These streamers are comically bad

[0rthus]

To expand on what I said earlier, you've got a few things coming together.

 

First there's the basic demands of the medium. A streamer has a certain pace that they want to go at to keep things lively. A stream where they sit around and page through dialogue dialogue is a boring stream. A streamer also has a certain level of audience interaction that they want to meet that varies from person to person. Neither of these things are conducive to activities like "reading tutorials" or "paying attention in combat". Some of this is alleviated by taking the time to learn the game before streaming it (but a lot of streaming/Youtube culture, such as it is, highly values "freshness" - both in regards to how quickly the content comes as well as how new the player is to the content - so there are impediments there) or passing on livestreams in favour of, say Youtube videos where you don't have to worry about your chat (and can even do your dialogue in post!), but with a game that's on the cusp of release like this, that's a whole lot to ask for/expect.

 

Second, there's what I mentioned earlier: the schtick. A lot of these sorts of videos try to fall somewhere inside a Venn diagram labelled with words like "Wacky" and "Frustrated". Like I said, a lot of streamers, video makers, and audiences specifically want blind, no-foreknowledge experiences. This has sort of evolved into a weird kabuki theatre wherein the streamer plays up the, "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO HARD!" and "OH GOD I DIED AGAIN!" angle while they distort their face for their webcam and an animated .gif flashes the username of their newest subscriber. It's not my sort of thing, but it's a big chunk of the market, especially when you're talking about streamers who do not have single "dedicated" games.

 

Finally, I'm of the opinion that games like Pillars of Eternity just don't do video particularly well. Like, if you got to lparchive.org, there's a reason why virtually every RPG, whether it's western or eastern, is done in screenshot format. Some things just work better in different formats, y'know?

 

There are certain exceptions to this such as the streamers who do voice over play throughs of games like for instance ElegyofGames who did an amazing buldur's game play through as the one and only bob ross, as well as did voices for the phoenix wright games during his play throughs. It may be that some streamers and youtubers are better suited for showcasing RPG style games due to their for the lack of a better word "gimmick" and style.

[Havelok]

The only thing this video proves is that the mechanics aren't explained very well to new players. 

[Justinian]

I wonder if there is a tutorial popup about things like engagement etc.?

[Dynellen]

I wonder if there is a tutorial popup about things like engagement etc.?

 

I don't think so which is why these streams do actually highlight some of the issues with the game. Yes a lot of the streamers/let's players are quite bad but the game itself doesn't always give info that is vitally needed. Even if you read the manual it may not be easy for a new person looking at countless classes, abilities and talents to remember some small note about an engagement system and what that means from a gameplay perspective. 

 

Also a lot of people have played Infinity Engine games recently thanks to the Enhanced Editions, in those games running away and kiting are very prevalent tactics. Then they come to this game and think things work the same, especially since there's no 'Attack of Opportunity' indicator like in Neverwinter Nights/ToEE games. So their no armor wizard tries to run away from the big bad enemy and gets destroyed by engagement attacks.

[Monte Carlo]

I watch streams of competitive RTS games. Twitch (etc) is a good medium for that. Kinetic 'crash, bang, wallop' entertainment with lots of snarky comments coming in from viewers.

 

I'm not so sure about RPGs though. I once watched a Dragon Age: Inquisition stream. IMO that's not a boring game, but the stream (which had a couple of thousand people watching) was about as interesting as watching paint dry. And, yeah, a lot of these streamers aren't very interesting or amusing. 'Zany' and 'wacky' makes me want to reach for my revolver TBH.

 

Which leaves us with Obsidian's decision to issue previews to streamers. I'm not that bothered, as a backer, that streamers got review copies. Hey, that's how it's done nowadays apparently and like most sane, well-balanced people I keep a country mile away from anything to do with marketing or PR. There be dragons.

 

But I *do* detect a whiff of what we call in Britain 'Trendy Vicar' syndrome. A trendy vicar is a nerdy cleric who tries to get down with the kids on a Sunday to grow his congregation. He'll have a Christian rapper in the pew. He'll wear a wacky jumper over his dog collar. He'll try to talk street. He's a d1ck.

 

Obsidian seem to have hurled copies of this game at streamers who, frankly, do little credit to the product. I imagine this is a scattergun approach (no pub is bad pub) but it leads to the situation the OP describes. And I too want to purge with fire and sword people who play idiotic pop music over original game soundtracks.

 

Please bear in mind, however, Monte Carlo is almost 46 years of age. I probably need to STFU and get with the program.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Monte Carlo

[Rostere]

But I *do* detect a whiff of what we call in Britain 'Trendy Vicar' syndrome. A trendy vicar is a nerdy cleric who tries to get down with the kids on a Sunday to grow his congregation. He'll have a Christian rapper in the pew. He'll wear a wacky jumper over his dog collar. He'll try to talk street. He's a d1ck.

 

Obsidian seem to have hurled copies of this game at streamers who, frankly, do little credit to the product. I imagine this is a scattergun approach (no pub is bad pub) but it leads to the situation the OP describes. And I too want to purge with fire and sword people who play idiotic pop music over original game soundtracks.

 

Please bear in mind, however, Monte Carlo is almost 46 years of age. I probably need to STFU and get with the program.

 

You should think of these guys as a black box generating revenue for Obsidian and nothing more, maybe then you'll feel better about it. If they need to play pop music while playing or commit other types of heresy, so be it. I'm one of those guys you should never listen to if this was the WH40K universe. Apparently, if some YouTube guy plays a game people will buy it. You and I and everyone else who don't buy games depending on what YouTube personalities say are clearly not the target audience for this marketing effort, but we have already bought the game so...

 

I'm not 100% but I also believe that Paradox are in charge of handing out stuff. The heavy focus on YouTube reviewers as opposed to magazine reviewers only seems like their style.

[Dynellen]

 

 

Obsidian seem to have hurled copies of this game at streamers who, frankly, do little credit to the product. I imagine this is a scattergun approach (no pub is bad pub) but it leads to the situation the OP describes

 

Afaik Obsidian just gave some 1k Steam keys to Paradox who are in charge of handing out/deciding who gets the press release. Paradox seems to have handed out keys to a lot of the same streamers who did streams for their other recent release, Cities:Skylines.

[Bazy]

 

I wonder if there is a tutorial popup about things like engagement etc.?

 

I don't think so which is why these streams do actually highlight some of the issues with the game. Yes a lot of the streamers/let's players are quite bad but the game itself doesn't always give info that is vitally needed. Even if you read the manual it may not be easy for a new person looking at countless classes, abilities and talents to remember some small note about an engagement system and what that means from a gameplay perspective. 

 

Also a lot of people have played Infinity Engine games recently thanks to the Enhanced Editions, in those games running away and kiting are very prevalent tactics. Then they come to this game and think things work the same, especially since there's no 'Attack of Opportunity' indicator like in Neverwinter Nights/ToEE games. So their no armor wizard tries to run away from the big bad enemy and gets destroyed by engagement attacks.

 

It absolutely does have a tooltip on engagement. Most of these people just click past them. It's pure laziness and I would hold those that got a copy to a much higher standard. These people have had the game for days.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Sock]

I wonder if there is a tutorial popup about things like engagement etc.?

 

You know what would be great?

 

An Auto-Pause toggle for whenever hit by a disengagement attack.

 

And it's on by default. New players can learn about it more directly, and vets can just untoggle it.

[Bazy]

You know what would be great?

An Auto-Pause toggle for whenever hit by a disengagement attack.

 

And it's on by default. New players can learn about it more directly, and vets can just untoggle it.

Good idea is good. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Bli1942]

What's engagement for? Was it to make melee more viable or something? Seems kinda stupid, a character shouldn't always get hit when they try to run away

[Dynellen]

What's engagement for? Was it to make melee more viable or something? Seems kinda stupid, a character shouldn't always get hit when they try to run away

 

It's just a version of Attack of Opportunity. It greatly discourages the 'one character runs around in circles, never getting hit by melee enemies' tactic that you could abuse in Infinity Engine games.

[Corto81]

Wizard was locked in engagement. So the guy attempts to kite his wizard away... suffering disengagement attack after disengagement attack. The more damage he took the more he yelled at the wizard to get away...

 

 

/sigh

 

 

To be fair, the disengagement thing is very unintuitive and will have plenty of new players completely baffled as to what is going on.

[Bazy]

What's engagement for? Was it to make melee more viable or something? Seems kinda stupid, a character shouldn't always get hit when they try to run away

To give you control of the battle. Especially if enemies are playing smart and ignoring your tanks and targeting your squishies. 

 

Also kiting

 

It's up for debate whether they have accomplished the goal. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Bazy]

To be fair, the disengagement thing is very unintuitive and will have plenty of new players completely baffled as to what is going on.

Again

1. These people got early copies

2. They have had these copies for days

3. These are "professional" streamers/reviewers

4. They tend to be fans of the IE games and should be familar with basic mechanics and the ability to adapt to new ones

5. They are showing off how to play the game

 

I hold them to a much higher standard than some new guy who is playing his first 5 minutes. 

 

 

 

Also, I find engagement to be very intuitive. When Josh announced it I thought it made perfect sense. This mechanic also exists in other games. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[NegativeEdge]

Maybe it would help if there was tooltip, an auto pause on disengagement and maybe a reassuring message to the player that it wasn't their fault and doesn't reflect badly on them as a person.

If it keeps happening the game should offer to lower the difficulty, skip combat in a kind of 'story mode' and finally; to play itself and ask the player to imagine it's a cinematic experience, provided going to the cinema involves being jettisoned 300 feet in to the air and made to watch the action at a cavalier oblique angle.

 

I just think that anything other than expecting people to RTFM, think for themselves or figure it out should be considered.

[Sock]

There's a reason that you can't smoke e-cigs indoors in most places.

 

People are idiots and stuck in their ways, not able to adapt easily to change.

 

This game is leaning very heavily on IE games in design and appearance and marketing. One of the core features from that game was being able to run away. Engagement is a huge change from how IE games handled combat. Huge.

[Dorky88]

 

To be fair, the disengagement thing is very unintuitive and will have plenty of new players completely baffled as to what is going on.

Again

1. These people got early copies

2. They have had these copies for days

3. These are "professional" streamers/reviewers

4. They tend to be fans of the IE games and should be familar with basic mechanics and the ability to adapt to new ones

5. They are showing off how to play the game

 

I hold them to a much higher standard than some new guy who is playing his first 5 minutes. 

 

 

 

Also, I find engagement to be very intuitive. When Josh announced it I thought it made perfect sense. This mechanic also exists in other games. 

 

Points 3 and 4 are false to some degree. I saw streamers who played so badly that I don't even think they know 

what IE games are and secondly I refer to what I said earlier, streamers with about 30 followers.

[beyond1]

Be that as it may, but I'm sure PoE streamers aren't as bad as that clown:

 

(warning! serious, cringeworthy stuff in that clip)

 

[Ashen Rohk]

I dropped in on a couple of streams last night. WolfsGoRawr was okay but when you see someone walking into a big red circle after TRAP DETECTED appears over it you have to wonder.

 

The rest have been somewhere between incompetently endearing and totally ****ing useless, the latter in no way a good way to help sell a game.

[NegativeEdge]

Is it wrong that the thought of streamers dieing in droves to disengagement attacks makes me happy?

[Fredward]

If this was a AAA game I'd say that stuff like this probably don't matter that much since you're already appealing to a subsection of a subsection with streaming and the like but since this is not AAA game it probably matters quite a bit. But from what I've seen I don't think seeing noobs/'casuals' flail and die is necessarily a bad thing if your primary audience is 'hardcore' RPG fans.

[Diogenes]

My favourite part of twitch streamers is the need to have an obnoxious graphic and sound effect go off every 2 minutes for some pointless thing.

[Verenti]

Is it wrong that the thought of streamers dieing in droves to disengagement attacks makes me happy?

One guy was practically in a romantic relationship with Heodan, and that made me very happy.

[Azureblaze]

What I've mainly seen is:

 

1. They trigger engagement attacks frequently.

2. They don't understand the health/endurance mechanic because they don't pay enough attention to the help tips explaining it.

3. The stash, lock picks and other items for scripted interactions are going in there and you can't use them if they are in there, causing issues and confusion.

4. Lack of Stealth/Mechanics understanding.

5. Not understanding the importance of switching weapons for certain encounters if they are ineffective.

 

Anyway, a lot of above can be learned as you play the game but this is just the most common stuff I've seen.