Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[molotov.]

I don't believe that Pillars of Eternity 1 success was merely because of the kickstarter hype and nostalgia factor, sure it was part of it but not quite all of it, because to this day PoE 1 is still active.

06/11/2019 4 years after being released PoE 1 has almost the same player base that Deadfire has. I have a guide for PoE 1 that is still being read quite a lot to this very day - more than any other guide for Deadfire. 12.9% of the player base from Steam actually finished the game - that is huge for a RPG, The Witcher 3 that almost everyone on the entire world has bought has only 26.9% on Steam. There still are discussions about builds in the steam forums, on how to get the Triple Crown achievement or how to solo the game with a Chanter.

With all of that said, I think that it's safe to say that PoE had more than hype and nostalgia.

PoE 1 had an appeal... a spirit of the old games, Sawyer completely lost that with Deadfire whilst trying to create something huge and epic to emulate that open world shite that is destroying modern RPGs.

 

[hexer]

On topic, a few of my friends played PoE1 because of the nostalgia train but gave up on it because they found it dull - neither the story nor the gameplay were engaging enough for them to continue caring.
I think only one of them picked up Deadfire later, the rest didn't even bother to ask if it's good or not

P.S. rename the thread to "J.E.Sawyer therapy support group"

 

[Daidre]

PoE 1 had an appeal... a spirit of the old games, Sawyer completely lost that with Deadfire whilst trying to create something huge and epic to emulate that open world shite that is destroying modern RPGs.

When playing Deafire had an eerie felling that Sawyer lost any passion for it half way in development and just embraced his management role with desperate desire to be done with this thing and run away.

 

[Cross]

Look at the date on the reviews.

What is your point? Kingmaker being buggy at release doesn't explain why it has more than twice as many reviews as Deadfire. Even if you assume people are more inclined to leave a review because of bugs, it still doesn't account for such a massive disparity.

The reason that I posted recent reviews is because the argument I was responding to was 'Kingmaker has a mixed rating because it was review bombed, so its amount of reviews aren't representative of sales'. But as those recent reviews show, Kingmaker is still getting frequent negative reviews, and it has nothing to do with review bombing.

 

[Lacrymas]

All of those reviews are from last month and the ones on the right are from this month. Unless it's showing the reviews from exactly one year ago for some reason and nowhere is that stated.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Kingmaker being buggy at release doesn't explain why it has more than twice as many reviews as Deadfire.

Kingmaker having a clear design direction, better RTWP implementation, a writing style suitable for the kind of gameplay, does explain it.

 

[Atchodas]

I bet some people read those reviews and are like : These reviewers are retards this must be a good game I will buy it

 

[Lacrymas]

That is the pitfall of a basically democratic review system. It's also a feeling of entitlement that all games are made for you and your level of understanding, experience and knowledge, and you feel like your opinion/review is as valid as everyone else's. I'm not defending PF:KM, I'm criticizing this format of reviews.

 

[Desiderius]

But as those recent reviews show, Kingmaker is still getting frequent negative reviews, and it has nothing to do with review bombing.

That's a quirk of the early game (post tutorial) experience*, which at this point must be as intended (although they have nerfed it somewhat). The game's not only a throwback to BG, but also Gold Box and even the original Rogue**/PnP D&D. If you remember playing Pool of Radiance you'll remember the sense of accomplishment you felt merely making it to level two. I think that's what they were shooting for with P:K. The reception for that has been roughly what one would expect: people spoiled by faceroll early content and/or those not clued into what P:K was trying to accomplish writing negative reviews along with strong word of mouth from those looking for exactly that kind of experience.

* - https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/7/1630790506920383184/

** - the game is designed not to be merely replayable, but replayed.

Deadfire on the other hand had one challenge - the Drake that blocked Aloth. I think I went to Old City early my first playthrough and found some tough fights, but I knew I wasn't supposed to be there yet.

 

[Atchodas]

Dorudugan is toughest fight in Deadfire because it takes hour to kill him and he can wipe you anytime with aoe, its actually easier to solo him and faster too with right build. This megaboss was ultimate fuck you from Sawyer together with Hyleas challenge being mandatory for ultimate

 

[Desiderius]

Dorudugan is toughest fight in Deadfire because it takes hour to kill him and he can wipe you anytime with aoe, its actually easier to solo him and probably faster too with right build. This megaboss was ultimate fuck you from Sawyer together with Hyleas challenge being mandatory for ultimate

Nobody bitches about those because the only people who care enough to bother with them are already into the game. Getting ranched by the Technic League on lvl two a few times is/was (its been nerfed from permanent Blind to 1d4 round Fear) mandatory.

 

[Frozen]

Sawyer needs a partner, someone who would know to tell him what is fun and what is boring shit.

Balance is irrelevant. What is important in an RPG is to create an illusion of progression. He should figured this out on his own by now.

He should also keep to technical side, writing is not his forte.

 

[PrK]

The lack of pre-buffing is emblematic of a larger problem that got worse in Deadfire, which is that there’s no meaningful attrition so each fight is entirely separate from the last. A fun combat oriented CRPG should have three layers: strategy (character building, gear), resource management (health, spells, consumables) and tactics (what you do in any given fight). Deadfire bends over backwards to remove resource management. Your health regenerates between fights, your only real per rest resource is empowerment, and like most CRPGs it’s no good at making you use combat oriented consumables.

That means each encounter is an island. You never need to think longer term when you’re fighting. For me that removes a big chunk of the fun. Same problem as IWD2 with its infinite rest spamming, but IWD2 at least had much better encounter design.

In his zeal to remove rest spamming, Sawyer built a system where you pretty much autorest after every fight. But the problem with rest spamming isn’t that it’s tedious, it’s that it trivializes resource management. He took out the tedium and kept the problem.

Kingmaker does it right—you penalize rest spamming with timers. Both POE and Deadfire would’ve been great candidates for time limits: you wait too long and you’ll go insane of have your soul ripped out.

Both BGs have the same problem and are the "best games ever made".

In BG you couldn't rest until healed (had to memorise heal spells, rest, manually cast them, repeat until satisfied, memorise your actual spells, rest), while in BG2 there were a few time sensitive quests; in both games you could get ambushed when resting out of an inn. Not the most elegant disincentives, but still.

 

[luj1]

PoE 1 had an appeal... a spirit of the old games

 

[Efe]

The reason that I posted recent reviews is because the argument I was responding to was 'Kingmaker has a mixed rating because it was review bombed, so its amount of reviews aren't representative of sales'. But as those recent reviews show, Kingmaker is still getting frequent negative reviews, and it has nothing to do with review bombing.

whats ur point? its at %85 positive for last month and has more than twice deadfires reviews.
you are mistaking "review bombing for irrelevant [SJW] reasons" with "review bombed [read: tanked] because of huge number of bugs".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

That is the pitfall of a basically democratic review system. It's also a feeling of entitlement that all games are made for you and your level of understanding, experience and knowledge, and you feel like your opinion/review is as valid as everyone else's. I'm not defending PF:KM, I'm criticizing this format of reviews.

Steam reviews, while not 100% accurate, are typically pretty on point though.
Far more accurate than game journos.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Pillars 1 was nearing 1.3 million units sold, 15 months ago when the leak happened and it's probably well over 1.5 million now after being in various bundles for couple of bucks. And yet the number of reviews is roughly similar to P:K.

DOS1 probably sold double or triple that of Kingmaker and it has 10,000, mere 20% increase.

So I'm afraid there's exactly zero reason why reviews would accurately represent the sales, other than some people want it to because it just so happens that P:K has double.

 

[Lacrymas]

You can apply this logic to both sides. It has more reviews, but that doesn't mean it sold more, it just means more people are dissatisfied/more willing to post praise! It has more reviews, which means it sold more!

 

[vortex]

For Pillars 3 to sold as D:OS 2, they have to make gameplay more fun, open world and multiplayer PvE, maybe PvP.

 

[Efe]

while sales numbers alone do not determine the review numbers, it determines the total pool of possible reviewers and should be directly effecting the outcome.
you are free to think theres zero correlation though.

 

[Cross]

Pillars 1 was nearing 1.3 million units sold, 15 months ago when the leak happened and it's probably well over 1.5 million now after being in various bundles for couple of bucks. And yet the number of reviews is roughly similar to P:K.

DOS1 probably sold double or triple that of Kingmaker and it has 10,000, mere 20% increase.

So I'm afraid there's exactly zero reason why reviews would accurately represent the sales, other than some people want it to because it just so happens that P:K has double.

D:OS1 has nearly 20,000 reviews.

And why are you comparing games that came out years apart from each other? The reason why a comparison between Deadfire and Kingmaker is somewhat useful is because they came out in the same year.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Know how I know deadfire sold worse than PFK?
Obsidian was purchased by Microsoft; Owlcat broke free from my.games.

 

[Jack]

The less shitty half is that pre-buffing quickly becomes boring and rote, and in a game with per-rest casting encourages rest spamming which is also boring and rote.

Resting in dungeons always seemed retarded to me tbh. The interesting thing about a Vancian system is the preparation and planning, like in the first chapter of The Dying Earth when Turjan of Miir picks some spells from his library that he thinks he will have use of in his quest. If you can simply rest anywhere and change and restore your spells then what's even the point? If you have only a couple of buffs for an entire dungeon then it becomes much more interesting a choice how you use them since you can't just spam them every encounter to steamroll everything. Or worse, having to do it due to the game being balanced with this in mind. Might as well make the buffs constant and use a mana system if that's the case.

These supposed solutions to it, like resting requiring resources (which only leads to more degenerate gameplay and drudgery) or things like timers seem to be band-aids to this more fundamental problem. Resting between every encounter shouldn't be viable but maybe the unrestricted resting itself is the root of the problem?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I didn't say there is zero correlation but you are free to argue against imaginary points that nobody made.

 

[Desolate Dancer]

Resting in dungeons always seemed retarded to me tbh. The interesting thing about a Vancian system is the preparation and planning, like in the first chapter of The Dying Earth when Turjan of Miir picks some spells from his library that he thinks he will have use of in his quest. If you can simply rest anywhere and change and restore your spells then what's even the point? If you have only a couple of buffs for an entire dungeon then it becomes much more interesting a choice how you use them since you can't just spam them every encounter to steamroll everything. Or worse, having to do it due to the game being balanced with this in mind. Might as well make the buffs constant and use a mana system if that's the case.

These supposed solutions to it, like resting requiring resources (which only leads to more degenerate gameplay and drudgery) or things like timers seem to be band-aids to this more fundamental problem. Resting between every encounter shouldn't be viable but maybe the unrestricted resting itself is the root of the problem?

You are right in your opinion about the Vancian system, but it is far from being true that the only band-aid solutions to the "no attrition" problem is camping supplies and timers. These are the most common cited "solutions" for some reason but it baffles me, since there is a far more obvious and efficient one.

Imagine any IE game like BG: you could rest anywhere right? Yes, with occasional interruptions. Does it bothers you that its too liberal in this approach? How to make the system a bit more restricting? Well, we should simply provide a slider in the options menu where you can decide on how strict the rest mechanism should be. The easiest being would be the IWD solution (rest anywhere, no interruptions). The strictest would be the "may can only rest at inns". There would be in-between settings like "you may only rest at inns and reinforced rooms", the latter which would be a specific room in a dungeon where resting is allowed, but only there, and only once/twice per dungeon. Random encounters, and repeatability (re-usability) of such areas would also be part of the slider, so you can fine-tune it to your own preference.