Pillars of Eternity 3

[Wormerine]

What if PoE3, is an adaptation of Josh's table top system? 

[mjo2138]

I just hope good isometrics RPGs keep coming out.... the market for isometric RPGs like pillars still exists; it just aging.  As long as we are around, there will be games for our generation. I bet the median age for deadfire fans is between late twenties and older. We are getting older lol. I am 34. 

 

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, mjo2138 said:

I just hope good isometrics RPGs keep coming out.... the market for isometric RPGs like pillars still exists; it just aging.  As long as we are around, there will be games for our generation. I bet the median age for deadfire fans is between late twenties and older. We are getting older lol. I am 34.

It's older than that, I'd say. Some of us were here for the games that came out in the mid-1980s, and they started with ZX81.

Edited April 16, 2020 by xzar_monty

[Boeroer]

My first CRPG was Pool of Radiance.

[mjo2138]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

My first CRPG was Pool of Radiance.

10 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

It's older than that, I'd say. Some of us were here for the games that came out in the mid-1980s, and they started with ZX81.

That is great.! 

 

 

[Guest Ontarah]

I was quite satisfied with Deadfire and overall had way, way fewer quibbles with it than I did with POE.  Things I would want in POEIII:

1)  Go back to 6 person party.  I really disliked the reduction and now that I've played it once "as intended" I'm probably going to mod it to allow increased party size in future playthroughs. 

2) Ditch the persistent level cap on DLC.  DLC should raise the level cap. 

3) Allow for a wider range of philosophical positions about the nature of the gods (ranging from "It's my life mission to destroy them" to "They can do no wrong" to "I don't care what they do.") reflected in actual in-game decisions you can make and not just flavor dialog.  

4)  Work harder to gradually scale difficulty on Normal so newbs can learn and/or have some kind of Tutorial mode that doesn't amount to "Here's a big pile of junk you need to read."

5) Less purple prose describing dialog.  Ideally *no* description of dialog unless the player would literally not understand what's happening without it.   BG didn't need it.  It adds nothing to POE but tediousness. 

6) More companions, less open world.

7) More companion banters and dialog, less text adventures 

Things I thought that were massive improvements from POE that I do not want to see replaced or removed:

1.  Spells and abilities are per encounter and not per rest

2. Health regeneration after each fight (though I'd be fine with no regeneration but being very liberal about where and how often we can rest)

3. Romances 

4. Unique magical items and weapons are actually unique and the enchantment system enforces that uniqueness

5. Your companions helping you to pass dialog checks and/or being able to consult a companion who has the obvious knowledge to answer a specialized question for you

6.  There being a much greater variety of dialog skills to choose between

7. The companion reputation system

Overall, Deadfire was a solid step up both in combat and companions.  The plot was a bit weaker, but so long as the plot isn't *bad* that's one of the things I care about least in an RPG. 

*Edit*

The biggest one of all.  DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT make it turn-based.  Turn-based optional?  Fine, whatever.  Turn-based required?  NO NO NO.

Other than isometric RPGs dying out altogether, this is my biggest fear.  That they will be made turn-based because everybody tries to copy Larian. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[xzar_monty]

19 hours ago, Ontarah said:

The biggest one of all.  DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT make it turn-based.  Turn-based optional?  Fine, whatever.  Turn-based required?  NO NO NO.

Other than isometric RPGs dying out altogether, this is my biggest fear.  That they will be made turn-based because everybody tries to copy Larian. 

Doesn't it appear essentially set in stone that BG3 will be turn-based (only)? This is my understanding at the moment. So in that sense the future does look a bit bleak. Wrath of the Righteous will (surely?) be RtwP, though, so there's at least once single game to look forward to (although the writing department could use some serious improvement).

[Guest Ontarah]

Yeah, it does unfortunately look that way.  I'm holding out hope that maybe they will do both like Deadfire or else they will release a RTwP mode later on as an extra feature. 

[Guest 4ward]

The 90s… Party-Rpgs feature turn-based combat, simple fights can last half an hour.. at the same time rts games like ages of empire or command & conquer are hits among gamers. One of the fans is Bioware employee James Ohlen. He wants an rts game for Bioware, they call it Battleground infinity. Scott Greig programs the engine, they showcase it. Only Interplay’s Fergus Urquhart is interested and ask to use it for his rpg. Ohlen – a fan of fantasy, D&d, dragons  - is excited. But they soon realize that it’s not quite manageable. There’s a pause. Scott – a fan of turn-based combat – has an idea. „Hey James, let’s throw in the pause!“- Battleground infinity never sees the light, instead an rpg, called Baldurs gate, featuring real-time with pause combat, short rtwp, is released. People really like it. Some of them especially like how fights are resolved quicker, everything is flowing. They use their combatants like units, moving them around for e.g. blocking. A sequel is released, adds spells, potions, general items, weapons, effects, cool enemies, countering, disabling in many ways.. players go crazy, it’s like heaven.

The 2020s… James Ohlen develops tabletop games, Scott Greig programs for a business corp. Rounds have been replaced with cooldowns, moving like rts is history, (even the simplest things like) invisibility has disappeared.. Bg3 is being developped, it features turn-based combat. A guy named Swen showcases combat, a fight against trashmob 3 enemies lasts and lasts and lasts. Strangely, it isn’t that much different than modern rtwp…

But, is there hope? … Ohlen joins Archetype entertainment, a sci-fi rpg is planned, although it is planned to be multi-platform… stay tuned…

[daven]

On 4/14/2020 at 10:05 PM, Wormerine said:

2) I would like to have Josh back at the helm, and use Microsoft money and hopefully lack of interference, to appeal neither to publishers nor fans. Make best Pillars game he can make. Is it even possible? Pillars as a world and game was created to appeal to IE game fans afterall. But I like to think there is a game he wants to make and we want to play. Or maybe I would hate it... who knows.

Josh doesn't have the abiltiy/motivation to stop his superiors imposing bad ideas though.

 

I'm not that bothered about seeing more of what this universe has to offer. I'd ratehr see another story set in a different world with the same/similar engine to Deadfire. I know i'm repeating myself but, I would love a Hard Sci Fi isometric RPG. Maybe only a few party members, I would even accept 4 what you get slowly over the game. Maybe on some other world where a scientific experiment has gone wrong or whatever and you're trying to investigate what happened. Sort of like the 50's classic film Forbidden Planet.

[daven]

All this talk of RTWP vs Turn based is strange... i always thought I was on the RTWP camp but I think Dragonfall is the best of the modern crop of iso rpg's. So.... the story is really the most important thing at the end of the day. The combat is there to service the story.

[Guest Ontarah]

Shadowrun is one of the games that I do just turn the difficulty down and don't even try to become competent because I'm not interested in screwing up 25 minutes into a 30 minute long fight and then having to do that again.

Larian does the best with this I've encountered so far.

[Crucis]

On 4/22/2020 at 3:06 PM, Ontarah said:

The biggest one of all.  DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT make it turn-based.  Turn-based optional?  Fine, whatever.  Turn-based required?  NO NO NO.

I completely agree with you on this, Ontarah.  I greatly prefer the nice flowing style of battle that RTWP provides.  Every time I watch a video about turn based combat, it looks so damned slow.  So much stop start, stop start, stop start.  Now, admittedly, if one wants to pause a LOT, you can also get a lot of the same stop start, stop start thing.  But you can also just let the battle flow and issue your orders while everything continues all around you, if that floats your boat.

 

EDIT: Meant to include this point in this post.  I have no problem, I suppose, with the game having the option for turn based.  But the game should be designed with RTWP as the primary combat mode.  Honestly, I don't know what the appeal of turn based is over RTWP.  I really don't.  Turn based looks so damned boring to me.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Crucis

[Crucis]

On 4/22/2020 at 3:06 PM, Ontarah said:

I was quite satisfied with Deadfire and overall had way, way fewer quibbles with it than I did with POE.  Things I would want in POEIII:

1)  Go back to 6 person party.  I really disliked the reduction and now that I've played it once "as intended" I'm probably going to mod it to allow increased party size in future playthroughs. 

2) Ditch the persistent level cap on DLC.  DLC should raise the level cap. 

3) Allow for a wider range of philosophical positions about the nature of the gods (ranging from "It's my life mission to destroy them" to "They can do no wrong" to "I don't care what they do.") reflected in actual in-game decisions you can make and not just flavor dialog.  

4)  Work harder to gradually scale difficulty on Normal so newbs can learn and/or have some kind of Tutorial mode that doesn't amount to "Here's a big pile of junk you need to read."

5) Less purple prose describing dialog.  Ideally *no* description of dialog unless the player would literally not understand what's happening without it.   BG didn't need it.  It adds nothing to POE but tediousness. 

6) More companions, less open world.

7) More companion banters and dialog, less text adventures 

Things I thought that were massive improvements from POE that I do not want to see replaced or removed:

1.  Spells and abilities are per encounter and not per rest

2. Health regeneration after each fight (though I'd be fine with no regeneration but being very liberal about where and how often we can rest)

3. Romances 

4. Unique magical items and weapons are actually unique and the enchantment system enforces that uniqueness

5. Your companions helping you to pass dialog checks and/or being able to consult a companion who has the obvious knowledge to answer a specialized question for you

6.  There being a much greater variety of dialog skills to choose between

7. The companion reputation system

Overall, Deadfire was a solid step up both in combat and companions.  The plot was a bit weaker, but so long as the plot isn't *bad* that's one of the things I care about least in an RPG. 

 

Responses.

1) 5 vs 6 person party.  I can life with it either way.  I find 6 person parties more fun because it's easier to build a party for the long haul.  With 6person parties, I like to have a core of 5: a couple of front line tanks, a priest, a spellcaster (cipher or wizard), and a ranged weapon specialist, while leaving the 6th slot for either a jack of all trades character, or as a character I'm using for a specific purpose in a specific battle (like someone built to help the part deal with fampyrs).   But with a 5 person party, it gets a good deal trickier, and I tend to lose the jack of all trades character.

2) Persistent level cap.  Yes and no.  I think that the problem with the DLCs is that the game is balanced for how it was released.  And when the "normal" PoE1&2 DLCs are added, you end up with characters who could be might be much more powerful by the time you're making your stretch run for the final battle.  I wish that the DLCs were more like the BG2 Throne of Baal expansion which was appended to the core game, AFTER the final battle of BG2 was fought.  This way, you don't really have to worry about screwing up the core game with DLCs and a raised level cap.  The expansion would have a higher level cap, and you couldn't reach it until after completing the main story line.

3) Nature of the Gods:  Personally, I'd rather see a PoE3 ignore the Gods completely.  I'm quite bored with the Eoran gods being central to the story.

4) skipped

5) Purple prose:  Honestly, it never bothered me.

6) More companions, less open world.  These should be two items.  More companions, definitely.  Less open world, I described how I'd like to see this accomplished in a post elsewhere.  What I don't want to see is the game being like IWD1 or 2 where the storyline OBVIOUSLY forced the player down a super narrow path.  This was super boring after a while.  What would work much better is having a number of larger strategic level maps that covered, perhaps, different countries.  And so long as that part of the story stayed in that country, it was open.  But at some point, the main storyline would require you to go from country A to country B.  And once in country B, you couldn't return to country A.  You stayed in country B's open world working the storyline and whatever side quests existed, until it was time to move onward to country C.  Rinse and repeat as necessary.

7) More companion banter and dialog, etc.  Meh, I don't really care for this, because I foresee it eating up a lot of the budget due to voiceovers, which IMO should be cut wayyyyyy back.  To me, voice overs are a waste of money that would be better spent on actual content, rather than pandering to people to lazy to read.

Moving on to "Things I thought that were massive improvements from POE that I do not want to see replaced or removed:"

1. Spells and abilities being per encounter rather than per rest.  Personally, I don't think that this was an improvement at all.  Honestly, I didn't like this entire part of the new PoE2 combat system.  I think that magic is vastly more fun when its use is limited and the player has to manage his limited uses of those things.

2. HP recovery and rest, etc.  I kind of feel the same about this as I do about point #1.  I like having to manage limited resources.  However, regarding resting, thinking back to PoE1, I'm not really sure what "resting supplies" really are?  Campfire wood?  You can rest without a fire or even a fire to cool.  There's plenty of food that can be eaten cold, and probably would be if you were in a dangerous area where lighting a fire could attract dangerous creatures.   Blankets?  While having a blanket would be nice, I don't see it as a consumable supply.  Blankets seem more like something any experienced traveler would have as part of his travel "kit".

As for where one could rest in the wild, it seems to me that resting in an area that hasn't been completely cleared would either not be allowed or come with the risk of being attacked by wandering monsters local to that area.  On the other hand, say that you were on the 3rd level of a dungeon, but you'd cleared the 2nd level, I'd think that you should  be able to rest safely on the 2nd level.

Side note:  It annoyed me that the party could be on the PC's ship and be making a long  voyage, but not be considered rested.  Seriously, you'd think that your party could be resting most of such a journey, barring moving through a  storm.  My thinking was that if you'd been at sea for at least 1 day uninterrupted, the party should have been considered fully rested.  /side note

3. Romances:  They could remove romances as far as I'm concerned.

4. Unique magical items:  I think that greater effort should be put into making certain that there are at least 4 different weapons, shields, and armor for each type.

4a. Generic magical weapons/armor:  Honestly, it annoyed me that there was so damned many +3 or higher magical weapons (I don't remember the proper adjectives for the different levels of enhancement) and armor.  It seems to me that anything that's (probably) +2 or higher is extremely costly to make, and really is far too good for regular troops.  Now, I suppose that the Devs may have seen these generic super enhanced armors and weapons as substitutes for other things like jewels or coins as a way to provide rewards.  Personally, I'd rather just get the jewels and currency, though there may be other ways to do this.  In the game Pathfinder, I think that they have a system where you can find valuable relics.  Now these relics can be sold at a regular merchant, but for much below their proper value.  What you apparently needed to do is find some sort of special merchant who deals in such relics and would give you top dollar for them.  This could be an interesting mechanic.

5. Companions helping pass dialog checks:  I agree 100000%.

6+7: Agree on these two as well.

 

[Guest Ontarah]

2 hours ago, Crucis said:

7) More companion banter and dialog, etc.  Meh, I don't really care for this, because I foresee it eating up a lot of the budget due to voiceovers, which IMO should be cut wayyyyyy back.  To me, voice overs are a waste of money that would be better spent on actual content, rather than pandering to people to lazy to read.

I don't care if these are voiced or not.  I'm just generally of the opinion that the more companion dialog of all kinds there is, the better. 

[Sven_]

I bought both Pillars 1+2 upon release, and enjoyed them and would be interested in a 3rd as well. Rather than wishing for something specific, I'd rather be surprised. People don't really know what they want until they play and get to know it.

Less fussed about the format (isometric, RTwP, turn-based, whatever). However, it would be nice if PoE would retain its party-based tactical combat roots in some form, be it in the vein of the first two releases or otherwise. FPS and RPG have always made for an interesting mix (System Shock, Prey, Underworld, Bloodlines), but I think on the tactical front the Infinity Engine style games can't be the end to it all.

For instance, there is very little interaction with the environment, and PoE takes this a step further by making a complete distinction between "combat" and "non-combat" scenarios. A lot of spells can only ever be triggered if the party is engaged, which means they all/mostly relate to combat to begin with, and in terms of environment interactions explosive barrels are as far as it goes. The environment outside of luring/cheesing opposition into choke points is also very undercooked, also in terms of encounter design. Anybody remember such simple scenarios as those orc archers in BG2 ambushing you from behind the melee protection of iron bars, which forced you to adapt some? 

I think the Larian marketing guy was arguing they had more of an overlap with X-Com players with Divinity anyhow, so there's still a place for more tactical experiences. They may not all look exactly like Baldur's Gate, but I'm of the opinion the truly next Baldur's Gate won't and can't look 100% exactly like Baldur's Gate to begin with. Without arguing that Pillars has been purely a retro retreat, mind. It's just that if you aim for a certain bar, that bar is going to be your limit. Plus, you know this dog and its tricks already. For instance, has anybody ever truly challenged since what companions in a game can be about, rather than following BG2's "Gold Standard" "companion quest, banter plus optional romance" formula?

 

I'd be also fine with a comparably lower budget/scale affair though, just to see it all wrapped up. Kinda like how Icewind Dale was made / envisioned back in the day.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Sven_

[Guest 4ward]

12 hours ago, Sven_ said:

For instance, there is very little interaction with the environment, and PoE takes this a step further by making a complete distinction between "combat" and "non-combat" scenarios. A lot of spells can only ever be triggered if the party is engaged, which means they all/mostly relate to combat to begin with, and in terms of environment interactions explosive barrels are as far as it goes. The environment outside of luring/cheesing opposition into choke points is also very undercooked, also in terms of encounter design. Anybody remember such simple scenarios as those orc archers in BG2 ambushing you from behind the melee protection of iron bars, which forced you to adapt some?

i consider this to be quite important, it would allow for different strategies which in turn attracts different people / different personalities to play the game. It would allow for more interesting enemies – similar to mindflayers. And it would lead to more playthroughs and less restartitis since next to builds, enemy design would also play a role. Another thing for me that's important would be that the player has the feeling that his actions (not just dialogue decisions) alter the outcome, like when you free the slaves in copper coronet or become the hero of trademeet; you had an impact on the lives of those people..

12 hours ago, Sven_ said:

I think the Larian marketing guy was arguing they had more of an overlap with X-Com players with Divinity anyhow, so there's still a place for more tactical experiences. They may not all look exactly like Baldur's Gate, but I'm of the opinion the truly next Baldur's Gate won't and can't look 100% exactly like Baldur's Gate to begin with. Without arguing that Pillars has been purely a retro retreat, mind. It's just that if you aim for a certain bar, that bar is going to be your limit. Plus, you know this dog and its tricks already. For instance, has anybody ever truly challenged since what companions in a game can be about, rather than following BG2's "Gold Standard" "companion quest, banter plus optional romance" formula?

re. companions, not sure what could be added for companions; as far their role we've had Yoshimo the traitor; in Kotor you influence them so much so that they side with you on the evil path (and the others like mission you have to kill).

re. baldurs gate bioware/ bg3 larian, i think Bg1 was a happy accident; they were all juniors, didn't really had any former experience in that field, and they created something new and exciting with infinity engine; with Bg2 they much improved by just adding content and better design of areas (e.g. narrow corridors for blocking). What could be added is perhaps moving objects and am not sure if that really adds anything, also how is enemy ai going to use that..

Edited April 26, 2020 by 4ward

[Crucis]

On 4/25/2020 at 3:32 AM, Ontarah said:

I don't care if these are voiced or not.  I'm just generally of the opinion that the more companion dialog of all kinds there is, the better. 

Voice talent is extremely expensive, which is why I'm not a fan of it, except on a very limited scale.  Now, if most of the companion dialogs were text based, that'd be fine by me.

[uuuhhii]

20 minutes ago, Crucis said:

Voice talent is extremely expensive, which is why I'm not a fan of it, except on a very limited scale.  Now, if most of the companion dialogs were text based, that'd be fine by me.

vo are necessary

even if budget only allow audio book style one person read all the dialogue with silly voices form

no matter how big the font are reading are still painfully slow

[Boeroer]

You want to seriously tell me that you are readig slower in your mind than a narrator who reads the text out loud? 

Full VO is completely overrated. There are plenty of indie games that don't have the slightest VO whatsoever but sold better than Deadfire.

I personally would make the next game without localisation and VO but make it very mod-friendly so that fans can make their own localisation and VO if they want to. Maybe even build my own hub for such mods so that you can install them right from the game. The quality of most VOs will not be that great than if professionals did it, but the localisations will not be worse.

This allows for a smaller team and less investment overall. That way the odds of a PoE3 happening would be higher. 
 

[Sven_]

IIRC the decision to do fully voice-over on Deadfire was in parts influenced by Larian, and was also made by upper management. They had higher expectations for Deadfire than for PoE1. I liked it, but for me it also isn't mandatory. Agree it's a cost-benefit thing. It seems "unfortunate" that Obsidian (just as Doublefine) are hailing from an area in which development in general is pretty expensive to begin with. Pathfinder Kingmaker was likely made for but a fraction of Deadfire's cost (or PoE1), and Wrath Of The Righteous is probably not gonna be much different.

Back on the days of BG1, Bioware would have been happy with shipping 200k Units (which would have justified a sequel). Would be really interesting what was more profitable for Obsidian, btw. The Outer Worlds or Pillars Of Eternity (1). Much may depend on such a consideration. It's already been hinted at that in particular the management would really like to see a Pillars game that plays and looks a bit closer to Skyrim. 

On 4/26/2020 at 6:51 AM, 4ward said:

re. companions, not sure what could be added for companions; as far their role we've had Yoshimo the traitor; in Kotor you influence them so much so that they side with you on the evil path (and the others like mission you have to kill).

AI, for instance. Not sure what Larian have in mind for BG3, but they have announced they make companions one of their focus. What I mean with AI is that, let's say you come up across this thief-like companion, and take him with you. He's great at what he can do, but you may have to consider. As at some points he may cause trouble, as he's a thief. He cannot keep his fingers off stuff… and upset NPCs as other party members alike. Or that Barbarian that cannot at all times control his thirst for blood, and may not always obey combat orders (depending on where he stands witht the main char). Basically, getting away from purely scripted interactions, to something that is more driven by AI. Just one possible direction.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Sven_

[SchroedsCat]

I only recently started to play Deadfire and came here to look for information on a third part. It saddens me that the game didn't sell well. I find the worldbuilding really intriguing and would love to see where my watcher and her friends and foes would go next.

Anyway, I second the sentiment that DLCs need a new level cap. I'm level 19 right now, played a bit of the DLC content and there is still lots of thing to do that I am basically overpowered for. Full blown expansions, set after the main story, instead of mini DLC would be my choice as well.

I greatly enjoy the prose and flavour texts. I think they are a necessity as we can't see the characters emoting from our top down vantage point. But then again, I was one of the 5 people who greatly enjoyed Torment - Tides of Numenera. I might be in a minority of people who like reading lots of text ingame. There asolutely needs to be spoken banter though. It's one of my favorite parts of PoE, especially when Eder gets bitten by Itumaak.

Romance - eh, it's not a necessity as far as I am concerned but a minor pet peeve of mine was that everyone is bi for the watcher. I totally buy it for Tekehu and Serafen. But Aloth, who went into full "no homo" mode twice? The BG2 EE did that better, characters have their preferences and that feels a lot more natural. But as I said, that is a really minor peeve.

As for age groups, I'm in the 30+ range as well. Unfortunately that is also an age where there's work and family to take care of which leaves little time for gaming. Maybe some more concessions for the newby generation need to be made, as sad as I think that is. It's better than having the genre die out. Just don't dumb it down as much as Elder Scrolls. 

[xzar_monty]

3 hours ago, SchroedsCat said:

Anyway, I second the sentiment that DLCs need a new level cap. I'm level 19 right now, played a bit of the DLC content and there is still lots of thing to do that I am basically overpowered for. Full blown expansions, set after the main story, instead of mini DLC would be my choice as well.

Reading these forums has woken me up to the fact that this is a question that divides people.

1) There are people whose interest in a game like this tends to wane once they reach level cap and there's nothing further they can strive for in that respect.

2) There are people who enjoy spending a lot of time at top level and doing things that only the strongest can do; their argument is basically that it wouldn't make much sense to create those highest levels if you only get to spend a moment capable of using all those fancy abilities.

I think both approaches are valid, logical and good. Like you, I am in group #1, and I think both PoE and Deadfire suffer from the fact that you (can so easily) reach level cap so soon.

[Boeroer]

I think it's more a matter of "DLC expands the main game" vs. "DLC is like a small sequel". For players like me who tend replay RPGs a lot the first one is actually nicer. For players who only finish the game once the second variant is a lot better. I believe players who prefer the second variant are the majority but I can't say for sure.

PoE did increased the level cap with its DLCs (and introduced more talents and abilities), Deadfire did not. The latter is easier to do because you don't have to design and implement a whole lot of new abilities for the additional new (power) levels. 

[darkling.lithely]

On 4/16/2020 at 3:34 AM, Boeroer said:

My first CRPG was Pool of Radiance.

Same.