Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[J1M]

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).

Calling Solaris science fiction is quite a stretch.

 

[pomenitul]

Calling Solaris science fiction is quite a stretch.

That's… the point. Read the rest of sentence. See also this quote by Tarkovsky: 'I do feel that Solaris is the least successful of my films because I was never able to eliminate the science-fiction association.'

 

[Drowed]

Well, yes, then it can't be 'one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time' by definition.

 

[J1M]

Well, yes, then it can't be 'one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time' by definition.

He was too trapped in feeling smug to understand what he was reading.

 

[pomenitul]

Tarkovsky outright states that he was unable to fully transcend the screenplay's origins in science-fiction despite his best intentions. Solaris is still routinely described as a science-fiction film by just about everyone. Anyway, my (simple) point was that working against a specific genre from within can yield striking results.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

One can point out many problems with the second game, but to me it just has a weird structure. It takes ages to get going and then once it does it's over shortly after. Also the tutorial island sucks gigantic ass. PoE1 tutorial is short and sweet, here it's just FUUUCK LET ME OUT OF HERE.

Basically it just makes awful first impression and once that happens it doesn't really matter that it looks better and does a lot of things better than the first game.

 

[the mole]

One can point out many problems with the second game, but to me it just has a weird structure. It takes ages to get going and then once it does it's over shortly after. Also the tutorial island sucks gigantic ass. PoE1 tutorial is short and sweet, here it's just FUUUCK LET ME OUT OF HERE.

Basically it just makes awful first impression and once that happens it doesn't really matter that it looks better and does a lot of things better than the first game.

one annoying thing for me

Spoiler

principi ending quests cut you off from working with other factions even though they are pretty much unrelated, and you've cemented yourself as a pirate mercenary who will do anything throughout them, would have been cool to finish a few more lower level quests for the other factions before I went to the great beyond

the starting island is just one location, I don't see how that's a terrible impression, your adhd must be through the roof

 

[Artyoan]

One can point out many problems with the second game, but to me it just has a weird structure. It takes ages to get going and then once it does it's over shortly after. Also the tutorial island sucks gigantic ass. PoE1 tutorial is short and sweet, here it's just FUUUCK LET ME OUT OF HERE.

Basically it just makes awful first impression and once that happens it doesn't really matter that it looks better and does a lot of things better than the first game.

To add to that, the 'death' character creation and the opening up on a ship are a large departure in tone. If the tutorial had been set in Caed Nua it might have grounded the game into PoE1 better. Instead, I'm on a ship I never had, surrounded by crew I don't know (except for Eder) yet seem like I should, and in a land entirely unlike what I was before with no transition. Throw in a more lighthearted dialogue and it just shit the bed right at the beginning for me.

 

[the mole]

seriously most of you shouldn't be playing video games

you're like bubble boy

any game can cause agitation if it isn't from the 90s, seriously get help you have untreated autism

 

[the mole]

you can't please every past his prime cuck in the market, especially the most autistic ones

unfortunate

 

[Drowed]

Honestly, I liked POE1. I didn't think it was an amazing game, phenomenal or anything like that. I just liked it. I played it, finished it, moved on with life, and have vague memories of the game overall. I think if Obsidian's goal was to make an easily consumed fast-food version of Baldur's Gate, technically they managed to achieve that result. Then again, I was never a big fan of BG in the first place, so it's not like I had high expectations or reason to be disappointed.

What made me hate POE2 were the giant plotholes that appear in the game's primary plot motivations, so big that they tried to fix them with patches and re-record dialogue lines but couldn't even make sense of them. POE1's plot could be mediocre, but at least, for me, it didn't have any moments where it was offensively dumb. POE2 basically falls apart when you talk to Eothas and get the non-explanation about the Wheel, and they even made retcons to say that "the flow of souls before caused various problems" (even though it allowed the most advanced civilization in the game's history to rise). This was the point where the game broke for me, which is a shame because mechanically the game seems superior to the first one if you ignore the annoying naval combat minigame.

One day I will get up the courage to try again. But not today.

 

[the mole]

Honestly, I liked POE1. I didn't think it was an amazing game, phenomenal or anything like that. I just liked it. I played it, finished it, moved on with life, and have vague memories of the game overall. I think if Obsidian's goal was to make an easily consumed fast-food version of Baldur's Gate, technically they managed to achieve that result. Then again, I was never a big fan of BG in the first place, so it's not like I had high expectations or reason to be disappointed.

What made me hate POE2 were the giant plotholes that appear in the game's primary plot motivations, so big that they tried to fix them with patches and re-record dialogue lines but couldn't even make sense of them. POE1's plot could be mediocre, but at least, for me, it didn't have any moments where it was offensively dumb. POE2 basically falls apart when you talk to Eothas and get the non-explanation about the Wheel, and they even made retcons to say that "the flow of souls before caused various problems" (even though it allowed the most advanced civilization in the game's history to rise). This was the point where the game broke for me, which is a shame because mechanically the game seems superior to the first one if you ignore the annoying naval combat minigame.

One day I will get up the courage to try again. But not today.

I think the amount of side content and content not related to eothas made up for it

really the wheel was primarily a tool for the gods to keep their power and source of souls, I think the implication is that kith will rebuild the wheel but this is a temporary reset on the gods, souls can still be harvested and used with adra like the valians are pioneering in their own way, just it won't be a source for the gods anymore

 

[Major_Blackhart]

offensively dumb.

Summarizes every combat encounter nicely.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Started New Vegas over from scratch and knowing it so well with the DLCs am enjoying it so much. What a wonderfully complex and nuanced roleplaying game.

I can scarcely believe that the person who created this also had something to do with that other dreck. The gulf is so great and the decline so real. POE 1/2 are the equivalent of suppurating anal hemorrhoids as an experience. I've gotten stuff from the bargain bin in the old days for $1 that was so much better.

 

[Drowed]

really the wheel was primarily a tool for the gods to keep their power and source of souls, I think the implication is that kith will rebuild the wheel but this is a temporary reset on the gods, souls can still be harvested and used with adra like the valians are pioneering in their own way, just it won't be a source for the gods anymore

You see, that's the thing. You can keep all the same basic plot structure, the same events, and the same general idea with just a few adjustments. I saw that Obsidian tried to fix the holes with the tweaks, but the problem is that it was essentially a big band-aid stuck on specific parts of the story when they would have needed to touch up the plot as a whole. The way everything is explained, the idea that Wheel was really necessary doesn't even make sense according to the history of the world - after all, the world existed long before Wheel and advanced to such an extent that it allowed the rise of the Engwithans and even the Huana. So, it's not very convincing when they try to say that the Wheel was a great necessity and is fundamental to the world, or that its destruction would cause some big problem.

I have seen people theorizing that the construction of the Wheel as an artificial phenomenon, to allow the creation/controls of the Gods, would have interfered with the previous natural phenomenon in such a way that now the entire ecosystem of souls has become dependent on the Wheel. But ideas like this and these justifications don't exist in the game itself, at no point do you have an option to state this, or say that "well I don't think the destruction of the Wheel will affect much of anything, after all the world existed before". Since the problem is at the heart of the game's story, it's something I can't just ignore, especially since the game doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the hole or allow you to ask the questions or make the statements that would be logical given the context.

It is less glaring after patches and "mobile phone calls" with Woedica, but for me, they still weren't enough to take away the bitterness left from the experience.

 

[the mole]

I have seen people theorizing that the construction of the Wheel as an artificial phenomenon, to allow the creation/controls of the Gods, would have interfered with the previous natural phenomenon in such a way that now the entire ecosystem of souls has become dependent on the Wheel. But ideas like this and these justifications don't exist in the game itself, at no point do you have an option to state this, or say that "well I don't think the destruction of the Wheel will affect much of anything, after all the world existed before".

you might have to replay it because I'm pretty sure that option does exist

see the problem is you can't pretend every game has a perfectly acceptable story when they don't and then be hypercritical on this one, which many people tend to do, nothing in planescape torment for example makes any logical sense, but many autists here believe it is the greatest of all time, it had some good moments, great moments, and some less than stellar concepts

and that's fine

pillars of eternity 1 or 2 aren't failures as games, that's all that needs to be said

 

[Old Hans]

Honestly, I liked POE1. I didn't think it was an amazing game, phenomenal or anything like that. I just liked it. I played it, finished it, moved on with life, and have vague memories of the game overall. I think if Obsidian's goal was to make an easily consumed fast-food version of Baldur's Gate, technically they managed to achieve that result. Then again, I was never a big fan of BG in the first place, so it's not like I had high expectations or reason to be disappointed.

What made me hate POE2 were the giant plotholes that appear in the game's primary plot motivations, so big that they tried to fix them with patches and re-record dialogue lines but couldn't even make sense of them. POE1's plot could be mediocre, but at least, for me, it didn't have any moments where it was offensively dumb. POE2 basically falls apart when you talk to Eothas and get the non-explanation about the Wheel, and they even made retcons to say that "the flow of souls before caused various problems" (even though it allowed the most advanced civilization in the game's history to rise). This was the point where the game broke for me, which is a shame because mechanically the game seems superior to the first one if you ignore the annoying naval combat minigame.

One day I will get up the courage to try again. But not today.

seriously they should stuck to a simple plot for pillars. like "get to the bottom of the 10 level dungeon and kill the evil wizard Morgath"

 

[Quillon]

To add to that, the 'death' character creation and the opening up on a ship are a large departure in tone. If the tutorial had been set in Caed Nua it might have grounded the game into PoE1 better. Instead, I'm on a ship I never had, surrounded by crew I don't know (except for Eder) yet seem like I should, and in a land entirely unlike what I was before with no transition. Throw in a more lighthearted dialogue and it just shit the bed right at the beginning for me.

Yep. I thought we'd play the caed nua destruction part, then go to a port town map and acquire a ship, crew etc. instead we're robbed of all that. Its like starting Kingmaker after getting the barony.

 

[Drowed]

you might have to replay it because I'm pretty sure that option does exist

It is possible, they must have added it in the patches, after Josh Sawyer received the avalanche of criticism. I remember he made several posts commenting on the things he was going to add, in particular, the dialogs with Woedica. I played the early version of the game which was pretty barebones and only read about some of the retcons on the internet.

see the problem is you can't pretend every game has a perfectly acceptable story when they don't and then be hypercritical on this one

I don't need to pretend. POE1 was fine as I said, it didn't need patches to correct and expand the story. POE2 is the one that dropped the ball.

 

[Cryomancer]

Started New Vegas over from scratch and knowing it so well with the DLCs am enjoying it so much. What a wonderfully complex and nuanced roleplaying game.

Yep. You can see how Obsidian declined only looking into fallout new vegas and The Outer Worlds.

FNV : A lot of build variety, cool iconic weapons rarely present on games like the Brush gun, possibility to use tons of ammos in the same weapon, a lot of C&C, you can even defeat the final boss by just talking and the faction are : A corrupt failed democracy X Legionaries X private states

TOW : A mediocre shooter with guns that looks like toys a very shallow "corporations bad" lore.

every boomer is saying new game shit, with entirely subjective reasons

Nope is not subjective that every non evocation wizard specialization is trash, that most people don't care about Pillars mythos and deities and that the ship combat is awful.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Out of curiosity, being the RTwP whore that I am, how would it work better in TB? If anything, I'd have imagined the opposite seeing as combat rounds are no longer unified.

tl;dr: in TB mode the recovery time crap is reduced to a simpler "one action per round" mechanic but your RtwP "recovery time" determines your initiative order within the round.

In my experience, the biggest issue with PoE and to a big extent with Deadfire as well, is the information overload. That's caused by the ruleset being significantly more complex than the 2nd ed AD&D/3rd ed D&D used in the IE games. The personal initiative rounds from those games, which used to have a uniform length of 3 seconds are replaced in PoE/Deadfire by personal rounds of anything between ~1 sec to ~4 sec. Combined with all the active effects modifying characters' stats at any given time, it all becomes impossible for the player to fully process in realtime.

The extreme solutions to this problem are two. One is that the player simplifies the game to fit his ability to process the information he is served. He will wave the whole information flood away, and play at such a difficulty setting that he can afford to stop paying attention to a big part of the systems. This doubtlessly "works", but at the cost that much of the system design work is "lost" because the player doesn't really interact with the systems. This effect is what people mostly describe as "nothing you do matters", "castrated system", etc.

The other extreme is that the player will double down on trying to process the information flood and slow down the RT game to the slowest setting and start pausing every second, or switch to TB mode. That has the benefit that the player can actually appreciate all that's going on during combat, and the recovery time is turned into initiative order inside the round. I'd rather have it like that than have everything going on at the same time. The drawback is that combat becomes easier in general, or at least favors different builds when actions are sequential than when actions are carried out concurrently. It's still a testament to how flexible the system is that the game is playable and quite fun in TB mode, which was never intended, except on a subconscious level by Josh who prefers TB.

 

[Haplo]

one annoying thing for me

Spoiler

principi ending quests cut you off from working with other factions even though they are pretty much unrelated, and you've cemented yourself as a pirate mercenary who will do anything throughout them, would have been cool to finish a few more lower level quests for the other factions before I went to the great beyond

Well, that complaint is easily solved. Don't report back with the final quest and enjoy the spoils of war without cutting off anything

I beeline this practically every playtrough, since I love these things so much.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Started New Vegas over from scratch and knowing it so well with the DLCs am enjoying it so much. What a wonderfully complex and nuanced roleplaying game.

Yep. You can see how Obsidian declined only looking into fallout new vegas and The Outer Worlds.

FNV : A lot of build variety, cool iconic weapons rarely present on games like the Brush gun, possibility to use tons of ammos in the same weapon, a lot of C&C, you can even defeat the final boss by just talking and the faction are : A corrupt failed democracy X Legionaries X private states

TOW : A mediocre shooter with guns that looks like toys a very shallow "corporations bad" lore.

every boomer is saying new game shit, with entirely subjective reasons

Nope is not subjective that every non evocation wizard specialization is trash, that most people don't care about Pillars mythos and deities and that the ship combat is awful.

What was really amazing was that Mr. House was hardly white as snow either. It would have been easy to portray him as a noble knight of civilization but they decided against that. A misanthrope who saw mankind as pawns on a game board he wanted to play for hundreds of years. There's even a sort of mild apprehension in you when Mr. House wins because you get the feeling that sooner or later House is going to insist on something so inhuman you will be forced to go down there and pull the plug on that asshole - like how rigid he was on wiping out the Brotherhood of Steel. Without speech of 100 he can't be talked out of it no matter what you do.

Reminded me of true classic John Campbell science fiction mixed with a bit of Philip K. Dick.

 

[Gargaune]

tl;dr: in TB mode the recovery time crap is reduced to a simpler "one action per round" mechanic but your RtwP "recovery time" determines your initiative order within the round.

Oh, so you meant just as regular initiative, I misunderstood. Agreed on the systems breakdown, and I very much ended up going with the first solution. Just couldn't be arsed.

 

[Haplo]

I'll try to go out on a limb:

Casuals who seek emphasis on the power aspect of the power fantasy won't find it, since Sawyer is always all too careful to leave it out completely.
Casuals who seek evasion from drab reality won't find it, since playing a character who gets sort of goodish at several unrelated things within a world full of small invasive rules is not evasion from reality, it's real life.
Combatfaqs who seek challenge won't find it because of his 'balancing' approach.
Combatfags who seek good encounter design won't find it because of his delusion that a great system would automatically take care of it.
Those who seek emergent gameplay will be disappointed, since his philosophy is that you solve encounters by the iterative application of a great number of small impact actions.
Those who want classes/archetypes that feel really distinct won't find them, because he believes that they should all be equally viable, and that inevitably lead them to be samey.

No wonder his games turn out meh all around.

I'm sure I'm leaving out quite a few categories of players, but you get the gist.

If only people tried playing a fraction of the time they spent complaining. They might have discovered that "balance" in Deadfire is but a silly meme, unrelated to reality.
Lots of "power" in the power fantasy, many fun ways to "break the system". Broken abilities, overpowered items.

Encounter design is actually solid.

Classes and archetypes are sufficiently distinct IMO. Less so then in PoE1, but it was one of the best games in this aspect. And the move to per encounter powers and multi-classing did muddle the class identity somewhat.