Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 5

[kanisatha]

27 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I wanted to explain this further. Good (and possibly evil, I haven't tested it and I only make a few evil choices) actions move you toward neutral on the law/chaos axis as well as the good/evil axis. So if you pick only good options then you'll turn neutral good since it shifts you both neutral and good... and to make that worse is that most lawful options come off as lawful neutral or lawful evil even though they only move you the law/chaos axis. So to remain LG you have to be careful of where you are on the alignment wheel because you may have to avoid good choices and make lawful ones instead to avoid falling to the horribleness of neutral good. Or invest in scrolls of atonement. Or use a mod.

Thank you. This is very helpful. Yes I did notice that I was already moving towards the "neutral" side and I couldn't understand why, since I had only been making entirely "good" choices.

[xzar_monty]

18 minutes ago, Make a contract with KP said:

The Lawful options are almost always either evil, stupid, or just a plain buzz kill.

I think it's pretty simple. In this game, when it comes to dialogue options, generally it's Lawful = Evil, and Evil = Stupid. Every once in a while, there's also Lawful = Stupid.

[Gromnir]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

The devil is in the pacing (imho), let people reach max before they finish the game, but not too long before the finish.

this particular devil is a bit more elusive than suggested. am gonna opine label as pacing severe understates the reality o' the issue.

as a developer, one need ask the following: what is the necessary levels & powha to complete the game? obvious the player needs be provided enough xp and gear rewards so they may reasonably overcome game challenges, yes? 

with a game offering considerable optional content, the developer challenge is to try and make so a critical path player is able to finish but a completionist don't hit the level cap too soon. not as ez as a few might surmise. 'course you may always add infinite or functional limitless levels, but then you got the problem o' the completionist becoming so disproportionate powerful the late and end game challenges become underwhelming, which results in different but equal predictable complaints. remove xp awards for optional content is a reasonable and rational solution, but not a practical one as fans dislike not being properly rewarded for their in-game efforts and level scaling foes is problematic at best. 

ok, now add dlc such as treasure o' the midnight isles...

is the same/similar problem as is excess gold/money for the completionist. the critical path player needs have enough money to buy useful gear from stores, but a player who does everything in the game is gonna predictable have more money than the critical path player, correct? if gear impacts player powha, then a player with more money is necessarily gonna have more powha. the game, balanced so a critical path player may successful overcome challenges, becomes a snoozefest for the player who is overlevel'd and overgeared. predictable the completionist player grouses 'bout how they got millions o' gold/rubbles/whatever and nothing 'pon which to spend.

so, what is the level cap solution?

dunno. 

before they released pillars of eternity, the obsidian developers insisted they had a solution to disparate xp rewards for critical path players v. completionists. absent per-kill xp grants and the like, there were obvious a bit more flexibility available to the obsidian developers than is the case for owlcat, but obsidian failed to achieve meaningful results in spite o' the fact it were a stated goal to minimize the gulf 'tween casual and hardcore player experiences. 

aside, is the advent and popularity o' computer games which created this problem. sure, the old d&d 1e monster manual had xp values for critters, but it were never intended that each critter kill and lock picked were resulting in individual xp gains. in point o' fact, d&d xp rewards were s'posed to happen only after the completion o' an adventure and were the result o' a kinda kinda gestalt analysis. following the adventure, the dm would come up with party and player xp rewards custom tailored to how those players overcame obstacles, then the player would "train" and potential level-up 'tween adventures. years o' regular weekly pnp d&d gameplay would possibly get you to double-digit levels in 1e. 

mega dungeons and computer games in particular changed the xp equation and not necessarily for the worse. unquestionable different. the thing is, every solution we has seen so far either didn't work or were hated by players. bg2 is a good example o' fail as thac0, saves and spells learned/known don't improve past a certain point in d&d, so all you got at level-up were a hit point or two. people complained. d&d solution were to stop providing additional power with subsequent gained levels.as a fix, tob added sooper powers to bg2, which had people complaining. etc. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps, the biggest problem with wotr alignment is alignment. pathfinder using d&d legacy alignment and owlcat making it a crpg mechanic is a mistake. make good, evil, law and chaos objective quantifiable and then integrate the resulting morality axis as a game mechanic were stoopid from the inception. is only possible to mitigate the stoopid, which is hardly an ideal outcome. pathfinder needs an alignment exorcism as 'posed to a fix.

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

22 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I think it's pretty simple. In this game, when it comes to dialogue options, generally it's Lawful = Evil, and Evil = Stupid. Every once in a while, there's also Lawful = Stupid.

Every once in a while is underselling it. I'm in Kenabres right now (2nd playthrough), so far the only reasonable Lawful option has been to show the angel sword to the mongrels. Everything else has been Evil or stupid, often both.

[majestic]

The developers of MMORPGs solved the issue of progress beyond the level cap over twenty years ago, and I am not just talking about the treadmill of grinding for better gear to fight encounters that yield even better gear, even though this is a big part of why playing Pillars of Eternity beyond the level cap was extremely frustrating. The design of the loot and crafting system lead to your party not being able to look forward to any meaningful upgrades at a time even before Twin Elms, and there was nothing remarkable about the items you could gather from exploration or combat, which was designed to not yield rewards in the first place, a decision that could have been decent, had the game not focused on battles as much as it did. The expansion and soulbound items were too late, and arguably too little to make any real difference. 

It probably takes more resources than a company like Owlcat would have, and probably more resources than could justifiably be spent on games like the Pathfinder games, but there could be any number of options. From adding additional ways to make encounters more difficult for those who did all the optional content and have powerful items. This can be accomplished by interacting with the game world in some natural way. Feel overpowered? Then do not deactivate the machine of elemental summoning, have an achievement for that, or some improved piece of equipment, or maybe just a new skin or some other cosmetic option that simply looks 'kewl'.

People spend literal truckloads on silly hats for Team Fortress, something I will never understand, but certainly a silly extra hat could be something worth going through some extra pain for a lot of people. All it takes is some care in encounter design, and some good ideas. It is something that is present in Wrath of the Righteous too, like with the dragon encounter mentioned earlier. There is a way to make it easier, although it is arguably necessary to do so, depending on the time one tackles the quest, and the game does impress on you that it should be handled early enough. After all, the mercenary who accompanies you make it clear, in no uncertain terms and to the point of almost breaking the fourth wall, that he will not sit around and wait for you to finish every sidequest before tackling his. For a sufficiently powerful party of a completist or someone who went the extra mile to get more levels out of the early game, maybe add a meaningful way to tackle it head on. Done. 

Oh, sure, add any number of elements from the dreaded multiplayer games out there, and you will have purists running up the walls, but what has listening to them ever yielded? In the days of yore, if Bioware had listened to Karzak and made rogues the best at dual wielding and never created Ixil's Spike +6 ("There is no such thing as a +6 spear!"), would the game have been better? What happens when you listen to the vocal minority of your fanbase is Pillars of Eternity, or rather, the Deadfire sales fiasco. I see these threads and talks about what went wrong all the time, and there is a whole lot of speculation, but here's an idea: Pillars of Eternity just was not a fun game to play.

It has no +6 spear, but it was not fun. Was the loot that eventually cropped up in Baldur's Gate 2 a litle on the ludicrous side? Why, yes. Were +6 weapons against AD&D 2nd Edition rules? Yes, of course they were. Heh. I still remember the sentiment on the forums when Troika announced that they were working on a 3rd edition Temple of Elemental Evil game. What was the sentiment by some of our posters? "When this comes out, people will go Baulder's (sic!) What?"

Baulder's What, indeed. ToEE is a fine 3rd edition combat simulator, a right buggy mess and a game where the writing quality makes Owlcat's Pathfinder games appear well written. Begin the game with the neutral evil vignette for a good laugh: "You arrive at a church, which you want to burn down because you're evil and evil people burn down churches." Why, what a wonderful way to start out. 

Was Pillars of Eternity better written than Baldur's Gate 2? Maybe. Arguably. Probably. Still, even twenty years after completing Baldur's Gate 2, I still can quote Irenicus' hammy, scenery chewing dialogue, I remember fighting Firkraag, Kangaxx, even the relatively pathetic Shadow Dragon. Upgrading items in both the base game and the expansion, the Cloak of Reflection (boo, boo, nerf the optional item, it makes Beholders too easy, boo boo). The companions are memorable, even if not all of them are worthwhile in combat.

Even on topic, we're talking about the dragon quest. Is it frustrating? It certainly can be, especially for a first time player. Are we taking about it? Sure, you bet. Are we still talking about playing Baldur's Gate 2 fondly?

Well:

5 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I think I've played BG2 three times, and I never once reached level cap, although it has to be said that after a certain point, new levels bring nothing substantial. Anyway, I loved the fact that I had something more to aim for in every game.

You know what we're not talking about? Yeah, how awesome the Blunderbuss of something or another was, or what a great battle the Adra dragon was, or how memorable Thaos was while chewing the scenery in David Warner's perfectly fitting voice.   

[ShadySands]

39 minutes ago, majestic said:

Was Pillars of Eternity better written than Baldur's Gate 2? Maybe. Arguably. Probably. Still, even twenty years after completing Baldur's Gate 2, I still can quote Irenicus' hammy, scenery chewing dialogue, I remember fighting Firkraag, Kangaxx, even the relatively pathetic Shadow Dragon. Upgrading items in both the base game and the expansion, the Cloak of Reflection (boo, boo, nerf the optional item, it makes Beholders too easy, boo boo). The companions are memorable, even if not all of them are worthwhile in combat.

I had the same experience but I wonder if part of it is that it was the first game that I ever played that had a lot of these things in them. I wonder if it just all came together at the right time for me.

[Zoraptor]

Hitting the level cap early is more of a symptom of the problem than the actual problem for me. The root issue is that so much of the content is combat, even in RT mode. And since we're talking about a 150? hour game (I'm on 122, in Iz) that means perhaps 100 hours of combat, and 90% of that combat isn't interesting enough to justify itself, in itself. Late game you don't need money, nor yet another +3 or +4 weapon/ armour/ ring as it's the same, functionally, as money. You aren't getting levels from the experience, you've almost always fought the same enemies before... it's too much of a chore. I certainly have one 'interesting' fight to come in Iz, but often the 'interesting' fights are either cheesy or frustrating...

Now, I'd also have to agree that there's annoyance in getting a fantastic ability or item or whatever for use in the epilogue- and as a parallel some people hate games like KOTOR for forcing you to start out as a mundane and 'wasting' levels on a non jedi class. That's mostly a matter of balancing the progression well though. If you get the cool ability at level 20, 2/3 of the way through the game, there's no real reason for stopping the leveling there beyond it being easier to balance the endgame if you know what level everyone will be- and potentially, feeling like you have to have a cooler ability to give at the higher levels.

[Gromnir]

am not seeing the mmorpg solutions. those games just keep adding new content and the only real goal o' mmorpgs is the levels and gear.

for mmorpgs, there is no end, at least not if the business model is working correct. with the exception o' a very few mmorpgs, the quests and story is just an excuse to power-up-- decided not story-driven. those games also have quests/encounters which is designed to be failed by many, at least initially, and time and again developers o' single player rpgs says failure is not a viable design option. put an intentional unbeatable quest/opponent in a game and developers keep telling us that gamers are all too stoopid to take the hint-- gaider, sawyer and others has had surprising similar input on this aspect.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Feel overpowered? Then do not deactivate the machine of elemental summoning, have an achievement for that, or some improved piece of equipment, or maybe just a new skin or some other cosmetic option that simply looks 'kewl'.

...

you do realize that single player crpgs have a difficulty slider, yes, so...

am trying to follow your train o' thought here re mmorpgs and am missing something(s).

as to the following:

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I see these threads and talks about what went wrong all the time, and there is a whole lot of speculation, but here's an idea: Pillars of Eternity just was not a fun game to play.

many people agree. the thing is, many people disagree with you. is why the crowdfunding for poe2 were far better than we saw for kingmaker or even wotr. the fans o' pillars liked pillars a great deal, but pillars also clear annoyed many initial purchasers o' the title from obsidian. pillars were indeed sold to fans o' the ie games and many o' those folks were expecting bg3, or rather their idealized bg3. obsidian admitted (and intentional) did not deliver a bg3. all o' which is a curious bit o' aside 'cause you ain't actual suggesting that the reason pillars failed is 'cause o' crafting and their level cap issues?

poe2 also didn't fail with fans o' pillars. the problem was, 'ccording to the poe2 post mortem from josh sawyer, obsidian spent considerable more money on poe2 than poe assuming they would succeed in the same way as the sequel which were d:os2. misguided.  the poe2 developers made clear early in development that as much as pillars had diverged from ie game trappings, poe2 were gonna go even further in distancing the ip from bg2 and d&d legacy games. inexplicable, the obsidian brain trust didn't realize they were forceable shrinking their potential fanbase.

were bg2 writing better than pillars? if bg2 worked for you, then it were indeed better. am a fan o' much o' bg2 writing... and not so much a fan o' other parts. bg2 is a big enough game we were able to overlook story and quest shortcomings. irenicus, btw, were a shortcoming, but he shouldn't have been so. is a whole lotta parallels with macbeth in bg2 which worked, but the writers (and voice actor) fumbled at the end which is why so few fans saw him as he were intended and instead just wallow in the ham. 

regardless, am gonna suggest there is a whole lotta rose-colored recollection regarding bg2 from folks which made pillars an instant fail. if you followed the pillars development, it were mind-boggling how the most polarizing threads on these boards were the result o' obsidian suggesting they were gonna do ________ different than bg2. fans o' bg2 couldn't necessarily articulate why they needed __________ to be in pillars other than the fact it were in bg2, but am thinking obsidian failed to recognize just how invested were 50% or more o' the fan base in having pillars be bg3. obsidian were trying to make a game which fixed many o' things which were busted in the ie games while keeping what the developers saw as the essential qualities making ie titles memorable. the developers missed. they failed to realize that what obsidian saw as busted mechanics and the trappings o' d&d pnp nonsense ported unnecessarily into a crpg were no less important to players than were minsc & boo or the dragon fights.

aside, 'cause this is always missed, the one ie game curious absent from the pillars sales pitch from obsidian were...

Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.

Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back… and that’s why we’re here - we need your help to make it a reality!

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

no mention o' bg2, eh? in spite o' bg2 being the most popular ie game, obsidian specific avoided mentioning. why?

obsidian were going for "nostalgia" and "homage" o' bg, iwd and ps:t. obsidian were not trying to replicate or recreate the ie games and they most assured weren't trying to make bg3, which is precise why they left bg2 out o' their sales pitch. bg2 were not the first title in a new ip. bg2 developers enjoyed being able to follow multiple ie game releases which succeeded and failed in various ways and bioware had a chance to correct, refine and add to their game. perhaps you has heard from reviewers or board pundits the bit 'bout how obsidian failed to deliver the "spiritual successor" to bg2 and the ie games they promised? doesn't matter "spiritual successor" o' bg2 (or any o' the ie games) is not what they promised but such don't change what fans wanted.

am also having no idea what your +6 spear tangent is 'bout. am thinking you don't know what the issue were, so channeling here is leading to confusion o' those o' us who does know what were the complaint. honest.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 29, 2022 by Gromnir

[majestic]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I had the same experience but I wonder if part of it is that it was the first game that I ever played that had a lot of these things in them. I wonder if it just all came together at the right time for me.

Perhaps, I have been playing (A)D&D based games for ten years at the point when Baldur's Gate 2 came out, but gaming at the time went through a series of rapid improvements, particularily in presentation, which not necessarily means graphics. Still, ultimately, unlike other confluences of parts at the right time like The Matrix (or maybe the first Wesley Snipes Blade) I feel like Baldur's Gate 2 holds up better. Apples and oranges though, maybe sticking to games would be better. Like, the first Half-Life. Let anyone young enough play it and they'll probably wonder what the big deal was.

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

for mmorpgs, there is no end, at least not if the business model is working correct. with the exception o' a very few mmorpgs, the quests and story is just an excuse to power-up-- decided not story-driven. those games also have quests/encounters which is designed to be failed by many, at least initially, and time and again developers o' single player rpgs says failure is not a viable design option. put an intentional unbeatable quest/opponent in a game and developers keep telling us that gamers are all too stoopid to take the hint-- gaider, sawyer and others has had surprising similar input on this aspect.

There are a lot of Diablo style game players who probably would disagree as they throw themselves into the meat grinder of getting powerful enough to overcome the next boss, but those games often have multiplayer components and are - even if they call themselves as such - not single player role playing games as much as action games. There's also the success of the From Software games, where player progression makes the game easier (insofar as they can become that, all in all), but the same caveat applies. They do have role playing game components, but they're arguably even more based on player skill than Diablo and clones.

I was not suggesting that game designers should put grinding into single player games with nary a thought or include mechanics that work with a certain business model without adaptation. However, just one quick note, one of the most frequent criticisms of players of World of Warcraft was, for the longest time until Blizzard invested the effort to change it, that the game's story content was gated behind successful participation in endgame content. There's a certain irony in Blizzard's storytelling becoming so bad that it became hard to care about anything but the expansion progression for the sake of progression just when they removed the gating.

Before the difficulty revamp, SW:ToR had a similar issue. The developers invested a lot of time and effort into their endgame design, and only a tiny fraction of the player base actually saw it. Some of Blizzard's raid instances and more difficult dungeons had more care invested in the design of the lore and storyline than many single player games, particularily around the time when they wrapped up the Warcraft 3 storyline (much to the dismay of Warcraft fans). 

Of course that is not true for games played primarily for player versus player combat, sandbox games, or the dreaded Korean grinders, but is not nearly as clear cut as that. I on and off played various MMORPGs, and SW:ToR and WoW alone amount for a combined four years of my life. Net playing time, that is, and that is without the games I played where I cannot quantify playing time for a lack of tracking, like the years (not play time) I played Quake at a semi-competitive level or that one browser pvp/strategy game that I probably wasted at least a net year of playtime on, so I think I know a thing or two about them.  

What I was suggesting is that there's a way to make progress feel meaningful without relying on level ups after hitting a level cap. Whether it is some form of alternate progression like D3 has with the Paragon levels, or a way to collect loot that changes game mechanics, or providing challenges beyond moving the difficulty slider. Yes, that of course is an option, but when has that worked out? In the most hilarious cases, turning the difficulty up makes the game easier, such as the case was with Icewind Dale, where playing on Insane meant the first Orc cave was difficult, and afterwards the doubled experience gain broke the game's intended balance so much that doubled enemy damage was not enough to make it problematic.

Besides, it does not really solve the issue of feeling stuck in terms of progression. I am personally not a fan of Bethesda style 'get better by doing' design (I spent five hours in Morrowind jumping up and down a set of stairs near the beginning area to grind out levels), but such cannot really apply to a d20 based game, at least not beyond awarding experience for successful skill checks, and that's been a staple for a long while now. Anyway, to finish this already too long wall of text: there are ways to make the player feel meaningful progression even at a maximum character level. There's no reason why any of that cannot be adapted to a single player game. Not suggesting a daily grind nonsense here or roguelike elements with a progression path where you just fail oder and over until you've gathered enough upgrades to succeed.

Owlcat could have put a cut-off point after coming back from the Abyss and changed progression into something else (gear is an easy one, but not necessarily the only thing). Sure, you'd eventually have a rushing player being a good ways behind the power curve, but in light of the encounter design of the game, it's probably safe to assume such a player knows what they're doing, or else they'd have given up long before that. Could add the incoming experience of the level cap to unlock interesting stat changes, like unlocking an ability for precision damage to pierce immunity in the same way Ascendant Element does for elemental damage.

Of course they could also just slap a level cap on it that is just unreachable unless the player takes certain steps to do that, like Throne of Bhaal did, but that's not exactly interesting in Throne of Bhaal either. There are only so many HLAs one needs anyway.

It is also not entirely necessary as long as the rest of the game is good enough. To go back to Baldur's Gate 2, in my first playthrough before Throne of Bhaal came out, I hit the level cap in the Underdark, and it still did not feel like a chore. Not like Act V of Wrath of the Righteous did. The game is just too long for its own good, and grinding through Unfair did not endear it any more to me.

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

many people agree. the thing is, many people disagree with you. is why the crowdfunding for poe2 were far better than we saw for kingmaker or even wotr.

That is true, on the other hand, Owlcat doesn't have the same pull as Obsidian did/does, plus there's a marked downturn in the crowdfunding aspect when looking at the Deadfire campaign. Project Eternity raked in four million dollars from crowd funding, and Deadfire only half of that. Backer amounts also halved. The campaign for Deadfire also reads only half the amount of backers. It of course also says the funding was more, but over half of that came from investors. Fig, at the time, only allowed accredited investors, so we can probably rule out fans who wanted in on the success, unless there's some significant overlap.

The Wrath of the Righteous campaign on Kickstarter got almost as much in crowd pledges as the Fig Deadfire campaign, but Fig probably scared people off - however, in absolute numbers, they're curiously comparable. WotR also happened long after the initial Kickstarter gold rush feeling was over. I certainly only pledged the minimal amount necessary to get a cpoy of the game even though I enjoyed Kingmaker well enough. Not a fault of Owlcat's, but I felt like I spent enough on Kickstarter projects at the time, and while I got lucky and most of them completed, only a handful felt worth the money spent, even though what was probably the biggest waste of money was a levitating flower pot and thus not really a game.
 

The project completed just fine, and I received the lava stone and the magnets, but beyond being fun to show someone, in terms of practical applications it is preciously useless for an expensive gimmick, it also wastes a good deal of energy and if one ever has a brown out everything would just crash down.

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

all o' which is a curious bit o' aside 'cause you ain't actual suggesting that the reason pillars failed is 'cause o' crafting and their level cap issues?

No, I do not, it is just one piece of the puzzle, but one that was significant for me. There was no fun in the exploration of the combat precisely because it no longer yielded worthwhile rewards, while still feeling forced to complete it all. Now, any OCD issues on my end are not Obsidian's fault, but the loot and crafting system was. Giving items a stat budget and sticking to it while designing loot that comes from combat that is too plentiful and exploration that is not exaclty interesting and yields no other rewards is just not a good idea.

That one can just pick up any random weapon and enchant it with the same stat budget to do what you want and need for your characters rather than relying on found weaponry removes one of the broken aspects of the Infinity Engine games, that you can easily reduce your character's effectiveness without knowing just by putting your proficiency points into the wrong weapon category. Insofar I'm agreeing with you, Obsidian fixed many of the issues of the IE games, but in doing so lost what made them memorable.

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

were bg2 writing better than pillars? if bg2 worked for you, then it were indeed better. am a fan o' much o' bg2 writing... and not so much a fan o' other parts. bg2 is a big enough game we were able to overlook story and quest shortcomings. irenicus, btw, were a shortcoming, but he shouldn't have been so. is a whole lotta parallels with macbeth in bg2 which worked, but the writers (and voice actor) fumbled at the end which is why so few fans saw him as he were intended and instead just wallow in the ham. 

Yeah, the writers took a shortcut at the end, but that's something that happens too often in general. Irenicus is more relatable to me than Sarevok or Belhifet, in the same way it was easier to relate to Isair and Madae in Icewind Dale 2, where the ending takes a similar turn in feeling like there should be a peaceful option out of the final fight, but there just is none. Baldur's Gate works mostly by its charm, but it too long, too large and too empty and Icewind Dale is just a chore and I do not care a fig for any of the characters or the plot.

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

obsidian were going for "nostalgia" and "homage" o' bg, iwd and ps:t. obsidian were not trying to replicate or recreate the ie games and they most assured weren't trying to make bg3, which is precise why they left bg2 out o' their sales pitch. bg2 were not the first title in a new ip. bg2 developers enjoyed being able to follow multiple ie game releases which succeeded and failed in various ways and bioware had a chance to correct, refine and add to their game. perhaps you has heard from reviewers or board pundits the bit 'bout how obsidian failed to deliver the "spiritual successor" to bg2 and the ie games they promised? doesn't matter "spiritual successor" o' bg2 (or any o' the ie games) is not what they promised but such don't change what fans wanted.

I expected Deadfire to be a lot better, and it was. It was the primary reason for my silver backer's badge, which in light of my comments about not liking Pillars of Eternity might not make a whole lot of sense. Deadfire hat its issues too, and unlike Pillars of Eternity it feels like it pulled off a Lost and bit off much more than it could chew in terms of storytelling and having enough time (or a plan, perhaps) to properly finish it. 

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am also having no idea what your +6 spear tangent is 'bout. am thinking you don't know what the issue were, so channeling here is leading to confusion o' those o' us who does know what were the complaint. honest.

Indeed, either my recollection is fuzzy or relying on second hand information and misuse of the phrase has left me with a wrong impression if it wasn't about the monty haul aspect of Baldur's Gate 2 - in which case everyone should ignore the statement and just use the dual wield one, because I'm perfectly certain our favorite troll ranted on about that for a long while. Aynway, what was the point of the +6 spear issue then?

Edited November 29, 2022 by majestic
Great, the weird line break issue is back. WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY?

ROADA ROLLA DA!

[majestic]

12 minutes ago, Make a contract with KP said:

ロード ローラー だッ (RŌDO RŌRĀ DA)!

Fixed that for you, standalone T and D sounds are turned into TO and DO as closest approximations, there's no L, and... yeah, okay, enough with that for the time being, before someone complains about too much weeb stuff in a Pathfinder thread, even though Aru is a classic ワイフ.

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by majestic
タイポ (taipo)!

[ShadySands]

Too much weeb stuff in da Paffinder thread

[Gromnir]

12 minutes ago, majestic said:

They do have role playing game components,

 a multitude o' sports games also have role-play elements. am gonna suggest you are being a smidge disingenuous. 

14 minutes ago, majestic said:

What I was suggesting is that there's a way to make progress feel meaningful without relying on level ups after hitting a level cap

which is exact why we had (bad) multi-player tacked onto near every crpg after the original diablo were released. 

again, am not seeing a mmorpg solution in your considerable response. sure, is possible to add what is effective a new game or mini-game onto a crpg to give it life beyond the level cap. mindless and repetitive farming o' mobs so the player could afford a personal house they may decorate in drezen is exact the kinda thing we would expect to see in a mmorpg. *groan* apologies, but am having difficulty imagining a mmorpg which eschews the loot grind after hitting max level, and such is exact the kinda thing a game such as wotr or poe cannot indulge for reasons already stated... 'cause y'know, balance. is not practical or realistic to create a new and alternative ending for completionists where after sooper grinding they join a raid to face the real boss.

and am pretty sure many mmorpg players feel stuck in progression once they exhaust the grinds, which is no different than the level grind in a single-player crpg... save that it is even more mind-numbing and repetitively grindy. example: am knowing more than a few obsidian board posters who only play swtor when there is a new story expansion release. so thanks, but no thanks on the mmorpg schemes for fixing the level cap issue. pour gasoline on a fire why don't you?

28 minutes ago, majestic said:

Insofar I'm agreeing with you, Obsidian fixed many of the issues of the IE games, but in doing so lost what made them memorable.

see, this is exact what drove the obsidian developer nuts. some vague and ill-formed, but very real, sense o' nostalgia were the ultimate obstacle to pillars success. were no way to overcome warm fuzzies which even fans couldn't express in a meaningful way. punishing your bg2 paladin if it weren't built as a two-handed weapon haver made the holy avenger and the game more memorable... 'cause. obsidian tried to be reasonable and rational-- first mistake. 

36 minutes ago, majestic said:

That is true, on the other hand, Owlcat doesn't have the same pull as Obsidian did/does

this is not a major issue for a well known sequel. whatever name recognition obsidian enjoyed for pillars were unlikely to spillover to the sequel. those folks unaware o' pillars but recognizing the obsidian name contributed to deadfire in any event? how many such backers? deadfire were not a new and unknown ip meant to appeal to people who liked the ie games. deadfire were purposeful sold to fans o' pillars. is kinda similar for owlcat and wotr as the russian developer is hardly an unknown quantity, for better or worse, following kingmaker.

you are also preaching to the choir regarding numbers o' purchasers contributing to crowdfunding as we has made this exact point many times. the deadfire numbers is highly misleading but last we looked, in 2017, if you added all non investor contributions (buy game were curious separated from buy all the add-ons in their totals), the backer contribution for deadfire were $2.1 million, which were ever so slight ahead o' wotr kickstarter. the problem which shoulda' been obvious to obsidian were the number o' backers were far less than pillars and less than wotr. obsidian had developed a hardcore fanbase for pillars but that fanbase were smaller than those number o' persons initial interested in pillars. major warning sign which went unheeded.

but again, smaller numbers o' deadfire backers were willing to spend considerable money to get the game made. less people, but more enthusiastic. what an incredible resource wasted 'cause obsidian were chasing fantasies o' d:os2.

as to writing efforts, am not gonna try and convince you that somehow our opinions regarding bg2 writing efforts is more astute than yours, 'cause they ain't. for most players, irenicus were the cliché wizard gone mad with power and the fans were more than ok with such.  we don't get the appeal o' the wotr romances either, so...

HA! Good Fun!

ps the silly buy a house and decorate it, while not our notion o' meaningful gameplay post level-cap, is the kinda harmless addition we actual do see as useful for dealing with the considerable money glut which is as much a result o' completionist gameplay as is early hitting o' the level cap. make better gear available via stores only makes balance problems worse, but the trivial aesthetic options, with a big in-game price tag, could makes players feel as if there is something to do with all their useless loot. quality o' life or token aesthetic improvements is exact the kinda thing which could alleviate the excess money issue. 

[Gorth]

Sort of completely unrelated to Owlcat and their games, but my favourite (Guild Wars 2, the only one I play) mmo has had the same level and gear cap as it had at launch 10 years ago. I'm not playing it for the time being, because part life part Pathfinder is taking up my time. I do know if I return to the game in say six months time, I won't have to worry about entering the gear treadmill on a lower rung of the ladder than when I left it, I will still be max level and state of the art gear. The rewards for going beyond the required minimum to complete the main story line are "prestige items". I do think this only works in a multi player environment, as it is a reward you can show off and impress your peers amongst the player base with, leaving the next monster/boss/enemy quite unimpressed. It's a strategy that works for that game. Sadly, probably not transferable to single player games. Not even with an achievement system.

At a loss what would work for a majority of (single player) crpg players. But then, it's not how I make my living, I'll leave that headache to people who have to survive in that particular line of work. I spent 4 years as game designer in a MUD game during university and it taught me a lot about how annoying players are

[majestic]

23 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Too much weeb stuff in da Paffinder thread

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Fixed that for you, standalone T and D sounds are turned into TO and DO as closest approximations, there's no L, and... yeah, okay, enough with that for the time being, before someone complains about too much weeb stuff in a Pathfinder thread, even though Aru is a classic ワイフ.

 

You make good points 

But DIO is English so it makes sense for him to use Hepburn ?

3 hours ago, majestic said:

One of these days I really have to get around to watching the Violet Evergarden movie. 

9 hours ago, majestic said:

You know what we're not talking about? Yeah, how awesome the Blunderbuss of something or another was, or what a great battle the Adra dragon was, or how memorable Thaos was while chewing the scenery in David Warner's perfectly fitting voice.   

I think this is the thing that gets me, all things considered I should love the PoEs. I don't. I just don't. Frankly I'm frustrated because I should love it but it just doesn't feel right, despite meeting a checklist I'd have for an ideal game.

Pathcat Owlfinder games are a ****ing mess. They're unbalanced as hell, buggy as ****, and have some truly cringeworthy writing. But somehow, they have that X factor that keeps me coming back. In ten, twenty years from now, when I am working to death in the freedom camps after calling God-Emperor Peter Thiel the First a useless clown, will I remember much about PoE? Probably not. But will I talk about Daeran's va chewing the scenery like magnificent bastard or the absurdity of Playful Darkness? Probably not, because the Neuralink Slave Controller will shock me when I say more than five words a minute. But somewhere deep down, I will remember such things and have a laugh at them, remembering the fun times I had playing such a ridiculous game that somehow was so much fun. Assuming I didn't die following the resurrected John Brown in a righteous but failed revolt.

EDIT: Actually I take that back. I will be eternally butthurt that Deadfire did not have sea monsters. What the actual ****? Who the **** makes an ocean based fantasy game, one where the ****ing cover has the party fighting a pirate and some tentacles, and doesn't have sea monsters. That is probably the biggest missed opportunity imaginable. And instead we get what, sidekicks???? You cut the damn krakens and weird squidmen for some cardboard cutouts and an unfulfilled waifubait? Maybe we would be talking about Deadfire here if we got to shoot some mutated sharks or whatever with the blunderbuss of something or another.

9 hours ago, majestic said:

What happens when you listen to the vocal minority of your fanbase is Pillars of Eternity, or rather, the Deadfire sales fiasco. I see these threads and talks about what went wrong all the time, and there is a whole lot of speculation, but here's an idea: Pillars of Eternity just was not a fun game to play.

I think the problem with trying to tie any one thing to sales is that most people who buy the game don't really play it that much. With Divinity: Original Sin 2, a game that sold wildly enough to convince those coastal wizards to let Larian make BG3: Day of the Tentacle, you only had about half the players make it off the starting island. The same thing applies to both PoEs, most people just quit the game after Act 1 or hitting the major city.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Make a contract with KP

[ShadySands]

I always forget BG3 exists. Is it still in alpha beta yearly access? I gave it a shot a while back but it did less than nothing for me.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I always forget BG3 exists. Is it still in alpha beta yearly access? I gave it a shot a while back but it did less than nothing for me.

I don't know, I'm waiting for the full release. Probably. At least it will come out before Star Citizen.

[Gromnir]

Just now, ShadySands said:

I always forget BG3 exists. Is it still in alpha beta yearly access? I gave it a shot a while back but it did less than nothing for me.

y'know, we played a few hours o' bg3 and it is not a noteworthy terrible game, but it was indeed forgettable. is not that bg3 played terrible or looked terrible or sounded terrible. were not even so bad it were memorable, but we had/have no desire to play more. recognizing our limited play, we found the characters not at all interesting and the combat kinda dull, but it weren't more terrible than character generation, tutorial and early game content for a bunch o' other d&d games. nwn2 didn't exact have the best intro content either, but we weren't so utter indifferent after after a similar time investment.

is just weird, 'cause we can't say what we saw o' bg3 were particularly bad... well, maybe the quasi-dhampir companion, or whatever he is s'posed to be, were kinda middling horrible, but even Gromnir almost forgot his name as we were writing this post. forgettable kinda nails our feelings and our motivation for giving the game another chance once it is released is = 0. 

even so, am having difficulty explaining why bg3 were so... meh.

finished colphyr and picked up our inevitable darkness reward. no rift appeared after we dispatched the scorcher o' souls, but there were a spot on his tiny island we could interact with to uncover bones which were the container for the loot. 

guess that means we will star act v. rl will make our progress a bit slow, but am gonna try and finish before the new year. 

HA! Good Fun!

[uuuhhii]

read bg3 patchnote feels like they are wasting considerable amount of resource on irrelevant content

but that effort might be impressive to many and extreme popularity of dnd 5e might help

[majestic]

20 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

You make good points 

But DIO is English so it makes sense for him to use Hepburn ?

Well, RŌDO RŌRĀ DA is Hepburn romanization...

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

13 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, RŌDO RŌRĀ DA is Hepburn romanization...

 

DIO is also continuing the English tradition of butchering language and saying it how he wants to.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Okie dokie, so I've cleared everything in Act 1 but raiding the Gray Garrison. So far selective spell grease is the mvp, selective is so much better than the pnp version I slept on it my first run until mid game. The tavern fight is wonky in TB and needs RT turned on periodically for the arsonists to spawn which is annoying. Also, I found another (Lawful) that wasn't evil or stupid. You can tell Staunton it's not right for the crusaders to bully him. However, there is another (Lawful) option right above that where you tell him he should be killed.

Inexplicably fun game.

[InsaneCommander]

7 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

Okie dokie, so I've cleared everything in Act 1 but raiding the Gray Garrison. So far selective spell grease is the mvp, selective is so much better than the pnp version I slept on it my first run until mid game. The tavern fight is wonky in TB and needs RT turned on periodically for the arsonists to spawn which is annoying. Also, I found another (Lawful) that wasn't evil or stupid. You can tell Staunton it's not right for the crusaders to bully him. However, there is another (Lawful) option right above that where you tell him he should be killed.

Inexplicably fun game.

Somebody please make a proper alignment mod.

[xzar_monty]

On 12/2/2022 at 4:47 PM, Make a contract with KP said:

The tavern fight is wonky in TB and needs RT turned on periodically for the arsonists to spawn which is annoying.

On two of my three starts, I've been able to bypass the fight altogether by being fast enough in the other errands. I wonder whether the bonus XP and loot you get for this is significant. I suppose not.

Anyway, the tavern fight is bad. It's great to be able to skip it.