Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming February 18th

[scytheavatar]

Good at what?

Good at making isometric RPGs. Some mechanics and Sawyer's insistence on balance might be questionable, but you have to admit that both PoE 1 and 2 are good RPGs made by a studio that has a good grasp of the engine. Fallout New Vegas and their previous games are a bit of an anomaly, because they worked with engines that were previously used for a similar title, and could instead focus on what they're good at. PoE was when Obsidian truly started doing its own thing, and it was the least buggy title they released up to that point. With PoE2, they just expanded on their expertise, and it stopped there.

Yet Fallout New Vegas is Obsidian's best selling game ever while POE 2 was a flop.............

 

[Cyberarmy]

So what happened to choices and consequences? Bloody hell...

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Good at what?

Good at making isometric RPGs. Some mechanics and Sawyer's insistence on balance might be questionable, but you have to admit that both PoE 1 and 2 are good RPGs made by a studio that has a good grasp of the engine. Fallout New Vegas and their previous games are a bit of an anomaly, because they worked with engines that were previously used for a similar title, and could instead focus on what they're good at. PoE was when Obsidian truly started doing its own thing, and it was the least buggy title they released up to that point. With PoE2, they just expanded on their expertise, and it stopped there.

Yet Fallout New Vegas is Obsidian's best selling game ever while POE 2 was a flop.............

Unjustly too, PoE2 is surprisingly good.

 

[Readher]

Good at what?

Good at making isometric RPGs. Some mechanics and Sawyer's insistence on balance might be questionable, but you have to admit that both PoE 1 and 2 are good RPGs made by a studio that has a good grasp of the engine. Fallout New Vegas and their previous games are a bit of an anomaly, because they worked with engines that were previously used for a similar title, and could instead focus on what they're good at. PoE was when Obsidian truly started doing its own thing, and it was the least buggy title they released up to that point. With PoE2, they just expanded on their expertise, and it stopped there.

Yet Fallout New Vegas is Obsidian's best selling game ever while POE 2 was a flop.............

Unjustly too, PoE2 is surprisingly good.

They shouldn't have made the first game a snoozefest. I'm not playing a direct sequel to a game I didn't finish, and after trying three times, I'm fairly certain I'll never finish PoE. Judging by the sales difference between PoE and PoE2, I'm not the only one, either. The fact DLCs to the first game sold like shit should already be an indicator for them that whatever game they make in the same world should be its own thing, but they were probably busy smelling their own farts to make that conclusion.

 

[Roguey]

I can't help but come to the realization that if Larian was publishing this game, Swen would be axed Avowed years ago. He would have seen the game for what is it, bad idea from day 1. Not only because it's unoriginal and there's no reason to believe Obsidian can deliver high enough quality enough without expanding their staff, but also because it's hard to actually find a selling point in the game. "Set in the world of POE" is the opposite of a good selling point when Deadfire was a flop.

Swen released Beyond Divinity, a terrible game they needed to do to keep the lights on, and rushed Dragon Commander out the door to devote more resources to D:OS. The only game they cancelled was the one Logic Artists was doing which was easy enough to do since no one at Larian was working on it. Fearg cancelling Avowed would mean letting go of nearly half the company (MS is not going to reward them for wasting all that money by letting them immediately start another game of comparable scope). Most CEOs don't want to do that if possible.

Playing it safe, huh? Just admit that Avowed is The Outer World in a fantasy universe already lol.

Hey this is terribly unfair to The Outer Worlds. Companions in that game will leave you if you do something they find abhorrent (killing Parvati's girlfriend in front of her, being a Corporate shill for Felix).

This sounds like they're making a nuBioware game where you can only be heroic or antiheroic at best. Colonialism Bad.

 

[ferratilis]

Yet Fallout New Vegas is Obsidian's best selling game ever while POE 2 was a flop

Unfair comparison. One is a sequel in an established franchise, coming out just at the right time when people who played Fallout 3 were hungry for more, and those disappointed with Fallout 3 were hoping that Obsidian could improve on aspects where Bethesda betrayed oldschool fans. Of course it sold millions. PoE2 could never have that kind of appeal, no matter the quality.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Just admit that Avowed is The Outer World in a fantasy universe already lol.

They are just not capable of anything more.

 

[Sibelius]

The colour palette and general art direction in this are just terrible for me. When I played The Outer Worlds no amount of Reshade desaturation improved it due to the clashing colour palette, so I played the whole game with a nice high contrast monochrome Reshade that actually fit the future retro styled UI/fonts/world pretty well. I can't believe they have taken the same route for Avowed, I only played POE1, and don't remember the world being so colourful.

More importantly, the gameplay looks like total shit as well

 

[scytheavatar]

Yet Fallout New Vegas is Obsidian's best selling game ever while POE 2 was a flop

Unfair comparison. One is a sequel in an established franchise, coming out just at the right time when people who played Fallout 3 were hungry for more, and those disappointed with Fallout 3 were hoping that Obsidian could improve on aspects where Bethesda betrayed oldschool fans. Of course it sold millions. PoE2 could never have that kind of appeal, no matter the quality.

The fundamental problem is that POE2 flopped while games like DOS2 and Pathfinder Kingmaker sold well. It's extremely hard to argue that Obsidian is a master of the isometric genre on the level of Larian or Owlcat.

 

[Latelistener]

Obsidian's next big RPG Avowed is looking to Vermintide's 'masterclass in having a sense of hitting and impact' to make its first-person sword-swinging feel weighty​

Looks like we'll a lot of laughs from this one. Did they even see how the combat looks like? Just mentioning it in this context is an insult to Vermintide.

this insta gib melee combat just reminds me of pew pewing hordes in L4D...not very exciting. I don't think I've played a fps where the melee combat felt good. Condemned comes to mind as one of the most positive experiences. I think I would need a stamina mechanic to make it feel good. Not just this anime pew pew pew pew, furious fisting shit.

It may look like instagib, because those players are actually very good, hitting vermin in the head most of the time (especially the second madman, playing without bots) and because those are mostly Skaven slaves that appear during horde attacks (same mechanic as L4D).

Vermintide has one of the best melee combat systems, but has a very high skill ceiling on higher difficulties. A lot of different weapons with different weight, feel and reach. Plus, a lot of ranged weapons with different mechanics.

If Vermintide is an S tier combat, then L4D gunplay is C tier at best.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Every news that comes out of this game convinces me it is a classic pump-and-dumb mobile game, with no vision or passion except to meet minimum requirement of least viable product.

 

[Justinian]

will buy this

https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidians-n...its-first-person-sword-swinging-feel-weighty/

Obsidian's next big RPG Avowed is looking to Vermintide's 'masterclass in having a sense of hitting and impact' to make its first-person sword-swinging feel weighty​

Looks like we'll a lot of laughs from this one. Did they even see how the combat looks like? Just mentioning it in this context is an insult to Vermintide.

this insta gib melee combat just reminds me of pew pewing hordes in L4D...not very exciting. I don't think I've played a fps where the melee combat felt good. Condemned comes to mind as one of the most positive experiences. I think I would need a stamina mechanic to make it feel good. Not just this anime pew pew pew pew, furious fisting shit.

New gen Shadow Warrior (the first one) has very good melee combat.

 

[Orud]

lol, weak hit reactions and piss poor connection feel

why do an interview touting the meaty, kinesthetic feel of your combat when that is seemingly the thing it is singularly worst at

They told PC Gamer that "Avowed is looking to Vermintide's 'masterclass in having a sense of hitting and impact' to make its first-person sword-swinging feel weighty", I almost choked on my coffee while reading that this morning.

This looks more and more like designed by committee slop, lacking designers with a spine. Even the damned followers are hollowed out window dressing.

 

[Gargaune]

I'm not worried about enemy animations at this point, that can get fixed down the line, but player movement seemed kinda awkward and sluggish. Not in a deliberate, tactical sense, like in KCD, but more clumsy like Fallout 3's melee.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

It is fallout 3 melee dude.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Avowed's companions won't ditch you for making the 'wrong' choices: 'It's not about maintaining their approval, it's about getting to know them'​

Avowed, the upcoming first-person RPG from Obsidian, mixes and matches a few RPG standards in its approach to companion characters and their stories. Before we get into details, some basics—in an interview with game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Gabe Paramo this week, we learned the following about Avowed's companions and party management:

• We'll meet multiple companion characters throughout Avowed (Obsidian isn't revealing how many there are yet), and they'll hang out at a "party camp"
• Two companions can come with you on adventures at a time
• There are "a few cases" where you must include a particular companion in your party because their knowledge or expertise is relevant to the situation, otherwise it's up to you
• It sounds like you can issue some basic orders to companions, but you won't "micromanage" your party in combat
• There's no "approval system," but conversations may influence our companions' decisions and stories

Avowed takes place in the same world as the Pillars of Eternity CRPGs, but its approach to companions and party management is much more like that of a Mass Effect game, or Obsidian's own Fallout: New Vegas. We might rely on their help in combat, but we won't be giving them granular instructions or controlling them directly.

"They have moment-to-moment gameplay combat abilities," Paramo told us. "They also have, outside of combat, more environmental interaction abilities. And so you can kind of order them to do those abilities both in combat and out of combat."

"We don't want players feeling like they have to micromanage a party," said Patel. "So, you know, certainly their abilities are there and they're very useful. But you're not going to be pulling up pause and feeling like you have to move them around every 30 seconds."

Storywise, companions will each have a "personal arc," said Patel, and they'll all be involved in each playthrough—it's not like Baldur's Gate 3 where you can walk by a hand sticking out of a portal, shrug it off, and leave Gale to his fate.

"You could recruit some of them a little bit earlier or a little bit later, but they all will join your party by certain known points in the game," said Patel, "which allows us to weave them a bit more intricately into events, conversations and all of the action that's happening."

We didn't want players feeling like they had to choose the 'right' options in order to maintain their companions.
Carrie Patel, Avowed game director
As has been so popular in Baldur's Gate 3 recently, the party camp will be a place for "heart to heart" conversations. Don't expect romance, though—it didn't come up in our interview, but it's not really Obsidian's thing—and there won't be an "approval system" that makes companions like the player-character more or less.

"You definitely have quest-based interactions with [companions], and they each have their own personal arc," said Patel. "As with all of our games, talking to them through [that arc] and influencing them down a particular course or another can shape what their story is, and maybe how they see some of their personal challenges. We didn't go with a strict approval system. We didn't want players feeling like they had to choose the 'right' options in order to maintain their companions. So it's not about maintaining their approval, it's about getting to know them, building relationships with them, and you know, finding points of commonality and strength where they're learning things from you as the player character, and you're getting a little bit of their perspective on the world."

From our interview, we also learned more about Avowed's combat, which may take after Vermintide, and its "classless" leveling system. Xbox has also posted a breakdown of the recent Avowed gameplay trailer with commentary from Patel and Paramo.

We don't have a firm Avowed release date yet, but it's scheduled to release this fall.

https://www.pcgamer.com/avoweds-com...heir-approval-its-about-getting-to-know-them/

So much fucking stupidity

 

[Justinian]

I hope the game is playable without any companions. Companions means we won't even get Deus Ex type level design, it'll just be a first person MMO.

But if we do I'm glad I don't have to deal with them getting butthurt and leaving. I honestly don't care about the story, I just hope they clean up the combat (it looks pretty awful). The environments look nice at least, Pillars aesthetic was underrated and for all their faults Obsidian did manage to create a unique mood for their setting, arguably the best since Morrowind.

Having said that, there are basically 0 1st person fantasy RPGs being made (other than real time blobber abominations like Grimrock) so I'll probably end up buying it at full price.

 

[Reinhardt]

I hope

 

[Readher]

I hope the game is playable without any companions.

You are literally forced to get all companions sooner or later in order to progress the story. Don't count on it.

You could recruit some of them a little bit earlier or a little bit later, but they all will join your party by certain known points in the game," said Patel, "which allows us to weave them a bit more intricately into events, conversations and all of the action that's happening.

 

[Justinian]

I hope the game is playable without any companions.

You are literally forced to get all companions sooner or later in order to progress the story. Don't count on it.

You could recruit some of them a little bit earlier or a little bit later, but they all will join your party by certain known points in the game," said Patel, "which allows us to weave them a bit more intricately into events, conversations and all of the action that's happening.

That's fine, as long as I don't actually have to bring them with me. A few companion quests/mandatory quests I can put up with, but if the game is designed around being played with them I will be very disappointed.

Actually, I'll probably be disappointed even if it isn't, but I'm still holding out hope that this will at least be a decent game.

 

[Roguey]

That's fine, as long as I don't actually have to bring them with me. A few companion quests/mandatory quests I can put up with, but if the game is designed around being played with them I will be very disappointed.

Actually, I'll probably be disappointed even if it isn't, but I'm still holding out hope that this will at least be a decent game.

Companions are mandatory, they're an integral part of the story.

In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience.

 

[Justinian]

mods will fix it

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidians-next-rpg-avowed-wont-have-the-option-to-do-a-pure-pacifist-run/

Obsidian's next RPG Avowed won't have the option to do 'a pure pacifist run'​

Avowed has a 'focus on combat'.

Discovering just how many pacifist choices you could make in the original Fallout was a delight, because not only were you allowed to talk or sneak your way out of problems, but the game recognized you were doing that and rewarded you for it. Subsequent RPGs and immersive sims sprinkled peaceful options in, but an entirely pacifist playthrough often ends up being a masochistic challenge that feels more like you're breaking the game than playing it. Just have a look how much of a hassle it is beating The Outer Worlds as a pacifist.

Given that Avowed is drawing inspiration from Vermintide's best-in-class first-person combat, it's no surprise that Obsidian's upcoming RPG won't let you go 100% nonviolent. Speaking to PC Gamer this week, game director Carrie Patel said, "This isn't a game where you're gonna have a pure pacifist run."

That doesn't mean spilling blood will be the only way to clear your questlog, however. You'll still be able to talk your way out of some problems, like you could in Pillars of Eternity. "Players can expect to see solutions and opportunities to use dialogue, maybe take advantage of reactivity with regards to characters they might have helped or met earlier in," Patel went on, mentioning there will be "some stealth solutions," but players should expect a "focus on combat."

During development of The Outer Worlds, Obsidian experimented with adding a knockout gun to help facilitate less murdery playstyles, but ended up scrapping it because, as Tim Cain said in NoClip's documentary, "it was causing a lot of confusion." Players weren't sure how long enemies would stay unconscious for, and what does it mean to knock out a robot anyway? Plus, when bounties task you with collecting people's fingers, should you be able to knock them out and take them?

Though Avowed won't let you go full Gandhi, it sounds like giving you freedom in how it lets you explore and approach problems is one of Obsidian's aims. "We're not planning on one specific linear path that players are going to take through that world," Patel said. "So we're trying to account for the various places they could be, and the various points of interest they might find and what they might see from there."

We also found out that Avowed's companions won't ditch you for making the wrong choices, and that Avowed is embracing Skyrim-like ability trees rather than classes. As announced during the recent Xbox Developer Direct show, it'll be out this fall.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Enjoy a visual novel in Eora from a first-person perspective in this innovative walking sim by Obsidian. Get different ending slides based on your dialogue menus choices.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Avowed's companions won't ditch you for making the 'wrong' choices: 'It's not about maintaining their approval, it's about getting to know them'​

Choices & No Consequences.

It's like Obsidian doesn't even wanna make CRPGs anymore.

Not necessarily a bad idea, having something like PST/KOTOR 2 in mind.
That's not what we're getting with Avowed though. Going back to Tyranny Obsidian has written their companions like a sitcom cast, the writers are just disinterested in humoring the idea that people won't find these characters and their antics endearing.