Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[Decado]

I am one of those people who liked PoE but bounced off PoE 2 repeatedly. I think a lot of good reasons have been mentioned here already but for me:

• First, the marketing and communications around this game were practically non-existent. I follow this shit both personally and because of my job, and I was barely aware of this game right up until launch.
• The game starts way too slowly, with a lore-heavy sequence that just kills things dead right in the beginning. You could make the case that the game never recovers. The long-winded scene of table-setting with Berath would have been much better broken up and sprinkled over the first 1/4 of the game. You get your marching orders way too soon.
• The world is a confusing mess to navigate. I'm all for open world exploration but look at something like the The Witcher 3 for inspiration here -- gate off a small tutorial area that takes 3-4 hours to get through so the player actually has a sense of what the fuck is going on, where they are, etc.
• The whole ship combat thing is a boring, unfun mess. The entire ship minigame needs to fucking go.
• There is no direction in the beginning of the game; it is easy to miss what are critical companions (Xoti, for example -- your only real fucking healer!) and you can quickly get into dungeons and situations that are way above your level without knowing it. This isn't the baseline difficulty of, say, a Morrowind where you can stumble into a cave, realize it's too hard, and come back later. This is the difficulty of getting all the way to the bottom of a fucking dungeon and having to turn around.
• Too many factions are hurled at you in the beginning, with no reliable way to keep track of what is going on. The confusing names, the constant use of slang and/or patois, makes the story in the beginning tough to follow. What the fuck is going on, and why do I care?
• Group size of five instead of six. Why? Why did they fucking do this? It's terrible. With the sheer number of classes, multiclasses, subclasses, etc, such a low party size creates pressure to fill necessary gaps. There are only a few NPCs (including your own) you can really experiment with.
• I like the insane class system with its subclasses and multiclassing, but it is all too much, too soon. The game suffers from multiclassing, imo. They should have ditched it, or done like 2nd Edition and put racial restrictions and not let you multi-class kits.
• Just a really uncompelling story, narrative-wise. I never got the sense that a giant crystal god smashing around the coastline was something I had to care about (or indeed, that it was actually even happening).

I dunno. My thoughts.

 

[Gargaune]

+X increments rather than PoE's percentage upgrades

+x to thing can have meaningful thresholds, such as "and at 20 charisma, you get double the followers maximum!" or "after investing 10 points in fire spells, you can unlock greater chaos magma maximized delayed chain fireball!". What are you going to tie to +15% fire damage?

And if that weren't bad enough, rounds recovery times scale in the tenths of a second. I'm surprised Sawyer hasn't figured out a way to work π in there yet.

 

[Desiderius]

I'm an old asshurt boomer and I just want to be a kid again

This sums up the Codex to a T, and should be the 'Codex Inc' corporate moto/logo.

I just wanna be entertained. I want to enjoy a game when I play it. Why is that so bad?

Because some people hilariously see videogames as defining part of their own identity or as a reliable measuring tool for their worth as individuals and forget that they are, well, entertainment.

They're not entertainment. Entertainment is passive. All play is by it's nature active and a thing entirely different from mere entertainment.

Play, of which gaming is a subset, is re-creation.

 

[Brancaleone]

I'm an old asshurt boomer and I just want to be a kid again

This sums up the Codex to a T, and should be the 'Codex Inc' corporate moto/logo.

I just wanna be entertained. I want to enjoy a game when I play it. Why is that so bad?

Because some people hilariously see videogames as defining part of their own identity or as a reliable measuring tool for their worth as individuals and forget that they are, well, entertainment.

They're not entertainment. Entertainment is passive. All play is by it's nature active and a thing entirely different from mere entertainment.

Play, of which gaming is a subset, is re-creation.

I can see you definitely fall into the second category.

 

[Desiderius]

I can see you definitely fall into the second category.

Point conceded then.

 

[JarlFrank]

You're contradicting yourself. PS:T and Disco are both loved for amazing settings - PoE tried something like with a fresh setting but failed in the execution of it. As well as the premise, in fact

PoE1 and 2 are both vastly better games (in terms of gameplay) than PS:T

PoE's setting didn't feel like it was very fresh tbh. Deadfire yes, PoE1 no.
But both games were very lackluster in gameplay so that's why PoE2 sold less than PoE1 - many players of the first one didn't translate into buying the sequel.

You're not really responding to my point. Even if you don't agree with me that PoE's gameplay is great (which I think it is), there is no denying that PS:T's is much worse. So why is it a timeless classic? Because it's story and worldbuilding are exemplary. PoE's is trash both in premise and execution. I only play it for its gameplay. It has nothing else going for it. well, beyond being eye candy

PST has better gameplay than PoE, to be honest. PST's combat isn't great because of its lackluster encounter design, but it's still based on AD&D 2E and if you turn TNO into a mage you get access to some cool spells. It has a much better system than PoE, and I enjoy PST's combat a lot more than PoE's (even though neither is great).

 

[Desiderius]

"Identity" as a concept in the first place is ghey. Videogames aren't a defining part of my identity whatever the fuck that means.

Regular and challenging play is essential to live well as an animal, let alone as a human. If you're settling for mere entertainment you're doing it wrong and will continue to lose to those who aren't.

Losing is bad. Stop.

 

[Brancaleone]

"Identity" as a concept in the first place is ghey. Videogames aren't a defining part of my identity whatever the fuck that means.

Regular and challenging play is essential to live well as an animal, let alone as a human. If you're settling for mere entertainment you're doing it wrong and will continue to lose to those who aren't.

Losing is bad. Stop.

Sorry I touched a nerve.

 

[Invictus]

To me the main issue is Sawyer
Himself; who in God’s green Earth thought it was a good idea to give your old school RtwP ode to Baldur’s Gate to a guy who doesn’t like nor respect those games in the first place?
A guy who rather than make a fun game with oldschool flavor decided to “innovate” and “balance” when all people wanted was more of the same good old recipe they remembered from their youth?

It is the equivalent of me going to a Johnny Rockets to get the Chillicheese Fries I used to eat as a kid, get all excited about it and then getting the “new, improved, nutritious and BALANCED” soy bean chilli, sweet potato fries and cottage cheese version some fucktard might think it was a really wanted because “who would want fat greasy unhealthy” when they can have THIS

The costumer is always right Joshi, half of the people who helped keep your incompetent ass out of bankruptcy didn’t like what they paid for in the Kickstarter and the other half didn’t even finish the damn thing in the first place; you made YOUR version of the Infinity Engine games which looked pretty beautiful but ironically enough for a game based on souls simply had NO soul no personality whatsoever

I don’t think Pillars was bad it simply wasn’t what most of us wanted... and when you decide to make yet another game like it and people don’t buy it you blame your “fan base” for not wanting to give you their money?

Never thought about it this way, but the Codex and all those old school fans who helped “save” Obsidian are now indirectly responsible for the Microsoft Xbox purchase... nice going boyz lookie what we did!

 

[flabbyjack]

all those old school fans who helped “save” Obsidian are now indirectly responsible for the Microsoft Xbox purchase... nice going boyz lookie what we did!

Hey at least we have alternatives -- 40 times as many smaller companies cranking out cRPGs nowadays.

 

[Desiderius]

Sorry I touched a nerve.

Every word of that sentence is a lie. The lying feeds the losing which feeds the lying.

You don’t have to live this way. On our side of the fence you even get to enjoy some great games in the bargain.

 

[Brancaleone]

Sorry I touched a nerve.

Every word of that sentence is a lie. The lying feeds the losing which feeds the lying.

You don’t have to live this way. On our side of the fence you even get to enjoy some great games in the bargain.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

 

[pomenitul]

who in God’s green Earth thought it was a good idea to give your old school RtwP ode to Baldur’s Gate to a guy who doesn’t like nor respect those games in the first place?

Solaris, one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time, was made by a director who had little to no respect for the genre's conventions. Likewise, Obsidian's signature move has always been to subvert (usually a preexisting IP). With PoE, however, the aim was considerably more perverse and all the more fascinating for it: to subvert nostalgia for the IE games themselves, i.e. the very emotion on which their Kickstarter/PR campaign was predicated. Hence the underlying leitmotiv, which deals with disillusion, disenchantment and disappointment. The first instalment, especially, is a game about losing faith in the very trappings of fantasy, about no longer being able to suspend disbelief. While one may (rightly) quibble with the execution, this is a far more interesting take on the genre than it is given credit for. As an aging gamer who has never subsequently recaptured the feeling of playing the IE games for the first time in my mid-teens, PoE's negative capability (per John Keats) to turn the lived experience of blasé devs grappling with an existential and professional midlife crisis into a yarn about how we cope with the brittleness of our beliefs is unusually honest and the kind of mise en abyme that more eloquently speaks to my adult sensibilities than PF:K's straight-up pastiche (which was fine for what it was, by the way).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

who in God’s green Earth thought it was a good idea to give your old school RtwP ode to Baldur’s Gate to a guy who doesn’t like nor respect those games in the first place?

Solaris, one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time, was made by a director who had little to no respect for the genre's conventions. Likewise, Obsidian's signature move has always been to subvert (usually a preexisting IP). With PoE, however, the aim was considerably more perverse and all the more fascinating for it: to subvert nostalgia for the IE games themselves, i.e. the very emotion on which their Kickstarter/PR campaign was predicated. Hence the underlying leitmotiv, which deals with disillusion, disenchantment and disappointment. The first instalment, especially, is a game about losing faith in the very trappings of fantasy, about no longer being able to suspend disbelief. While one may (rightly) quibble with the execution, this is a far more interesting take on the genre than it is given credit for. As an aging gamer who has never subsequently recaptured the feeling of playing the IE games for the first time in my mid-teens, PoE's negative capability (per John Keats) to turn the lived experience of blasé devs grappling with an existential and professional midlife crisis into a yarn about how we cope with the brittleness of our beliefs is unusually honest and the kind of mise en abyme that more eloquently speaks to my adult sensibilities than PF:K's straight-up pastiche (which was fine for what it was, by the way).

Man it sounds like you're ascribing qualities to the game it does not possess.

 

[pomenitul]

Man it sounds like you're ascribing qualities to the game it does not possess.

It seems uncontroversial to argue that disappointment and how we deal with it is the central theme of PoE. Zooming out of the narrative as it unfolds in-game and discerning that theme in the game-making process itself and how wizened IE enthusiasts respond to it isn't much of a stretch.

I mean, isn't this why everyone constantly dunks on Sawyer? The guy who wrote Pallegina? Who has repeatedly addressed his self-consciously passionless approach to developing video games that operate in a subgenre he doesn't really care for?

 

[Desiderius]

who in God’s green Earth thought it was a good idea to give your old school RtwP ode to Baldur’s Gate to a guy who doesn’t like nor respect those games in the first place?

Solaris, one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time, was made by a director who had little to no respect for the genre's conventions. Likewise, Obsidian's signature move has always been to subvert (usually a preexisting IP). With PoE, however, the aim was considerably more perverse and all the more fascinating for it: to subvert nostalgia for the IE games themselves, i.e. the very emotion on which their Kickstarter/PR campaign was predicated. Hence the underlying leitmotiv, which deals with disillusion, disenchantment and disappointment. The first instalment, especially, is a game about losing faith in the very trappings of fantasy, about no longer being able to suspend disbelief. While one may (rightly) quibble with the execution, this is a far more interesting take on the genre than it is given credit for. As an aging gamer who has never subsequently recaptured the feeling of playing the IE games for the first time in my mid-teens, PoE's negative capability (per John Keats) to turn the lived experience of blasé devs grappling with an existential and professional midlife crisis into a yarn about how we cope with the brittleness of our beliefs is unusually honest and the kind of mise en abyme that more eloquently speaks to my adult sensibilities than PF:K's straight-up pastiche (which was fine for what it was, by the way).

Man it sounds like you're ascribing qualities to the game it does not possess.

I think it's a remarkably poignant and apt take. And it's gets at the heart of Soyer's anomie and that of his entire milieu:

Suspending disbelief gets the entire process backwards.

 

[Gargaune]

lived experience

I don't know whether I should chastise you for employing this obnoxious pleonasm or to commend you for mimicking PoE's bloated writing style when discussing PoE.

 

[Invictus]

who in God’s green Earth thought it was a good idea to give your old school RtwP ode to Baldur’s Gate to a guy who doesn’t like nor respect those games in the first place?

Solaris, one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time, was made by a director who had little to no respect for the genre's conventions. Likewise, Obsidian's signature move has always been to subvert (usually a preexisting IP). With PoE, however, the aim was considerably more perverse and all the more fascinating for it: to subvert nostalgia for the IE games themselves, i.e. the very emotion on which their Kickstarter/PR campaign was predicated. Hence the underlying leitmotiv, which deals with disillusion, disenchantment and disappointment. The first instalment, especially, is a game about losing faith in the very trappings of fantasy, about no longer being able to suspend disbelief. While one may (rightly) quibble with the execution, this is a far more interesting take on the genre than it is given credit for. As an aging gamer who has never subsequently recaptured the feeling of playing the IE games for the first time in my mid-teens, PoE's negative capability (per John Keats) to turn the lived experience of blasé devs grappling with an existential and professional midlife crisis into a yarn about how we cope with the brittleness of our beliefs is unusually honest and the kind of mise en abyme that more eloquently speaks to my adult sensibilities than PF:K's straight-up pastiche (which was fine for what it was, by the way).

Yeah well kind of creative putting Sawyer who is a hipster pretentious little millennial tattooed surfing tofu eating peddler of cheap thrills in the same level as one of the top 5 movie directors of all time in Tarkovsky

And once again... if people want cheese fries give them cheese fries because of they dont like tofu fries then don’t complain they didn’t “get” your genius; subvert all you want when you have the reputation and frankly balls to take it on the chin when things don’t work out... not blame the people who literally backed you and didn’t get what they were expecting

Try adding to the Cheese fries maybe with crispy bacon or sour cream or chives pr something you might think might ENHANCE the original experience but switch everything and then act surprised when people didn’t like the “subversion”

As others have pointed out it is not that Pillars is a bad game... ir is just the definition of mediocre; does everything passably well but has no redeeming qualities
If only the setting, characters, plot, writing, combat, class system... the only thing I think they really hit on was the graphics which were beautiful and the Darklands style adventure options

 

[Desiderius]

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

When you finally get tired of all the passive aggressive sniping (many of us were once there ourselves) just know that it does get better.

As for why this is on topic it gets to how and why entertainment has eaten a big chunk of gaming alive to where devs and especially suits no longer can even tell the difference.

So you have massive funds going to voice acting that could have gone to making ship combat non-half-assed or crafting something more than window dressing or level and dungeon design something more than painfully shallow or a skill system or difficult to find a meaningful rewards for exploration, etc, etc...

 

[pomenitul]

I don't know whether I should chastise you for employing this obnoxious pleonasm or to commend you for mimicking PoE's bloated writing style when discussing PoE.

Eh, 'to turn the lived experience of blasé devs' scans better than 'to turn the experience of blasé devs'. Besides, they don't convey quite the same meaning, since 'experience' on its own may well suggest professional experience only (see the remainder of the sentence), which is not what I was going for.

 

[pomenitul]

As others have pointed out it is not that Pillars is a bad game... ir is just the definition of mediocre; does everything passably well but has no redeeming qualities

The emphasis on anticlimax appears mediocre because there is nothing more banal in a human being's life than anticlimactic experiences. To place that theme at the very forefront of a high fantasy Western CRPG isn't mediocre, however – not yet, at least.

 

[Brancaleone]

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

When you finally get tired of all the passive aggressive sniping (many of us were once there ourselves) just know that it does get better.

As for why this is on topic it gets to how and why entertainment has eaten a big chunk of gaming alive to where devs and especially suits no longer can even tell the difference.

So you have massive funds going to voice acting that could have gone to making ship combat non-half-assed or crafting something more than window dressing or level and dungeon design something more than painfully shallow or a skill system or difficult to find a meaningful rewards for exploration, etc, etc...

Has it ever occurred to you that I was just following Major Blackheart choice of words ("I want to be entertained"), given that I was replying to him?

But maybe you think that arbitrarily choosing a context-unrelated, narrowed-in-scope definition of a term and try to force it upon the conversation equals having an argument.

 

[Invictus]

As others have pointed out it is not that Pillars is a bad game... ir is just the definition of mediocre; does everything passably well but has no redeeming qualities

The emphasis on anticlimax appears mediocre because there is nothing more banal in a human being's life than anticlimactic experiences. To place that theme at the very forefront of a high fantasy Western CRPG isn't mediocre, however – not yet, at least.

Oh so you are one of those... Tarkovsky, deconstruction, subversion of expectations
Mmm either you are Sawyer’s alt, someone who wishes they were Sawyer or are trying to somehow gain favor with him or his peers

Facts are facts; Pillars was not a comercial failure but a creative one and that’s why the sequel didn’t sell and why the franchise is (to quote Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman) “Deawd”

Sawyer’s deconstruction failed in ways that Sith Lords or Mask of the Betrayer did manage to challenge perceptions and mature concepts

He never understood (or respected) his audience and now wanders why they didn’t buy his games

 

[Brancaleone]

Man it sounds like you're ascribing qualities to the game it does not possess.

"Guys, you know what we should do with all this Kickstarter cash? We should develop the game ironically."

 

[Invictus]

Man it sounds like you're ascribing qualities to the game it does not possess.

"Guys, you know what we should do with all this Kickstarter cash? We should develop the game ironically."

Yeah these suckas are giving is their money for a game LIKE the old school Infinity Engine game! But who wants to make THAT? Let’s show they was a real developer can do!
That will show them!
Enlighten those idiots and their money!