Eternity Did the PoE series fail commercially because it didn't use the D&D ruleset or was it something else?

[Cryomancer]

4e tried to make D&D into an pnp MMORPG and failed, SCL tried to bring cooldowns and, no checks, no rolls and other mmoish mechanics into an cRPG and failed. Pathfinder Kingmaker made with an very small budget was an success despite the dumb journalists "i can't use an axe against an insect swarm, the game is bad" criticizing the game.

Now, look to the following quotes.

"The very obvious one would be that you tend to miss a lot when you roll the dice, which is fine when you’re playing on the tabletop, but it’s not so cool when you’re playing a video game,” Vincke said. “We had to have solutions for that.”" Source https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-will-combine-the-best-of-divinity-and-dandd-5th-edition/

Missing obvious not work on video games?
Missing obvious worked on BG1, BG2, IWD1, IWD2, NWN1, NWN2, P:K, ToEE, etc; and even on games not based on tabletop such as Daggerfall, Morrowind, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, Might & Magic VI-VIII, etc.

And to remove missing, you need to re write everything. Not only melee combat, ranged combat, offensive magic, buffs, summons ,etc; and even feats needs to be re done, not mentioning, enemy hp. If you PC is only hitting 5% of time, don't put an death knigth with the best armor in the workd to an lv 1 party deal with him. Now about leveling

Dungeons and Dragons’ leveling system is too slow for Baldur’s Gate 3
http://nuclearcoffee.org/dungeons-and-dragons-leveling-system-is-too-slow-for-baldurs-gate-3/

Leveling is one of the best aspects of D&D, on my solo DD IWD run, my char goes from running from Goblins that succeed the save against charm to stopping time, nuking havok, conjuring an efreet army and etc. Of course, needs to take an long time, because level cap should represents that there are no longer more room to improvement. Hell, took more than 100 hours on Pathfinder Kingmaker for my "charname" to reach lv 18!!!!

And for him even spell slots doesn't work when Even Dark Souls 1/2 uses it and nobody complains.
"have talked about how spell slots might not be the most intuitive thing. One of the things with Dungeons and Dragons, which I think is very important, is the method by which we do things is not as important for tabletop players as the actual effect on the table.”"

https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/dungeons-and-dragons-6th-edition

 

[luj1]

If Obsidian had simply licensed D20 instead of Josh's, "FUCK YOU, SUCK MY DICK: THE RPG", the entire landscape of CRPGs would be different right now.

Quite a pompous claim. Pillars still had other problems such as amateur writing and bland worldbuilding. Not to mention poor reactivity.

Besides, Kingmaker used a premade ruleset, a premade campaign and a premade setting and it changed little.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Project Eternity crowdfunding started 2012 with the promise of a new game that's reminiscent of old Infinity Engine titles.
You cannot easily get someone who has never played an infinity engine game to play POE with its pre-rendered backgrounds and "complex" RTWP. Original Sin 1+2 are games that are a lot easier to get into for someone who has no experience with RPGs.

Maybe, but in D:OS you can tricks a lot, which is part of the fun and is encouraged by the game, while PoE mostly concentrated on the combat. Fooling around is fun and I think a lot of players appreciate that too. But in the end it was the MP, I think. Even if you didn't like the game alone, having friends to play with you and actively watching each other screw-up was maybe the best idea Larian ever had. That's modern and good idea, especially in the time of the internet. Pillars counted too much on the idea, that the old school-players still want to play a game like BG2 and will like it. Which they didn't, even if it had some good ideas, because nostalgia is a monster.

And we shouldn't forget, that BG back then was supposed to be a game for beginners (even if it was very hard for those), since it had a more approachable interface, it looked prettier and the computer did the most for you (and I still think that the Mainchar was tweaked, because I had some shitty builds and still killed a lot of enemies back then).

no, people over analyze this. PoE sucked because Josh decided to try his hand at designing his own rules and shoving it down our throats. Everyone lost interest after that. Lots of words were written about why.... maybe it was because nostalgia? Or maybe nobody likes games like that anymore?? no....all BS.....all wrong..

If they had simply licensed D20 instead of Joshes, "FUCK YOU, SUCK MY DICK: THE RPG", the entire landscape of CRPGs would be different right now. Instead josh thought it his opportunity to try out his awesome RPG rules he had been saving and planning since he was 13, and he thought he had a captive audience. Lots of developers seem to think RPG's are RPG's are RPG's and that there are isometric and turned based RPG's but don't seem to think that the actual systems matter that much. Joshes invention went over like a wet fart, and completely ruined the entire fucking production.

Making it turned based was a desperate last gamble, but it was too late, nobody cared anymore. I guarantee if they had simply licensed D20 from the start things would be quite different. First of all, lots of saved work. They had to fine tune and implement lots of rules and shit, and for what? Why? What was the point? So we could get vympyres or whatever the fuck instead of vampires? Jesus Christ. 2nd of all people would have liked it, a BIG PLUS WHEN SELLING A GAME I HEAR! Everything would have been different and all for the better, but it was not to be.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

If Obsidian had simply licensed D20 instead of Josh's, "FUCK YOU, SUCK MY DICK: THE RPG", the entire landscape of CRPGs would be different right now.

Quite a pompous claim. Pillars still had other problems such as amateur writing and bland worldbuilding. Not to mention poor reactivity.

Besides, Kingmaker used a premade ruleset, a premade campaign and a premade setting and it changed little.

it changed little? People like kingmaker. That seems to be a really big fucking difference between the two. And its not because kingmaker is an awesome story or adventure (its not), its because its based on the AD&D rules, and that's all...people spend way too much time over analyzing this... If kingmaker used Joshes special muscled wizard creation kit, nobody would still be playing it.

The story and all that shit, nobody cares. Its overrated, and does not matter nearly as much as people think it does. Neither does reactivity or linearity or non-linearity. People like D&D if its properly and in a complex enough manner ported to the computer. If that be in real time, RTwP, TB, 3D or some combination, that matters less..what matters most is that the game properly and in a non dumbed down way port the actual AD&D rules and its character creation, party building, itemization, world and monsters to the computer...all the rest is secondary

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Project Eternity crowdfunding started 2012 with the promise of a new game that's reminiscent of old Infinity Engine titles.
You cannot easily get someone who has never played an infinity engine game to play POE with its pre-rendered backgrounds and "complex" RTWP. Original Sin 1+2 are games that are a lot easier to get into for someone who has no experience with RPGs.

Maybe, but in D:OS you can tricks a lot, which is part of the fun and is encouraged by the game, while PoE mostly concentrated on the combat. Fooling around is fun and I think a lot of players appreciate that too. But in the end it was the MP, I think. Even if you didn't like the game alone, having friends to play with you and actively watching each other screw-up was maybe the best idea Larian ever had. That's modern and good idea, especially in the time of the internet. Pillars counted too much on the idea, that the old school-players still want to play a game like BG2 and will like it. Which they didn't, even if it had some good ideas, because nostalgia is a monster.

And we shouldn't forget, that BG back then was supposed to be a game for beginners (even if it was very hard for those), since it had a more approachable interface, it looked prettier and the computer did the most for you (and I still think that the Mainchar was tweaked, because I had some shitty builds and still killed a lot of enemies back then).

no, people over analyze this. PoE sucked because Josh decided to try his hand at designing his own rules and shoving it down our throats. Everyone lost interest after that. Lots of words were written about why.... maybe it was because nostalgia? Or maybe nobody likes games like that anymore?? no....all BS.....all wrong..

If they had simply licensed D20 instead of Joshes, "FUCK YOU, SUCK MY DICK: THE RPG", the entire landscape of CRPGs would be different right now. Instead josh thought it his opportunity to try out his awesome RPG rules he had been saving and planning since he was 13, and he thought he had a captive audience. Lots of developers seem to think RPG's are RPG's are RPG's and that there are isometric and turned based RPG's but don't seem to think that the actual systems matter that much. Joshes invention went over like a wet fart, and completely ruined the entire fucking production.

Making it turned based was a desperate last gamble, but it was too late, nobody cared anymore. I guarantee if they had simply licensed D20 from the start things would be quite different. First of all, lots of saved work. They had to fine tune and implement lots of rules and shit, and for what? Why? What was the point? So we could get vympyres or whatever the fuck instead of vampires? Jesus Christ. 2nd of all people would have liked it, a BIG PLUS WHEN SELLING A GAME I HEAR! Everything would have been different and all for the better, but it was not to be.

because they did not actually faithfully port the AD&D rules to the computer. They dumbed them down, and limited them. Simply taking a spray can of gold paint and spraying a piece of dog shit gold does not make the shit a gold nugget.

 

[Lacrymas]

Saying that it's only because of the combat system is reductionist. PoE is bland in many, many different ways and I'd argue the combat is the best part of it. They managed to turn a pirate adventure into a slog and that takes practiced skill in fucking up.

PoE has been analyzed to death, though, and it should be obvious to everyone that it isn't boring because of the combat system.

 

[Jeru]

Saying that it's only because of the combat system is reductionist. PoE is bland in many, many different ways and I'd argue the combat is the best part of it. They managed to turn a pirate adventure into a slog and that takes practiced skill in fucking up.

PoE has been analyzed to death, though, and it should be obvious to everyone that it isn't boring because of the combat system.

It wasn't only combat but that said my first experience with PoE1 combat was literally "what the hell is this?!".

I wonder how many more players had such reaction.

 

[Lacrymas]

It wasn't only combat but that said my first experience with PoE1 combat was literally "what the hell is this?!".

Why?

 

[Thonius]

Pillars counted too much on the idea, that the old school-players still want to play a game like BG2 and will like it. Which they didn't, even if it had some good ideas, because nostalgia is a monster.

Nah. Pathfinder is showing that there IS audience for BG/BG2-like game today. POE didn't work well enough because of POE and not because potential audience is not there anymore.

Do we have numbers regarding PF:K's sales? If they aren't more than PoE2, which I suspect they aren't, then it doesn't prove anything, does it. It just proves that you can create such games in Eastern Europe on a shoe string budget compared to 'Murica, the land of the free (rofl), but that isn't surprising and new.

Check steam reviews... PF:K got more reviews ergo it sold more.
Also PFK devs told that there is market for old school rpg and in fact release time does not matter people will buy everything because of lack of old school RPG's. Basically they are saying people are hungry for BG2 clones.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Check steam reviews... PF:K got more reviews ergo it sold more.
Also PFK devs told that there is market for old school rpg and in fact release time does not matter people will buy everything because of lack of old school RPG's. Basically they are saying people are hungry for BG2 clones.

Not trying to be mean but aren't nearly 3000 of those reviews negative?

 

[Thonius]

It does not matter. PFK 10k reviews: 7.5k positve 2.5 negative.
POE2 6.1k reviews: 5.2k Postive 0.9k negative.
POE1 14k reviews: 12.2k Positive 1.9k negative
Quality of review does not matter a bit since negative are mostly pants oh head retarded ( both POE and PFK). But PFK for sure outsell POE2.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Pillars counted too much on the idea, that the old school-players still want to play a game like BG2 and will like it. Which they didn't, even if it had some good ideas, because nostalgia is a monster.

Nah. Pathfinder is showing that there IS audience for BG/BG2-like game today. POE didn't work well enough because of POE and not because potential audience is not there anymore.

Do we have numbers regarding PF:K's sales? If they aren't more than PoE2, which I suspect they aren't, then it doesn't prove anything, does it. It just proves that you can create such games in Eastern Europe on a shoe string budget compared to 'Murica, the land of the free (rofl), but that isn't surprising and new.

Check steam reviews... PF:K got more reviews ergo it sold more.
Also PFK devs told that there is market for old school rpg and in fact release time does not matter people will buy everything because of lack of old school RPG's. Basically they are saying people are hungry for BG2 clones.

lol..look at the butt-hurt responses to your post. man...Pathfinder really pissed some people off at the codex for some reason, its sort of odd. I guess infinitron feels like he can't really shill for a job in russia, or has no interest in moving there..can't say I blame him....

 

[Sergiu64]

It does not matter. PFK 10k reviews: 7.5k positve 2.5 negative.
POE2 6.1k reviews: 5.2k Postive 0.9k negative.
POE1 14k reviews: 12.2k Positive 1.9k negative
Quality of review does not matter a bit since negative are mostly pants oh head retarded ( both POE and PFK). But PFK for sure outsell POE2.

I feel like PFK's higher sale numbers is more of a result of its lower price point than anything else really, $15 for a game - sure, why not? $50... eh, not so much.

Well maybe one thing that did hurt PoE2 is the whole pirates setting - more people prefer generic fantasy.

 

[Jeru]

It wasn't only combat but that said my first experience with PoE1 combat was literally "what the hell is this?!".

Why?

Initial impression was that they somehow created a combat that was both confusing and streamlined at the same time. Which I thought was impossible.

For holy-grail spiritual succesor of BG after 2 decades it haven't felt like BG for me. Also if I remember right there was no AI initially (I played early version not sure if they added it later on) at all which made trash fights even mundane and annoying than they usually are in such titles.

 

[Jeru]

I feel like PFK's higher sale numbers is more of a result of its lower price point than anything else really, $15 for a game - sure, why not? $50... eh, not so much.

Base price for base PFK is 40$. Not sure where you get this 15$ from.

 

[Infinitron]

I think it's certainly possible/likely that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has sold more copies than Deadfire, but not by a large enough margin that it would have been considered a success for Obsidian. They wanted it to be more successful than the first Pillars of Eternity, they wanted a Divinity: Original Sin-caliber success even. Kingmaker doesn't come close to that.

I'm happy if Owlcat can continue to make games like these, but it's not that hard to be profitable in Russia.

 

[Cryomancer]

I think it's certainly possible/likely that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has sold more copies than Deadfire, but not by a large enough margin that it would have been considered a success for Obsidian. They wanted it to be more successful than the first Pillars of Eternity, they wanted a Divinity: Original Sin-caliber success even. Kingmaker doesn't come close to that.

I'm happy if Owlcat can continue to make games like these, but it's not that hard to be profitable in Russia.

That is an good reason to open more studios on Eastern Europe or in Southern Cone. Most devs on this regions know English and they can produce much more, for much less. You don't need to pay for developers to live in a expensive city like Los Angeles to develop an game. PfK got founded with far less resource than other projects with far lesser content

 

[Jeru]

I think it's certainly possible/likely that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has sold more copies than Deadfire, but not by a large enough margin that it would have been considered a success for Obsidian. They wanted it to be more successful than the first Pillars of Eternity, they wanted a Divinity: Original Sin-caliber success even. Kingmaker doesn't come close to that.

That is what confuses me the most. PoE1 seems like it had strong initial sales (hype was preety big for an indie game after all), but it seems like it went downhill with both reception and DLCs after that (pls correct me if I am wrong). So where that expectation of very strong PoE2 sales came from in first place? - especially when it was not messaged to playerbase that drastic changes are gonna to take place in sequel. Unless I missed such statements (true enough I was not following PoE2 in contrast with PoE1).

It is dissapointing as I really wanted Pillars to succeed, as many here I suppose. For one their art style was great and superior imho to cartoony style PFK. Just a personal preference.

Maybe people should stop comparing it to the IE games and treat it as its own thing. It is streamlined in the most terrible way, yes, but the confusing parts come from stacking rules and how shit the UI and SFX are, not anything else.

Wasn't whole hype and expectations of it generated on basically being BG3 under a diffrent name? Similar for Numenera and Planescape. Kinda odd to have expectations to not compare them.

 

[Lacrymas]

That is an good reason to open more studios on Eastern Europe or in Southern Cone. Most devs on this regions know English and they can produce much more, for much less. You don't need to pay for developers to live in a expensive city like Los Angeles to develop an game. PfK got founded with far less resource than other projects with far lesser content

While this is a good idea, it will soon devolve into protectionism laws.

Wasn't whole hype and expectations of it generated on basically being BG3 under a diffrent name? Similar for Numenera and Planescape. Kinda odd to have expectations to not compare them.

Yes, they used that as nostalgia bait, but we didn't get that. We got something else and judging whatever by wanting it to be something different isn't very wise. I'd even argue it's too much like Baldur's Gate in the worst possible ways, so ymmv. The point is that it's pointless to think of it as an attempt to emulate the IE games, they did do that, but they failed, so that's the situation we are in. If you want to enjoy PoE, play it for the combat and don't compare it to BG.

 

[glass blackbird]

I think it's certainly possible/likely that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has sold more copies than Deadfire, but not by a large enough margin that it would have been considered a success for Obsidian. They wanted it to be more successful than the first Pillars of Eternity, they wanted a Divinity: Original Sin-caliber success even. Kingmaker doesn't come close to that.

That is what confuses me the most. PoE1 seems like it had strong initial sales (hype was preety big for an indie game after all), but it seems like it went downhill with both reception and DLCs after that (pls correct me if I am wrong). So where that expectation of very strong PoE2 sales came from in first place? - especially when it was not messaged to playerbase that drastic changes are gonna to take place in sequel. Unless I missed such statements (true enough I was not following PoE2 in contrast with PoE1).

It is dissapointing as I really wanted Pillars to succeed, as many here I suppose. For one their art style was great and superior imho to cartoony style PFK. Just a personal preference.

Maybe people should stop comparing it to the IE games and treat it as its own thing. It is streamlined in the most terrible way, yes, but the confusing parts come from stacking rules and how shit the UI and SFX are, not anything else.

Wasn't whole hype and expectations of it generated on basically being BG3 under a diffrent name? Similar for Numenera and Planescape. Kinda odd to have expectations to not compare them.

It's easy to say modern gamers are shallow and easily led, but I think people underestimate how much a bad game can sabotage sales. I know lots of people who played PoE, thought it was boring bullshit (correctly, and especially when it first came out and hadn't been patched heavily), and thus did not have any desire to play a followup. In some cases they reacted to positive buzz and ended up trying PoE2, then liking it, but in many cases that initial reaction tainted the series irreparably.

I wouldn't be surprised if Owlcat's next game struggles against the image of being completely incompetent with regard to bugs and stuff and thus also has poor launch sales. I'm sure a lot of Kingmaker fans will get mad at this but just think about how the game was on launch and then think about whether you'd buy a brand new Owlcat game in future. Someone who bought it, then saw it was completely broken and refunded it is probably just going to ignore whatever they do next.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I think it's certainly possible/likely that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has sold more copies than Deadfire, but not by a large enough margin that it would have been considered a success for Obsidian. They wanted it to be more successful than the first Pillars of Eternity, they wanted a Divinity: Original Sin-caliber success even. Kingmaker doesn't come close to that.

I'm happy if Owlcat can continue to make games like these, but it's not that hard to be profitable in Russia.

I’ve been banging this drum from the moment P:K came out. If you’re gonna make a big, labor intensive RPG, do most of your development in post-Soviet Europe or maybe India (English is one of their official languages and they already have a huge tech industry).

But there’s another factor here: Kingmaker sold more units than Deadfire almost entirely on word of mouth. Deadfire had a ton of press coverage, its reviews were universally positive (88% metascore with 77 professional reviews), it was made by a beloved studio with a big fan base, and I’m betting it had a much larger marketing budget. But it just kind of fizzled. Kingmaker barely got any coverage, the reviews were not great (73% metascore on 33 professional reviews, with the big sites really hammering them—60 from IGN!), and I don’t remember seeing many ads. Yet it still looks like it sold more units, and while the base price was ten bucks lower, the average selling price is probably higher—remember how quickly Deadfire got discounted?

Maybe marketing doesn’t matter anymore, but I doubt it. Kingmaker beat Deadfire with one arm tied behind its back.

***

Lilura what do we need to do to get you to play Kingmaker? Money? A night with Lacrymas? Posters for your BLOG in every tabletop store in Brooklyn? You name it, I’ll make it happen.

 

[Artyoan]

Deadfire has some specific issues possibly harming it though. It had a continued protagonist which could be a net negative if people did not want to finish, play through again, or desire a direct link to all the events of the first game. Given that decisions would carry over it meant people might be pressured to play it again and its a 100+ hour game in order to get full satisfaction out of a sequel.

Also, the fact that it was themed in a pirate setting and marketed as such. How many people are willing to play a sequel that moves from a take on traditional fantasy to a fully themed expansion around pirates and sailing?

I'd speculate that if they had a new protagonist and did not have a 'themed' expansion but a more traditional one with a variety of settings it would have sold substantially better.

 

[Sergiu64]

I feel like PFK's higher sale numbers is more of a result of its lower price point than anything else really, $15 for a game - sure, why not? $50... eh, not so much.

Base price for base PFK is 40$. Not sure where you get this 15$ from.

I guess I could be wrong, but felt like it was on sale so quick. And the sales were gigantic. I got it for $15 at the end of last year I believe. It was only released that September.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The obsession with "muh ruleset" here has no basis in reality, most people playing your game will have never touched a pnp RPG in their life. The idea that somehow properly implementing a ruleset that most people have never encountered will make your sales soar is ridiculous.
The pnp RPG market is tiny -- really, really, tiny. Witcher 3 -- years after release, and counting PC sales only -- brings in about as much revenue as the entire RPG market's US/Canada sales.

data:
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/35150/hobby-games-market-nearly-1-2-billion
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present
https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe it's because Witcher 3 isn't an RPG? When you have such a huge discrepancy, maybe it's time to take a step back and examine the big picture, it seems like very few people learned anything from those "pick the odd one out" exercises we had as children.