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

[Silvanus]

Oh my god oh my god oh my god it's finally happening

A XAURIP GUYS A XAURIP!!!!!!!!!!!!

And not even a standard one, but a Xaurip Elder. Which implies there are going to be multiple kinds of xaurip!!! I've never been more excited for anything in my life

Now I see why they're targeting 30 fps. That's a lot of arrows to render!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Strange Fellow]

easily their prettiest game

I know game journalists are stupid, but holy shit

 

[Cross]

Additionally, there legitimately hasn't been a big first person fantasy RPG released since Skyrim in 2011 (Kingdom Come and its sequel are popular but not fantasy).

Because Skyrim's combat is horrible. Even console peasants recognize that.

Dark Souls came out in the same year as Skyrim and provided an easy to replicate template for functional fantasy action-RPG combat.

It seems likely to me that a lot of people would be happy with a similar-but-different game to play.

Skyrim wasn't a success because of its combat. But cargo cult design like mindlessly copying Skyrim's shitty combat is about the only thing Obsidian seems capable of.

 

[Drakortha]

Is there 3rd person combat?

There is but they haven't revealed much about it other than a couple of shots in one of the showcases.

But does it have 3rd person combat? Is it confirmed?

The only previews of 3rd person I've seen were out of combat.

 

[Bester]

Dark Souls came out in the same year as Skyrim and provided an easy to replicate template for functional fantasy action-RPG combat.

If it's so easy to replicate, why is there only one person who ever succeeded? (Tanimura, Miyazaki's student)
Witcher 3 tried to replicate it, shat the bed, the game's combat is unplayable.

The situation is made more complicated by *Agloglog* (deepthroat sounds) being first person. The only good first person combat is Chivalry/Mordhau, with Bannerlord having a decent entry. But they don't fit the "Skyrim" genre, their difficulty of combat would start grating on people's nerves in a Skyrim-clone.

Nobody knows how to make Skyrim's combat good. Mods have had 15 years to do it, none succeeded.

 

[ArchAngel]

Additionally, there legitimately hasn't been a big first person fantasy RPG released since Skyrim in 2011 (Kingdom Come and its sequel are popular but not fantasy).

Because Skyrim's combat is horrible. Even console peasants recognize that.

Dark Souls came out in the same year as Skyrim and provided an easy to replicate template for functional fantasy action-RPG combat.

It seems likely to me that a lot of people would be happy with a similar-but-different game to play.

Skyrim wasn't a success because of its combat. But cargo cult design like mindlessly copying Skyrim's shitty combat is about the only thing Obsidian seems capable of.

I would take Skyrim combat over rolling simulator any day of the week.
Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

 

[FreeKaner]

Looks fun enough I am going to play this.

 

[Bester]

Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

Don't blame Dark Souls for that, it was the the poles.
Had Miyazaki done Witcher's combat, you would've been licking your fingers to this day.

 

[FreeKaner]

Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

Don't blame Dark Souls for that, it was the the poles.
Had they truly done Dark Souls combat, you would've been licking your fingers to this day.

Best from software game is Sekiro and that's precisely because it doesn't have that podium walking, slow mo swinging, rolling into enemy attacks slop.

 

[FreeKaner]

Oh my god oh my god oh my god it's finally happening

A XAURIP GUYS A XAURIP!!!!!!!!!!!!

And not even a standard one, but a Xaurip Elder. Which implies there are going to be multiple kinds of xaurip!!! I've never been more excited for anything in my life

 

[Roguey]

The UI bloat is one thing but the overall UI design themselves are trash, it is the usual modern mobile/fortnite UI type down to the menus.

If UI elements aren't designed this way, they have to design them multiple times so they scale properly (as Obsidian had to do with Pillars of Eternity).

It also helps with the memory footprint, and as you can see from the footage, Avowed struggles to hit a consistent 30 fps on xbox so they need to squeeze wherever they can.

Because Skyrim's combat is horrible. Even console peasants recognize that.

Dark Souls came out in the same year as Skyrim and provided an easy to replicate template for functional fantasy action-RPG combat.

These games are going after different audiences. Elden Ring sold over 20 million but is there significant overlap with Skyrim players? There was a time when one could have looked this up on SteamSpy but Valve made everyone's games hidden by default seemingly at the behest of publishers who were not happy with all that info just being exposed.

I also wouldn't say that style is easy to replicate considering most western action games that have tried have been lousy.

 

[Cryomancer]

Will this game have cipher abilities? I will be honest. First time that I played Pillows of 4e, I din't liked, when I tested cipher, I liked a bit. Taking control over enemes in a game with low lethality/anemic abilities was very fun, I had a bit of fun as an cipher, sure, I still prefer 1000 times psionicist in KoTC2 ( https://www.heroicfantasygames.com/FWE/Pages/FWE_Psionicist.htm ) but I want to use this abilities in FP perspective. There is any confirmed yet?

 

[luj1]

- Easily their prettiest game

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

Matty says the combat is better than The Outer Worlds but melee combat is still terrible.

As with all first person fantasy games, the right way to play is stealth archer or pew pew.

 

[ArchAngel]

Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

Don't blame Dark Souls for that, it was the the poles.
Had Miyazaki done Witcher's combat, you would've been licking your fingers to this day.

I will blame Dark Souls forever for all the decline in many games as they all decided to become inspired by that combat system. Nowadays I just do not bother even pirating games that have that control scheme, camera and focus on dodging first.

 

[FreeKaner]

Matty says the combat is better than The Outer Worlds but melee combat is still terrible.

As with all first person fantasy games, the right way to play is stealth archer or pew pew.

They need to make us take 20 seconds to reload a pistol or a musket, 10-15 seconds with a talent.

Also they had said they took Vermintide as an example for melee combat and Vermintide has superb melee combat, it's a shame they don't seem to be able to make it work since they probably didn't understand what makes Vermintide combat good (it's how movement is embedded to attacks and how moveset depends on organic mixing and matching because stabs, slashes and overheads all have different values, strengths and weaknesses).

 

[Bester]

Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

Don't blame Dark Souls for that, it was the the poles.
Had Miyazaki done Witcher's combat, you would've been licking your fingers to this day.

I will blame Dark Souls forever for all the decline in many games as they all decided to become inspired by that combat system. Nowadays I just do not bother even pirating games that have that control scheme, camera and focus on dodging first.

Buy a gamepad and try again, until you get it.

 

[FreeKaner]

Dark souls shit turned tactical combat of The Witcher into whatever that abomination called The Witcher 2 was with over the shoulder cam and rolling around like crazy.

Don't blame Dark Souls for that, it was the the poles.
Had Miyazaki done Witcher's combat, you would've been licking your fingers to this day.

I will blame Dark Souls forever for all the decline in many games as they all decided to become inspired by that combat system. Nowadays I just do not bother even pirating games that have that control scheme, camera and focus on dodging first.

Not only that, Dark Souls remain as top "RPGs" here in the Codex top 100 list. Dark Souls is apparently a better RPG than games like BG1, Underrail and KOTOR. It's absurd, Dark Souls is the veganism of video games.

 

[luj1]

As with all first person fantasy games, the right way to play is stealth archer or pew pew.

Perhaps the right way to play Avowed, because everything else is trash?

It really sounds like you are making excuses for them again. All first person fantasy games? If your gameplay is good, you can play whatever build. Morrowind, Daggerrfall, Wizardry, Black Crypt, etc.

 

[Cryomancer]

As with all first person fantasy games, the right way to play is stealth archer or pew pew.

Nope. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Warhammer vermintide & Darktide disagree. Melee combat is amazing in both games. Same for non fantasy games, like Mordhau. You don't need to have ballet choreography to have satisfying melee combat.

They need to make us take 20 seconds to reload a pistol or a musket, 10-15 seconds with a talent.

In a world with magic and telekinesis, why I cant just use it to quick reload an arquebus?

 

[FreeKaner]

As with all first person fantasy games, the right way to play is stealth archer or pew pew.

Nope. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Warhammer vermintide & Darktide disagree. Melee combat is amazing in both games. Same for non fantasy games, like Mordhau.

They need to make us take 20 seconds to reload a pistol or a musket, 10-15 seconds with a talent.

In a world with magic and telekinesis, why I cant just use it to quick reload an arquebus?

First of all, I love Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and its combat is anything but amazing, it's jank as hell and kick simulator which is fun but that's not because of its "melee combat". Vermintide is amazing but it's really hard to get that right, apparently even when they are proactively trying to do so since they explicitly stated they took Vermintide as inspiration.

Secondly, your second question is the same one why you can't shoot bullets directly without a gun with magic, because it's silly and stupid. It's also same reason why you would need any weapon, armor or anything at all instead of "magic". If you can just do anything and answer "magic" as the fundamental why, your setting becomes incoherent.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Roguey]

Nope. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Warhammer vermintide & Darktide disagree. Melee combat is amazing in both games.

DM's combat works because of all the environmental kills, when you're straight up hacking and slashing away it sucks.

 

[Cross]

Nope. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Warhammer vermintide & Darktide disagree. Melee combat is amazing in both games.

DM's combat works because of all the environmental kills, when you're straight up hacking and slashing away it sucks.

Even the most simplistic encounter in Dark Messiah - fighting the most basic enemy type on flat, featureless terrain, as shown in this video - is lightyears more fun than anything we've seen from Avowed.

First of all, I love Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and its combat is anything but amazing, it's jank as hell and kick simulator which is fun but that's not because of its "melee combat". Vermintide is amazing but it's really hard to get that right, apparently even when they are proactively trying to do so since they explicitly stated they took Vermintide as inspiration.

Vermintide is just light and heavy attacks. The melee combat in Dark Messiah isn't perfect, but it's a lot more sophisticated, as different weapons have their own distinct movesets. Add in magic, archery, stealth and use of the environment and you have by far the best first-person fantasy RPG combat system.

The physics-based interactions in Dark Messiah also mean you can replay the same encounter and it will always play out differently.