Eternity Josh Sawyer at Digital Dragons: Deadfire post-mortem

[RickOmbo]

Is POE2 a future cult classic?

 

[FreeKaner]

Fun > balance.

Perfect symmetry in all options =/= fun.

Symmetry is not balance. Streamlining is not balance. Balance comes as a side effect of those but it is not necessary so. Completely unbalanced games are not fun. If they were we'd just play everything with cheats, just be invulnerable and oneshot everything, isn't that fun?

Proper layered and asymmetric balance is fun, period.

 

[vortex]

Sawyer - cRPG prince who was promised but left without the throne

 

[RickOmbo]

There is never "too fast" in grind-heavy games

 

[Butter]

How the samhell was ship-to-ship combat the most expensive feature in the game? It's fucking text-based. What kind of jokers are working at Obsidian?

 

[Shadenuat]

Well you need to do all the art +ui, not just dialogue panels, but all different sheps, cannons n shit. Coders still need to code everything. There is unique dialogue for different crews I believe. There are actual skill checks inside. Then there is optional combat encounter behind every fight (boarding action). Some music...

"quicksand".

 

[Mr. Hiver]

It was most expensive because they kept doing various iterations on it. Expensive in terms of resources, working hours and days, devs used for that instead on other features and so on. Not just money.
And what Shadenaut said. you need to create few different ships, mechanics for different cannons, mechanics for how crew affects it all, how food and drinks affect them, different enhancements you can buy and on and on.

Plus the ship boarding fights are complete incoherent mess you need to pause every tenth of a second to even see who is going where and whats going on.

and, atleast in versions ive been playing the shooting at other ships is bad choice that gets your boat damaged or destroyed most often, regardless of the crew and cannons, so the best thing to do is take a beeline to the enemy ship and board it.
It should have been either a text adventure like passing a storm is, or done from birds eye view on the map minigame.

 

[Murk]

There's some nitpicking I'm itching to do regarding what he said and his reasons why, but I can't get over the fact that he looks like a 60 year old Lesbian hipster. I thought he was skinny, why is he so pear shaped? Is he on hormones?

I particularly chuckled when he brought up that Swen mentioned there was little overlap between Original Sin players and PoE players. Definitely true, and despite having fond memories of IWD 1 and 2, there's still absolutely no internal motivation on my part to try PoE 1 or 2, even with the knowledge that 2 was made turn-based.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

Deadfire patched to the latest and played on harder difficulty is a pretty alright romp, for a RTwP game, as long as you avoid talking to anyone - just click through without paying much attention, and block the story and main plot from your mind.
The world map is pretty great, its great to freely travel with a ship and explore many islands, the combat encounters are versatile and interesting and itemization is pretty, fucking good.

The main plot kills it though.
And the colonial struggle between the factions is boring and pretentious as fuck.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And the colonial struggle between the factions is boring and pretentious as fuck.

This tbh
I didn't give a fuck about their problems

 

[luj1]

Fun > balance.

Perfect symmetry in all options =/= fun.

 

[Roguey]

Perfect symmetry in all options =/= fun.

2019 and people are still arguing against this strawman they made up.

 

[111111111]

Our protagonist went from the keeper of caed nua to being a boring reactionary butt boy of loser 'GOdZ'.

In this sick new sequel get hyped to watch this other 'GOD' shit on everyone while you have conference calls with autistic 'GOdZ'

 

[Yosharian]

And the colonial struggle between the factions is boring and pretentious as fuck.

This tbh
I didn't give a fuck about their problems

Gellarde!

 

[Wunderbar]

When it comes to videogames, the word "postmortem" always confuses me. It's not like the game was cancelled and now is dead.

 

[luj1]

Perfect symmetry in all options =/= fun.

2019 and people are still arguing against this strawman they made up.

2019 and Roguey is still Sawyer's lawyer because he said something to her, once.

 

[Roguey]

2019 and Roguey is still Sawyer's lawyer because he said something to her, once.

I think he should be criticized for things he says and does, not for something he explicitly denied he was doing back in 2013 https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...to-the-new-thread.75947/page-544#post-2488797

In 2015 I even put together a post of all the times he ever said anything along the lines of "I'm not trying to achieve perfect balance" https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/josh-sawyer-and-fun-discuss.96540/page-8#post-3767259

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

2019 and Roguey is still Sawyer's lawyer because he said something to her, once.

I think he should be criticized for things he says and does, not for something he explicitly denied he was doing back in 2013 https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...to-the-new-thread.75947/page-544#post-2488797

In 2015 I even put together a post of all the times he ever said anything along the lines of "I'm not trying to achieve perfect balance" https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/josh-sawyer-and-fun-discuss.96540/page-8#post-3767259

Please, we know Josh Sawyer by his works. Deadfire’s systems were designed by someone with an obsessive compulsive obsession with symmetry. It’s not even about balance at this point, he clearly just hates it when similar things are uneven. I know how it feels to have compulsions, but this is not a good way to design a game for other people.

In retrospect, Josh is the kind of guy who needs to line up the spines of all the books every time he sees a bookshelf. Obsidian foolishly assumed this would make him a good librarian.

 

[Alpan]

[bunch of drivel exhibiting the telltale signs of a fellow autist]

This comment in all its verbosity is entirely divorced from the content of Sawyer's talk. He makes no comments about the floatiness of the combat, Damage Reduction, penetration system, or even item balance. You may as well claim he fucks goats and it wouldn't be any less relevant than whatever it is you're saying above.

Be mindful that in denouncing his supposed autism you have actually revealed your own autistic nature. Either that, or you're delusional.

 

[The Bishop]

I feel like the key problem of PoE was always that it was made/directed by people who don't really like the type of game they're making and would rather make something else if they had an opportunity. It's like if you tasked a gay director to direct straight porn. Even if professional and diligent, that person would still be at a loss for why would anybody like what's he's filming, and therefore deliver a superficially similar product that lacks any impact and just checks feature boxes one would reasonably expect from such production.

Then again, the Codex wasn't much help in identifying PoE's problems either. Most of PoE threads are filled with memery and shitposting reiterating same nonsense again and again. The actual game has never been terribly well balanced. Classes don't all do same things. It's not all tank and spank. You don't need to camp doorways and block choke points. Etc, etc...

 

[FreeKaner]

This comment in all its verbosity is entirely divorced from the content of Sawyer's talk. He makes no comments about the floatiness of the combat, Damage Reduction, penetration system, or even item balance. You may as well claim he fucks goats and it wouldn't be any less relevant than whatever it is you're saying above.

Be mindful that in denouncing his supposed autism you have actually revealed your own autistic nature. Either that, or you're delusional.

It's about the changes he made between PoE1 and PoE2 which he spoke of. As well as his comment about "hardcore fans" and "psychosis". Don't try to spin that to me when he is the one that does autistic esoteric changes only he gets with his dogmatic adherence to streamlining then tries to call others psychotic. Autism here is the simpleminded focus, not some sort of interest in in-depth mechanics of games.

The game he made with changes from P1 to P2, almost all of them for the worse. Instead of calling something drivel because you lack the base knowledge on development of PoE2, learn what he was talking about while making the PoE2 systems, especially the penetration/armour garbage. Deadfire is mostly playable despite the retarded streamlined he made, probably would work better just as D&D and I hate D&D.

A lot of drivel in your post, and nothing of substance said either. Just getting defensive in stead of sawyer, some garbage that is.

 

[Alpan]

I'll have to rephrase myself for your special needs.

Here's your claim:

He is trying to offload the autistic and fundamental changes he made to the system to "hardcore fans". When the "hardcore fans" said the PoE1 combat feels floaty because of high DR and armour penetration weapons are objectively better he didn't have to go back to drawing board and make an even more autistic system instead of refining the last one. Completely throwing off even the people who were okay with first game because his streamlining became insolvent.

I'm saying that in no part of the talk he tries to offload such changes, and especially the kind of changes you mention, to the hardcore fans. I'm saying that there is literally no moment in the video where you could do such an attribution as you're claiming. To the extent that I respond to your attribution, I am not spinning anything, and to the extent that you claim the above, I consider what you said delusional drivel. You are basically responding to a Sawyer of your own creation.

I am quite well-versed in the development path of PoE2, having followed both games quite closely. I am also quite certain that I'm more knowledgable and experienced than you regarding both games.

 

[FreeKaner]

I'll have to rephrase myself for your special needs.

Here's your claim:



I'm saying that in no part of the talk he tries to offload such changes, and especially the kind of changes you mention, to the hardcore fans. I'm saying that here is literally no moment in the video where you could do such an attribution as you're claiming. To the extent that I respond to your attribution, I am not spinning anything, and to the extent that you claim the above, I consider what you said delusional drivel. You are basically responding to a Sawyer of your own creation.

I am quite well-versed in the development path of PoE2, having followed both games quite closely. I am also quite certain that I'm more knowledgable and experienced than you regarding both games.

He spoke of the reasons he made penetration/armour changes. Like the feedback he got for the game being "mushy", so he made the game more of that. He specifically spoke of the DR weapons as well. I don't remember in which video or where now but it should be available somewhere. All of the streamlining he did especially in regards to weapons, penetration and armour that he after blamed on players. He has a lot of posts where he talks about "what people asked" and that he delivered on twitter and tumblr.

I don't remember the particulars nor do I have the patience to find them, you can ask Roguey for the rest of the inane defensive comment that added nothing of substance again, claiming that none of it was said in this particular video. As I said in previous post, it is a collection of videos and posts he made previously. This video in particular, speaking as if somehow the "hardcore fans" and their "psychosis" is at fault is what my response is specifically about.

Everything else about your comment is redundant, the end result speaks for itself. A combat system that feels like MMO/Moba because of high degree of streamlining and removal of everything unique and specific. The game works despite all of this because one thing he got right was just the sheer variety and because itemisation in the game is good. Of which I talked about here:

I was thinking why I find the combat in deadfire moderately enjoyable despite disagreeing with almost all design approaches sawyer has and the system at place in general. It is because of options of character archetypes and itemisation basically, there are a lot of them and they are different. Especially itemisation, it is everything that the system is not. The system is extremely streamlined, it is all about stacking multipliers to fill a bar of statistics to reach a critical mass of numbers, it is nearly always about efficiency (in itself not a bad thing) above all and overall just feels like a bad mmo. Itemisation on the other hand are opposite, items are unique, they have tangible impact and they are recognisable with their bonuses, they change how things work out in combat and getting thresholds in enchantments is very satisfying and you immediately feel the effects. Imagine if a game existed that actually had a good system that wasn't such streamlined garbage about adding up several 10-15% bonuses.

Really is there any purpose to your post except getting defensive for Sawyer?

 

[Quillon]

You are basically responding to a Sawyer of your own creation.

A photo from Sawya's prison years; if it weren't cropped, you'd catch a glimpse of swastika tattooed on his chest. True story.

 

[Butter]

Oh so that's where I know him from.