Main Story way too short for an RPG! I am very disspointed...

[Phyriel]

 

 

I didn't like POE1's story that much. I did like Eder and Aloth and that was enough for me to keep playing.

 

But the storyline? Hollowborn children, Thaos who I had no strong feelings about (which is terrible for an antagonist), Iovara who gets randomly dumped on you near the end of the game, some malady my character is suffering from that's only explained via crappy dream sequences that explain nothing. It's just...I don't see what people really liked about POE1's story. It was serviceable but it certainly wasn't good.

 

Deadfire at least gave me a personal connection with Eothas though it's not all that great either the faction quests at least make up for that failing.

Can't say much about Deadfire's story, but to me the PoE story only got good in retrospect... I mean, even if the "twist" isn't really imaginative, it has interesting context throughout the game. Many of the main story beats, as well as the side stuff, get quite some more depth, once the ending rolls around.

 

Also, the world and characters had just the right balance of familiar and strange... but that, again might just be me.

 

 

Yeah during the actual game it was meh. That said at least White Mach was compelling all the way through and showed the learned something.

 

I was really so so on it. If I hadn't clicked with Eder and Aloth I probably would've dropped it when I reached Gilded Vale.

 

 

I didn't like POE1's story that much. I did like Eder and Aloth and that was enough for me to keep playing.

 

But the storyline? Hollowborn children, Thaos who I had no strong feelings about (which is terrible for an antagonist), Iovara who gets randomly dumped on you near the end of the game, some malady my character is suffering from that's only explained via crappy dream sequences that explain nothing. It's just...I don't see what people really liked about POE1's story. It was serviceable but it certainly wasn't good.

 

 

 I think the cast of characters is what saved it for me too. I wasn't really drawn into the story - possibly because events that happened in a previous life don't work as a personal motivation (?). 

 

 

Yeah and it's not like you and Thaos were even that close to each other. He was just your leader so it's not even like you're chasing down your friend/brother/lover from a past life to get answers about why they screwed you over. It really doesn't help that the relationship isn't explained til near the final stretch either.  Most of my favorite villains have a very personal hook to the player (Irenius, Li, Malak, so on). So when they screw you over there's an actual hook. Thaos lacked that severely.

 

Like the past life thing can work...but it has to be someone close to you then and whose close to you know. And Thaos failed on both those fronts.

 

 

I like your point but fundamental issue with that is that its centered around the character, your problem becomes center of the game universe because its so epic and emotionally driven. I learned to appreciate that approach but its so drama queen when you think about it. I like it that in poe games you're just nobody who traveled the world and **** happened. Then you have your little Awakening problem but you don't understand it and you get to understand it through other characters problems - Maedwald insanity that gives you a glimpse of what will eventually happen to you, empathy towards Lady Hadret and her chase after Thaos and then that scene in which Thaos kills her, showing that she, even after over 200 years of plotting against him and undermining his agenda felt like maybe there was a chance he loved her and the simple "no, you were just a tool" that she read in his mind just as he stabbed her with a dagger. 

 

I like it more if you can see the antagonist from a backseat and decide if you want to empathize experiences of other characters, whos lifes Thaos shaped and destroyed or... you can choose to give a damn only about yourself and your sickness. First approach gives you much richer story experience because that's how narrative is designed, if you choose to experience the game thinking player is the center of it all then you're right to be disappointed as the game narrative places MC just as one of many important puzzles.

 

That's why I think poe story is very good, it places player in more realistic place towards the universe instead of being soap opera from the start to finish. 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Phyriel

[Ryz009]

I like your point but fundamental issue with that is that its centered around the character, your problem becomes center of the game universe because its so epic and emotionally driven. I learned to appreciate that approach but its so drama queen when you think about it. I like it that in poe games you're just nobody who traveled the world and **** happened. Then you have your little Awakening problem but you don't understand it and you get to understand it through other characters problems - Maedwald insanity that gives you a glimpse of what will eventually happen to you, empathy towards Lady Hadret and her chase after Thaos and then that scene in which Thaos kills her, showing that she, even after over 200 years of plotting against him and undermining his agenda felt like maybe there was a chance he loved her and the simple "no, you were just a tool" that she read in his mind just as he stabbed her with a dagger. 

 

I like it more if you can see the antagonist from a backseat and decide if you want to empathize experiences of other characters, whos lifes Thaos shaped and destroyed or... you can choose to give a damn only about yourself and your sickness. First approach gives you much richer story experience because that's how narrative is designed, if you choose to experience the game thinking player is the center of it all then you're right to be disappointed as the game narrative places MC just as one of many important puzzles.

 

That's why I think poe story is very good, it places player in more realistic place towards the universe instead of being soap opera from the start to finish.

That's fair that sort of thing just bores me to tears though.

 

Thaos wasn't compelling enough the lady Hadret stuff just made me feel like she was a plot device to info dump the player because of Thaos cloak and dagger not being resolvable without a magic plot device and Thaos killed her after her role was done, Maewald's main issue seemed to be his two souls screwed each other over and the PC has no similar thing to go through so it's like "you went crazy cause you past selves screwed each other over." the PC got screwed over by Thaos them going mad the way Maewald did never made much sense to me.

 

But I'm just left thinking "why do I care?" Like without a personal conflict I just can't give a damn. It's less the player being the center of it all (In deadfire Eothas clearly steals the show yet I'm fine with it your whole job in deadfire is being someone's errand boy (Berath, the pirates, the Hauna, so on) it's more the lack of any fire in the plot. It's not something that gets me excited to see the end.

 

But yeah it's clearly a ymmv situation.

[Yonjuro]

....

 

 

Yeah and it's not like you and Thaos were even that close to each other. He was just your leader so it's not even like you're chasing down your friend/brother/lover from a past life to get answers about why they screwed you over. It really doesn't help that the relationship isn't explained til near the final stretch either.  Most of my favorite villains have a very personal hook to the player (Irenius, Li, Malak, so on). So when they screw you over there's an actual hook. Thaos lacked that severely.

 

Like the past life thing can work...but it has to be someone close to you then and whose close to you know. And Thaos failed on both those fronts.

 

 

 

 True. If you weren't generic minion number 17 in a previous life but rather, someone with a significant connection, that  would have worked better. 

[warbaby2]

 

I like your point but fundamental issue with that is that its centered around the character, your problem becomes center of the game universe because its so epic and emotionally driven. I learned to appreciate that approach but its so drama queen when you think about it. I like it that in poe games you're just nobody who traveled the world and **** happened. Then you have your little Awakening problem but you don't understand it and you get to understand it through other characters problems - Maedwald insanity that gives you a glimpse of what will eventually happen to you, empathy towards Lady Hadret and her chase after Thaos and then that scene in which Thaos kills her, showing that she, even after over 200 years of plotting against him and undermining his agenda felt like maybe there was a chance he loved her and the simple "no, you were just a tool" that she read in his mind just as he stabbed her with a dagger. 

 

I like it more if you can see the antagonist from a backseat and decide if you want to empathize experiences of other characters, whos lifes Thaos shaped and destroyed or... you can choose to give a damn only about yourself and your sickness. First approach gives you much richer story experience because that's how narrative is designed, if you choose to experience the game thinking player is the center of it all then you're right to be disappointed as the game narrative places MC just as one of many important puzzles.

 

That's why I think poe story is very good, it places player in more realistic place towards the universe instead of being soap opera from the start to finish.

That's fair that sort of thing just bores me to tears though.

 

Thaos wasn't compelling enough the lady Hadret stuff just made me feel like she was a plot device to info dump the player because of Thaos cloak and dagger not being resolvable without a magic plot device and Thaos killed her after her role was done, Maewald's main issue seemed to be his two souls screwed each other over and the PC has no similar thing to go through so it's like "you went crazy cause you past selves screwed each other over." the PC got screwed over by Thaos them going mad the way Maewald did never made much sense to me.

 

But I'm just left thinking "why do I care?" Like without a personal conflict I just can't give a damn. It's less the player being the center of it all (In deadfire Eothas clearly steals the show yet I'm fine with it your whole job in deadfire is being someone's errand boy (Berath, the pirates, the Hauna, so on) it's more the lack of any fire in the plot. It's not something that gets me excited to see the end.

 

But yeah it's clearly a ymmv situation.

 

That is pretty much what old school cRPGs have always been like, though... I mean, not even the child of Baal story in BG was really a personal one. It was much more about the power and who wanted it/got it in the end... and what impact that would have on the world. The player character in those games was much more a protagonist (or even antagonist) you made up to be YOUR focus in the story (much like the lead character in a novel) then the selfinstert surrogate many modern RPGs make the main character out to be... if that makes sense.

Edited May 16, 2018 by warbaby2

[syphonhail]

The Main Quest isn't short. Did you not explore? Talk to everybody? visit every building? Crawl every dungeon? Battle it out with Pirate ships? There is a ton of content. Heck im 29 hours in and just left Neketaka. There is so much damn content, its amazing!

[Voltron]

The Main Quest isn't short. Did you not explore? Talk to everybody? visit every building? Crawl every dungeon? Battle it out with Pirate ships? There is a ton of content. Heck im 29 hours in and just left Neketaka. There is so much damn content, its amazing!

 

That is side content, not Main Story, or if you prefer "Critical Path"/Campaign etc.

 

There is a lot of content around, but Main story is weak, short and unimaginative in my opinion. I hoped to follow Giant for quite long, learn new things, start new Acts (longer acts), meat new people etc. Instead I got cliche, short main story.

[Karkarov]

Persona 5 takes about 300 hours.......!

Lol persona 5 takes about 50 hours, but it is a linear traditional jrpg too where once you have seen the story, you saw the story.  There is no inherent replay value aside from being a boss in new game +.

 

I will agree though, the critical path of Deadfire needed to be longer.  When I heard in a stream a QA had beaten it in less than 1.5 hours, I knew it wasn't a significant crit path.  Which is probably why I have tried very hard to totally ignore it.

[syphonhail]

 

The Main Quest isn't short. Did you not explore? Talk to everybody? visit every building? Crawl every dungeon? Battle it out with Pirate ships? There is a ton of content. Heck im 29 hours in and just left Neketaka. There is so much damn content, its amazing!

 

That is side content, not Main Story, or if you prefer "Critical Path"/Campaign etc.

 

There is a lot of content around, but Main story is weak, short and unimaginative in my opinion. I hoped to follow Giant for quite long, learn new things, start new Acts (longer acts), meat new people etc. Instead I got cliche, short main story.

 

I feel sorry for you. I hope you learn to appreciate and enjoy games someday.  A crappy negative attitude like that will not make games fun.

[Ryz009]

 

 

I like your point but fundamental issue with that is that its centered around the character, your problem becomes center of the game universe because its so epic and emotionally driven. I learned to appreciate that approach but its so drama queen when you think about it. I like it that in poe games you're just nobody who traveled the world and **** happened. Then you have your little Awakening problem but you don't understand it and you get to understand it through other characters problems - Maedwald insanity that gives you a glimpse of what will eventually happen to you, empathy towards Lady Hadret and her chase after Thaos and then that scene in which Thaos kills her, showing that she, even after over 200 years of plotting against him and undermining his agenda felt like maybe there was a chance he loved her and the simple "no, you were just a tool" that she read in his mind just as he stabbed her with a dagger. 

 

I like it more if you can see the antagonist from a backseat and decide if you want to empathize experiences of other characters, whos lifes Thaos shaped and destroyed or... you can choose to give a damn only about yourself and your sickness. First approach gives you much richer story experience because that's how narrative is designed, if you choose to experience the game thinking player is the center of it all then you're right to be disappointed as the game narrative places MC just as one of many important puzzles.

 

That's why I think poe story is very good, it places player in more realistic place towards the universe instead of being soap opera from the start to finish.

That's fair that sort of thing just bores me to tears though.

 

Thaos wasn't compelling enough the lady Hadret stuff just made me feel like she was a plot device to info dump the player because of Thaos cloak and dagger not being resolvable without a magic plot device and Thaos killed her after her role was done, Maewald's main issue seemed to be his two souls screwed each other over and the PC has no similar thing to go through so it's like "you went crazy cause you past selves screwed each other over." the PC got screwed over by Thaos them going mad the way Maewald did never made much sense to me.

 

But I'm just left thinking "why do I care?" Like without a personal conflict I just can't give a damn. It's less the player being the center of it all (In deadfire Eothas clearly steals the show yet I'm fine with it your whole job in deadfire is being someone's errand boy (Berath, the pirates, the Hauna, so on) it's more the lack of any fire in the plot. It's not something that gets me excited to see the end.

 

But yeah it's clearly a ymmv situation.

 

That is pretty much what old school cRPGs have always been like, though... I mean, not even the child of Baal story in BG was really a personal one. It was much more about the power and who wanted it/got it in the end... and what impact that would have on the world. The player character in those games was much more a protagonist (or even antagonist) you made up to be YOUR focus in the story (much like the lead character in a novel) then the selfinstert surrogate many modern RPGs make the main character out to be... if that makes sense.

 

 

? BG1 opens with Sarevok killing your father figure. How is that not personal? Like you leave the city and your dad figure gets murder faced protecting you. The first few dreams you get are about said murder. It's very personal. All those people are trying to kill the protagonist and he/she might be a unique snowflake because of the father figure that Sarevok killed.

 

BG2 opens up with Irencius torturing you and Imoen your sister figure. Again that's very personal. He stole your things and killed one of your companions as well. (unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

 

Like I haven't played many crpgs but the BG games are very much a case of the antagonist personally screwing you over and you kicking their butts because of it.

 

 

 

....

 

 

Yeah and it's not like you and Thaos were even that close to each other. He was just your leader so it's not even like you're chasing down your friend/brother/lover from a past life to get answers about why they screwed you over. It really doesn't help that the relationship isn't explained til near the final stretch either.  Most of my favorite villains have a very personal hook to the player (Irenius, Li, Malak, so on). So when they screw you over there's an actual hook. Thaos lacked that severely.

 

Like the past life thing can work...but it has to be someone close to you then and whose close to you know. And Thaos failed on both those fronts.

 

 

 

 True. If you weren't generic minion number 17 in a previous life but rather, someone with a significant connection, that  would have worked better. 

 

 

Yeah it really needed a personal hook that was present. Iovara was too little too late.

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Ryz009

[morhilane]

 

The Main Quest isn't short. Did you not explore? Talk to everybody? visit every building? Crawl every dungeon? Battle it out with Pirate ships? There is a ton of content. Heck im 29 hours in and just left Neketaka. There is so much damn content, its amazing!

 

That is side content, not Main Story, or if you prefer "Critical Path"/Campaign etc.

 

There is a lot of content around, but Main story is weak, short and unimaginative in my opinion. I hoped to follow Giant for quite long, learn new things, start new Acts (longer acts), meat new people etc. Instead I got cliche, short main story.

 

 

You can finish Morrowind in 30 minutes by killing Vivec to steal wraithguard and then killing the last dwarf to take Keening and go straight for Red Mountain. 

 

You can finish BG2 in a few hours by going to the cemetery, cleaning the tombs and selling the loots instead of doing long side quests to get the money.

 

You can finish ME2 in a few hours by just recruiting the min amount of companions and not bothering with their loyalty quests.

 

How many people actually do that?

 

Deadfire main story ask you to align with a faction at some point. Doing that requires doing their quests chain and gaining reputation with them, so doing a bunch of side quests. While their help is optional in case you pissed them all off, optional doesn't mean it's not part of it.

[warbaby2]

? BG1 opens with Sarevok killing your father figure. How is that not personal?

 

BG2 opens up with Irencius torturing you and Imoen your sister figure. Again that's very personal. He stole your **** and killed one of your companions as well. (unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

 

...and Thaos pushes your mind on the fastlane to insanity and - most likely - agonizing death.

 

What I meant was, that the villains themself - and their motivation - aren't personally connected with your character.

Edited May 16, 2018 by warbaby2

[Ryz009]

 

? BG1 opens with Sarevok killing your father figure. How is that not personal?

 

BG2 opens up with Irencius torturing you and Imoen your sister figure. Again that's very personal. He stole your **** and killed one of your companions as well. (unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

 

...and Thaos pushes your mind on the fastlane to insanity and - most likely - agonizing death.

 

What I meant was, that the villains themself - and their motivation - aren't personally connected with your character.

 

 

Again this insanity is very very poorly displayed. I did not feel like the Watcher was going insane. Watcher got some I see dead people going on, some bad dreams (that don't become clear until near endgame which was really stupid there was little to no need to hold out that revelation) and one dude that was a Watcher go insane but he also had his past lives be pretty vile. Maybe if the Watcher had a background like Maewald did I'd gotten it but that's not the case. And we only see Maewald acting as those two personalities (and his normal self of course) leading to me to believe it's less that he could see his past lives in that his past lives were horrible people.

 

In contrast in BG I saw Sarevok kill Gorin and constantly send his mooks at me. He personally lied about my character, ruined their reputation then I had to do a whole bunch of crap to prove him wrong. I saw Irenicus torture Imoen into a shell of her former self, stole my PCs actual soul (which had actual gameplay debuffs attached to it) stole Imoen's soul, and just be an all around douchecanoe. (Also did Thaos even do that on purpose to the PC? Seemed more like wrong place wrong time if anything. Thaos had no reason to awaken the PC purposely all it did was screw with his plans).

 

Show not tell is very important. POE does a lot of telling and very little showing with Thaos and the Watcher.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Ryz009

[warbaby2]

 

 

? BG1 opens with Sarevok killing your father figure. How is that not personal?

 

BG2 opens up with Irencius torturing you and Imoen your sister figure. Again that's very personal. He stole your **** and killed one of your companions as well. (unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

 

...and Thaos pushes your mind on the fastlane to insanity and - most likely - agonizing death.

 

What I meant was, that the villains themself - and their motivation - aren't personally connected with your character.

 

 

Again this insanity is very very poorly displayed. I did not feel like the Watcher was going insane. I saw Sarevok kill Gorin and constantly send his mooks at me. I saw Irenicus torture Imoen into a shell of her former self. (Also did Thaos even do that on purpose to the PC? Seemed more like wrong place wrong time if anything. Thaos had no reason to awaken the PC purposely all it did was screw with his plans).

 

Show not tell is very important. POE does a lot of telling and very little showing with Thaos and the Watcher.

 

Can't argue with that... especially the insanity part. The dreaded "Awakening" that loomed over our head should have been presented better.

 

Still, while Sarevok and Irencus did much more hanous things, they still didn't do it "to the player character", they did it to reach their goal... just as Thaos.

[Ryz009]

 

 

 

? BG1 opens with Sarevok killing your father figure. How is that not personal?

 

BG2 opens up with Irencius torturing you and Imoen your sister figure. Again that's very personal. He stole your **** and killed one of your companions as well. (unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

 

...and Thaos pushes your mind on the fastlane to insanity and - most likely - agonizing death.

 

What I meant was, that the villains themself - and their motivation - aren't personally connected with your character.

 

 

Again this insanity is very very poorly displayed. I did not feel like the Watcher was going insane. I saw Sarevok kill Gorin and constantly send his mooks at me. I saw Irenicus torture Imoen into a shell of her former self. (Also did Thaos even do that on purpose to the PC? Seemed more like wrong place wrong time if anything. Thaos had no reason to awaken the PC purposely all it did was screw with his plans).

 

Show not tell is very important. POE does a lot of telling and very little showing with Thaos and the Watcher.

 

Can't argue with that... especially the insanity part. The dreaded "Awakening" that loomed over our head should have been presented better.

 

Still, while Sarevok and Irencus did much more hanous things, they still didn't do it "to the player character", they did it to reach their goal... just as Thaos.

 

 

Sarevok sends mooks after Bhaalspawn, Gorion died only because Sarevok was going to kill the Bhaalspawn for their essense and he died protecting them.

 

Irenicus rips out the Bhaalspawn's soul causing the Slayer to show up and start making them lose themselves to the essence of Bhaal inside them if they don't get their soul back. Not to mention the game opens with him torturing the Bhaalspawn.

 

How is that not directly towards the player protagonist? They hurt the PC's families and friends while trying to get at him/her (and in Irenicus case he succeeds for a time in hurting the protag). Like their goal involved the PC's death and it's they both were hands on about it. Thaos meanwhile did he even mean to awaken the Watcher?

 

Like Thaos is a barely passable antagonist and comparing him to good ones only make him look more bland.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Ryz009

[269811510]

Yes，I was expecting a BG2 but finally they gave me a Fallout 2 without low Int dialogue～

[tela2k]

-snip

(unless you played evil but BG2 stops making alot of sense if you're evil).

-snip-

Interesting conversation, I can attest to feeling like PoE is missing a personal hook,

but I honestly just wanted to comment on this (in the quote)

 

You are out for revenge.

Everyone around you suffers because of your Bhaal blood, they cling to you only to suffer more, you do not care, because you are cacklingly evil.

"I'm looking for a wizard who tortured me and I'm going to murder him."

Imoen: "You came for me!"

PC: "No I didn't, I came for revenge and now everything is screwed up, find your own way out, brat."

Imoen: 

"You can keep the dragon eggs Mr. Demon Lord in exchange for a crappy halberd!"

Murder silver dragon to finish human skin armor.

Slay popular ranger and his buddies.

Slay Irenicus because he stole your birthright.

 

Also you can surround yourself with a party of psychopaths.

Evil is built into the story of the BG-trilogy. You either fight it or embrace it.

In PoE it really doesn't make sense to be evil, the blood pool and the thing in Deadfire feel really out of place to me.

And you are surrounded by condescending bastards. GM straight up just took and left after I juiced that baby.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by tela2k

[Hazmy]

I don't think the length is the problem, rather that the Deadfires and the Mainstory barely connects really. I felt the faction power-struggle was more of a main story than the main story itself.

Eothas storyline felt as a side-mission and choosing which faction you ally with was the main mission for me, and that is what felt weird.

[Wormerine]

I don't think the length is the problem, rather that the Deadfires and the Mainstory barely connects really. I felt the faction power-struggle was more of a main story than the main story itself.

Eothas storyline felt as a side-mission and choosing which faction you ally with was the main mission for me, and that is what felt weird.

Yeah what I said earlier: Eothas is just a McGuffin for you to roam around Deadfire and get involved in interesting stuff. Not the most exciting critical path, but at the same time not a bad thing by itself. I know of an even worse RPG than Deadfire though:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxRCi9OvZo

[Phyriel]

 

I don't think the length is the problem, rather that the Deadfires and the Mainstory barely connects really. I felt the faction power-struggle was more of a main story than the main story itself.

Eothas storyline felt as a side-mission and choosing which faction you ally with was the main mission for me, and that is what felt weird.

Yeah what I said earlier: Eothas is just a McGuffin for you to roam around Deadfire and get involved in interesting stuff. Not the most exciting critical path, but at the same time not a bad thing by itself. I know of an even worse RPG than Deadfire though:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxRCi9OvZo

 

 

Inb4 you get crucified for touching fallout, holy grail of all rpgs! But I agree with you lol. Classic rpgs developed some sort of double standards, we treat old rpgs like fallout or baldur's with awe and we tend to idealize them but towards newer creations we're approaching it with guns raised. I mean its not very fair, sure expectations can only go higher but I'm very grateful for the eye candy that comes with deadfire. I know story and char development used to be main bag of potato for these kind of games but you gotta understand that nowadays companies have to make games look good. Imagine if pillars 1 was done in baldur's gate graphics but made 20% longer with maybe better writing... it wouldn't grow as big as it is. My bet is it would be criticized for being "mere bg clone that tries to cash on old ideas". 

[Ninjamestari]

Obsidian has apparently driven away their most talented writers, so it is unlikely that this situation will improve in their future games. Their reputation as a company in the minds of game writers has taken big blows as a result, which means it will be more difficult for them to find talented people in the future. After hearing how they treated Chris Avellone, I sure as hell wouldn't want to work for them in any way shape or form. If they're not careful, this might end up in a death spiral that might spell the end of the company. I hope they can fix things, I'd like to see more of Pillars of Eternity, the setting is interesting enough that it deserves better games to represent it, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Kinnea]

Main story alone in any RPG should be at least min 50hh (critical path). Dunno about rest people, but that is why I play RPGs....

Game overall looks great, but if you really sacrificed main story length and depth for stupid ship battles, some empty islands and ship customization system- then that was not a good deal.

 

Of course above is my personal feedback and I respect anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

 

I mean, Mass Effect 2 was one of the highest rated and most beloved RPG's of all time. And it's actual, 'MAIN STORY' is literally 3 missions of 20 minutes each. Anything else around that is just finding companions, loyalty missions and side missions. But the companion and loyalty missions are written engaging enough that you don't care about the main story being literally 3 missions. 

 

I don't think the length of the critical path has anything to say about the game being entertaining, engaging or anything else. 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Kinnea

[lersayil]

Obsidian has apparently driven away their most talented writers, so it is unlikely that this situation will improve in their future games. Their reputation as a company in the minds of game writers has taken big blows as a result, which means it will be more difficult for them to find talented people in the future. After hearing how they treated Chris Avellone, I sure as hell wouldn't want to work for them in any way shape or form. If they're not careful, this might end up in a death spiral that might spell the end of the company. I hope they can fix things, I'd like to see more of Pillars of Eternity, the setting is interesting enough that it deserves better games to represent it, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Thats a bold statement. Aside from being short, i had absolutely no issue with the general writing quality (and i dropped poe1 halfway since it bored me to the 9 hells). Personally i just think its 2nd part trilogytitis. They chose side content over crit path so they'll have less of a hassle with the last part of the trilogy.

 

I just hope there will be a payoff somewhere.

[tela2k]

I always thought Thaos is just mostly wasted potential. The basic idea for the character is actually very cool, I mean a guy that has the knowledge of thousands of years, makes plans that take centuries to come to fruition and can posess people and vessels does tickle my imagination. Unfortunately he only shows anything about this part of himself twice in the whole game. We learn about him mostly from Old Exposition Lady and Ghostly Exposition Lady and when we see him he's usually talking to someone else or torturing GEL who we really don't have any reason to care about.

And about Eothas and the soul stealing stuff. You don't as a player have very strong feelings for Eothas, if any feelings at all. You're told he took your soul. You tell other people this is what happened. You have no one to relate to about this and most of what you do doesn't seem connected to the soul anyhow, so even the story doesn't seem to care about your soul.

Ryz brought up the Irenicus soul stealing moment which goes like this:
You already hate the man from the very beginning of the game, and every time you try to rest he's there lecturing you with his bs. You get to Spellhold you think you'll get satisfaction.
Instead you find out you've been tricked and you get to watch another scene where this arrogant pos goads you and now steals your and Imoen's soul. (You also get a pretty cool mirror fight)
After that you have Imoen to relate to, Bodhi mocking you about the souls, and pretty much everything in the game after that is focused on reaching Irenicus and getting your soul back AND the dreams get quite bad after that. Also the dreams are actually shown instead of telling you in purple text that you're having a bad dream. 

PoE just really fails at making you care about your characters goals in both games. I think this is really the reason people have such strong feelings about the length of the main story in Deadfire. It's not that it's short, it's just disappointing. All the time you are waiting, hoping that it will get exciting at some point and when it ends you just feel let down. The best parts about Deadfire are the companion quests and the faction quests and dispositions and that is pretty much all tied to the companions too. Thus it's a lot easier to care about your companions, because their quests and quests related to them make you care about them for good or bad, but your own questline -the main quest- fails, kind of making the main character fail with it.

So for me the right way to play Deadfire is just ignore the main questline and consider the companion and faction questlines the meat of the game. It does make the game feel like it kind of lacks a goal, but the meat is mostly so good that I'm fine with it.

Edit: typos everytime

Edited May 16, 2018 by tela2k

[Voss]

Tela2k: agreed. These games are at their best in the side content. The main stories are really awful. Its pretty much obsidian's signature at this point.

 

Yes, the main story is ridiculously short and not very well written. All you really do is follow Eothas and have no power to affect the outcome at the end. It almost beggars belief that the same developer that gave us Fallout: New Vegas came up with this.

I always remember a different New Vegas: a lot of crap filler content, unmemorable characters, topped off by a really stupid and pointless, bullet sponge boss fight. Edited May 16, 2018 by Voss

[morhilane]

 

 

I don't think the length is the problem, rather that the Deadfires and the Mainstory barely connects really. I felt the faction power-struggle was more of a main story than the main story itself.

Eothas storyline felt as a side-mission and choosing which faction you ally with was the main mission for me, and that is what felt weird.

Yeah what I said earlier: Eothas is just a McGuffin for you to roam around Deadfire and get involved in interesting stuff. Not the most exciting critical path, but at the same time not a bad thing by itself. I know of an even worse RPG than Deadfire though:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxRCi9OvZo

 

 

Inb4 you get crucified for touching fallout, holy grail of all rpgs! But I agree with you lol. Classic rpgs developed some sort of double standards, we treat old rpgs like fallout or baldur's with awe and we tend to idealize them but towards newer creations we're approaching it with guns raised. I mean its not very fair, sure expectations can only go higher but I'm very grateful for the eye candy that comes with deadfire. I know story and char development used to be main bag of potato for these kind of games but you gotta understand that nowadays companies have to make games look good. Imagine if pillars 1 was done in baldur's gate graphics but made 20% longer with maybe better writing... it wouldn't grow as big as it is. My bet is it would be criticized for being "mere bg clone that tries to cash on old ideas". 

 

I think that's more that RPGs moved into the interactive movie/adventure game direction with very limited role-playing, super focused narrative where everything is connected and emotional moments for the player (using sob stories mostly). The amount of thread complaining about Deadfire story all have the same thing in common: I don't feel like the savior, the side content isn't connect to the story which make the story feel too short and the story doesn't make me feel anything.

 

Except that the same complains can be given to pretty much all the classic rpgs, like BG1 and BG2. I never cared one bit about the step father in BG1, you have like 5 lines exchange with him at the start of the game, but my character have or have not depending how I'm role-playing them. Most of the side content has nothing to do with the Iron Throne and even less with the final. The main story is pretty short too, I finished the game in 20 hours and that wasn't just focusing on the main quest (there was minimal side quests done). Same goes for BG2, once I'm out of the dungeon, I don't care about revenge or saving Imoen, but my character have options to how they might feel about it.

 

If BG1 was made as a modern RPG. It would have 1-2 hours of content doing cool things with the step father showing him as caring and nice before giving him a gut wrenching death so the player do feel super bad about it and want revenge. 90% of the side content would involve the Iron Throne or God of Murder cult(s) instead of being just local stuff. The role-playing aspect of the game will be limited to "I want revenge" and "I want to stop the bad guys" with no option to say "don't care, I didn't like my step father anyway". The final fight would be an epic battle against a god-Saverok where you just curb-stomp him with an epic cutscene. The entire game will be 100% in 25-30 hours, 10 hours of that being cutscenes.